Month: December 2008

CCBC Goes Green

| Tasha

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has an incredible bibliography of books on earth and the environment for children and teens.  The books are broken into three categories:

In My World: Loving the Earth

What Happened Here? Environmental Challenges and Change

Taking Action: Planet Pioneers

The categories have items for many different ages with each book given a handy age range to eliminate guess work.  Nicely, each category is broken into fiction and nonfiction.  Even better, the books are from the CCBC Choices lists which means that they are all worth looking at. 

Where the Steps Were

| Tasha

Where the Steps Were by Andrea Cheng.

Pleasant Hill Elementary School will be torn down after this year.  This novel in verse tells the story of that final year as experienced by the third graders in Miss D’s class.  From learning about how to get along with one another to learning about great figures in history, we get to experience life in their world.  Some of the students are dealing with problems of jealousy and friendship while others grapple with more pressing issues like homelessness. 

Cheng excels at writing poetry that children will immediately relate to and understand.  She moves skillfully from humor to seriousness and back, weaving her poems into the experience of a year.  There are also small glimpses of Miss D’s personal life as she struggles with her own son.  This deft humanizing of a teacher is also important for children to see.

Highly recommended as a classroom read, this book may not fly off the shelves on its own, but will be appreciated by any student who opens it.  Appropriate for ages 8-10.

The Newbery Effect

| Tasha

 

The Washington Post has an article about how the Newbery Award could even discourage children from reading!  Now, yes, I am a critic of recent choices by the Newbery committee.  I feel that in recent years we could have seen some of the fabulous AND kid-friendly titles win the big prize.  It seems that instead they are relegated to the Honor row. 

But the Newbery dampening reading?  I don’t know about that.  Yes, if teachers use the Newbery prize list as a unit the recent winners would probably sit lonely on the shelves passed over for older winners with more kid appeal.  But most kids do not spontaneously head out to the library looking for books with that large gold seal on the front.  So I can’t see it dampening reading much at all.

Could the Newbery start to stand for both quality and a book that children will want to read perhaps even talk about with friends and promote themselves because it is sooo good?  Yes.  But I have to believe that the relationship between children and books is healthy, resilient and constantly questing for the next great read.  To do any less would be to despair over children and reading.  And that ain’t happening!

Keeping the Night Watch

| Tasha

Keeping the Night Watch by Hope Anita Smith, illustrated by E. B. Lewis.

At 13, CJ has gotten used to shouldering a lot of responsibility for his mother and little sister.  Now his father has returned and CJ is just plain angry.  How can his father returning feel even worse than when he was gone?  CJ has to work through his complex emotions before he is willing to give his father another chance to be part of the family.  Told through poems, this book reveals (as only poetry can) one boy’s inner emotional landscape amid those of others in his family.  Through her poetry, Smith has created a book that will speak to teens going through similar situations and also any teen who has had to deal with difficult family situations.

There is tension, sorrow, joy, pain and jealousy here that is revealed without flinching.  This book rings with truth.  The illustrations add to the feeling of reality as Lewis’ paintings feature portraits of this family on a stark white background, illuminating the inner feelings again. 

Here is one of my favorite passages from the end of the very first poem in the book:

After dinner, I wash dishes.

When Grandmomma comes in

to make a cup of tea, I say,

"This is a mess."

Grandmomma knows right away

I’m not talking about the dishes.

She hugs me and says.

"No, this is a family."

That passage sums up this book beautifully as people struggle to figure out what a family is.  This brief book should be placed in the hands of reluctant readers who will find themselves here.  Highly recommended for ages 11-15.

Holiday Reading

| Tasha

Driving to work this morning, I was lucky enough to catch this piece on NPR about holiday reading.  While the holiday theme is great, I particularly loved the part about how important reading aloud is for children of all ages.  Here is the quote that had me cheering aloud:

But some parents feel self-conscious when they read aloud, says Judy Freeman, the author of a guide to read-aloud books called Books Kids Will Sit Still For. Freeman says they should get over their inhibitions.

"Your kids don’t know the difference. They just want to be warm, and they want to hear your voice, and they associate the words with you," she says. "It turns them into readers. If you want your kids to read, you have to read to them."

Yes! In fact at the end of the piece the father in the family reads aloud a bit from Twas the Night Before Christmas and in that moment evokes the warmth and holiday magic of families reading together. 

The NPR website also has a list of great holiday books to share aloud with your children. 

Twelve Terrible Things

| Tasha

Twelve Terrible Things by Marty Kelley.

From the initial warning about the horrible things in the book all the way to the triumphant end, this book is immense fun, though terrible.  Each double-page spread shows a terrible thing from a first-person point of view.  It is your ice cream that has fallen on the ground, your dentist moving towards your mouth, and even you who is the new student in a crowded classroom. 

Children of all ages will see their own fears reflected here with unflinching realism and great style.  Each illustration has a quirky feel to it, a glee about the terribleness of the page that makes children feel a rush of it themselves. 

Perfect to read aloud to a class, children will automatically start their own list of terrible things.  Though there are few words on each page, this book will work best with children who are slightly older:  ages 5-8.

The Savage

| Tasha

The Savage by David Almond, illustrated by Dave McKean.

Blue has been told that he should write things down to help him deal with his father’s death.  It all seems forced and useless until he starts to write a story about The Savage, a boy who lives alone in the woods near their small town, eats animals and murders anyone who glimpses him.  Blue has to deal not only with his own grief and his mother’s and sister’s but also with a bully named Hopper.  Hopper is featured in the stories about The Savage as are others in Blue’s small community.  As Blue begins to share his story with his family, something changes and The Savage becomes real.

The depth in this book is incredible.  It is like submerging in icy lake water and viewing things through that swirling lens of blue and green, distorting everything but also clarifying too.  Almond has once again created a book that is strange, unexpected but also shouts with truth and beauty.  Pairing his work with McKean’s art was a masterful choice that deepens the book, bringing both a level of reality and a subversive quality to the book.

Highly recommended, this is another book that will resonate with male readers.  Appropriate for a strangely broad age range: 12-16.

Also reviewed by Fuse #8.

Hurricane Song

| Tasha

Hurricane Song by Paul Volponi.

Miles has been living with his father for a few months in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hits.  He and his father, a jazz musician who often pays more attention to his music than his son, and his uncle try to drive out of New Orleans before the storm but when their car breaks down they are forced to head to the Superdome.  They spend the length of the storm there, in stifling heat, among crowds of people, and with broken toilet facilities and little food and water.  As the situation deteriorates and gangs of thugs appear in the Superdome, Miles and his family must decide whether to just take care of themselves or to risk themselves to help strangers.

I saw this on several best books of the year lists and had to try it.  My synopsis above barely scratches the surface of this novel.  It is taut with the tensions between a teen son and his father even before Katrina arrives.  Take that tension and place it under even more pressure and you have this book which magnificently captures the racial divide during the crisis, the dire situation people found themselves surviving in, and yet also the hope, the community and the strength of people.  Volponi also weaves music through the story as well as choices.  The voices of his characters are real, individual and ring raw and true. 

Ideal reading for teen boys, some people may be turned off by the strong (but very accurate) language in the book.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Philip Pullman Interview

| Tasha

BBC has a lovely interview with Philip Pullman about his books, writing, religion and much more.  The questions were submitted to the BBC from all over the UK.  There is a lot to love here with insight into Pullman’s process, questions about the Christian attacks on his work, and finally at the very end this gem for librarians:

How important is the Campaign for the Book, and what value do you place on libraries, especially for young people?
Kate Garnett, Guernsey, UK

It’s very important. Books should be at the heart of every place of learning, and every community should have a library where children are welcome.