Book Review: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

May 6, 2011 | Tasha

Sunny is a 12-year-old who lives in Nigeria. She was born in the United States, but that isn’t what makes her so different from her classmates. Her albino skin and hair does that. Sunny is also a great athlete, but she can’t play because her sun reacts so strongly to the sun. She only gets to play when her brothers agree to play with her in the evening. Sunny isn’t sure she will ever fit in, but after meeting Orlu and ChiChi, the three of them figure out why Sunny is so special. She’s a free agent, a member of the Leopard People, allowing her to do juju or magic. Happily, Orlu and ChiChi are also Leopard People, though not free agents. Suddenly Sunny is immersed in a new dual life. Her old life of school and family and her new life learning about juju. But there is also darkness in her life, as a serial killer preys upon children in Nigeria: a killer who has a special connection to Sunny.

This book is incredible. Okorafor has created a completely unique and entirely formed world within a world. She brings modern Nigeria to life and then within it creates an entire society that makes sense, wields magic, and continually surprises and delights. The construct of the magical society doesn’t linger on the how, rather it is presented as a fully-formed world complete with its own laws, own priorities, and a matter-of-fact relationship to death.

The characters of the four young people in the book are well written and play nicely off of one another. I particularly enjoyed when they would depart from roles that could have been stereotypical and instead revealed themselves to be very well-rounded characters. Sunny serves as an ideal person for the readers to learn about the magical world alongside. She is interested, questioning and frank. She is a very strong female protagonist who can play soccer better than the boys.

If you have teens or tweens looking for magical reads that break into a whole new territory, this book is for them. It celebrates Nigeria, magic and learning. Appropriate for ages 11-14.

Reviewed from copy received from Viking Publishing.

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Gender Bias in Children’s Books

May 6, 2011May 6, 2011 | Tasha

I don’t think that any children’s librarian is going to be surprised by the findings of a recent study of children’s books. The most comprehensive study of 20th century children’s literature ever done, it revealed a bias towards books that feature boys and men. Intriguingly, the bias was also present when the characters are animals.

Now, if you has asked me if more books featured boys or girls, I would have automatically answered boys. I am surprised by the extent of the bias as well as the fact that it had not gotten any better towards the end of the 20th century. In other words, we aren’t making much progress with gender in children’s books!

Science Daily has some bulleted points in their article about the study that I find particularly interesting:

Males are central characters in 57 percent of children’s books published per year, while only 31 percent have female central characters.
On average, 36.5 percent of books in each year studied include a male in the title, compared to 17.5 percent that include a female.

While I find the information interesting and important, even more important to me is what we do about it. It seems to me that it is the same issue we have with all sorts of diversity in children’s books: races, colors, sexual orientation. So the question is universal about featuring children and adults in children’s books that speak to all levels of diversity.

What do we do as librarians who are cultivating collections for children? What do we do as book creators to get more girls and even women into our books? How do we all take responsibility for what children in our world are reading and therefore learning about how society works?

Big thanks to Hedgehog Librarian for the link.

LA Times Book Prize

May 4, 2011 | Tasha

The winner of the 2011 LA Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature is:

Megan Whalen Turner for A Conspiracy of Kings

In additional children’s lit news, the winner of the 2010 Robert Kirsch Award is the amazing Beverly Cleary. The site has a great article on Cleary’s impact on children’s literature.

Book Review: Fox and Hen Together by Beatrice Rodriguez

May 3, 2011 | Tasha

Fox and Hen Together by Beatrice Rodriguez

The story begun in The Chicken Thief continues in this second wordless book. Here Hen has laid an egg but the refrigerator is empty, so she heads out to catch some fish. This leaves Fox to watch the egg. Hen fishes with her friend Crab, but when she catches a large fish, an eagle swoops out of the sky and grabs it. Hen holds on and so does Crab as the eagle carries them all to its nest filled with hungry babies. Just when you think they have escaped, a sea monster comes out of the deeps to grab the fish. Hen manages to escape that danger too, but then enters the house to find that Fox has been having adventures too.

Rodriguez has created a full-color immersive wordless picture book that has great appeal. The book has a great pacing that shifts from one page to the next, making for a very exciting and fun rollercoaster of a book. It is all told through bright colors, plenty of action and a storyline that twists and turns.

I am looking forward to the third in the series, Rooster’s Revenge, coming later this year. The stories make most sense if you read both of them, learning the tale of the Fox and Hen and how they came to live together.

A bright, action-filled wordless book, it is appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from copy received from Enchanted Lion.

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Book Review: Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld

May 3, 2011May 3, 2011 | Tasha

Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld

Cloudette is the smallest of clouds. Usually it was just fine to be the littlest. She was called by cute nicknames, she had little friends, she was great at hiding, and she even slept in a special spot on the moon. But sometimes, she felt left out because she was so small. She couldn’t do the important work that the big clouds did, like storm fronts and rainbows. She wanted to do something big herself, but all of her big ideas didn’t work out. One day, she was blown by a storm to a new area where she had never been before. There she found a lone frog sitting in a dried up pond. Cloudette knew she could help, but only if she tried very, very hard. By helping in one place, she realized that there was a lot one small cloud could do in the world.

Lichtenheld’s text is a pleasure to read aloud. He has included all sorts of aside comments from the clouds, Cloudette herself, and animals too. They give the book more flavor and a stronger tone. The small making a large impact and doing something big is an idea that is featured in a lot of children’s books. Children relate to being the smallest, being envious of what bigger people can do, and feeling powerless themselves. Cloudette is certain to speak directly to the fact that small contributions can add up to something big.

The artwork here is bright, simple and entertaining. While some pages have a paneled look, many of them are single or double-page spreads. Lichtenheld nicely contrasts background colors to create a book that is colorful and that will work well with a group.

Cloudette will have you cheering for her and is sure to easily create small fans. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt & Co.

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Book Review: Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell

May 2, 2011May 2, 2011 | Tasha

Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell

Jane is a girl who loves to be outside watching the animals. She takes her toy chimpanzee Jubilee with her on all of her adventures. They watch the squirrels, birds and spiders. They figure out where eggs come from. They go together up into her favorite tree to dream about being Tarzan in Africa. Jane dreamed about a life where she could study animals, learn about them, and watch them up close. And that’s exactly what she grew up to do as Jane Goodall, chimpanzee expert and animal activist.

McDonnell writes with a restraint that is beautiful. He has pared down Goodall’s childhood into a few seminal moments that speak to the adult she became. Delightfully readable, the book has only a few lines of text per page, making it very accessible for young readers. Yet it works as a biography because those few lines carry a weight with them.

The art in the book, also by McDonnell, combines old-fashioned stamps of chickens, squirrels, clocks and more with paintings that have a whimsical warmth about them. This gives the book a feeling that it is about the past without being specific. The color palette works especially well here with its yellows, greens, blues and browns.

The final pages of the book have information on Goodall’s life as well as a message from Jane herself to the readers. It’s an ideal way to end a biographical picture book written for an age that is too young for bibliographies.

A playful, winning biographical picture book that celebrates the childhood of the incredible Jane Goodall. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

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Book Review: Junonia by Kevin Henkes

May 2, 2011 | Tasha

Junonia by Kevin Henkes

Alice always celebrates her birthday on Sanibel Island in a beach cottage named Scallop. This annual vacation from winter in Wisconsin is filled with the familiar. Her parents accompany her, her aunt stays with them, and their neighbors in Sanibel are people she considers her extended family. But this year, when Alice is turning 10, nothing is familiar. First, some of her beloved neighbors do not come to Florida this year. Then her Aunt Kate joins them along with her new boyfriend and his daughter, Mallory. The entire vacation is thrown into chaos in Alice’s eyes, as she struggles to accept the changes and the new situation that is so different from her planned perfection of a trip.

This short novel looks deep into Alice as she searches for perfection embodied by the junonia shell that she has not yet found. This deep look is not always flattering for Alice, as she can be jealous, petty, and prickly at times. Yet the book speaks to acceptance of the reality of life and not constantly seeking the perfect birthday, the perfect day, the perfect circumstances. It would never have worked as a novel to have Alice be an ideal protagonist. Instead, seeing her with her flaws allows readers to see themselves in her. It is a beautiful, quiet point Henkes is making.

Henkes writes of emotions with great detail, capturing Alice’s many moods. He manages to put a name on the feeling and then create imagery that builds beyond that label. In other words, he is carefully creating a book that children can read and understand, but that will lead them on into something deeper as well.

Henkes also captures Sanibel and its beaches and wildlife with beautiful imagery. The images are ones that children will relate to. Here is one of my favorites from Page 49:

“From their table on the deck at the restaurant, Alice could see the ocean perfectly. And the sunset. The sky and the sea were full of colors – yellow, peach, pink, blue, green, purple. The water was like liquid color, like melted glass swirling around.”

This book is about big things understood through small. It is about emotions, acceptance, forgiveness, disappointment and delight. It is about life. Appropriate for ages 8-11.

Reviewed on digital galley format from HarperCollins via NetGalley.