An Invitation

I'd like to invite visitors to Help Readers Love Reading! - new folks and the regulars alike - to visit my new site, simply called Help Readers Too!. It's an irregularly updated, miscellaneously contented, sister site. More details are available over there ... well, a few anyway ... but basically it's a place for additional thoughts and opinions that aren't necessarily book reviews.

I'd also like to invite readers, especially teachers and bloggers, to weigh in on a moral dilemma I recently posted involving a highly anticipated book and its release date.

If you feel like clicking on over today or another time, thanks. It's pretty sparse right now, and I plan on tidying up a bit in the future, but I wanted to post this story before it became irrelevant.

And thanks again for visiting Help Readers Love Reading!.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Great books are like a hike up a steep hill with a spectacular view. The heart rate climbs. Breathing quickens. The desire to finish grows, along with the effort put forth to reach that end. And the payoff is remarkable. The Graveyard Book does all these things. I’ve read and reread and considered it greatly for this review. The more I do, the more I’m convinced Neil Gaiman’s book is an incredible choice for the 2009 Newbery Medal.

As I read The Graveyard Book, I felt there were four distinct parts.

Part One: Chapter 1, How Nobody Came to the Graveyard, begins with the creepiest opening in recent memory. "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." The whole page is black, save the chapter title, that one line of text, and the knife-wielding hand. A baby boy, 18 months old, has crawled out of his bed. He proceeds down the stairs, through the front door, into the street, and up the hill to protective hands of the graveyard residents.

His family is murdered by the man Jack. The boy is unharmed.

Part Two: Chapters 2-5 each read as a short story - indeed, Chapter 4, The Witch's Headstone, was first published as a short story - and each chapter gives important information about the boy's life in the graveyard. Adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, longtime occupants of the graveyard, and looking like nobody in particular, the boy becomes Nobody Owens, Bod for short.

Five-year-old Bod meets a friend, Scarlett, who is visiting the graveyard, now more park than cemetary. Readers learn the differences between a normal child and one granted the Freedom of the Graveyard. Readers are also introduced to the Sleer, an ancient graveyard resident.

Six-year-old Bod is introduced to this graveyard’s ghoul-gate (every graveyard has a ghoul-gate), what lies beyond the gate, and the lengths to which the dead will go to preserve his life.

A ten-year-old Bod meets a resident witch and begins a friendship. He continues his education, both academic and spiritual. He witnesses and participates in the Danse Macabre.

Part Three: A brief interlude, The Convocation, reminds readers that the man Jack still exists and still wants – needs, in fact – Bod dead. His business associates, for lack of a better term, remind him of his failure and responsibility to finish the business he started.

Part Four: Chapters 6-8 read more as the novel I expected. Bod makes more and more excursions into the world outside the graveyard where, for the most part, he is unprotected. He goes to school, meets bullies, new friends, old friends, and police officers. But all these outside experiences, though beneficial to a boy quickly becoming a young man, make it increasingly difficult for Bod to remain anonymous and hidden from the man Jack.

Anticipation that steadily builds and an inescapable sense of dread work together so readers don’t see the climax coming as much as they feel it coming. So get yourself a copy of The Graveyard Book, block out a chunk of time, and set your bookmark aside.

And make sure the lights are on. Brightly.

The Trouble Begins at 8 by Sid Fleischman

"Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth."

So begins Chapter 1 of The Trouble Begins at 8. What? Fully grown? How can that be? And a cheap cigar? Huh? Readers will be engaged from the start, questions quickly forming about Mark Twain, no doubt an author many of them are being "forced" to read in school. An author who, if students are given the opportunity and proper resources, may prove to be equally as interesting as the classic American literature he created.

In the preceding preface, Sid Fleischman offers other intriguing anecdotes. A Nevada minor once introduced Mark Twain by saying, “I don’t know anything about this man. I only know two things about him. One is, he has never been in jail. And the other is, I don’t know why.” Later Fleischman reveals the inspiration for the book’s title. Twain’s first posters advertising his speaking engagements “proclaimed that the doors would open at seven. ‘The Trouble to begin at 8 o’clock.’”

Sid Fleischman does his best to separate the fact from the fiction in Mark Twain’s life, a task in which Twain himself apparently didn’t put too much stock. His autobiography, as noted numerous times, included certain exaggerations and/or additions as well as more than a few exclusions.

The book begins with young Samuel Clemens’ first work in newspaper, where he published a banner headline declaring “TERRIBLE ACCIDENT! 500 men killed and missing!!!” followed by, in smaller type, “We had set the above head up, expecting (of course) to use it, but as the accident hasn’t happened, yet, we’ll say (To be continued.)” He also started a feud with the editor of the local competition, accusing him of “failing to drink himself to death.”

The story continues following Samuel’s life as a riverboat captain, his two weeks in the military, his travel west to Nevada, more work in newspaper, his dabblings in fiction, and the next (and the next and the next...) get-rich-quick scheme. He travels the world and creates imaginary travel companions, passing them off as real. Slowly but surely readers witness the death of Samuel Clemens and the birth of Mark Twain.

Each story is as funny as the next, and each reads as a bit of humor concocted by the man himself. Teachers, get yourself a copy of this book and be sure to use it alongside Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Young readers will enjoy this creatively written story about Mark Twain as much as any story by Mark Twain.

Lincoln and His Boys by Rosemary Wells

I don't think Lincoln and His Boys offers too much new or relatively unknown information about Abraham Lincoln, but it does offer a perspective I haven't seen before. Readers meet President Lincoln through the eyes of his youngest sons, Willie and Tad. The book is divided into three sections: Willie 1859, Willie and Tad 1861, and Tad 1862-1865.

Willie, the older of the two brothers, relates the events leading up to his father's election. There's not a lot of historical facts - it's not a history book disguised as a children's book. Yes, it's the events before the election, but not debates and politics. It's a trip to the tailor and a special trip to Chicago with his father. It's keeping a promise to mother to go see Miss Jenny Lind, the best lady singer in the world, for Willie's edification. But it's also about a father who makes time to take his son to see the Chinese acrobats and jugglers at Metropolitan Hall.

The second section is again narrated by Willie, but tells of the family's travels to Washington on the train after Lincoln is elected and the events of their first year in Washington. The kids build a fort on the White House roof, complete with log artillery, mostly pointed south. The boys bust into Cabinet meetings and are the only cause of laughter for the president.

Tad picks up the narration after the fever that struck both he and Willie leaves his brother dead. His part continues to the end of the war, closing with the two most powerful events - a trip to Richmond immediately after the war's end and the president's command that the army band play Dixie in Washington.

Take time to look at the pictures. Study them. Look at the joy on Lincoln's face when he is with his boys. Notice the glares on the faces of Lincoln's Cabinet members at the same time. P. J. Lynch's illustrations deserve recognition in any review of Rosemary Wells' wonderful book.

iWants and WiiNeeds

New column today. I should have dedicated this one to all the parents who fondly remember Pong and their first 8-Tracks.

COLUMN: WiiOnes caught up in world of video games, electronics or here's the printable version.

Stinky by Eleanor Davis

Stinky enjoys his stinky yet simple life. His cave has bats and bugs and a pet toad named Wartbelly. He has an abundant supply of pickled bananas, pickled eggs, and pickled onions. The moment he leaves his cave, his neighbors call him by name. "Hi, Stinky," says the squirrel and dragonfly. "Good morning, Stinky," says the bird and the porcupine. Even the turtle, frogs, and alligator greet Stinky.

His swamp has mushy, mucky mud and a bottomless pit and an onion patch and wonderfully stinky smell. Best of all, it’s all his. Ah…home smelly home.

Stinky must be careful, however, because on the other side of the swamp is a town. “Towns have kids,” Stinky explains, “and kids don’t like swamps. They like to take baths!” How could a monster befriend anyone who doesn’t like mud or slugs or smelly monsters like him? “I stay away from them,” he declares.

Stinky does all he can to avoid kids, but what can he do when a kid wanders onto his territory? A kid! In his swamp! Stinky tries to get rid of the boy. He tries to stink him out with Wartbelly. He steals his hammer and tries scaring him with a ghost costume. Nothing works. Stinky’s final plan? Give up.

In his frustration Stinky gets himself into quite a predicament – trapped at the bottom of the bottomless pit! (“Well, maybe not a bottomless pit!” Stinky realizes. “But it’s very deep.”) And who is the only person in the swamp to hear his cries? Yep, it’s the boy, Nick.

Now Stinky’s only hope is something he has always tried to avoid. A kid! More specifically, the boy he tried so desperately to run out of his swamp.

Eleanor Davis’ book is a great addition to the Toon Book library, and a great addition to any classroom library with emerging readers, especially readers whose likes and dislikes include mushy, mucky mud, slimy slugs, and stinky smells.

The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman

Is he gonna get to keep the toy factory? I'll bet he's gonna win the whole toy factory. The old owner's probably got some secret hidden in his will or a code written in the toy packaging or something. Yep. Kid’s getting the toy factory.

Those were the thoughts, or some variation thereof, going through my mind as I read Jody Feldman’s The Gollywhopper Games. The similarities to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are numerous, and after reading Jody Feldman’s acknowledgements, it’s easy to see why. A student asked for a book like Roald Dahl’s classic one day when she was volunteering in the school library, and neither she nor the teacher could find one to his satisfaction. The Gollywhopper Games was born.

I was wrong. Nobody wins the Golly Toy and Game Company. And, different from Charlie, the children know they are involved in a competition. There are 25,000 chances to win. That’s 500 instant winner tickets in Golly products, 20,000 randomly selected winners, and the first 4,500 kids in line at University Stadium. Gil Goodson’s plan is wait it out in line.

Once inside, players are eliminated through stadium-wide multiple choice questions, then cut to ten finalists through a lengthy math question involving Golly toy products and company history, a nursery rhyme, and board games. Gil makes the cut.

Day two begins with the ten finalists split into two teams to compete against each other. When Gil grabs the immunity idol, he’s safe from that night’s vote, but the alliance he’s formed with…nah, just seeing if you’re paying attention. But there are two teams of five. One team is eliminated, leaving five individuals competing to win.

The contest goes throughout the Golly toy factory. There are blinking arrows on the walls and life-sized stuffed animals around every corner. There’s the Kaleidoscope room, eight stories tall, dancing with color. There are funhouse mirrors and palm trees and hot-air balloons and dancing skeletons and floating panda bears and random showers of gold confetti. Think Willie Wonka, toy maker.

The competition is a 50th anniversary celebration for the Golly Toy and Game Company with prizes including a college scholarship, Golly products, “plus other stupendous prizes and experiences too fabulous and too numerous to name!”

But it’s more for Gil. Winning will allow his family to escape Orchard Heights, his and Golly’s hometown. His father, a former employee, was arrested and charged with embezzlement just under a year prior. With no job and no income, Gil’s family is stuck in a town that loves the Golly Toy and Game Company, a town that followed Gil’s family like the Playskool Paparazzi during the trial, a town that still harbors ill will to the Goodson family despite Mr. Goodson’s acquittal.

Kids will cheer for Gil, hoping he will succeed, but they’ll do it because Gil is a great character, the contest is so engaging, and the book is simply fun. Codes, puzzles, physical challenges, memory, races … all in what seems to be the world’s coolest toy factory and all designed for reader interaction. That’s what will get and keep kids’ attention.

How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz

In my initial reactions to the Newbery medal and ALA Youth Media Award winners, I said I was waiting for a copy of How I Learned Geography and asked, "Did I read right, though? A family flees war and finds poverty?" Lesson learned: Don't judge a book solely upon any three sentence blurb found on Amazon.

Yes, this autobiographical book is about Uri Shulevitz as a young boy of four or five fleeing Warsaw, Poland after the Warsaw blitz in 1939. Yes, the book is about how they fled east, settling in the city of Turkestan in the Soviet Union, what is now Kazakhstan, living in one room with barely enough to eat. But there's more. It's also the book of how a father's spur of the moment decision and the author's childhood imagination helped him escape nevertheless.

That wasn't clearly stated in that bit I rushed to read on Amazon.

All of the details listed above are from the Author's Note at the end. The story itself is much simpler. One day Father went to the bazaar to buy food, but didn't return until late. When he arrived, he announced, "I bought a map." No bread. No food. Only a gigantic map that, when displayed, filled an entire wall. After the boy gets over his initial disappointment and frustration, he learns...well, the book is called How I Learned Geography, isn't it?

The boy travels the world via the map. He studies the fascinating names and creates a rhyming verse out of them, sort of a magic chant that transports him around the world. He travels to deserts, beaches, and mountains. He sees palm trees, fruit trees, and birds of all colors. He visits a rain forest and a temple and a large metropolitan city. All through the map.

Yes, the story starts with war and poverty, but ultimately the story is about the power of a boy's imagination, and how it allows him to escape his difficult life, if just for a while. "And so I spent enchanted hours," he says, "far, far from our hunger and misery."

The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle

The events of The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom span 50 years, from the childhood of Rosa and Lieutenant Death to the end of the War for Independence. Rosa is a child who learns the healing powers of the plants of the forest. Lieutenant Death is the son of a slave catcher who learns from his father how to hunt escaped slaves. These two characters share the narration, all told in verse, in Part One (1850-1851).

Part Two tells the events of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), again with Rosa and Lieutenant Death (now adults) sharing narrative duties, adding Jose, Rosa's husband, and two pages from a Lieutenant-General from Spain. Rosa tells of healing the sick and the injured. Lieutenant Death continues his father's job of hunting slaves.

Parts Three and Four continue through the the Little War (1878-1880) and the War of Independence (1895-1898). Silvia, a young girl who lost her entire family in a reconcentration camp, is added to the narrative mix, expressing her desires to learn the art of healing from Rosa, now a Cuban legend.

Part Five (1898-1899) closes with the events after the War of Independence, telling of Spain's exit, and the United States' involvement and subsequent occupation. Characters are still left with a desire for freedom, feeling they have only exchanged one "foreign tyrant" for another.

It's a book about war. All the events you'd think should be in there are there: atrocities, death, murder, revenge, betrayal. There's also Rosa's desire to do good, always good, healing everyone, both friend and enemy, and never accepting payment, for healing comes from God. Events are told in only enough detail so the imagination will fill in the rest, often times with the most gruesome details. I'm not big on filling in gruesome details of war with my imagination.

Whether or not The Surrender Tree is a Newbery-quality distinguished book is a debate I'll leave to others. Regardless of the results of their debate, I don't see this book flying off classroom library shelves or being passed student to student.

A River of Words by Jen Bryant

A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams is a hard book to classify. Is it a poetry book with additional background information about the poet for older readers? Is it a story book for younger readers featuring an introduction to poetry? Or should we just give it to the art teachers?

In a word, yes.

The endpapers feature some famous Williams poems. There's The Red Wheelbarrow we've all come to know and love and This is Just to Say, recently featured in a picture book of the same name. Older readers, once familiar with the poems, may enjoy learning about the author, and no doubt will appreciate the simpler text after tackling poetry in class.

Younger readers will enjoy learning about the young man who enjoyed playing outside and staying outside. They'll like the boy who raced everywhere, always in a hurry, but would slow down to enjoy the sound and rhythm of the poetry read aloud by his teacher, while images played across his imagination. How that boy decided he could write poetry too, all about ordinary things in his life. (And why can't you?) How that boy, now a young man, became a doctor, but no matter what, continued writing poetry.

Art teachers will find plenty (and pardon my artistic ignorance if it is glaringly obvious). There are watercolor illustrations of Williams throughout his life. There are also collages, many of them featuring words and lines from poems, and many containing objects from the poet's life at the time. There are pages from medical books, notebook paper, the spine of an art textbook, newspapers, pages from a spelling book, and a report card all included in the pictures. Art teachers, are there some potential lessons there?

Jen Bryant's book and Melissa Sweet's illustrations fit in many categories, but instead of trying to find all the proper classifications, it's nice to have this simple one: Caldecott Books.

The Postcard by Tony Abbott

When Jason’s grandmother dies, he travels from Boston to St. Petersburg, Florida to help his father do whatever needs to be done. Funeral arrangements, house cleaning, house fix-ups, and eventually, house sale. Grandma’s death only heightens the stress between his father and mother, a relationship Jason fears is crumbling.

As Jason learns more about his grandmother, whom he never really got to know, he also learns more about his father’s history. The absent father. The hospitals. The fortune? How could these things not affect his father, and how could they not affect his parents’ relationship?

When Jason receives a mysterious phone call asking, “How smart are you?” and directing him to his grandmother’s desk, he discovers a postcard. It features the Hotel DeSoto, which his great-grandfather supposedly once owned. It’s blank, but upon further investigation, Jason notices some cryptic markings. Then Jason discovers an old magazine featuring a story by Emerson Beale. The story features a … postcard. And a woman named Marnie. His grandmother’s name was Agnes, but someone called her Marnie at the funeral.

Deciding it’s too much to be coincidence, Jason sneaks into the soon to be demolished Hotel DeSoto, following the clues left on the postcard, to find chapter 2 of Emerson Beal’s story. Soon the trail of clues leads to more story chapters, more family history, and more connections between the two.

The Postcard is a bit tidy the way all the clues and Jason’s good fortune seem to fall together, but Jason’s willingness to follow the clues makes it seem that his bold actions create his good fortune. A detective never gets any breaks if he doesn’t follow any leads in the first place, right?

Jason gets help with his family and literary mystery from Dia, a new friend from his grandmother’s neighborhood, who accompanies him on much of his search. When Jason gets frustrated, she encourages him to continue, sometimes simply through her eagerness and excitement.

Emerson Beal’s story is written in the book, so as Jason reads each chapter, so do readers. Jason discovers the first chapter in Bizarre Mysteries, a magazine from October 1944. The stories “were about kidnapping and murder, robbery and murder, robbery and kidnapping and murder, murder and murder, and just plain murder. And they were all written in rugged, tough-guy language.” I’m not an expert on the genre, but Tony Abbott does a good job of recreating it. I can see why kids of the 1940’s would be drawn to it, and why it probably would have caused the teachers and librarians of the time to make a face like they’d just smelt something disagreeable wafting from the mystery section. Readers will anticipate Emerson Beal’s next chapter as much as Jason does.

On A Personal Note:
What are the chances of this? Emerson Beal mentions “The Secret Order of Oobarab.” That name, coupled with descriptions of the more interesting members of the Order, led me to immediately predict what it took the characters 261 pages and Google to figure out. Of course, they didn’t have the fourth grade field trip experience that I’ve had here in central Wisconsin. Okay, that’s all I’ll say, but man, do I want to give it away. It seems nuts, but kids in Wisconsin may have a distinct advantage solving a piece of this mystery about a kid from Boston, Mass and his family in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson

After The House in the Night won the Caldecott Medal, and having just finished a student-selected mock Caldecott with my fourth graders, I read the book aloud to my class. Their response? Shifty sideways glances. A few unintelligible mumbles. Mostly just awkward silence. Finally one brave girl slowly raised her hand and said, "Well, it was kinda boring."

Fair enough, I thought. This is the bunch that overwhelmingly favored A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever and Beware of the Frog in our mock election. Plenty of humor, bold pictures, and enough text to keep the ten year old mind interested. One student described The House in the Night as a lullaby (a great observation), gold is the only color, and it has fewer then ten words per page.

To be fair, they appreciated it more after we discussed how the pictures were created using scratchboard. Some students pointed out that the bird in the girl's book seemed to grow larger each page until the outline of the bird was incorporated into the other illustrations, then got smaller until it was back in its book. Some saw it, some didn't, but good art does that to the observer, doesn't it?

Our art teacher, however, had a different opinion. I showed her the book, and she refused to return it. (It's not even my copy! I got it at the public library.) I saw it the next day, open and upright on a table in the art room, as sixth graders studied the pictures before beginning their own scratchboard projects. They were captivated by the detail and accuracy of the etchings.

The House in the Night had found a home in the art room. That shows the Caldecott worthiness of Beth Krommes' illustrations. It also will be at home in the bedroom, just before lights out, as little ones curl up on a parent’s lap to share the girl’s teddy bear, her story, her goodnight kiss, and her good night’s sleep. And that proves the kid worthiness of Susan Marie Swanson's story.

One Boy by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

I walked out of the library and passed One Boy to the resident first grader sitting in the backseat who, in his mind, has become quite a book critic, not afraid to speak his mind. After a few minutes I asked, "Whadja think, bud?"

"I didn't like it at all."

Well, so much for the critical review.

That night before bed, however, we read it together. Each page has cut-outs revealing part of the next page's illustrations (think Joseph Had a Little Overcoat or The Very Hungry Catipillar). Guess who was trying to remember what was on the next page based on the little bit that was visible? "Wait, wait, wait! Don't turn the page yet!"

The cut-outs reveal part of the illustration on the next page, but after the page is turned, they also leave part of the previous page's text visable. These still visable letters become part of the next page's text. Again, guess who, after he understood how the cut-outs worked, was trying to guess what part of the text would reused on the next page? We'd read "SEVEN CANDLES," and I'd hear him murmer, "Candles...candles." He'd think some, then continue, "...andles...can...cand...AND!" We'd turn the page and sure enough, "AND A CAKE."

The book begins with "ONE BOY." The next page shows him seated, seemingly bored, and "ALL ALONE." The word ONE is now part of ALONE. Later we read "THREE APES" followed by "BIG ESCAPE." This time APE becomes part of ESCAPE. At the end, "ANTS" becomes part of "PANTS," but I'll leave the visual and context of that one to readers.

So, yeah, apparently the boy didn't like it. He didn't like it so much that he told me when to turn pages and was guessing and predicting on each page. Congratulations, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, on writing a thouroughly...eh-hem...unenjoyable book.

(And woe to anyone who quotes that last paragraph out of context!)

Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems

Piggie and Gerald are ready for an outside adventure. Will they run? Will they skip? Will they jump? Yes, yes, and yes! “NOTHING CAN STOP US!” declares Piggie.

Unfortunately Piggie doesn’t see the coming rain. Rain! On a day when they were going to do everything. Everything! What can be done? How can the day be saved? How can there be any fun?

But…the worms…they seem to have fun. Okay, they don’t run – being worms and all – but they do jump and splash. They are having fun, so why not Piggie and Gerald? They discover that everything they were planning on doing in the sun is just as fun in the rain. Everything! Quite possibly even more fun.

Playing in the rain is so much fun that when it stops, as most rain eventually will, Piggie’s tune changes. “I DO NOT LIKE RAIN!” has now become “I like rain – and now the rain has stopped!” Gerald, however, comes to his friend’s aid, creating a rainstorm just for Piggie.

Are You Ready to Play Outside?, just like the other Elephant & Piggie books, is a great read aloud for partners. Student and student, teacher and student, teacher and librarian, parent and child, all would be successful. Children will be laughing with one another, grown-ups can enjoy books with their kids, and teachers can launch a new book for their readers. Most importantly, readers of all ages will have fun reading, which, of course, is pretty much assumed when the cover says Mo on the front.

2009 Newbery No-Longer-Preview Time

No doubt you've already learned who the 2009 winners are, but here some of my initial thoughts on this morning's Newbery announcement. And why not throw in some Caldecomments and a bonus thought or three?

Newbery Medal
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - Why, why, why did I not read this one? It was eligible. It was ineligible. Eligible. Ineligible. Ugh! I loved Coraline. Perfect amounts of creepiness, mystery, intrigue, and humor. I've got The Graveyard Book on order and requested at the local library. Hopefully I get me a copy soon.

Newbery Honor Books
The Underneath by Kathi Appelt - Was this the closest thing to a sure thing in a long while? Thoughts here.
Savvy by Ingrid Law - I'd have liked it even better if there were more extended family members and their savvies included. The story was good, but man did I like the idea of getting a savvy on your thirteenth birthday. My daughter agrees. So does my class. Thoughts here.
After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson - I really liked this book, and I'm glad it was recognized. It's a thought provoker, that's for sure. Thoughts here.
The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle - I haven't found much poetry that lights a fire under young readers, unless it involves sisters for sale or the end of a sidewalk, but I'll certainly read this one.

The Caldecott Medal
The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson - Before I was even able to look at the copy I snagged at the library, I got two opinions from two kids. The first grader said, "I didn't like it at all," while the fourth grader said, "Well, I liked it. It kind of goes forward, then backward or something. I don't know." Hmmm. More information (from me) soon.

Caldecott Honor Books
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee - An Honor book in our school's student-selected mock Caldecott, so I'm glad the grown-ups agreed with the experts. Fourth graders especially like how the illustrations don't match the text. That, and Grandpa Bill's vocabulary lesson. Thoughts here.
How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz - Waiting for a copy. Did I read right, though? A family flees war and finds poverty?
A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant - Waiting for a copy. Is it poetry or simply about a poet? Nevertheless, see comments on The Surrender Tree above.

Bonus Thought #1 - Sibert Honor Book
What to Do About Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! by Barbara Kerley - My wife is thrilled that this one was recognized, and I can't say I disagree.

Bonus Thought #2 - Kadir Nelson Gets Three
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson wins the Sibert Medal, Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Corrett Scott King Illustrator Honor - Sheesh, it takes more time to type out all the awards than my comments. But well deserved. His illustrations jump off the page, and I'm glad his writing was recognized in addition to his artistry.

Bonus Thought #3 - Theodor Seuss Geisel Award
Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems - Two words: 1. Woo. 2. Hoo. (And one punctuation mark: ! )

(Is it any wonder kids love these books? Click here for Mo's thoughts.)

Scat by Carl Hiaasen

What kid hasn’t wondered how life would change if a certain teacher would just disappear? Especially if that teacher is like Bunny Starch? Mrs. Starch humiliates Duane Scrod Jr. (a.k.a. “Smoke”) in class, assigning him a five hundred word essay on pimples. His pimples. Her relentlessness made me, as a teacher, uncomfortable to say the least. It’ll make kids flat-out furious. Smoke can only take so much, so as Mrs. Starch points at him accusingly with her #2 Ticonderoga, he calmly takes a chunk out of it. With his teeth. Bites half off, right out of her hand, chews it up, and swallows. Splinters, graphite, the whole works.

And the next day during a field trip to Black Vine Swamp, 1) She disappears. 2) A wildfire happens to start. 3) The kid nicknamed Smoke, with a history of starting fires who recently threatened the now disappeared teacher, wasn’t with the class.

It’s hard not to compare Scat with Carl Hiaasen’s other two novels for younger readers, Hoot and Flush. They’re all similar – set in Florida, money grubbing antagonists, middle/high school protagonists a little braver/wiser/upright that the average adolescent, and strong environmental themes. Scat adds another layer with the war in Iraq.

Scat grabs readers’ attention with the first line. “The day before Mrs. Starch vanished, her third-period biology students trudged silently, as always, into the classroom.” The teacher vanished? Like, poof, and she’s gone? By the end of the chapter, readers see how that might possibly be a good thing.

While more mystery than comedy, Scat still contains plenty of humor. An oil worker gets glued to a cypress tree, painted orange, sans clothing. Wendell Waxmo, substitute biology teacher, always teaches page 117 on Monday and 263 on Fridays, no exceptions, regardless of the subject matter. There’s plenty of funny, most enjoyably, how the antagonists finally get what’s coming.

Scat has much more mystery than the other books. Where is Mrs. Starch? Why is her car still traveling around town with mysterious drivers? If she’s gone, how is she sending mail and changing her voice mail greeting? If she has no family, how can she claim a family emergency?

Main character Nick’s father, an Army reservist serving in Iraq, is injured in a Humvee attack and loses his right arm. Nick not only has been pulled into the Mrs. Starch mystery – now including endangered panthers and an oil company – but also tries to learn more about his father’s injury by trying to do everything with only one arm.

Scat is a totally engaging novel, one that will get and hold readers’ attention, beginning to end. Readers want to fight for what’s right, defend the environment, stop greed, support their families, aid their friends, all of them right along with the main characters. Readers will also realize the danger in too quickly judging those around them.

Julia Gillian (and the Art of Knowing) by Alison McGhee

I love reading books about familiar places. I once lived in St. Paul, and Julia Gillian lives in south Minneapolis. That’s like the same thing, right? Aren’t they Twin Cities? Okay, maybe not, but I did spend four years in the general vicinity.

So when Julia Gillian, in the summer between fourth and fifth grade, travels around her neighborhood, it’s easy for me to imagine where she’s headed*. She walks to Bryant Hardware, across the street from Our Kitchen, on 36th Street, and onto Girard Avenue where a sign reading DOGS! PLEASE HELP YOURSELVES! rests beside a water bowl under a birch tree in a kindly person’s front yard.

She does all of this under the strict parameters set forth by her parents. These parameters – look both ways, no strangers, no farther than nine square blocks, and take Bigfoot, her St. Bernard – are enforced by Enzo, Julia Gillian’s eighteen-year-old friend and downstairs neighbor. This summer Julia Gillian’s parents, both teachers, are taking graduate courses and study much of the day, so she has plenty of time for travel.

Julia Gillian has many accomplishments – papier-mâché masks, spreading gum across her front teeth, communicating wordlessly with Bigfoot – and she keeps a list to prove it. She enjoys having a first name for a first name and a first name for a last name, and she enjoys waiting patiently for grown-ups to figure it out. (Did you get it?) She uses phrases like, “Indeed it is.” Most importantly, as her mother says, she is “highly skilled at the art of knowing.”

This summer is full of challenges. Her parents are incredibly busy with school, and there is little time for picnics at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden. She needs to master the claw machine in the back of Bryant Hardware. She seeks to understand her parents’ interest in the wider world, when the wider world only seems to contain bad news. And she needs to finish the green book despite what she believes…knows…will happen to the boy’s old dog.

Julia Gillian and her family travel to more places in south Minneapolis like Quang Vietnamese Restaurant on 28th and Nicollet and Magers & Quinn Booksellers on Hennepin. Of course this will resonate more with readers who have local connections, but the natural description of Julia Gillian’s neighborhood coupled with the realistic concerns of the fourth/fifth grade mind make Alison McGhee’s book an enjoyable read.


*It’s even easier with Google Maps' Street View. Check these out:


Bryant Hardware, home of the claw machine.


Our Kitchen, where Julia Gillian and her father sometimes go for pancakes.


It's the only birch tree I found on Girard Avenue!


Quang Vietnamese Restaurant - The best eggrolls in Minneapolis.


Magers & Quinn Booksellers, where Julia Gillian got the green book.

The Pencil by Alan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman

"Once there was a pencil, a lonely little pencil, and nothing else." The Pencil is the story of what that lonely little pencil decided to do about it, and how the best plans can sometimes need revision.

The pencil was lonely, so he drew a boy named Banjo. Banjo wanted a dog, so the pencil drew a dog named Bruce. Bruce wanted a cat, so the pencil drew a cat named Mildred. But then Bruce chased Mildred, and Banjo chased Bruce, through the house and down the street and in the park ... all drawn by the pencil.

When Banjo and Bruce and Mildred's snacks couldn't be eaten because they were black and white, the pencil drew a paintbrush. Soon there were extended families and checkered table cloths and a ball named Sebastian. And all seemed well.

Then the problems began. Banjo kicked Sebastian, and it hurt! A window was broken. Some people complained to the pencil. They didn't like their hats or shoes or big ears or unhealthy habits. (Grandpa smokes a pipe.) So the pencil does the only thing he can think of. Draw an eraser.

And that's when the problems really begin.

The mischievous look on the eraser's face immediately give warning to readers that he's got something planned. Pretty soon the pencil's creation is disappearing just as fast as he can create it. Nothing he draws is able to stop the eraser ... until ...

Well, I'll let you find that out for yourself. Kids love predicting what's going to come next. What will the pencil draw to take fix the black and white snack problem? How will the pencil try to fix his creation's sudden problems? How will he stop the renegade eraser? Another part kids love are the names of all the items, and the end pages share the most creative ones. There's a box named Deirdre, a birdcage named Ramona, shoes named Edward and George, and plenty more.

Kids laugh at the text, like all the characters (a bone, a ball, a family of ants) that ask, "What's my name?" Then they laugh at the ball's, I mean Sebastian's sad face and the close up of the newly named, picnic-crashing ants. Kids are even tempted to reach out to rub the eraser's shavings off the page.

And, of course, they cheer at the happy ending.

One Year Site Updates

One year ago today Help Readers Love Reading! found its home on the web. Okay, not really, not one year to the day exactly. Last January we had a snow day from school, and I took the opportunity to start the website. Today, nearly one year later, we have another snow day.

Sort of. It's actually a cold day. Last night temperatures hit the -25 to -30 range. Factor in the wind chill and you're looking at -50ish. Buses aren't running, and nobody wants kids standing outside waiting for one anyway when frostbite can start in only ten minutes. Temperatures yesterday morning were -10 to -20 and hovered in the negative single digits all day. Yeah, we were home yesterday too.

So. January 2008 to January 2009. Snow Day to Cold Day. One year.

What better day to make some updates? Here's what's new:

• Replaced the old recommendation labels with Recommended 5 Stars, Recommended 4 Stars, and Recommended 3 Stars labels.
• Added the Recommended Exceptions label. These are books that don't necessarily match the criteria I set forth, but nevertheless deserve recognition. It just didn't work writing a complimentary review but then labeling it Not Recommended.
• Added information about conference sectionals, teacher inservice, and school visits.
• Updated Site Information. Changed a few boring, little things.

So that's about it. Thanks to all my visitors over the past year, especially those of you who return on a regular basis. Hopefully each visit - whether it's your first, second, or three hundred forty-fifth - will give you another book or two that will Help Readers Love Reading!

Bats in the Library by Brian Lies

Who knew? Who knew that a life of sleeping all day, staying up all night, feasting on bugs, and fluttering and swooping and soaring in the night sky could be boring?

I know, I know, it’s crazy! One might think, “That’s the life for me, I tell ya!” But, I guess, night after night, the sameness might get a bit tiresome. So when a window is left open, this group of bats seizes the opportunity to do something different. They’re going to the library.

The older bats have been here before and head off to their favorite bookshelves. The young ones, however, haven’t yet discovered the magic inside libraries. They play with the overhead projector, splash in the water fountain, make photocopies of themselves, and play house in the pop-up books before finally settling down to story time. Then the magic happens.

Everyone is captured by a book, swallowed by a story. The bats take over the illustrations of famous children’s books. There’s a midnight ride and a flying bed. There’s a sword and a stone and a hobbit hole. There’s a bat with red pigtails and one with a red riding hood. There’s plenty more, but my favorite illustration resembles this much loved classic.

As can so easily happen, time slips away. The sky lightens, and the library’s late-night patrons must take off. Back through the window they go, hoping that sometime soon, a generous librarian will once again leave a window open.

Look closely at Brian Lies’ illustrations. Are the bats upside down or is it the background? And why are those books flipped? Little details are everywhere, starting with the spectacles on an elder bat to the iPod earbuds used to lasso a book in the cover illustration, and there’s more to discover with each reading of Bats at the Library.

Savvy by Ingrid Law

Birthdays don't sneak up on anybody. Whether they are either eagerly anticipated or grudgingly accepted, we know they are coming. But the Beaumont children look to their thirteenth birthday with more anticipation, more excitement, and more curiosity than your average tween becoming a teen.

At thirteen, you see, Beaumonts receive their savvy.

A Beaumont family savvy is a unique ability, a power, beyond normal human capacity. Mibs, short for Mississippi, is awaiting the arrival of her savvy, just days before her thirteenth birthday. Will she blow out the candles on her cake only to have fires die throughout a four county radius? Or will her puffed cheeks cause her to start floating toward the ceiling?

The novel’s plot is simple enough. Two days before her birthday, her father is in a car accident, leaving him in a coma ninety miles south in Salina, Kansas. Mibs knows her soon-to-arrive savvy will be just what Poppa needs to wake up if only she can get to Salina in time. She stows away on a pink Bible delivery bus that’s headed that direction, but before it can leave, she is discovered and joined by her brothers, Fish and Samson, and the local preacher’s kids, Will Junior and Roberta.

Predictable difficulties arise. The bus travels in the wrong direction. They are discovered by Lester, bus driver and Bible salesman. There are stops for deliveries and dinner and a maid in distress that delay their arrival in Salina. Their faces are plastered on the news as missing children.

What makes Ingrid Law's book so enjoyable is the Beaumont savvies. Oldest brother Rocket could keep the lights on when the power went out and zap his siblings from across the room. Strong emotions, however, cause power surges that leave blown circuits in his wake. Second brother Fish changes the weather, causing a hurricane on his thirteenth birthday and an ever-present threat of wind and rain. Mom has the tendency to do things perfectly.

As readers learn more about the family, more savvies are revealed. An aunt who steps back twenty minutes in time with every sneeze. A cousin who melts ice with her glare. Grandpa, with a low rumble deep in the Earth, can create land. Grandma could catch radio waves and store them in canning jars. One aunt could open any lock, another could get people to do whatever she wanted.

But Beaumonts are taught from early on that they’re just like other people. “We get born, and sometime later we die. And in between, we’re happy and sad, we feel love and we feel fear, we eat and we sleep and we hurt like everyone else.” And in Mibs’ search for her own savvy and quest for her father’s health, she and her family experience them all.

Closets and Christmas Break - New Column Today

New column in the local paper today, all about my favorite part of Christmas break.

Closets' purpose differs for children OR Printable version

My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

When Jane realizes, finally, at age twelve, that she can pray, she decides to get busy. She prays for a hundred adventures, and wonders if unceasing prayer will bring about the desired response. That’s what Nellie Phipps, fat old lady preacher, says every Sunday from the pulpit, anyway.

Almost immediately, adventure number one commences, when Jane meets a gentleman who looks like a clothes hanger, too skinny for his suit, a man who his mother calmly calls her father.

I’m trying and trying to remember what to write, and I finished the book only a week ago. Let’s see, there was a younger brother who always yelled, “Whale!” when looking at the ocean. I remember Nellie Phipps thinking it was a good idea to deliver Bibles to unsuspecting recipients from a hot air balloon and getting Jane to help. There was a trip across the country that ended abruptly with all the travelers returning home. Someone had a thrombosis. Jane prayed for one lady but not another one, then the non-prayed for one got sick, and then one of them died from candy purchased by one of Jane’s potential fathers or something like that.

There’s other stuff in there too, but try as I might, I don’t remember what happened. There’s offbeat humor, for sure. Delivering Bibles by hot air balloon? A preacher searching for a portal to the future? But other than odd bits of humor and absurdity, which I enjoy thoroughly, nothing sticks out to make me think it would be passed between students. I’m reminded of an eighth grader who once commented to me about another book, “It was fine, I guess. It’s just that nothing happens.”

My One Hundred Adventures ends after fourteen adventures in fourteen chapters with Jane, her family, and a new (new? old? original?) father headed to Saskatchewan to start a new life and find, apparently, the missing eighty-six adventures.

It did have a great quote about reading, though: "The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don't, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up all that knowledge in the happy corners of your mind for your own self and not to show off how much you know or spit it back at your teacher on a test paper."

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

After disasters, droughts and storms, fires, rising seas, and the resulting war for what little remained, this futuristic North America became one nation, Panem. Thirteen districts surrounding the Capitol. Then, when the districts rose against the Capitol, twelve were defeated, one was obliterated, and the Treaty of Treason was established to guarantee peace and remind the people of Panem to never again return to the Dark Days.

The Hunger Games is their reminder. Part reality TV, part Roman gladiator games, all horrific, the Hunger Games are a yearly event in which the twelve districts each send two randomly selected tributes, one male, one female, both teenagers, to participate. After brief training, participants are released in a large wilderness area known as the arena. Imagine Survivor where contestants aren’t voted off the island. They’re killed. But like Survivor, there is only one winner. All of it is televised – required viewing in all of Panem, in fact – and the Capitol’s message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just like we did in District Thirteen.”

At sixteen, Katniss Everdeen becomes District Twelve’s female tribute. She has grown up sneaking outside District Twelve’s borders and hunting with homemade weapons. Her daily life, while mostly illegal, has prepared her for individual survival. But against others? To the death?

Katniss is sent to the Capitol with District Twelve’s other tribute. She receives the training and participates in the pregame festivities, televised events meant to introduce the contestants, encourage wagering, and an opportunity for the tributes to earn sponsors, or people who use their financial resources to send contestants supplies during the contest. All too soon the Hunger Games begins.

What follows is Katniss’s attempt to find dignity amidst death. To use love while surrounded by hate. While some tributes actively hunt and kill the opponents, Katniss focuses mainly on her own survival. The further she and the other surviving contestants make it, the more the Gamemakers work to drive them together. Fires, floods, cold, supplies, emotions – all are used to force tributes to engage one another. All the while, Katniss attempts to avoid becoming the murderous monster that makes for great TV, from the Capitol’s perspective, anyway.

It’s been a while since a book has demanded my attention like The Hunger Games. It is intense. But should it be recommended to younger readers? Well, not elementary readers, but certainly young adults. The action will hold readers by itself, most definitely, but with a parent’s or teacher’s guidance, the politics of the book could come alive. Is this a future we face? Are we that far away? Can the good in our world and in each individual outweigh the evil? It’s a stretch, but Suzanne Collins does an excellent job of connecting the dots of today’s world and form a possible future. Readers will look forward to the story’s resolution in the upcoming books. Can a nation built on fear continue to survive, or will the actions of young adults show the people of Panem what they can become, despite what their government leaders insist? Readers won’t want to wait to find out.