Such A Lot of Great Books!

        Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to discover books you'll love!  Thanks to Jen, Kellee, and Ricki who share so much with us by taking time to support this meme!


    What a week last week! Wow! ALA Midwinter and Cybils Awards. Hope you had a favorite or favorites receive some honors!  


        This is one of the Cybils' finalists, and an amazing story re-told in verse. For those who teach and share the classic myths with older students, here is a book that will excite. David Elliott brings the tragedy of  “The Minotaur” into today’s vernacular, well known by students, young and older teen. When needed, there is strong language, meaning-filled sarcasm, and strong feelings of both love and grief. All the players show up, and Elliott has given each a particular voice and writes the same poem form for each as well.  Key storyteller is the top person, Poseidon, who quickly manages to ignite the story in a fury. With a bored affect, he sends desire to Queen Pasiphae for the mighty beast, laughs behind her back at the trick he has done.  He says: “So, yeah--I gave the queen a thing. For the white bull’s thang. Be glad that I did! If I hadn’t? No story. You know the drill. No guts. No glory.”

            Humans were given brains to make their own choices, Poseidon merely started it all and shows interest but no thought of intervention. He allows strong emotions from desire to love, revenge to grief, can mirror today’s lives if the reader only makes the connections.       

          All the familiar names are there, Queen Pasiphae, King Minos, their daughters Phaedra and Ariadne, Theseus and The Minotaur, doomed Asterion! And each character has a unique voice, along with writing the poems in forms also unique to each voice. From Pasifphae about Minos:  “IgNOrant self/aNOinted fool/he thinks he kNOws/me but NO one/kNOws the hard tight/kNOt of my heart.” As you see, there is use of different kinds of rhyming, bolded words within poems and darkened pages when words come from the Labyrinth. Elliot has brought this old myth to teens in the 21^st century for lively interest.

           Finally, it was my turn to have this wonderful book from the library, now wondering why I just didn’t purchase it?  Oliver Jeffers wrote and illustrated a book about life on earth for his son when he was two months old. I imagine this might be one he’s memorized by now, or perhaps he’s moved on to “more”. The book is full of the basic stuff, lovingly told and shown so you want to examine, and eventually, ask questions about all that space stuff, like the funny name of the planet Neptune; or ask about the people who dress differently, like that boy with a man in gold helmets. Perhaps you’ll want to know about the animal who’s “not” supposed to be on the page with all the others, or wish you could travel on that very large ship? That’s the wonderful book Jeffers has created. I haven’t shared it with my granddaughters, know they will love each page and wonder what’s next.

         First published in Italy a few years ago and in the U.S. last year, from Marianna Ruiz Johnson who lives in Buenos Aires, with the flavor of that other picture book, Windows, it’s a wordless book created in cut paper collage. There are stories to discover on every page of the ordinary night lives of grown-ups while the child is sleeping. If one looks again, there is also some extraordinary figures, perhaps dreams entering the story? It’s very fun to look and look at each page.

          I found this at my indie bookstore and fell in love with this book for younger readers. William is such a kind boy and no matter who arrives, he figures out how to make it work. As you can see from the cover, one by one, animals need a snuggly place on this cold, snowy night. The rhyming text is perfect. Here’s part from the first page: He drinks his cocoa, climbs in bed./He fluffs the pillow beneath his head,/then burrows down for a nice long nap. . ./but wakes to the sound of a tap, tap, tap.” Those sounds on the pages are set apart in handwriting. The illustrations add to the words with full pages of shivering animals, then so, so content when snuggling in the bed. If you’ve ever read the old story, The Mitten, this is another cumulative tale and it’s terrific!

        Out walking in the snow, bear and wolf meet and have a walk together. After coming to a pond, pushing away snow so they can see the fish beneath, they enjoy each other’s company and part ways. Bear goes off to finish his winter’s nap and wolf leaves to join his pack for their long search for caribou. The illustrations are pleasant, seem to exude friendliness as these two find ways to enjoy each other. I love the page where, when looking at the pond through the ice, Salmieri creates a view from the pond itself, showing Bear and Wolf peeking in. The ending shows a reunion, the two meet again for a beautiful spring walk. I enjoyed reading it, a book about being friends with someone different.

              It’s all about geometry, of friendship! Circle and square have a satisfactory, “equal” relationship; “Circle liked to bounce into action.” And “Circle admired square for all his good points.” Marcie Colleen’s imaginative analysis in picturing shapes will bring lots of laughs and perhaps a mathematical and personal answer to what happens when another “friendshape” arrives and puts a ‘wedge’ between circle and square. That pesky triangle knows all the answers, how to find info about the pyramids and how to fly a kite. Circle and Square clung to this new friendship until that “pull” ended in disaster. How it’s solved can only be a brainy solution, a sum of many parts! Bob Shea’s art manages to infuse much emotion into his simple and colorful drawings of these geometrical figures. They are one-dimensional no more!

            Based on the life of Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space, a book about making dreams happen. No matter the hurdles, Mae stuck to what her parents told her often, “If you can dream it, if you believe it and work hard for it, anything is possible.” She did dream and believe and work hard, even hearing that her teacher told her that she should become a nurse instead. According to an added author’s note, Dr. Mae Jemison entered Stanford at the age of sixteen, earning a degree in chemical engineering. Wow! She then went on to become a medical doctor, eventually following her dream and applied to NASA’s astronaut program. On Sept. 12^th, 1992, her dream came true as she traveled to space on the shuttle, Endeavor. Wow, again! What a great story to share with kids, to keep their dreams and work hard, not to give up!

Still Reading: The Blue Window by Adina Rishe Gewirtz. I'm enjoying it very much, but it is nearly 600 pages, and complex. It's out in early April!
        The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer. I've wanted to read more, and will!

Next: I'm not sure. I'd like to re-read A Wrinkle In Time because the movie is coming out!