Monday Reading - Favorites!

          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

           Middle-Grade books are not always my favorites. I realize their simple plots are necessary for younger readers, but while I enjoy many, I prefer older YA novels. This time, however, I knew that Laura Shovan's new book, just out, would be good. Her first novel, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, is marvelous and so creative. So now, Takedown, about wrestling? I have a nephew who wrestled and while I liked watching and rooting for him, it isn't a favorite sport. 
           From the first two chapters, I'm captured by the lives of Mikayla (Mickey) and Lev, two opposites, two who will be thrown together by their love of wrestling. Both are hanging out in their lives at the beginning of middle school; both are pre-teens. And the friendships each thought were set in cement begin to crumble. This pre-puberty time means change, and it's no different for these two. For most of the book, wrestling on a more competitive "travel" team fills each of their lives, along with family and school and friendships. Inside, Mikayla wishes her father would pay more attention to her own wrestling as he does for her two older brothers' wrestling. Inside, Lev wishes his older sister would pay more attention to him as she used to do. 
          These are only two of the troubles these two young middle-schoolers face. Mickey stays strong in her quest to be a great wrestler, but it's a fight often with unhappy consequences because she's a girl. Lev's nerves continue to be an inner struggle so he finds that writing and doodling in a notebook helps. His poetry is important, though he hesitates to share.
           Laura beautifully lets Lev and Mickey share their thoughts in alternating chapters, each time making me want to find out more. What will Mickey do when she discovers her best friend Kenna wants to quit wrestling and move on to other fun in school, and with other friends? "Kenna studies my face. Now she has this secret life with a vocabulary I know nothing about. Until middle school started, we were always together. How different could we be after just a few weeks? A lot. I tell myself." What will Lev do when he discovers Mickey, a girl, is going to be his practice partner? "I follow Mickey to the gym. "My sister says you're thinking about quitting."/"What do you care?"/"You're good," I tell her. "For a first-year Gladiator, you're really good." Laura manages to help us find sympathy for both and to root for them as they navigate their lives that aren't so simple anymore.
           The basic plot is there, making us readers ask what will happen to both these young people who are growing up and finding that what used to be isn't necessarily going to stay. These people in the lives of Lev and Mikayla are regular people who struggle in their own lives. From old friends to beloved family members, we come to care for them, too, and that makes a marvelous story of a few months in the lives of two middle schoolers. I'm very glad that Laura wrote about wrestling, and Lev and Mikayla, too!

          It seems that all the books I'm writing about today share a common thread, the way we look at things, the way we think about ourselves and about others, those like us and those who are not like us, except perhaps inside where the feelings lie.

       

        Beautiful, imaginative illustrations accompany this brief poetic text in a story from a large fish's point of view. I think everyone will be surprised to discover just what, or who, those Sea Creatures from the Sky are.

            I know that gender transitioning is tough, but sometimes young children need to know a simple explanation for someone close who has those feelings inside, just as Teddy the bear does. And just as Teddy the bear finally shares how he feels, he asks for change, to be called Tilly. A couple of small switches, like putting the bowtie in her hair makes a simple point too, about expectations of others, or the outer needs of someone who wants what hasn't been allowed before. It's a lovely book, written by Jessica Walton because her father transitioned into a woman and she wanted a book to read to her younger son. Dougal MacPherson's straightforward illustrations creates the expressions and the actions, from serious to satisfied to just plain happy, just right for little ones to understand, too.

          Poetry, yes! Beautiful words that speak of the different colors a person can be if put into a certain group called "black". Joyce Carol Thomas writes "Colors, without black, couldn't sparkle quite so bright" in the opening page that Floyd Cooper illustrates with a young boy who has a sparkling smile showing off two hands full of berries. There is "The Blacker The Berry", the title poem making bright statements: "Because berries are dark the juice is sweeter." and "Biscuit Brown" "when the berries in the jar/are biscuit ready/I fix a cup of tea/Then spoon out biscuit jelly/For Biscuit brown me." A celebration of colors fill the pages with Cooper's gorgeous children, most connected to berry-picking, happy with exactly who they are. A wonderful double-page illustration at the end has all the children looking out, looking at us, maybe wondering what we look like? It's a wonderful poetry collection to share, either in the classroom or just to one or two.

Reading Now:  An ARC from Candlewick, The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetary by Allison Rushby and The Train In Winter by Caroline Moorehead.

Next: I hope to read Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed from the library this week. I'm leaving for a family trip to Costa Rica this coming Saturday, so will only take some books on my Kindle. 

Happy Reading Everyone!