Monday - Sharing 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.  
           My family's trip to Costa Rica was marvelous, but also a week filled and little time for reading. Here is what I completed, mostly before I left. 

            Thanks to Candlewick Press for this ARC! I do know that the definition of ‘turnkey’ is ‘a keeper of the keys’ and this time, Allison Rushby has written an exciting story of those whose job is to ensure that all souls buried in the cemetery stay at rest. Flossie Birdwhistle is the Turnkey at London’s Highgate Cemetery. She, who died at twelve, is quite young to be one, but each Turnkey also has an advisor and Flossie’s is Hazel, the fox. Plus, she has a number of friends who are Turnkeys at other cemeteries, and are helpful and kind. This adventure means she needs all the help she can find!

            Flossie’s work is made especially difficult by World War II. The time of the London Blitz is one filled with danger, and often Flossie is found at the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral watching and worrying. When Flossie encounters the ghost of a German soldier carrying a mysterious object that seems to exist in both the living and spirit worlds, she becomes suspicious — what is the officer up to? Before long, Flossie uncovers a sinister plot that could destroy not only her cemetery but also her beloved country. She asks for help from ghostly friends. 

           The story includes all the usual ups and downs, showing especially Flossie’s thoughtful ways as well as her sorrow to have first lost her father, whose ghost, too, is involved in the story. Flossie also finds the courage to act in spite of the limitations of those in the spirit world. Pairing a ghostly world with its possibilities and restrictions and this time in history when many fought hard to save their countries creates lots of interest for further learning. Each page made me want to discover more! 

         There are some details of the death and destruction by the bombing, so the story is possibly best for ten years and up. 

          

         Reading this caught me trying hard to understand how it can be for the powerful social hierarchy in Pakistan to be so cruel. Amal, a Pakistani girl loves learning and going to school, is smart and dreaming of a future different from those in her village. Her thoughtless remarks to the local wealthy landowner are taken as disrespectful (though I can hear readers everywhere shouting “No!”). Sadly, she lands in the contemporary practice of indentured servitude because she’s embarrassed this man in front of others and her father also owes him money, like so many others in the village. This is not unlike the “company store” that’s written about in mining towns here in the U.S. as far as the power held because of debt.

            Amal’s time as a servant itself shows her complex emotions as she learns and sympathizes with the stories of those other servants and even of the mistress whom she serves. Saeed does not stay with only a few stories, but through description shows a culture with rules that are not to be broken, in relationships, about gender, and the responsibilities of the eldest in a family. The power of education underlies the story as Amal uses what she has already learned to make change. Her small and large acts of resistance are to be celebrated as her story and that of others emerges. This will be an important book to share and discuss with middle school kids.

            Beautiful illustrations show the dark nights of tension when slaves choose to take the “underground railroad” to freedom. It is speculation that a blacksmith might create rhythms with the hammer striking the anvil to help people on their way, but it takes into account that secret communication did happen and perhaps these rhythms helped, too.

             Elly MacKay brings her gorgeous art and historical research to share various weather wisdom from folklore. There is a source list and added information about the truth of each saying. I know some of these, like "red sky in the morning, sailor take warning" but others are new to me, like "When the wind is in the West, then the fishes bite the best." Most have to do with observations of course, of water, wind, and sky. For those studying weather or the sky, observing what happens each day, it will be a book to help you start learning. 

I love this page before the title of Red Sky at Night

Still Reading: A Train In Winter by Caroline Moorehead.

Up Next: The Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis. So many are saying great things about this. I also have a YA book, Tradition by Brendan Kiely, that sounds good. 

Happy Reading!