Monday - Books Loved

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

         I read many wonderful books, yet it has been a while that one book brought me to tears. Perhaps it's because the children, two boys, then another boy and a girl are all middle-school age kids, the same ages that I taught. All the years I taught, I grew to know how capable they were, how much they could do. More than once, I felt they were not given the chance to do great things. In this story of 14-year-old Ahmed who's stuck in a city that doesn't want him and Max, a 13-year-old American boy who's also stuck because of his parents' move to Brussels, Katherine Walsh shows them using their smarts, defying odds to solve terrifying challenges.
            Adding to the story is the book's ending conversation with Walsh, telling how a story of the house in which she ended up residing in her own move to Brussels began the kernel of this story. Bringing the hiding of a Jewish boy into Max's own story of finding the courage to do what he knew was right blended the perils of the Holocaust into our own twenty-first-century perils, those refugees from Syria and other countries who just want a chance to live safely with their loved ones. Adding in a couple of Max's classmates who also understand loss and help with Ahmed's desperate needs shows that when given choices, young people are capable of extraordinary deeds.
        Written in alternate chapters, Max and Ahmed tell the story, day by tense day. Ahmed, hiding in Max's basement, shows his kind nature despite his tragic history of first losing his grandfather, mother and sisters in a bombing of their building, then his father as they journeyed by boat to the shores of Europe. Walsh's writing touched me many times. Here is Ahmed thinking of his losses: "Perhaps death was just another border, a line his body couldn't cross but that his heart kept slipping over." Max, moving from friends in the U.S., now stuck in a school where he doesn't even know the language, receiving bullying words he also can't understand, discovers Ahmed, and the decision-making of 'what to do' begins. When he learns that Ahmed has not been to school in three years, he understands that "He has always taken school for granted. Now he realized that even being able to hate it was a luxury." It is a story that will offer this question to every reader, "what would you do?"

           I love Sergio Ruzzier’s illustrations and this time he teams with Katie Kesterman who’s written a series of poem/stories of a robin and her babies. It’s pleasing to see, and quite wonderful to read the rhymes that show nest to flight. Dad’s included with his defensive words: “Back away, ‘Cause Mom and I are here to stay!” and Mom’s right there building her home: “It’s guaranteed a perfect fit/So all she has to do is sit.” Ruzzier fills the pages with daytime action and expressions, sure to be helpful and fun when kids study the robin’s habits and timeline of home to nest to babies. It’s terrific!

            Entertaining book, “first” about those chickens! Tired of the same old feed, the rooster spies one idea when looking through the window at a tv cooking show--SALSA. The chickens raid the garden of tomatoes and onions, and that night they ate chips and salsa, “though no one was quite certain where the chickens got the chips.” You’ll have to read the book to discover how that happened, along with the ducks' and the pigs' newfound fare. There’s a hilarious ending, too. Aaron Reynolds tells a tall tale while Paulette Bogan enriches it with her terrific illustrations.

                 A young Chinese-American girl and her father walk to a park one day and by chance meet an older man with whom the father begins a conversation. In Daniel Gutnick’s story, this girl says, referring to the park, “That’s where I rode my bike, and one special summer morning, it is where I met someone I will always remember.” In their visit, Mr. Mergler, a man who has taught children piano for many years, realizes there that this girl has a special aptitude for music and he offers her free lessons. She has earlier admitted (in her mind) that she knows they have no extra money for such a thing. Thus begins their relationship, a beautiful one where he teaches and she learns until he becomes ill and can no longer. The sweetness of the story and the ending shows the special gifts that can be given in kindness, a lesson we all could remember. The endnotes share that the story is based on the real Daniel Mergler, who passed away on May 25^th, 2003 in Montreal. The illustrations by Mathilde Cinq-Mars swirl with musical notes interspersed with nature’s leaves. They’re realistic, but imbued with magic, what the girl and Mr. Mergler shared when they played music. She thought: “We make everything else disappear.” What a beautiful story. I wonder if this could be used as a mentor text for readers to write from their own memories of special relationships?

         "The world is filled with wonders, no matter where we go." Like this Grandpa, my husband used to take our first grandchild on walks, looking for and finding those "tiny, perfect things" and now I do this with my granddaughters. That grandson is now a senior in high school! So, you must know how much this book touched me as this grandfather takes his granddaughter out walking, looking and finding, the girl tells her mother upon returning home: "A leaf, a snail, a cat, some crows." In brief rhyming text, M.H. Clark takes us along on this journey, hopefully inspiring other adults to take their own walks with children in their lives. Madeline Kloepper wonderfully illustrates the discoveries of these tiny, perfect things as she shows this pair looking down (at a leaf) up high (at a snail on a gate and crows in a tree). They notice interesting things with people, too, like a man with a feather in his hat. A surprise is added at the end with a double page spread where readers are invited to discover their own 'tiny, perfect things'. On daily walks, with granddaughters or alone, my own wandering makes me look for what I will now remember as "tiny, perfect things." 

What's Next: Still reading Hunger Journeys and nearly finished with a copy of a book just published from Candlewick, The Dollar Kids by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, illustrated by Ryan Andrews. I read this much of Sunday, and am enjoying it very much!