It's Monday - "Wow" Books

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

          Happy to share two brand new picture books, out this month!

I completed quite a few reviews last week, books read from my #MustReadin2019 list & others. I couldn't share them earlier because they were all on the Cybils' Finalists for Poetry list and I was a second-round judge. You can find them on Goodreads if you like. I know that many of you have already read them.

Congratulations to the Cybils winners announced here on Valentine's Day!  I enjoyed being a second round judge for poetry, but it was a hard task to choose among the seven marvelous finalists. You can find all the finalists' lists here! If ever you need a new book to read, find these lists! 

Recent reviews:

In the Past: From Trilobites to Dinosaurs by David Elliott (Candlewick Press)

Mary's Monster: Love, Madness by Lita Judge (Roaring Brook Press) (#MustRead)

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (HarperTeen) (#MustRead)

Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins (Seagrass Press)

             I struggled to put this down, know many have read ahead of me, some loving the story, others revolted. A personal journey that's chronicled, supported by journals and 'outside' family presents both a tragedy and a triumph (probably I'm repeating others). Sometimes I was frightened by what was happening, for Tara Westover, yet always hoping there would be a path out, a way to escape. Then I realized that physicality aside I could not see a way out until Tara chose it herself. Adults, older teens, need to read this life illumination, perhaps to help one's own self-reflection. My third #MustRead book this week!

        I could not finish this book without looking for the statistics on homeless children in the U.S., could not find very recent numbers. In 2014, The National Center on Family Homelessness says 2.5 million children are homeless, half of which are without shelter. And, as you all probably know, the experiences are worse in other countries, hence this book by Padma Venkatraman, heart-breaking and hard to imagine. Her author's note tells that she's based this story on experiences and interviews with countless people, including children) in her native India.           

        This was both tough to read and equally hard to stop. That young girl, Viji, telling the story, has a voice that's so strong, showing what her childhood with an abusive father has been. She's had to become strong, defending her mother and caring for her sister, Rukku, who has a developmental disability. It's a new look at voice to me. Viji tells this story as she speaks to Rukku, describing her sister's actions, imagining and ensuring her needs, until she can't anymore. 

      The beautiful way Padma Venkatraman offers this story makes me know well that all children have something important to tell us, thoughts that often go unheard. Here is an excerpt of this voice of a young girl who has escaped with her sister and marvels at an orange thrown at them from a rich family's tree: "Until then, I'd thought it was a sad thing that you were sometimes slower than the rest of us. But that day, I realized that slow can be better than fast. Like magic, you could stretch time out when we needed it, so that a moment felt endless. So the taste of half an orange could last and last."

        Viji and her sister, Rukku have run away to live on their own. Life on the streets of their city of Chennai is terrible for girls considered outcasts. These two sisters manage to find shelter on an abandoned bridge and befriend Muthi and Arul, two boys in a similar predicament, who willingly help Viji navigate this new and frightening world. They are often hungry and scared but they have each other and they actually adopt a puppy, Kutti, the best dog ever. Good things happen, like when they visit the garbage after a wealthy family's wedding. Yes, I did write "garbage". This time, it is fresh and they marvel at what has NOT been eaten, has been thrown out, consider themselves lucky. Certain scenes are tender in the relationship--a scene where Arul explains his faith in Jesu, his God and helps Rukku light candles and one where Arul tells of his terrible past and the others comfort. I hope that those children able to read this book, adults, too, will feel it's a life-changing experience, will want to find ways to help the children in our world whose obstacles are many.

         If you know the books One Day, The End or The Knowing Book, then you also know that Rebecca Kai Dotlich's imagination takes readers into marvelous worlds, just right books to use for delightful writing projects or simply to bring smiles to everyone in the audience!

           This brand new book becomes Rebecca's new wonder with this adventure of two polar bears, off to become explorers and in the trip, they show courage and resilience as they encounter gorgeous sights and scary moments. It's also about the goodness of friendship. When a friend is there, one can face anything! Those bears travel on a ship imagined from an iceberg and when a city made of crayons melts, the bears use pencils to create a beautiful gray world. This is when eyes must pop while hearing the words, then seeing Fred Koehler's illustrations that bring the words to life. Next, words from the universe disappear, but those ready-for-anything bears invent their own language. They protect each other by holding hands when encountering the "big and scary". I read this to one granddaughter who laughed with wide eyes and said "wow" when other pages were revealed. A satisfying and perfectly OPEN ending makes me know that those reading will then shout "What's next?" 

 

       It's a book for giggles, a book for looking carefully if one wishes to discover other fairytale friends who have sneaked into this new hilarious tale by Josh Funk. That storyteller is back, trying hard to tell the "real" story, but Hansel and Gretel (excuse me, Gretel and Hansel) are telling it their way. No, the parents aren't plotting to get rid of them and NO, there is not a wicked witch, at least not one that seems familiar. It's time to get this book for lots of laughs to "hear" and to "see". Josh Funk must love filling the pages with fairytale whimsey. (Perhaps he read Rebecca's book shared above and said, "WHAT IF?" And let Gretel and Hansel answer "THEN WE. . ."?)

     Actually, I think Marla Frazee has written and illustrated it all--brief text, simple illustrations, marvelous. Solving friendship problems are hard. Sometimes they take a long time to figure out. Being cranky doesn't help. Taking one step of kindness might. It feels like this will start some great conversations!











Now Reading: The Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy.