It's Monday - All About Love

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. 

        This week, I seem to have chosen books whose underlying theme is love, even with inanimate objects!


        And there is more to love this week. The winner of my giveaway posted last Monday here is--drum roll, of course--  Casi Wildeman. I've contacted her so I can give her address to the publisher. Thanks to everyone who entered.


And Cathy Mere & Mandy Robek remind here that it's nearly time for #PB10for10! Are you getting ready?

            When I read a book and love it, I want to tell it all. I want to be sure to write enough so that everyone reads it. But I cannot. This is one to experience, to savor the warmth of the family of Mason Buttle, his grandma and Uncle Drum who, though with few words, show how much they cherish their 'best boy'. And, Mason's story is all his, as I imagine Leslie Connor wanted it to be. Come meet him and those in his life this particular time in his life, his seventh-grade year. You will fall in love.

       

         Crafted by Paris Rosenthal and her father Jason as a companion to Dear Girl, a "dear" book she wrote with her late mother Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It's a book to boost you if you're a boy, a book that gives a hug to all things boys can be. I like the lines later in the book that "whenever you need an encouraging boost, remember you can turn to any page in this book." It's a hug for boys, might just be what is needed sometimes! Holly Hatam also illustrated this book, filled with her signature line drawings and collages. 

           This is what a loving Papi does, comes home after a tough day of work, and takes his daughter for a ride past all her favorite places. They rumble, they nod, they wave and smile. There is Abuelita's church and Joy's Market. There are the murals that tell their history. It's sad that Don Rudy's raspado shop is closed. No flavored shaved ice today. There is more told from Isabel Quintero as she writes a sweet author's note of her town of Corona, poignant and important to read. Zeke Pena's illustrations come alive on the pages. It's almost possible to hear that motorcycle zoom. Quintero and Pena also wrote the beautiful Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide.

        You may not know it from the cover, but eraser has a big problem with Pencil. In fact, he wants Pencil outta there, to disappear. He wants everything clean, yes, no squiggles at all. Yet, there is a time when he realizes that something new can happen with collaboration. It's a delightful lesson for working together, for looking at things in new ways. 

          

         It's a timely book, isn't it because of the harsh rhetoric recently in the news, the words of "go back where you came from"? This time, Yamile Saied Mendez tells of a young girl who  is asked by classmates, a friend's mother, a dance teacher where she is from. She knows her Abuelo will know, "because he knows everything." As an adult we might guess the poetic and loving answer, but children will be surprised that Abuelo has a different answer that she imagined. It warms the heart, especially with Jaime Kim's gorgeous full-page illustrations, like the one where the answer is "You come from the Pampas, the open, free land."

         

         I thought I was finished sharing this week, but then I discovered this book at my library and wanted to tell about it before school starts. It includes (as the cover says) ten award-winning authors and illustrators. But, you may not recognize everyone because they are all from Great Britain, each one a national ambassador for children's literature, a "Laureate". Each writes and/or draws about their process, encouraging children, adults, too, to get with it and start doing some creating! It will be fun to share these ideas in the classroom, or use them yourselves. It's terrific!

Now reading from my #MustReadin2019 list: Me and Marvin Gardens & slowly making my way through The Good Neighbor, a biography of Mr. Rogers.