Monday Reading - Love These Picture Books

          Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and 

  

Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading! 

       

Today is my 10th blogiversary! My posts have taken varied turns throughout these years, writing with the Two Writing Teachers started this journey and I loved it for quite a long time. There, then a couple of other groups is where I first wrote with Ruth Ayres, someone I still connect with whenever I can who has hosted a couple of different ideas, now with SOS (sharing our stories) magic. Then I met Jen & Kellee, finally Ricki, and the Poetry Friday group, every single one making me feel welcome. I am happy that I started. This will be post number 2,128!  

I am halfway through this very complicated story woven within Greek mythology. I'm enjoying it but it took a while to begin to know the characters' names and to see the plot developing. The background research Laura Amy Schlitz is amazing!

Thanks to Candlewick Press for these next two books!

             In a rhyming story, Caryn Yacowitz tells a story full of love from Moses' mother who couldn't keep him hidden anymore from the Pharaohs who wanted to kill all the boy babies of the children of Israel. She crafted a little boat and hid him in the reeds by the bank of the river Nile. Yacowitz imagines a story of animals watching over him as he floats downstream, an Ibis, a Mama Hippo, and even a Mighty Crocodile. They keep him from being caught by some reeds, through fast currents, even a terrible storm. Finally, "plunging through the wild waters/toward the calm of sandy shore" he is found by the Pharaoh's daughter. It is an imagined story of nature's creatures taking care of a young one when no one else could be there made even more beautiful by Julie Downing's gorgeous watercolors. If it's time to tell a young reader the story from the Bible of Moses, this will be a sweet one to share.

           Gideon Storer's book begins on the endcovers where a group of animals stands hidden in the forest watching trailers and trucks roll up to set up a traveling fair. They don't stop watching until finally, the caretaker (manager?) flips the switch and the fair begins with all the fun you can imagine, booths for winning prizes like a ringtoss for a goldfish (remember those?), rides with giant swings and roller coasters and treats like cotton candy and ice cream. Watching from the shadows, more animals gather, the caretaker closes up, they wait. And it starts all over again when two raccoons flip that switch with every animal having the time of their lives, all night until the sky begins to lighten and they drift back into the woods, the bear carrying her very tired little one, the fox taking his goldfish prize to the lake. So many details in Mariachiara Di Giorgio's illustrations will delight you in this fabulous, wordless picture book. The animals do clean up a bit, but forget to empty the cash bowl of their payments of acorns, wildflowers, and mushrooms. The back end covers show an empty field with only a peek of the rear end of a trailer moving away. 

        Here are a couple of favorite pages, the title page and one other!

From the library!

          Matthew Burgess tells a beautiful story of this artist, Keith Haring, who sadly was not here on earth very long (he died at age thirty-one), but has made an impact all over the world. Who does not recognize his work when you see it? In his younger days, Keith drew with his dad. They took turns with what looked like scribbles but, as the story goes, might turn into an ice cream cone. "He drew all the time,  everywhere. 'But not on the walls!' his mother would call." He was the oldest of four, with three little sisters. Burgess shows again how he did art with those sisters, too.

          The book tells Haring's story of moving from place to place, from art school to art school, finally finding "his" world in New York City. He painted walls everywhere in the world, he painted with children, he painted on a church's wall in Pisa and a stretch of the Berlin Wall. Josh Cochran manages to find the spirit of Keith Haring in the illustrations that are splashed in bold colors and fun movement. Even in a book, they manage to be like walls! More information is added at the back: a biographical note with a picture of Keith Haring painting, an author's note, and an illustrator's note. For someone who loves art, who wants to know more, and be inspired by Keith Haring's work and life, this is a special book.

                 A Hmong grandmother tell her story of looking for food, bare feed rubbed raw with dirt, clay and blood until it's permanent. The young granddaughters take good care of their grandmother, washing her, clipping her toenails, and most loving of all, listening to her stories. KaoKalia Yang shares her stories from her own life and family. The illustrations of Khoa Le are rich with family faces, jungle plants of the past, and most lovingly, the face of Grandma. Tension comes from an older grandchild who is tired of "never enough money", wishing for braces. There's a story here too about that "most beautiful thing", something for those who read this to ponder. It's an extraordinary and loving family story.

           This happened in May of 1921, 100 years ago, and still, the battle remains for justice in every area of the lives of Black people. That's the first sad fact I learned in this somber telling of the Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford. The repetition of her text makes a strong statement, a tale to be told over and over again now. It was years before anyone but that community knew the truth of it. She begins with "Once upon a time" and first tells of the oil boom in the Tulsa area and the growth across the tracks in the Black Greenwood community. It was highly successful with two newspapers, a hospital, banks, groceries, theaters, a grand hotel, beauty salons, and barbershops, everything that can be imagined, including good schools! There were fifteen Black doctors, one of whom was known as "the ablest Black surgeon in the nation." "Once upon a time" that community thrived, but the white community was resentful and there was tension. As the story builds in this community description, Lloyd Cooper creates the magic with scenes and faces of all those ordinary and extraordinary folks, doing work, having fun, building up their lives.

           Then, one day a Black shoeshine man rode an elevator and the girl operator accused him of assault. According to Weatherford's note, it seemed he stumbled and stepped on her foot. The rest of this story is what you probably imagine. A lynch mob formed, Black people from the community came to defend him. And when they were told more were coming, thousands of white people stormed, killed, and burned the people and buildings of Greenwood. The sorrow of Cooper's illustrations in those pages is not easy to see. His grandfather was one of the residents of that place, one who survived. This massacre was not even acknowledged until 1997 when the state of Oklahoma authorized an investigation into the "so-called race riot". It has since become known as a massacre. Weatherford does end with some hope, a call for all of us "to realize the responsibility we all have to reject hatred and violence and to instead choose hope". There is now what is called the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park with several cultures depicting the history of African Americans in Oklahoma. An author's and illustrator's note can be found at the end, along with several photographs.

           Decur, the author/illustrator is Guillermo Decurgez, born in Argentina, has published and exhibited all over the world. Chloe Garcia Roberts is a poet and translator who lives in Boston. This book was translated from Spanish. And what a story it is! A young boy and his mother (see the cover) have just moved into a house with lots of space around them. The boy, stuck to his phone, asks immediately if there is wifi. He wanders into the house and his mother tells him where his room will be. There, taking up quite a lot of the room, is a rolltop desk. He's not even sure how to open it! Thus begins an adventure with few words and wondrous illustrations, all arriving at a very satisfying end. It's a terrific surprise with every page.

Still reading:  Amber & Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz and The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah.