Monday Reading - Enjoy These 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! 

   

         I missed last week, was on a trip to see my grandson at UK in Lexington, a great time visiting him, the university, and the town!

        Highlighting this new book by Laura Purdie Salas. If you aren't familiar with her special books, check her webpage, here!

             This was published on March 1st. I have an advanced copy but my trip kept me from sharing then. While Laura Purdie Salas could not foresee the tragic events happening in Ukraine, she's written a book that's perfect for our time now! Yes, We Belong! It's a welcoming story all the way through: "and I'm glad we are here. I'm glad that you're you." Laura's rhymes keep the pace, from excitement to empathy, always finding a way to support each difference, whether it's being quiet or loud, everyone's skin color, and a choice to "be who you are"! The celebration and support feel terrific and are enhanced by Carlos Vélez Aguilera's color-filled illustrations filled with diverse children and activities. "You and I, we're alike, but we're different, too./That's not good./That's not bad./It's just what is true." It would be lovely to share with a group and talk about all the unique ways in which we can "be", still enjoying our lives and life! Laura does a super job keeping things simple for younger readers, but making the important point for every reader that "We Belong."

 

       I took a long time to read this book, but not because of the book, because of different life challenges in my life. I finally, finally had the pleasure of reading to the end! It's about Bug, about to enter middle school and its challenges, wondering how to fit in, grieving over an uncle's death, and worrying about the family business. No one should have so many of these challenges yet Bug does persist in reaching some conclusions with courage, and with the help of the uncle, whose ghostly advice helps so much. What a special story for kids this age who are trying hard to grow up into who they are!

       

          One papa bear has a wonderful idea, to take his little bears out before bedtime to see the night sky. His words: "Sweaters on." bring so many shenanigans while his offspring are trying (maybe?) to get those sweaters on. Matt Phelan's story, with so few words the story really is told in his hilarious illustrators. There are seven little bears to get ready, and they do, with some help from Papa and siblings. The outside is lovely but all too fast it's time for "Sweaters off." then, you guessed it, "Pajamas on."! What a treat of a book that makes one smile all the way through.

       Years ago, I read At Day's Close, night in time's past by A. Roger Ekirch, a comprehensive history of night, mostly in Great Britain, some in America. There is where I learned about London's challenge that is written about in this picture book, The Great Stink. The adult book is amazing in its description of the alarming lives people lived, at night. This book by Colleen Paeff, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter will entice readers to know more. It certainly helps imagine this one challenge in London, where people had no idea that their poop was disease-ridden. Their only wish was to get rid of it and to get rid of the stink that almost overcame the city. 

        In those times, cholera was overcoming and killing the masses and most all believed it came from "miasmas", "smelly pockets of air". People continued to drink the water, just let the sediments sink to the bottom of the containers first. The story of wrong assumptions and the man who finally convinced the government that gigantic sewer pipes were the answer is one of persistence and actually, a bit of luck.  Bazalgette couldn't convince the government to spend the money on his plans, so until eventually the stink from the Thames grew "so feculent, so foul", people realized that they could no longer live with that "stink". Carpenter's illustrations fill the pages with scenes accompanied by the story, making it come alive with the period's costumes and conflicts alike. (It's good they didn't add smelly stickers!) Paeff adds more at the end with "Poop Pollution Today", a detailed timeline (up to 2018), and ways to help. One quote from our lives today: "Every year, 3.4 million people die from water-related (which means poop-related) diseases." Joseph Bazalgette helped save many lives, and still more is needed to bring safe drinking water to everyone.

         If you want a book about tree relationships that includes wind as one connection, this beautiful book by Todd Stewart shows a brief conversation between a 'grown-up' tree and the young one next to it. Beautiful changes in color and sky on double-pages bring up how the wind, scary at first to the young one, is a good thing yet can also be destructive at times. Bit by bit, the youngster grows up. It's a poignant imaginary conversation with illustrations showing time passing while wind swirls around doing what that wise tree shares that it does. Intriguing story and needs to be read aloud!

    Naaz Khan's rhyming gives a story full of giggles and a bit of moving around to make room on the dala dala for EVERYONE! Young boy Musa keeps asking his Dada how there can be enough at each stop. It seems unimaginable to include one more and with the rhyming and with Mercè López's hilarious illustrations of what may be a first look at a different place, readers will love it, and the happy ending, too! In one part: "After a shuffle, a squirm, and a squeeze, they found a small space beside Dada's knees." And that's only the beginning part of making "Room for Everyone". 

Thanks to Candlewick Press for these next two.

        With those gorgeous illustrations by John Holyfield, David Barclay Moore tells a folktale with goodness and magic, and a lot of rebellion. ol' Rootilla Redgums comes into the town of Walkerton, Georgia one day with her grandson Julius and a duck, a town where black people lived and worked, and also cried. It was after the Civil War but whites in the towns around would not buy anything from them because of the color of their skin. When they began making things taught by Rootilla, they had no trouble selling those goods, beautiful goods, but soon, white folks began to be suspicious, thinking it was black magic making them. What happened then with "Fearful Folks" is something rather hard to believe yet, having had enough cruelty, there was often a Julius Jefferson who tried to help and with a duck. Read the story, laugh if you must, but strange things can happen, especially when needed. 

                  Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek bring their creativity and imagination in fabulous poems arranged in four categories: fire, water, air, earth. But they are not always what you readers might imagine. The poems are not signed so one cannot know who wrote which one, but they write about keeping a fire in a playpen, a barred owl "pulling his old gray overcoat around him", a television remote saying "Your wish is my command!" and a poem titled "Book": "Oh, sandwich delicious, my book!" with a leaf of romaine as a 'crisp bookmark'. Richard Jones' illustrations punctuate these poetry gifts with an added imaginative flair. It's a wonderful book, to enjoy and to share with a child or a class or a friend!

What's Next: I'm reading Anthropocene by John Green and Cress Watercress by Gregory MaGuire.