Deb Nance
Oh my gosh! Florence Gordon. She's the cranky old lady we all want to be at seventy-five. Truth, above all else. Painful truth, usually. And not just to a few select folks, but them all. And to the end. Whew. Adore this book. C'mon, all you namby-pamby ladies out there...this book is for you, to buck up and take life on. And everyone else, well, I think you'll see a bit of who you could be.
It's time for Mouse to go to sleep. At first it's quiet. “It's too quiet!” Mouse shouts.
And then the night noises begin.
And they get louder...and louder...
...and louder...until Mouse must protest again.
Perfect for talking about onomatopoeia. And just good fun.
Kay Redfield Jamison takes a close look at that high-of-highs, exuberance. She studies the famous in history who have exuded exuberance including Teddy Roosevelt and Charles Schulz's Snoopy.
Who would have thought that a children's book about a dog living in England in 1381 would have such a realistic feel? The dog experiences losing her master and mistress, captured and imprisoned by men who don't like the peasants revolting. The dog experiences losing her puppies. The dog experiences the difficulties of trying to find food in lean times. An unexpectedly stark look at life during these times. So stark that I would caution parents of sensitive children.
Henry Brown is enslaved from birth, forced to work in a tobacco processing factory. He meets Nancy as a young man and the two slaves marry and have children together. And then Nancy's owner sells her and her children. Henry Brown never sees his family again. It motivates Brown to escape, and he has the idea to box himself up and mail himself to a free state. And so he does.
A story of courage and inspiration.
Initial thoughts: On to Arizona territories. Diary. So real it could have been so.
Second read:
These Is My Words is the story of Sarah Prine during her time in the Arizona Territories from 1881 to 1901. It's a moving story, an emotional story, full of action and adventure, of joy and woe, of gain and loss. I had to add this to my favorites shelf.
A 1001 CBYMRBYGU.
Seven dragon balls. Magic wishes. An actual dragon. A pig. The good guys have been imprisoned and the dragon balls have been stolen. Action. Adventure. Manga-ish.
Bindu loves her bindis and she loves her Nani, and she especially loves to match her Nani. It's hard for Bindu to face up to opposition and intolerance that she sometimes meets because of her culture, but Nani does it well and Bindu finds herself following her Nani's lead.
A story that is steeped in cultural pride and courage to face and overcome intolerance.
As a young child, Edward Eager was my favorite author. There was a lovely shelf of Edward Eager books in my school library, and I couldn't wait each week to pick a new one. This was one of the weaker ones in the series, I thought. Still I couldn't resist reading this book again when I found a copy in my Little Library this week.
It's the story of two sets of cousins, each set the children of one of the original four children in Half Magic, now, of course, adults. They go to stay with an elderly woman by the seashore and meet a frog in a magical thyme garden. The children learn they can travel through time with the thyme. (Clever, right?)
It will never be my favorite Edward Eager, but I did find I enjoyed it a little better this time.
Timeless stories of the friendship of two very different fellows, Frog and Toad. Highly recommended.
Timeless stories of the friendship of two very different fellows, Frog and Toad. Highly recommended.
Timeless stories of the friendship of two very different fellows, Frog and Toad. Highly recommended.
A wordless graphic novel, The Arrival is the story of a man who leaves his family to work in the big city of a foreign land. The pictures show a place both familiar and strange, people both familiar and strange, objects both familiar and strange. That combination of familiarity and strangeness created a feeling of fascination in this reader that kept me reading (Reading? Is that the word for figuring out the story from the pictures without text?) to the end. A brilliant book. A must-read.
A set of twins from India moves to Canada. The twins meet and befriend another set of twins who were born in Canada but who have family in India.
It's fun to see how both sets of twins learn and grow by interacting with others.
The book is dedicated to “all those who have faced adversity due to their cultural background and/or ethnicity.”
My Place depicts a neighborhood in Australia and its changes over time. Wheatley starts with present day (or, rather, what was present day when the book was first published) and moves back ten years for each two page spread. I, like most Americans, know absolutely nothing about the world outside the U.S. of A. so almost all the historical events depicted in this book were new to me. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed taking a small trip through a small part of Australia with Wheatley and Rawlins. Well done.
Abel is set to have a lovely picnic with his wife when all his plans are upset by a hurricane. He finds himself alone on the island, and he learns he must rely upon himself.
There's no children's writer that respects his readers as much as William Steig. What a vocabulary. What descriptions. What lovely illustrations.
The copyright says 1995, but it's so contemporary that it could have been written yesterday.
New people move into Stella Street. These new people are oh-so la-di-dah pretentious and snooty. The children on the street (as well as some of the more childlike adults) can see right through these phonies; in fact, the new people are quickly nicknamed Mr. and Mrs. Phonie. What is really going on at the Phonie house? It's up to the children (and some of the more childlike adults) to find out.
I know I read this book at some point earlier in my life—maybe even a couple of times—but all I remember is the disappointment I felt. A Wrinkle in Time was a pivotal book for me. I identified with Meg, and I loved the Murry family with their emphasis on studying the world and making the world a better place. I couldn't wait to read book two, but the ending left a lot of things unclear, and remember also being frustrated with how the battle against bad guys not only had to be fought in outer space but also on a microscopic level.
I felt those same things with this read, but somehow time has tamped that down and I have a new appreciation for the wisdom of the fight and the ways that Meg and her companions were able to overcome the bad with good.
Just a bit about the plot: Meg's younger brother, Charles Wallace, has started school and he is suffering from bullying as well as from some mysterious mitochondrial ailment. Meg is approached by a cherubim and a teacher who guide her into action as Meg and her companions (one of whom is, intriguingly, her arch-enemy and former principal, Mr. Jenkins) must leap into action.
Bear is very excited about going to his first dance class. He loves all the new dance clothes. But then he starts feeling nervous when he gets to the class. Will he have a good time?
The pictures vividly share the emotional experience of going to do something for the first time. The words exactly reflect the feelings of a young one.
With big bold illustrations and big bold words, Doreen Rappaport tells the story and Bryan Collier illustrates the story of the life of civil rights activist and minister Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Here are my favorite big bold words of Dr. King: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
Dr. King also said, “Love is the key to the problems of the world.”
“That summer the fence that stretched
through our town seemed bigger.
We lived in a yellow house
on one side of it.
White people lived on the other.
And Mama said, “Don't climb over
that fence when you play.”
She said it wasn't safe.
Clover lives on one side of the fence. She sees a girl on the other side, and watches as the girl comes to sit on the fence. One day, Clover approaches the girl.
I could read this book aloud all day, every day, and I would do it, if I could, in my school library, or sitting on my front porch steps, or even aloud to my husband. It's a perfect story to start discussions, and it gives me hope, like that of the children, that one day we won't be building walls, but tearing them down.
A boy is waiting for the sap to run. Then it will be sugaring time.
He's waiting.
And waiting.
And then his tooth is loose.
And he's waiting for that, too.
James Herriot shares stories of his time in the RAF during WWII. He often uses these as springboards to times he spent as a vet.
If you are a wanna-be writer, you will do well to read these stories and listen to a master storyteller at work.