Crow Call

Crow Call is Lois Lowry’s first ever picture book. Hard to believe that she’s never ventured into picture books, given that Ms. Lowry has been writing for a long time, and has written to so much acclaim. Number the Stars is among my favourite books ever, and I know many children who would say the same. So I was expected something special in Crow Call, something thoughtful and exquisitely written. Lowry’s first picture book delivers, and deserves a place alongside titles by picture book masters such as Eve Bunting, Cynthia Rylant and Sarah Stewart.

Crow Call is based on a small moment from Lowry’s childhood, a day she spent with her father just after he returned from WWII. There’s a photograph of Lowry as a little girl on the final page of the book. She’s dressed in a hugely oversized plaid shirt, just like the child in her story. The little girl heads out on a hunting trip with her father and the two spend the day together for the first time in a long while.

This is a quiet study of a relationship between a girl and her father, at a moment when both are trying to span the distance created between them after a long absence. If you’re a teacher, this book is made for showing kids what it means to zero in on a small moment, and write that moment with as much detail and emotional richness as possible. Lowry’s words glow: “Grass, frozen after its summer softness, crunches under our feet; the air is sharp and supremely clear, free from the floating pollens of summer, and our words seem etched and breakable on the brittle stillness. I feel the smooth wood of the crow call in my pocket, moving my fingers against it for warmth, memorizing its ridges and shape.” Sigh. There’s nothing fancy or overwrought here. It’s just exactly the right words put just the right way. It’s understated and yet impressive. Speaking of impressive, illustrator Bagram Ibatoulline has created some stunning artwork for Lowry’s story. The muted tones suggest the past, as well as the spirit of the late fall setting. There is one gorgeous double page spread that made my jaw drop. Lois has posted a picture of it at her blog – take a look. Even more impressive in living colour, I assure you. By the way, Lois’s blog is lovely, a real glimpse into her life and her art. Go hang out with her for a while, and go get your own copy of Crow Call, sure to be as much a classic as any other Lowry title.

Crow Call is published by Scholastic Press and is available now.

Winter’s Tail – Review & Giveaway

*Thanks to all those who left comments on this post. A winner has been selected and contacted. Happy Reading!*

Winter’s Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again is a new offering from the authors who brought us Owen & Mzee, Knut and Looking for Miza (Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff and Craig Hatkoff). I’m a sucker for an animal rescue story, and all of the Hatkoffs’ books have inspired such enthusiastic response from my students, so I was happy to see they’ve headed into new, watery territory for their latest work. Here’s the publisher’s teaser text:

“When Winter, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, was just three months old, she was rescued from a crab trap off the coast of Florida , and her tail was seriously damaged. She was rushed to Clearwater Marine Aquarium. It wasn’t clear that she would survive, but to everyone’s amazement, she did. Eventually though, her tail fell off, which caused Winter to compensate by swimming more like a fish than a dolphin. Over time, it was clear that she was seriously damaging her spine. But, for the last year, Winter has been learning to use a prosthetic tail. The idea came from a company that makes prosthetics for humans. It was challenging, but Winter is thriving and using her new tail with great command.

Winter is an inspiration to everyone, especially to children and adults who face challenges themselves. Many follow her blog and write e-mails to her. Day after day, the crowds come to Clearwater for a close-up look at Winter, the little dolphin that could.”

As with their previous books, the authors focus on the resilience of the animal and the amazing lengths that the human caregivers go to in order to restore and support the animal’s quality of life. The text is engaging, presenting Winter’s story in a highly narrative style, with vocabulary that is totally accessible to a young audience. Photographs take you inside the aquarium at different stages in Winter’s rehabilitation and there is a substantial amount of additional information at the end of the book on the Clearwater Aquarium, dolphins and training and also on the prosthetic company that created Winter’s tail. I’m eager to integrate this text into my unit on Habitats and on animal adaptations. I’d like to get the kids thinking about how nature informs and inspires technology and vice versa.

There’s a great website for teachers and kids and a trailer that you could show your students:

I’m happy to be able to offer one giveaway prize – a lovely package of dolphiny-type-treats:

• Dolphin Plush
• Dolphin Key Chain
• Winter’s Tail game for Nintendo DS
• Copy of Winter’s Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again Book

The giveaway is open participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers may enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail!) It will run for 2 weeks after this post date (to about October 15th) and the winner will be contacted by email. Be sure you include your email someplace so that I can reach you. Just drop off a comment below to enter.

Winter’s Tail is published by Scholastic Press.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

The critics can’t decide if they want to gobble this movie up, or serve up the leftovers to the pooch. Personally, I think it looks like fun. The book has always been a favourite of mine for its silliness.

I’m going, for sure.

And yes, I get that the movie’s website is ultimately all about selling tickets, but who could resist having a little fun with the monkey in the 3-D food fight game? Not me. So, time for a little flying food-inspired poll:

Elephant-y books, a giveaway & an interview with Carol Buckley

Phew! Prepare yourself for one juicy, packed-full-of-treats post! Today I am happy to review two lovely non-fiction picture books from Tilbury House about the elephants at Tennessee’s amazing Elephant Sanctuary. These books are authored by Carol Buckley, one of the founders of the Sanctuary. As well, Carol has stopped by for an interview. Finally, Tilbury has kindly arranged for a few prizes in celebration of this blog tour: one is a copy of Just for Elephants signed by author and Sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley, and the grand prize is a copy of Travels With Tarra, signed by Carol and featuring a scanned image of Tarra’s signature symbol – her footprint! Also, a package of Tilbury House Animal Books— The Goat Lady, Thanks to the Animals, and an advance copy of Bear-ly There will go to one lucky winner who leaves a comment on one or more of the respective tour posts (September 1-8, 2009). For all of these prizes, you just need to leave a comment on one of the posts in Carol’s blog tour. If you are on twitter, you can also win a copy of each of Carol’s books by tweeting before September 9th about the tour using the hashtag #trunktour. Winners will be contacted at the end of the blog tour after September 10th. (Note: open only to residents of Canada and the U.S.)

Let’s get on with the celebration!

Just for Elephants introduces readers to the Sanctuary and its philosophy by focusing on the story of how one of the resident elephants, Shirley, came to live there. Readers will steal a glimpse into everyday life for the elephants at the Sanctuary and through Shirley’s connection to the other elephants, begin to appreciate the complex and deep social relationships that elephants form. Travels with Tarra is the story of Carol Buckley’s amazing relationship with Tarra, the Asian elephant she has had for more than 25 years. It traces their early years performing together at circuses, theme parks and zoos, moving on to the years when Carol was establishing the Elephant Sanctuary. Both books are written in a simple and direct narrative style that will be accessible to younger readers, but with detail enough to engage older readers too, for both those who enjoy non-fiction and fictional texts. Some of the photography is fantastic, with pictures of the elephants hanging out, roaming and enjoying life and freedom on the land at the Sanctuary. A few of the photos in Just for Elephants were quite out-of-focus, which while this lent a certain “behind-the-scenes realism” to the text, I thought was a little distracting and surprising, given that I’m sure there were thousands of possible pictures to use. Travels with Tarra has some great shots of Tarra as a wee little elephant, sure to inspire more than a few “Aawww!”s.

As usual with Tilbury, teachers will find many good ideas for using these books in the classroom at Tilbury’s site. Also, while the Sanctuary is not open for visitors, they have established opportunities for teachers to schedule virtual tours via teleconference and there are excellent units for K-8 available for free downloading at the website.

Tilbury has come up with a lovely way to support the Elephant Sanctuary by planning a “Trunk Sale” running now through December 31st. For every 100 copies of the elephant books (Travels With Tarra and Just for Elephants) that are sold, Tilbury will sponsor a much-needed item from the Sanctuary’s wish list. These include 100lbs of peanut butter (a favorite treat), elephant-sized meals, and land to roam (to support the Sanctuary’s recent expansion). The books are available from indie stores across the country, online retailers, and direct from The Elephant Sanctuary, www.elephants.com.

Now for the interview. Welcome Carol!

I’m sure that in all of your years caring for and working with elephants, you’ve seem some pretty remarkable social interactions between elephants. Could you share the most memorable moment you’ve witnessed related to elephant interaction?

One of the most remarkable scenes I have witnessed occurred was shortly after Bunny arrived. Bunny had live 44 years alone in a small zoo. Her keepers were highly protective of her to the point of sheltering her from experiences that might have helped her to become a more confident individual, but they cared deeply for Bunny and felt they were doing the right thing by being over protective. When Bunny arrived at the Sanctuary she was insecure about the very ground she walked on. The surface was not level as she was used to and she had no experience with negotiating trails, climbing a gentle sloop or crossing a rocky creek. This evening Bunny was making her way back to the barn with a caregiver at her side gently coaxing her over this new and scary terrain. Bunny failed to recognize the land dropping slightly and tripped. She fell to her knees. She was visually shaken although she had not fallen down or injured herself, she was afraid. The caregiver tried to comfort Bunny and encourage her but she would not move. She was frozen in fear. At that point Barbara, another elephant, appeared in the distance, she was looking in Bunny’s direction. Bunny was not uttering an audible sound at least not audible to the human ear. But Barbara appeared to be responding to something as she came directly over to Bunny, gently laid her trunk on Bunny face and then just as silently as she arrived, Barbara turned to leave. Bunny rose from her knees and immediately followed Barbara without hesitation.

Teacher Book Alert: When it’s Six O’clock in San Francisco

I received my copy of When it’s Six O’clock in San Francisco a while back, but I put it away and hadn’t looked at it until today, because I didn’t want to think about anything even remotely related to school so early in my summer holiday. Now that we’re into August, and my mind is starting to turn back to teaching, I thought I could safely pick it up. As it turns out, my feeling that it would be a great teaching book was exactly right. This lovely picture book is the perfect way to help students understand the tricky concept of time zones.

Cynthia Jaynes Omololu has created a text that is accessible and lyrical, and Randy DuBurke’s evocative and warm illustrations bring the multicultural aspect of the work vividly to life. The book begins with a boy waking up one February morning in San Francisco. From there, as the pages turn, the reader moves around the world, from Montréal to Santiago to London and Cape Town and beyond. At each new place, the text starts off, “When it’s six o’clock in San Francisco…” and goes on to give the time in that part of the world and to describe what a child who lives there is doing at that time of day. Omololu describes ordinary things – going to school, playing in a soccer game, running errands, having dinner and cycling home. There is something comforting and beautiful in the way she describes the ordinary events of daily life, and I think kids will appreciate this and make connections to the text easily.

I remember being fascinated as a child by the idea that somewhere on the other side of the world a kid was going to bed when I was just getting up, or heading home from school as I was climbing onto the bus. There was some magic in that, even when I understood the real explanation for it. It made me feel oddly connected to people I knew I would never meet. Omololu’s book captures that spirit, and I imagine it will get kids wondering what other children are doing, at all different times of the day, on the other side of the planet.

When it’s Six O’clock in San Francisco is published by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Scaredy Squirrel at night (Earth Hour reading?)

The original Scaredy title is one of my favourite picture books ever, so funny and original and clever as anything. When I worked at The Flying Dragon I would judge customers according to their response to Scaredy. Those who laughed were cool (and obviously smart too). Those who didn’t? Well, they were just dull, sad excuses for human beings.

Mélanie Watt is crazy talented, and her furry little buddy has become a darling in Can-kid’s lit. Scaredy Squirrel at night is book 4 in the series (after the first and then Scaredy makes a friend and Scaredy at the beach). As much as the follow-up titles continue to be lots of fun (and let me tell ya, the kids can’t get enough), I have to say that the first is absolutely the best. I think that there was something about encountering the jokes for the first time that made them especially delightful. The books that came after are still funny, but they are more like variations on a fantastic theme, and so don’t charm to quite the same level, in my opinion. I hope that Watt won’t take Scaredy in a direction that becomes purely formulaic, because he’s such a neurotic and lovable critter and I wouldn’t want to get tired of him.

Scaredy Squirrel at night brings us another adventure, this time as Scaredy does everything possible to avoid sleep because he’s pretty sure that nasty creatures would show up in his dreams. So instead he keeps busy counting stars, playing the cymbals and scrapbooking. (Love that detail!) As you might expect, something does not go according to plan and much confusion and Scaredy-hysteria ensues. Watt’s illustrations continue to be simple and bold and stylish. The best touch? On the cover, Scaredy’s toothy grin glows in the dark. That, as my students would say, is awesome.

So I’m thinking this is the perfect book to curl up with this evening during Earth Hour, given the theme and the glow-in-the-dark detailing. That’s what I’ll be doing, and some scrapbooking too.

Scaredy Squirrel at night is published by Kids Can Press.

Oliver Jeffers Roundup

Oliver Jeffers is one talented super-artist. I am crazy about his picture books. His style is so refined looking, modern and muted. And gosh darn it, the man knows how to write a sweet story. I defy you to read Lost and Found and not want to cuddle up to the first penguin who shows up on your doorstep. I’ve come across several Jeffers-inspired items in the kidlitosphere lately, so here are all of those treats together, in one handy roundup:

Guardian feature on Oliver Jeffers
Just One More Book’s podcast on The Way Back Home
Lots more Oliver Jeffers-related goodies at Just One More Book
StudioAKA’s gorgeous collection of stills from the short film version of Lost and Found. You’ll find the trailer there too.
Oliver Jeffers Illustration

There’s a hearty dose of sweetness for a freezing Sunday morning.

Princess Perfect

Even if you’re not a fairy tale person, even if the name “Disney” makes you think trashy and commercial, even if you know you couldn’t possibly take anything new from a story as oft-told as Cinderella, you’ve got to read Cynthia Rylant’s new-ish version of the story, with illustrations by Mary Blair. It will warm you (and the kiddies) on a chilly winter evening, and I promise you’ll look at the story afresh.

Mary Blair painted the original production art for Disney’s famous film, and its these paintings that grace the pages of this book. They’re bold and richly-coloured and suggestive, which makes sense, as they were used to inspire the animators who eventually created the film we all know.

Cynthia Rylant is a genius for writing in a style that is evocative but never overdone, and that absolutely begs to be read aloud. The tone and rhythm of the language just feels… perfect, as if the story has always been told just that way. The book is filled with lines that you want to remember and quote because they get straight to the heart of the most important themes in the fairy tale. Take page one, for instance:

“This is a story about darkness and light, about sorrow and joy, about something lost and something found. This is a story about Love.”

or

“How does a young man find his maiden? His heart leads him. He finds her in a room. He asks her to dance. And when he touches her, he knows.”

Sigh.

I’d probably pay money to read that woman’s grocery lists. I swear.

This is an edition of Cinderella that I plan to read to my niece before she gets her hands on any other versions. It’s almost more like poetry. Lovely.

Author Interview: Amy Lundebrek

Wintry treats today everyone! I’m very pleased to present an interview with debut picture book author Amy Lundebrek. Amy is beginning a blog tour to promote her book, Under the Night Sky, and I’m her first stop! In fact, the theme of our interview is “firsts.” Welcome Amy!

Just to get everyone in the right mood, take a look at two of the many beautiful illustrations in Amy’s book, by illustrator Anna Rich:

Stunning, yes? Let’s get started with the interview.

Describe when you first realized that you wanted to be a writer.

In seventh grade, my English teacher made a big assignment of writing a short story.  I think it may have been a weeklong event, the class reading model short stories, talking about characters, plot, and setting, and then each of us being assigned to write our own.  I loved school and was eager to please my teachers at the time, so I jumped right into it.  I had never before understood what it truly meant that someone had gone through a process of writing all those books we were reading.  It was a frustrating assignment for me because I desperately wanted my story to be good…well, to be the best.  I think I worked on it in all of my spare time that week.

I was very unhappy with what I turned in (I still have it, and it has to be the worst short story I’ve ever seen in my life), but I fell in love with the process of writing it.  That first experience with writing fiction unlocked something inside me and after that, I was always working on some little writing project of my own.  It was as if the teacher had given me permission to do this activity that I could do all on my own using only my mind, a pen and some paper.  To a child growing up without much money, discovering writing was a liberating experience.

What’s the first thing you do when you sit down to write?

This is a tough question because I’m still in a haphazard writing stage.  I work full time at a job that takes a lot of my mental and physical energy. So, at this present minute, I don’t “sit down to write” unless I have a scene burning my skull out and I have to write (kind of like sitting down to eat when you’re hungry).  So, when I sit down, I just write.  Usually the first time I put a scene down, I sit curled up on my couch and write longhand into a notebook with a blue gel pen.  When I’m on the couch, I’m allowed to write whatever I want, no matter how silly or how long or how many adverbs I have to use or how unrelated it is to the scene I’m actually working on.  Then usually the same day, I take what I’ve written and sit at my desk and type it into a computer document.  That’s when the biggest edit seems to happen for me… from the notebook to the computer because I’m in sort of a different mindset.

I need to get back into at least a couple set times where I purposefully sit down to write.  What has worked for me in the past was to dedicate Saturday mornings until noon and then one evening after work to writing.  A person can get an amazing amount of work done that way.

Tell us a bit about what first gave you the idea for “Under the Night Sky.” Did you imagine the characters before anything else, or did a particular scene come to your mind initially?

Several experiences that came together for me to create Under the Night Sky.  The primary one was coming home to my apartment after a second shift in the winter (just like the mom in the story except I was working in a call center), so it was about 10:30 at night and I looked up, and the northern lights were out.  They were taking up the whole sky, in the city!  I’d never seen that before.  (You never get a good idea about the size of a space, i.e. the sky, until there is some object in the space like the northern lights).  So, being a sort of “stop and smell the roses” kind of person, I got out of my car and got up on the hood with my back against the windshield and watched them for a long time.  (Maybe an hour, which in a Minnesota winter, is a very long time).  Several other people came home from work while I was out there, and seeing me looking up, they looked up too.  We never spoke, but I did share a smile with several people I’d never met.  I knew there could have been more of a connection if it weren’t for people’s fears (my own included), so I put that into my story as sort of “this is the way it could be.”  Another thought I had while I was out there was “if I had a child, I would go get him or her right now so they could see this.”  My thought immediately after that was since I don’t have a child (yet), maybe I could preserve the experience as a picture book and read it to my child later.  I had no idea this would actually work out.

Another experience that I drew into the story, is when I was a child, my mom was a second shift nurse.  So she came home after 11:00pm each night.  I was a little older than the child in the story, and I took care of my two younger brothers while she was at work.  We were supposed to be in bed sleeping before she got home, but I remember that I could never fall asleep until I heard her keys in the door.  I knew the exact sound of her keys, vs anybody else’s keys, and I knew the sound of her sigh and her boots.  In sort of a role reversal, I needed to know she was home safe before I could fall asleep each night.

Under the Night Sky

It’s pretty much the perfect time of year for Amy Lundebrek’s debut picture book, Under the Night Sky. It’s a gorgeous, evocative story of a child’s first experience with the strange magic of the Aurora Borealis, aka the Northern Lights. Picture time:

(Photo Attribution: Nick Russill)

In Under the Night Sky, a working mom comes home very late and gets her son out of bed. They bundle up and head outside into the night to watch the sky, filled with dancing, flickering light. Soon more people in their apartment building join them in the parking lot – an impromptu community gathering inspired by the spectacular natural light show. Mother and son and a family of neighbors clamber onto the roof of their old car and lie there, staring up. Throughout the night, the adults and children have conversations about what they seeing and about their lives as it gets later and later. In the morning, the boy remembers the events of the night before and senses the magic of what he experienced.

Amy Lundebrek really captures the feelings of excitement and spontaneity as a family and community celebrate one of the most awesome of natural phenomena. I liked how the story moves from the safe routines of ordinary life inside this family’s apartment, opening up to the wondrous, giant presence of the Aurora Borealis waiting just outside their building. It suggests that everyday we must be ready to step out of our highly scheduled lives to see and to value the amazing mysteries of the natural world. Not only will Amy’s book inspire kids to ask questions about the Northern Lights, I like too that it addresses in a subtle way the sometimes challenging experiences of some single-parent families. It is said early on that Mama works very late in a factory and her son waits up for her in bed after a neighbor checks in on him. This story makes clear the value of people supporting each other, working hard to make good lives together and still taking time when they can to create good times and powerful memories. I must mention as well that Anna Rich’s illustrations practically glow on the pages, with dark, deep background colours and bright streaks and hues enhancing Lundebrek’s descriptions.

This is certainly a story to inspire people to get out and enjoy nature even when the mercury drops low and the wind rattles the panes. When you come back inside, you’ve got a lovely book to curl up with.

There is a Tilbury House Teacher’s Guide for this title, and Amy will be here tomorrow for an interview, to launch her blog tour. Hooray!