Sunny Holiday

This was a random library find for me the other day. I haven’t read any of Coleen Murtagh Paratore’s other titles, but I know of her Wedding Planner’s Daughter series. It was the cover that grabbed me, and it’s no wonder! My well-honed Julia Denos radar is clearly at work. I love her art (she’s got oodles and oodles of talent, that one). The brightness of the colours, the fab pink shoes and the quirkily-named title character all said “sweetness” to me. I was right. There is some serious sweetness going on in this slim novel for younger readers, with enough struggle to be thought-provoking and to inspire conversation.

Sunny is as bright and positive as her name. Her mother likes to remind her that “the sun shined so bright and long the day (Sunny) was born, the stars got jealous and complained to God.” She tries to see the good in the world, in the people around her and in herself. It might not always come easily, but Sunny is willing to work at it. She loves holidays more than anything and she’s troubled by the fact that January and August are lacking in the holiday department, so she starts planning holidays with particular kid appeal to fill in the gaps. Sunny’s life isn’t perfect in every way. Riverview towers, her apartment building, might be full of many interesting and warm-spirited people, but the neighbourhood leaves a lot to be desired, what with the litter, the straggly trees, the chain-link fences and the polluted river. Sunny’s dad is in jail and she only gets to visit him the first Sunday of every month. Her mom works long hours as a hotel maid and then fills up her nights taking care of Sunny and taking college courses. Still, Sunny’s home is full of love and creativity and wisdom. The novel is a gentle portrait of a little girl who faces some hard situations with natural grace, humour and hope.

I read Sunny Holiday in one sitting. It was Sunny’s voice that drew me in, her poetic way of seeing the world. I loved the first chapter called “Dandelions.” Here’s one of the nicest bits:

“We don’t have a park or a yard, either, just one long, dirty-gray cement sidewalk. But that doesn’t stop a dandelion. A dandelion seed is smarty-pants-smart. That seed sails off on a wispy balloon, riding free on a summer breeze, search-search-searching for a home. It knows for sure it will find one. All it sees is sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk. Does it give up? No, it does not. That little seed keeps searching until it spots a crack. “Whoopee! Whoopee! Whoopee!” it shouts, and dives in for a happy landing. But then that seed realizes it’s all alone and sits there shaking, not sure just what to do next. Does it give up? No it does not. It sends down a skin-skinny raggedy root, far below, where no one can see, look-look-looking for dirt it can trust. that may take a very long time.”

Each little chapter is so short and yet there is a lot of emotion packed into every tiny package. I was reminded of Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street (gosh I love that book!) There’s the same true kid’s perspective in this book and in places, the same heart-squeezing effect as Sunny struggles against the circumstances of her life. My only complaint is that in places, Sunny came off a little Pollyanna-ish. You almost couldn’t believe that she would be so persistently positive. This is a small thing however. Mostly, you’ll just wish you could manage to see the world the way she does, always looking for good things and working to make changes to improve the rest. This would be an excellent title for use in the classroom, to initiate conversations around inclusion, compassion and creativity. It handles the more challenging background issues carefully, with just the right amount of information for a younger reader. Perfect for Grade 4, I should think.

Sunny Holiday is published by Scholastic Press.

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.

Chains

Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains is one of those books written for young people that I hope lots of grown ups will read too. Fine writing is fine writing, plain and simple, and you’d be hard-pressed to find better writing than this. Chains is for anyone with an interest in the Revolutionary War, who wants a story with guts and heart and an unforgettable central character. I adored this book. It’s about as perfect an example of historical fiction as you’ll find anywhere. Go get it.

After the death of their former owner, Isabel and her sister Ruth are sold to a nasty Loyalist family who take the girls to New York. Once there, Isabel becomes secretly involved with the rebels, offering information about her owners in exchange for the promise of freedom. Of course this bargain does not lead Isabel in the direction she had imagined, and she gets swept into the frenzy of conflict around her. This is a portrait of courage, loss, change and resilience – for a girl, and for a young nation.

I can only imagine the amount of research Anderson must have completed to create a story that feels completely true and is so rich in period detail. I began reading Chains with only a basic understanding of these events, and finished the novel inspired to read more of this historical period. Yet at no point do you feel like you’re reading a history textbook. The opposite of dry fact, here is an unflinching look at a cruel time. Expect Isabel’s story to grab onto you and hold tight till the end. The tone of the story, the strength of the characterization and richness of the setting and history reminded me in style of Geraldine Brooks’s novels, especially of Year of Wonders and March – two of my favourite reads ever.

Chains deserves all the praise it’s getting. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it walks away with The National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. This is why we read people.

Amadi’s Snowman

As a teacher, I’m ever on the look out for quality picture books that will support my aim to infuse social justice and equity issues into our work across the curriculum. Sometimes it can be tricky to find stories that suggest the complexity and reality of a difficult issue without becoming scary, overwhelming or didactic. Amadi’s Snowman, by Katia Novet Saint-Lot, illustrated by Dimitrea Tokunbo, is a story I’m eager to take into the classroom because it gets the balance of teaching and strong story-tellying just right.

In Nigeria, Amadi plans to grow up to be a successful Igbo businessman, earning as much money as he needs cleaning cars, delivering items in the market, or being a merchant. His mother (like mother’s everywhere), wants Amadi to stop complaining about having to go to free reading lessons with Mrs. Chikodili. He can’t see the use in them, he doesn’t like them and (like children everywhere), he does his best just to ignore his mother’s nagging.

As with so many kids, and adults too, all it takes to turn Amadi into a reader is one special book, in this case, a picture book about a snowman. He is captivated by this book that tells him about something he has never seen before, let alone imagined. He discovers the magic of books and becomes inspired to learn the secrets of reading.

You’re sure to love this touching book. It’s made for the classroom and for gift-giving. There is real lightness in Katia Novet Saint-Lot’s writing that will draw children into Amadi’s world and make his experiences seem all the more real. She tells the simple story of a boy’s journey through his day, and readers are left to infer the challenges that a person might face in a life without reading. This is subtle work that leaves room for conversations to happen before, during and after reading. Rural life in Africa is gorgeously depicted throughout by Dimitrea Tokunbo. Her illustrations – bold and intensely coloured – make you feel transported to Amadi’s community and add vitality to the story.

Teachers will find some excellent resources for using this text in the classroom at Tilbury House. I plan to incorporate Amadi’s Snowman into my unit of study on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Here are a few other reviews, as well as the link to the author’s wonderful blog (check out her awesome Global Virtual Tour for Amadi’s Snowman while you’re there):

Scribbly Katia (author’s blog)
Saffron Tree review
The Picnic Basket review
Bees Knees Reads review
Paper Tigers Blog review

Katia Novet Saint-Lot will be here at Shelf Elf for an interview this Saturday. So be sure to pop by!

T4

T4 by Anne Clare LeZotte offers readers tremendous insight into an aspect of the Holocaust not frequently explored in books for young people: the Nazi program to murder the mentally ill and disabled. The title of this verse novel comes from the name of the program itself, called after the address of its headquarters in Berlin, on Tiergartenstrasse 4.

The narrator/poet is 13-year old Paula Becker, who became deaf before she turned two and communicates with her family through her own form of sign language. She tells the story of her initial challenges communicating with her family, her happy days spent helping her mother at home and playing with her dog and learning to read, and feeling the church organ’s music shake her “body and soul.” This comfortable life changes forever when the Nazis’ eugenics program begins to target people like Paula, branding them “unfit to live.” She is forced to leave her family and go into hiding, moving from one place to another whenever her refuge becomes unsafe. The novel follows her through the war, and we meet those who protect her, and others who are hiding too. Paula is one of the lucky people who returns to her home and her family, everyone safe after all of that suffering.

You cannot say that T4 is a book you “enjoy” reading, better to notice that it is compelling and moving and difficult. LeZotte has created a story that takes you in, poem by poem, and then by the end, you realize that you’ve taken this story inside yourself. This is not a book you can read and forget. The poems are simple, but deceptively so. They have a direct, unflinching quality that feels authentic, as if the narrator just sat down and started remembering, telling you, “This is how it was. Just like this.”

T4 is a survival story, a story about family and trust and difference. Readers will know that they have gained new perspective into this historical period. It will certainly inspire many questions from young people, and so it is a book that requires maturity and some prior understanding of the nature of the Holocaust. Ann Clare LeZotte proves that telling a story simply, in very few, carefully chosen words, makes for a profoundly affecting reading experience.

Follow this link to an interview with Ann Clare at Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature.

T4 is available now and is published by Houghton Mifflin.

Poetry Friday: Hip Hop Speaks to Children

In my class, every year each kid chooses a poem and recites it for the class, and each year, I’m simply amazed by how excited they are to do it. I suppose the whole thing feels a shade old-fashioned, some might even say out-dated. I sort of feel like I’m the school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse when they stand up and recite their poems in front of the blackboard. Very Anne Shirley. Nevertheless, it’s one of the biggest hits of my language program and so I keep on doing it. We finish up with a poetry slam of sorts, where they stand up and perform their poems. Last year, after the first poem was read, all the kids started to clap and one of my students said, “No. It’s poetry. When it’s poetry you snap.” And so we snapped. We real cool.

I’m practically all tingly with the prospect of introducing Hip Hop Speaks to Children into my poetry unit this year. I can just tell the kids are going to get into this book. You’ll find all sorts of treats, some quite unusual, in this collection of Hip Hop and related poetic forms, edited by Nikki Giovanni. There’s some Langston Hughes, Walter Dean Myers, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Queen Latifah and Martin Luther King Jr – and more besides. 30 of the poems are performed by artists and poets on a CD included in the book (in much the same format as the very successful Poetry Speaks to Children).

I love the way this text encourages readers to discover the connection between modern Hip Hop and earlier musical and poetic traditions, reaching all the way back to Call-and-Response texts used in worship, to hamboning, and rap and the blues. I think that by seeing the roots of hip hop, kids and teens and parents will see this art form in a new, more open way. Another real strength of the text is the illustration. Each page offers bright and intensely rich colours, with different artistic styles to keep things lively for the reader. Even short poems get their own full page, which means lots of illustration to enrich the text and give readers something to sink into. Take a look at a sample page:

I have only one small quibble with this lovely poetry collection. In her introduction and in the notes about several of the poems offered on the CD, Nikki Giovanni’s tone veers towards the academic, which makes me wonder about the intended audience. I think that it might have been possible to tailor her language more to the age group that the book seems to be targeting. I imagine my class of ten year olds tuning out for a lot of that, or thinking, “Huh?” Valuable insights and important information about the poems and poets certainly, just not presented in an entirely kid-friendly manner. Of course, you could shift this observation more towards the positive by noting that Nikki Giovanni’s explanations are sophisticated enough to make parts of this book appropriate for early high school students too. Here’s Nikki talking about the book:

Coincidentally, soon after I received my review copy of this book, I was listening to the CBC morning show and there was an interview with the founder of what sounds like a remarkable literacy program, called Literacy Though Hip Hop. I’m thinking they need to order a few boxes of this collection to support their initiative. Hip Hop Speaks to Children is released October 7th, by Sourcebooks. It will add spice, depth and greater perspective to any poetry unit.

Nonfiction Monday: No Girls Allowed

Need a little girl power to kick start your Monday morning? Look no further. Kids Can Press presents No Girls Allowed, a new book written by Susan Hughes, and illustrated in rockin’ graphic style by Willow Dawson. This book hits the mark in many ways. It offers readers short tales, in graphic format, of women throughout history who disguised themselves as men in order to shape their lives on their own terms. You’ll find the story of Hatshepsut, the female pharoah, and the tales of Mu Lan and Alfhild, the Viking warrior. Each mini-bio is quite short, around ten pages, so I imagine there will be a lot of readers who want to learn more about the women they read about here. Good thing there’s a list of Further Reading suggestions on the last page. Susan Hughes’ afterword, in which she leads readers to consider why women have faced different treatment throughout history to the present, is a good introduction for all young readers to a complex subject.

This one belongs in classrooms, as it matches strong kid-appeal with worthy content, and a contemporary feel.

Peeled

I’m crazy for books with an agricultural setting / theme / issue. You can take the girl out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl, I guess. So Joan Bauer’s newest book, Peeled, set in an apple-farming community, was a”peel”ing to me from the get go (first and last bad apple-related pun, I swear).

Confession… the only other Joan Bauer title I’ve read is Backwater which I enjoyed immensely. After reading Peeled, I’ve since moved Hope was Here and Bauer’s other books high up on the TBR list. Peeled is the story of Hildy Biddle, whose family runs a small apple farm in New York state. When she isn’t helping out in the family business, Hildy is a reporter for her school newspaper, The Core, and journalism comes naturally to her. She’s eager to report the truth, so when ghostly happenings at the old Ludlow place leads the local newspaper to some sketchy reporting, Hildy grabs her chance to get to the bottom of things.

What I love about this book:

1. The layers. I like a book that has several well-developed plot threads that interplay with each other in interesting ways and work together to create the major themes of the text. Bauer seems to be a master at this. There is just enough going on in the plot and sub-plots that you’re curious about all of the elements of the narrative without losing track of what’s happening where and to whom.

2. The main character. Hildy is feisty, in a way that is not in-your-face. She finds the courage to act in difficult situations because she knows what is important to her and she can’t stand by and just let the things that bother her happen. I liked her. Completely. I liked how she grew in a way that was believable. If she was a real teen, I’d be keeping my eye on her to track the awesome things she’d be doing down the road.

3. The descriptions of the bounty of apple goodies: Nan’s applesauce, apple cake, apple brownies, apple chutney, apple syrup, apple bread, apple cider… apple EVERYTHING! Perhaps it’s the former pasty chef in me that cannot resist a story that shows a healthy appreciation for homemade treats. Which leads to my Tiny Quibble: Peeled is calling out for a recipe, or two, at the back. If not in this story, then when?

Read this story in October, in apple season, or anytime you want to think about the media’s fear-mongering powers and what good journalism looks like. A crisp, tangy, satisfying treat of a book. (*Crunch*)

Additional reviews from:

Sarah Miller
Becky’s Book Reviews
And Another Book Read
bookshelves of doom
Oops…Wrong Cookie
Teen Reads

Hate that Cat

Ah Sharon Creech. You’ve done it again. I wouldn’t have imagined it was possible to approach the cleverness and charm and massive cute-factor of Love That Dog, but it would seem that the impossible has in fact happened. Enter Hate that Cat. I want to be a sequel lover, and sometimes I am. It’s just that so often the second isn’t as good as the first. I’m happy to report that Hate that Cat is a very fine sequel.

So, for starters, if you haven’t read Love that Dog, take a break from whatever you think you need to do right now (laundry, making dinner, writing the Great American Novel) and go get your hands on this book. All you need is about half and hour (ish) and you’ll meet Jack (reluctant poet), Miss Stretchberry (teacher extraordinaire) and Sky (beloved hound / poetic inspiration). When you’re done, you’ll have laughed and cried and you’ll feel good about life, the universe and everything. You will be all set for Hate that Cat.

Jack is back, and he’s lucky enough to be in Miss Stretchberry’s class for a second time. Lucky again because he’s heading into another year of poetic discovery, as both a reader and writer. This time, Jack learns a lot about finding inspiration in unexpected places and in the process, he becomes more sophisticated and self-aware as a writer. Once again, Sharon Creech has chosen the most delightful poems for Miss Stretchberry’s use in the classroom – a little Poe, T.S. Eliot, Valerie Worth and of course, William Carlos Williams. This slim book is practically glowing with teacher goodness. It’s impossible not to feel inspired to teach, read, and share poems with your students after reading Creech’s books. This is a story about finding your voice, appreciating language in its diverse forms, great teaching, and of course, grouchy/wonderful felines. You will be charmed.

Other reviews:

Sarah Miller
Fuse 8
A Year of Reading
Welcome to my Tweendom
Literate Lives

Hate that Cat will be available in September. Read Love that Dog now.