Archives

Summer Reading: Second and Third Grades

May3

Some homeschool moms asked me to make a set of summer reading lists for different age groups to help them choose books for a summer reading club. These are the books from my library that I chose to recommend. Maybe you can find a few titles that will be a welcome addition to your summer reading.

Thimbleberry Stories by Cynthia Rylant. Nigel Chipmunk lives on Thimbleberry Lane, and he visits his friends Dipper the hummingbird, Little Owl, Copper the butterfly, and Mudpuppy the salamander. The friends enjoy the days of summer with tea parties and gardening and picnics as they learn to know and help one another.

Mystery in the Pirate Oak by Helen Fuller Orton. Similar in style and reading level to The Boxcar Children series, the mysteries by Helen Fuller Orton are more intriguing and more varied in characters and plot than The Boxcar Children mysteries. Mystery in the Pirate Oak tells the story of Chad and Ellie Turner and their search for a missing silver box hidden long ago in the old oak tree in the nearby meadow. Grandmother Hale is hopeful that if the box could be found it might have something in it that would provide enough cash to fix her leaking roof and have the old house painted. Can Chad and Ellie find the sixty year old silver box before someone else does and before summer vacation is over?

Julian’s Glorious Summer by Ann Cameron. When Julian’s best friend Gloria rides up on her bicycle, Julian is not happy. He doesn’t know how to ride a bike, and he’s afraid to try. To get out of the situation, Julian claims that his father will be forcing him to work day and night for the entire summer. Unfortunately for Julian, his father hears about Julian’s story and decides to make it true. Julian will have work from dawn to dusk. How can such a mess of a summer become “glorious”? Read it and find out. There are several more books in this series about Julian and his family if this one hits the spot.

McBroom’s Wonderful One-Acre Farm by Sid Fleischman. Josh McBroom, teller of tall tales, has been deceived, cheated and bamboozled; his eighty acres of farmland turns out to be eighty acres stacked on top of one another—one acre square. But maybe there’s a good side. That one acre of topsoil is some of the best farmland anywhere, with soil so rich that seeds immediately spring up into plants and even nickels grow into quarters. Can McBroom and his wife Melissa and their family of eleven red-headed, freckle-faced youngsters make a fortune from his one-acre farm? This book includes three McBroom stories: McBroom Tells the Truth, McBroom and the Big Wind, and McBroom’s Ear. You can get these funny tall tales in individual volumes or all together in this one book. Either way, these tall tales are sure to tickle your funny bone.

In Aunt Lucy’s Kitchen by Cynthia Rylant. The Cobble Street Cousins, Lily, Rosie, and Tess, are staying with their Aunt Lucy for the summer. Their summer plans include a cookie company, which leads to their meeting all the neighbors and finding ways to brighten up the neighborhood. This series tells sweet stories about creative, community-minded girls doing fun and imaginative things together. It’s on the easier end of the scale as far as reading level is concerned, for those second and third graders who are still working on basic reading skills.

Penny Goes to Camp by Carolyn Haywood. Carolyn Haywood is an almost forgotten author who still has much to say to children in our day, even though her books were published in the 1940’s and 1950’s. In this one, nine year old adopted brothers Penny and Peter go to summer camp for the entire summer while their parents are away on an extended business trip. THe boys meet an Indian chief, go on camping trips in the woods, and participate in a pretend-circus and a boat crew race. Penny’s and Peter’s adventures are sure to spark lots of ideas for summer fun, even for those who don’t have the advantage of a summer camp like theirs.

Betsy’s Busy Summer by Carolyn Haywood. Another Carolyn Haywood gem in which Betsy and her neighborhood friends fill the hot summer days with fun and adventure. From watermelon party to lemonade stand to the next-door neighbor’s new swimming pool, these children find fun and friendship through the long, hot days of summer.

Some children just prefer nonfiction books about real people or animals or science topics or math or art. If so, don’t make them read ALL fiction just because that’s what is usually on the summer reading lists. Try some of the following titles to get nonfiction fans reading the stories that will make them smile.

Israel Putman: Fearless Boy by Augusta Stevenson.
Benjamin Franklin: Young Printer by Augusta Stevenson.
Tom Jefferson: Boy in Colonial Days by Helen Monsell.
Anthony Wayne: Daring Boy by Augusta Stevenson.
Dan Morgan: Wilderness Boy by Bernice Bryant.
Molly Pitcher: Young Patriot by Augusta Stevenson.
Betsy Ross: Designer of Our Flag by Ann Weil.
These patriotic biographies are all titles from the series Childhood of Famous Americans, and they’re perfect for summer reading, especially the particular titles listed here since the Fourth of July holiday turns minds toward American independence and the Revolutionary War just in the middle of the summer. As he series title indicates, these somewhat fictionalized biographies emphasize the childhood of these famous Americans (and many more), but there is some reference to their adult accomplishments. And the reading level is just right for confident second and third grade readers. I can imagine a summer project for avid readers to read as many of the books in this series as they can find, but they won’t run out since there are over two hundred titles in the series.

All Upon a Stone by Jean Craighead George.
All Upon a Sidewalk by Jean Craighead George.
These two short books pack a lot of story and a lot of information into a small package. All Upon a Stone chronicles the adventures of a tiny mole cricket as he crawls to the top of a big stone in the woods beside a stream. All Upon a Sidewalk is about a yellow, Lasius flavus, who has a mission to perform for the queen ant. Both books give naturalists a new viewpoint as they look at the world from the perspective of a tiny insect.

Summer Reading: Kindergarten and First Grade

May2

Some homeschool moms asked me to come up with a set of reading lists for a summer reading club they are planning to host. Actually, there will be several “clubs” for different age groups. So, this list of ten of the best easy readers and easy reader series is for children coming out of kindergarten or first grade, emergent readers who are just beginning to read independently. If you can help these children find a favorite series of books, a favorite author or a favorite subject or genre, they will devour that particular set of books, get lots of reading practice, and go on to become confident readers. Therefore, many of these books are part of a series or a set.

The Secret Three by Mildred Myrick. Three boys form a secret club together, with a secret handshake, signals, and coded messages. They explore the beach and the lighthouse and become great friends over the course of the summer.

Nate the Great and the Boring Beach Bag by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. Nate the Great uses all the clues on the beach to find Oliver’s boring, disappearing beach bag. If you like this Nate the Great mystery, there are many more books in the series, beginning with the one titled simply Nate the Great.

Harry by the Sea by Gene Zion. Similar to Nate the Great and the Boring Beach Bag, Harry the Dog finds that it is easy to get lost on the beach. There are three or four Harry books, beginning with Harry the Dirty Dog.

Suprises: poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. An easy-to-read book full of poems, many of which are quite appropriate for summer, including “In August” by Marchette Chute, “Change in the Weather” by Ilo Orleans, and “Sun for Breakfast” by Norma Farber. Lee Bennett Hopkins has edited and collected several small books of simple kid-friendly poetry for the rhyme and rhythm loving kids among us.

Dodsworth in London by Tim Egan. Dodsworth (the mole) and his friend the Duck visit London via hot air balloon. Unfortunately, the Duck is lost, confused with another duck, and Scotland Yard must be called to save the day. Other books in this easy reader series are Dodsworth in Tokyo, Dodsworth in Rome, Dodsworth in New York, and Dodsworth in Paris.

Least of All by Carol Purdy. Raven Hannah, the youngest child in her large farm family, is always told that she’s not big enough to help and to do the things she wants to do. So, Raven Hannah uses the summer days while her parents and brothers and grandmother are all busy to teach herself to read the Bible—proving that she is big enough to do something special.

Little Bear’s Friend by Else Holmelund Minarik. “One summer Little Bear makes friends with a girl named Emily. But when summer ends, Emily must leave. Little Bear is very sad—until he finds a way to stay close to his new friend even when she is far away!” All of the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik are delightful, but this one is a particularly poignant reminder of the brevity of summer and the strength of friendship.

Some children just prefer nonfiction books about animals or science topics or math or art. If so, don’t make them read ALL fiction just because that’s what is usually on the summer reading lists. Try some of the following titles to get your nonfiction fans reading the stories that will appeal the most.

Fireflies in the Night by Judy Hawes. A boy captures fireflies in a jar and learns all about them when he visits his grandparents on summer nights.

Let’s Get Turtles (A Science I Can Read Book) by Millicent E. Selsam. Billy and Jerry decide on a turtle as a pet, and they learn to feed and care for their turtle. Lots of information about turtles is woven into the story of two boys and heir new pet.

Terry and the Caterpillars (A Science I Can Read Book) by Millicent E. Selsam. Terry finds a caterpillar, and her mother helps her to deduce and investigate the needs and

All of the above are librarian and kid-tested, high interest, and easy to read. If your rising kindergartener or first grader is reading beyond the beginning reader stage, take a look at tomorrow’s summer reading list for second and third graders.

Texas History: A Brief Tour

Apr27

A couple of homeschool moms asked me to put together a reading list for Texas history so that they could do a (brief) literature-based Texas history unit. Well, the list grew a little longer than the request, but here are a few not-to-be-missed gems for children and adults who are making their way through Texas’s colorful and fascinating history.

TEXAS Unit Study:

Indians Who Lived in Texas by Betsy Warren. This is a nonfiction book, only 46 pages, but it is an introduction to the study that gives students a good overview of the Native Texans who lived here before the coming of the European explorers.

Walk the World’s Rim by Betty Baker. Read aloud fiction about the tragic story of a Native American boy named Chakoh and of Esteban, the slave who accompanied Coronado on his search for the Seven Lost Cities of Cibola.

Easter Fires by Wilma Pitchford Hays. A fictionalized version of the beginning of the custom of lighting bonfires at Easter time among the Indians of the Southwest. This short book also tells the story of how the Tonkawas were introduced to the wonderful story of Easter and of God’s son, Jesus.

Biography of early Texas heroes. Choose one (or read them all):
For younger children, grades 1-3:
A Picture Book of Davy Crockett by David Adler.
Davy Crockett: Young Rifleman by Aileen Wells Parks.
Stephen F. Austin: The Son Becomes Father of Texas by Mary Dodson Wade.

For older children, grades 4-8:
Wilderness Pioneer: Stephen F. Austin of Texas by Carol Hoff.
Make Way for Sam Houston by Jean Fritz
James Bowie by Shannon Garst.
Texas Yankee: The Story of Gail Borden by Nina Brown Baker.

Johnny Texas by Carol Hoff. “In the early days of Texas history, ten-year-old Johann comes from Germany with his family to settle in this vast land and soon grows to love his new home.” In the sequel, Johnny Texas on the San Antonio Road, Johnny travels over 600 miles to Mexico and back on the old San Antonio Road.

Nonfiction about the Alamo: Remember the Alamo by Robert Penn Warren OR Inside the Alamo by Jim Murphy OR The Valiant Few by Lon Tinkle.

Head to the West by Carol Hoff. Early German immigrant settlers come to Texas through the port of Galveston.

Caleb’s Choice by G. Clifton Wisler. In 1858 Caleb Dulaney feels an obligation to help the runaway slave who saved his life even though the Fugitive Slave Law makes it a crime to assist a runaway slave. Mr. Wisler wrote several other good books set in frontier days in Texas. If you like this one, check out Buffalo Moon or Winter of the Wolf or All for Texas.

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. Classic boy and dog story takes place just after the Civil War.

Texas Rangers: Legendary Lawmen by Michael Spradlin. This picture book packs in a lot of story and information about the men who were Texas Rangers. I have a couple of other books that are longer with more stories about the Rangers for kids who are particularly interested: The Texas Rangers (Landmark history) by Will Henry and The Real Book about the Texas Rangers by Allyn Allen.

Cowboys of the Wild West by Russell Freedman (nonfiction) OR The Adventurous Deeds of Deadwood Jones by Helen Hemphill (fiction). Cowboy life and times.

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake. (fiction) The Galveston hurricane of 1900, still the deadliest single-day event in U.S. history.

Moonshiner’s Gold by John Erickson. Fourteen year old Riley and his younger brother discover moonshiners have set up a still in a deserted canyon on their family property. How can they protect their single mother, outwit the outlaws, and get them to leave without violence? Great action-packed adventure with engaging characters and a lot of history sneaking in through the back door. John Erickson is known for his Hank the Cowdog series, but this stand-alone adventure is just a good as the Hank books and should be just the right reading level for most sixth graders.

I know that’s more than the five books than the mom who started all of this Texas history listing asked me for. And I have lots more great Texas living books on my shelf: Texas Tomboy by Lois Lenski, Winnie’s War by Jenny Moss, We Were There at the Battle of the Alamo by Margaret Cousins, Holes by Louis Sachar, The Underneath by Kathie Appelt . . . OK, I’ll stop.

Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!

Henry and the Chalk Dragon by Jennifer Trafton

Apr26

“Henry Penwhistle’s bedroom door was the sort of door where adventures began.”

And that’s the sort of first sentence that makes me think that this book is going to be a great adventure. Immediately, I am reminded of a wardrobe door into Narnia, or Bilbo Baggins’ front door that led him out onto the road to all sorts of interesting and dangerous places.

“And one day, on top of all the ghostly shapes and squiggles and smears, Henry drew a dragon. . . . [I]t made him think of exotic creatures and perilous places. This dragon was everything a dragon should be: fierce and fearsome and full of fire.”

A door and a dragon. Yes, this story is definitely headed in the right direction.

“[H]e whirled past the overflowing book chest with its stirred-up soup of favorite stories–stories about wild things and unlikely heroes, chocolate factories and tiny motorcycles, buried giants and mock turtles.”

Did you get all of those kidlit allusions? If not, you need to read some more very good children’s books.

I could go on for a long time, quoting sentences and passages from this awesome, adventurous, artistic story and then commenting about how awesome, adventurous, and artistic each quotation was, but now I’m only on page three. And the book has 223 powerful pages. So if I quoted from every page this blog post would become a book—a partially plagiarized, partially fangirling, bloggy book. And you don’t really want to read that when you could be reading Henry and the Chalk Dragon.

Suffice it to say, Henry draws a chalk dragon on the back of his door, but he’s not prepared for the chaos that ensues when the chalk dragon comes alive and goes to school with him. The plot is rather dream-like, for lack of a better word; the things that happen are kind of random, don’t always fit together or follow strict rules, but I didn’t care. The writing is just so good, lots of memorable descriptions and quotes, but not overwritten in the way I felt last year’s Girl Who Drank the Moon sometimes was. And Henry and the Chalk Dragon feels like a children’s book, not trying to push the envelope into YA territory. But it also doesn’t talk down to its intended audience; the story talks about important things like the difference between “real” and “true”, and the importance of friendship and chivalry and art, and what to do when you’re afraid (BE BRAVE) or laughed at (FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT), and the many different kinds of smiles. Oh, and the allusions to classic children’s books are a delight.

I read the book, and then I wanted to go back to the beginning and read it again. But I waited about a week to let the new wear off (or come back again), and now I’m reading Henry and the Chalk Dragon for the second time. I’ll just leave you with few more excerpts to whet your appetite, and then you can be done with this very long, but real blog post, and you too can go and read the truly admirable, original, and applauded Henry and the Chalk Dragon.

“Dragons aren’t scary—well, they are, but they’re a good kind of scary. They’re the kind of scary you want to be scared of. People are the bad kind of scary, he thought. Dragons can only eat you, but people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death by a smile.”

“There is a kind of fear that squeezes your heart with an icy hand and freezes you into a popsicle. But there is another kind of fear that is thrilling and hot, that makes your fingers tingle and your toes tickle each other inside your shoes until you want to leap over the Empire State Building. Henry was afraid with this kind of fear, and it felt good.”

“Miss Pimpernel had at least a hundred different kinds of smiles. Henry thought she must keep them in her gigantic purple purse and pull them out at night to count them, like a pirate grinning as she counted her pieces of silver. She could be his teacher for ten years, and he would never finish learning all the names of all of her smiles. Right now she was wearing her Be-Nice-to-Me-I-Haven’t-Had-My-Coffee smile, which wasn’t her happiest. Still, there were worse.”

“There are many things in this world that do not belong. A volcano does not belong in a bathroom. The Indian Ocean does not belong in Iowa. Ketchup does not belong on chocolate cake. But most, most of all, a teacher’s smile does not belong on the face of a fearsome dragon. When the You-Are-the-Apple-of-My-Eye smile is stretched between two glittering dragon eyes, believe me, you do not want to be the apple.”

Trust me. There’s much more fearsome, smiley, arty goodness where that came from.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

The Colt From the Dark Forest by Anna Belle Loken

Apr17

Horse books are not quite as popular these days as they were when I was a child growing up in West Texas. I certainly knew a lot of girls when I was in junior high school who were obsessed with horses and horse stories. They were all planning to become veterinarians or to raise horses when they grew up. I wonder if any of them did.

Published in 1959 by Lothrop, Lee and Shepherd as “A World Famous Horse Story Selection”, The Colt From the Dark Forest, set in Norway, tells the story of a boy and his beloved colt, Rouen. The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books in February 1960 described the story:

“Karl finds a colt in the forest, and the neighbor to whom it belongs says that the boy may keep the newborn animal. Father [says] that the colt must go when its food
becomes a financial burden; Karl finds one way and then another of keeping the colt he loves. A not-unusual horse story, but impressive in the Norwegian background details and enjoyable for the easy writing style.”

Indeed, the plot itself isn’t terribly “unusual”, but the details of the setting and the vivid portrayal of a boy’s longing for a horse of his own make the tale come alive. Horse-loving children, and anyone interested in stories from Scandinavia, Norway in particular, will enjoy this gentle tale of a boy and his beloved pet. I certainly did, and I’m not even a horsey sort of person.

My favorite horse story is still Black Beauty by Anna Sewall. And here’s a list of some other favorite horse books most of which I have in my library:

Billy and Blaze by C.W. Anderson (with many sequels). For younger readers these picture books about a boy and his horse are a delight.

Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry (with many sequels and spin-offs).

Justin Morgan Had a Horse by Marguerite Henry.

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis. The talking horses Bree and Twin guide two children to Narnia and the North. Some people like this one best of all the Narnia series, and others hate its negative depiction of Arabic-like people, the Calormenes. I think it’s great.

National Velvet by Enid Bagnold. A young British girl named Velvet wins a horse in raffle and then enters it in the Grand National Steeplechase.

My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara. A boy’s parents give him the responsibility of training and caring for a colt in hopes of teaching him to mature—and it works.

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. An Arabian horse and a boy are stranded on an island together. There are lots of Black Stallion books, and I know girls who are or were determined to read them all.

Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James. Smoky is the quintessential cowboy’s horse in this Newbery award-winning story of ranch life.

Come On, Seabiscuit by Ralph Moody. Nonfiction for children about the subject of Ms. Hillenbrand’s adult tome, Seabiscuit.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.

The Blind Colt and Blind Outlaw both by Glen Rounds. I read both of these back when I was in junior high or elementary school. Good stories about the survival of a blind horse in the wild.

Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan.

Flambards by K.M. Peyton. This one is the beginning of a series about horsey people and English country life and romance and family drama and the early twentieth century. It would make a good Downton Abbey-style miniseries, I think. It’s more young adult than it is middle grade, since the protagonist, Christina, is a young adult herself and becomes “romantically involved” with young men.

For adults:
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand.

St. Patrick’s Day books

Mar16

I have several books for St. Patrick’s Day or about Saint Patrick and Ireland in my library:

Shamrocks, Harps, and Shillelaghs: The Story of St. Patrick’s Day Symbols by Edna Barth is more than just a listing of St. Patrick’s Day symbols and customs. It’s a children’s introduction to the history and culture of Ireland, with chapters on Irish literature and poetry, the history of Irish Catholics and Protestants, Irish dress and food, and Irish folklore, as well as the story of St. Patrick himself threaded throughout the ninety-five page book. And there’s bibliography of “Stories for St. Patrick’s Day” at the back of the book which includes many of the books on this list.

St. Patrick, The Irish Saint by Ruth Roquitte, illustrated by Robert Kilbride. “There’s a day in the spring when people wear green. . . On that day almost all of us would like to be Irish.” This book tells the story of the life of Magonus Sucatus Patricius, the man we call Saint Patrick in forty-six page with illustrations. It would be a good read aloud book to introduce children to the man and the holiday named in his honor.

Shamrock and Spear: Tales and Legends from Ireland by F.M. Pilkington, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Tales of giants and beasts, princesses and dwarves, Cormac Mac Art and Fionn Mac Cool make up this well told collection of more than twenty Irish folktales.

St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Jan Brett. Young Jamie Donovan wants to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, but his family says he’s much too small to make it all the way to the top of Acorn Hill. Read about how Jamie proves that he is big enough to march.

Pegeen by Hilda van Stockum. Pegeen is something of a wild thing who makes up stories and dances like a gypsy and gains the affection of the entire O’Sullivan family in spite of her irresponsible ways. Other books about the O’Sullivan family of Bantry Bay are Francie on the Run, which takes place before Pegeen and The Cottage at Bantry Bay, the third book in the series.

Count Your Way Through Ireland by James Haskins. A numerical introduction to the country of Ireland with numbers in Gaelic, counting such things as sports, symbols, foods, stripes in the Irish flag, and one and only one St. Patrick himself.

Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Ireland by Virginia Haviland. Five stories suitable for elementary aged children.

The King of Ireland’s Son by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Willy Pogany. Mr. Colum was a poet and a playwright and a friend of James Joyce, but his retelling of myths, legends, and folklore for children came to be his most enduring work. The King of Ireland’s Son is a novel based on an old Irish tale about a prince who wins his bride, Fedelma the Enchanter’s Daughter, but must reclaim her after a long and adventurous journey of searching for the kidnapped Fedelma.

Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie dePoala.
Jamie O’Rourke and the Pooka by Tomie dePaola. These two picture books tell about Jamie O’Rourke, the laziest man in all of Ireland and his adventures with first, a leprechaun and then, a pooka. Jamie’s lazy ways get him into troubles, but for the most part all ends well for the lazy Jamie.

Do you know of any other Irish and St. Paddy’s Day books for children that are must-haves for my library?

Sir Cumference and the Fracton Faire by Cindy Neuschwander

Mar13

Is it didactic, a story built specifically to teach a lesson about fractions? Absolutely.

Do some of us prefer our mathematics lessons encased in a story? Yes, indeed.

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. And for some people, math equals medicine.

The Sir Cumference books are designed to engage young readers who like knights and ladies fairs and castles and to teach them a bit of math on the sly, so to speak. This latest Sir Cumference book is all about fractions. Sir Cumference and Lady Di of Ameter go to visit their friend the Earl of Fracton at the annual Fracton Faire. At the fair, they purchase cloth and cheese and other stuff in fractional parts, and a group of thieves target the market. However, the Earl and Lady Di and Sir Cumference use fractions to catch the bandits.

The ending is a bit lame. (The thieves get away, but the loot they took from the merchants at the fair is recovered.) Everyone lives happily ever after, and fractons later become known as fractions. Nevertheless, this story would be a memorable and gentle introduction to or review of the subject of simple fractions.

Other Sir Cumference books are:
Sir Cumference and All the King’s Tens (in my library)
Sir Cumference and the First Round Table (in my library)
Sir Cumference and the Roundabout Battle
Sir Cumference and the Viking’s Map
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter
Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland
Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone
Sir Cumference and the Off-the-Charts Dessert

Another “living math” picture book that I picked up at the used bookstore is The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns. (Ms. Burns wrote two of the books in the Brown Paper School series, Math for Smarty Pants and The I Hate Mathematics Book!, and her name is on a series of math education books from Scholastic for preschool and primary readers, Marilyn Burns brainy day books.) The Greedy Triangle is about a triangle with a busy life who nevertheless becomes bored with doing the same old triangular things. With the help of a shapeshifter, our triangle tries out life as a quadrilateral, a pentagon, and a hexagon, then several other shapes all the way up to a decagon. But, of course, then the old life of a triangle starts to look good, and our shape-shifting shape asks for one last change.

I think this kind of “didacticism” is a just fine. Stories make math so much more interesting. Then again, I was usually the only one in my math classes who actually liked story problems best. Unadorned numbers make me cringe.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.

My Beautiful Birds by Suzanne Del Rizzo

Mar8

Young Sami and his family escape from the bombing of his Syrian neighborhood and go to live in a refugee camp, but Sami had to leave his pigeons behind. As others in his family and in the camp begin to make a new life for themselves, Sami cannot think of anything other than his beautiful birds.

The artwork in this lovely picture book uses “plasticine, polymer clay and other mixed media” to create a sense of beauty in the midst of war and desolation. Even young children can sympathize with Sami and his loneliness and depression as he tries to adjust to a new home without any of the things or people he had to leave behind in Syria, and especially without his pet birds. And I can picture young readers being inspired to use clay and painting and other mixed media to create their own pictures and art that perhaps speak to the losses that they have experienced themselves.

The book would even be a good art therapy book for older children and young adults. The use of literature, art and nature in helping people to cope with loss and with trauma is well-established by now, and this book would be a window for those who don’t understand much about the sadness and grief that refugees experience and a mirror for those who have experienced war or disaster firsthand.

“In 2015, looking for resources to explain the Syrian Civil War to her own children, Suzanne (Del Rizzo) came across the article of a boy who took solace in a connection with the wild birds at the Za’atari refugee camp.” She wrote My Beautiful Birds in response to that article.

The Most Wonderful Doll in the World by Phyllis McGinley

Feb28

I wrote a post a week or two ago about doll stories, when I was reading some of Rumer Godden’s stories about dolls. Now I’ve found another doll book to add to the list—the 1951 Caldecott Honor book, The Most Wonderful Doll in the World. Poet and author Phyllis McGinley wrote this tale of a girl, Dulcy, with a powerful imagination. In fact, Dulcy’s mother says she has “too much imagination” because Dulcy is always dissatisfied with the dolls she receives as gifts and must imagine them just a little bit different or better.

When Dulcy gets a new doll, Angela, from her friend, the elderly Mrs. Primrose, Dulcy thinks Angela is a fine doll, but she can’t help wishing that Angela’s hair were black instead of yellow. However, when Angela is lost, Dulcy’s longing and imagination transform the missing doll into the most wonderful doll in the world.

I couldn’t find much information about Helen Stone, the illustrator of this little story. She won two Caldecott honors for books upon which she collaborated with Phyllis McGinley. Her other Caldecott honor book is called All Around the Town by Phyllis McGinley, and it seems to be an alphabet book. Helen Stone also illustrated my favorite Phyllis McGInley story, The Plain Princess.

Read more about Phyllis McGinley here.
If you know or find out more about Helen Stone, please leave a comment.

The Language of Angels by Richard Michelson

Feb21

The Language of Angels: A Story About the Reinvention of Hebrew by Richard Michelson, illustrated by Karla Gudeon.

I love nonfiction picture books about overlooked and under-reported events and people in history. The Language of Angels is just such a picture book, about Itamar Ben-Avi (Ben-Zion) and his father, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who were instrumental in the revival and implementation of Hebrew as the official and modern language of the state of Israel.

I knew that when Israel became a nation, that new/old nation adopted Hebrew as their official language. But I had no knowledge at all of the people behind the revival of the modern Hebrew language. When Eliezer Ben-Yehuda moved to Jerusalem in 1881, no one spoke Hebrew as their main, or native language. Today more than three million people speak Hebrew in daily life.

How did Eliezer and Devorah Ben-Yehuda and their son, Ben-Zion, manage to reinvent a language that had been dead as a daily spoken language for over 1500 years? Well, Eliezer started schools where the primary instruction was in Hebrew. And he decided that his children would speak and be spoken to only in Hebrew—a decision which made for a lonely childhood for Ben-Zion, since no one else spoke Hebrew when he was a child. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda also wrote a Hebrew dictionary and enlisted his pupils to help him make up words for modern things such as ice cream cones and bicycles. (Read the book to find out how to add new words to an old language.)

Even with the afterword that has more information about these people and their language-making, I still had unanswered questions. How did Ben-Yehuda get people to agree to have their children educated in Hebrew, an antiquated and unused language at the time? How did someone talk the fledgling government of Israel into adopting Hebrew as the national language? What happened to Ben-Zion during World War II and after? (His father died in 1922.) Of course a picture book can’t answer all the questions one might have about a particular subject, but the fact that this one sparked so many questions is a good recommendation for it.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.