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Gossamer by Lois Lowry

Jan30

Let me say first that I really, really liked this book. I’m surprised it didn’t win some sort of award. (It was on the ALSC list of Notable Children’s Books.) Littlest One, the main character, is a dream-giver-in-training with a gossamer touch. Ms. Lowry has created in Gossamer a lovely imaginary world in which dreams have meaning, and even nightmares are susceptible to “dream therapy.”

My library system classifies this book as “young adult.” The main human character in the book, a boy, is seven years old, and Littlest One is of an undetermined age, but young. Maybe she’s the “young adult” character. Or maybe the book is “young adult” because it deals with child abuse. I wouldn’t suggest it for seven year olds, but middle grades and teenagers maybe? Alabama Moon, a book I wrote about not too long ago, was nominated for the Middle Grade Fiction Cybil Award, and I thought it was great but more appropriate for maybe junior high, or even high school students. Gossamer is also appropriate for the same age groups. So what is the age grouping for YA? Grades seven through 12? Through college? Does middle grades include middle school (grades 6-8) or just elementary school (grades 3-6)? Those poor twelve year olds, where do they fit in?

Anyway, I thought Gossamer was a satisfying story. It’s not too long; it felt more like a short story than a novel. However, it was meaningful and brought a smile to my face several times as I was reading. I’m planning to recommend it to Brown Bear Daughter and maybe even Organizer Daughter, the one who reads no fantasy except for Harry Potter. She might enjoy Gossamer, not that it will rival HP in any sense of the word rival.

The Newbery Award: 1922

Jan25

1922 Medal Winner: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon (Liveright)
Honor Books:
The Great Quest by Charles Hawes (Little, Brown)
Cedric the Forester by Bernard Marshall (Appleton)
The Old Tobacco Shop: A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure by William Bowen (Macmillan)
The Golden Fleece and The Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum (Macmillan)
The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs (Macmillan)

I searched for all these books using the handy WorldCat search box in the sidebar. The only ones that are readily available are the award winner for 1922, van Loon’s The Story of Mankind and The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum. I’m not going to bother with The Story of Mankind. I’ve looked at it before, back in library school, and it’s an outdated evolutionary tract. (“Then one day the great wonder happened. What had been dead, gave birth to life. The first living cell floated upon the waters of the sea.”) You can read it here if you’d like.

As for the other easily obtainable book, The Golden Fleece, I actually have a copy on my groaning bookshelves. You can also read it online here, with illustrations by Willy Pogany, the same artist who illustrated my favorite poetry book, by the way. So the Newbery Honor book I’ll be reading for the week of January 28-February 3 is The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum. I’l be trying to answer these questions as I read:

Is the language too archaic or difficult for children of 2007?

Would Karate Kid (age 9) enjoy reading this book with his dad? He and Engineer Husband are already reading King Arthur, but they’re about to finish that book.

Are there more modern versions of the Greek hero stories that would be better, or is Colum’s book the gold standard?

Why did the committee that chose the first Newbery Award winner also name Colum’s book as a runner-up? Would librarians choose this book for a Newbery Honor if it were published in 2007?
Until the 1970’s the Newbery committe named an award book and sometimes several “runners-up.” In 1971 the term “runners-up” was changed to “honor books,” and all the runners-up from previous years were also changed to honor books.

If you already know the answers to any of these questions, or if you have read Colum’s book and have comments, or if you’d like to read with me, leave a comment so I’ll know who’s interested.

For those who didn’t read my previous post, I’m going on a journey starting this week through the annals of the Newbery Award and Honor books for Distinguished Children’s Literature. I’m planning to read a Newbery Award or Honor book each week this year. You’re welcome to play along if you’d like. I’ll post my reactions and thoughts on Sunday night, February 4th.

Desperate Journey by Jim Murphy

Jan22

That’s what she felt like, Maggie realized. A boiler filled with steam, wanting to go and go fast, but held in place, steam pressure building and building.

Nice description. I’ve felt that way.

Author Jim Murphy is well-known for his nonfiction titles about historical events, including The Great Fire about the Chicago fire of 1871, Blizzard: The Storm That Changed America, and An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. He’s won the Newbery Honor twice and other awards.

Desperate Journey is different, however, since it’s a fictional account set in 1848 of the life of a twelve year girl, Maggie Haggerty, and her family, living on a canal boat on the Erie Canal. In historical fiction the author must tell a made-up story with all the drama and details of history, but that comes across as both plausible and interesting. Mr. Murphy does a fine job of creating characters and a story that draw the reader in and keep us invested in the outcome of the story. Maggie and her family have lots of obstacles to overcome, and they do what needs to be done in spite of the difficulties. I guess you could say they’re examples of inspiring characters in historical fiction.

I’m working on a post on “God talk” in children’s literature, a continuation of some thoughts I had after reading MotherReader’s post on Hattie Big Sky. Desperate Journey is certainly another example of a book in which God and talk about God play a role. Maggie and her mother and brother are caught in desperate race to get a load of cargo down the canal, and God sends help in the form of a strange character who sees visions and hears God speaking to him in dreams. It’s a sort of a “touched by an angel” situation, but there is little indication that the visionary character, Billy Black, is anyone other than a man with a troubled past, redeemed and sent to help Maggie and her family in their desperate journey. The God talk is an integral part of the story, and Maggie reacts to all this talk of visions and messages from God as one would expect a normal twelve year girl to react—with skepticism and a bit of curiosity. Billy Black remains a mysterious character all the way through the novel, and I enjoyed that bit of ambiguity.

Desperate Journey would make a fine addition to the American history curriculum. I would recommend it to homeschoolers who use Sonlight or Tapestry of Grace, curricula that make heavy use of historical fiction to teach history. I think I’ll add it to our read-aloud list for the next time we cycle through U.S. history.

Contests, Awards, and Carnivals

Jan22

A new Short story contest is being co-sponsored by the blog Faith in Fiction and by Relief Journal. Entries are due by mid-March, and the theme is “daily sacrament.”

“We are celebrating the release of our beautiful new poetry anthology, The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, with a poetry contest. Children ages 12 and under are invited to submit original poetry to have a chance to win a signed copy! Winners will receive special mention on our website.”
Hidden-Treasure
Jules at Everyday Mommy is hosting the Hidden Treasure Blog Awards recognizing writing excellence. Her goal is to recognize those under-read bloggers who have written excellent posts in various categories. Nominations open on February 1st.

The Tenth Carnival of Children’s Literature is open for your enjoyment at Big A little a. Kelly’s got lots of links for all lovers of children’s books.

Also for those interested in children’s books, the live webcast announcement for the 2007 Newbery, Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, and Prinz Awards should be available at 9:45 AM CST today, January 22nd, here. Text announcement here.

In March, you’re invited to the Ultimate Blog Party hostessed by 5 Minutes for Mom. The blog world is just full of ideas, so join in. Ultimate Blog Party

Newbery Predictions

Jan10

Franki at A Year of Reading invites readers and bloggers to predict the winner(s) of the Newbery Award and Newbery Honor books. I’m sure that, like Franki and Mary Lee, I will have no success at reading the minds of the Newbery committee members, but I’m probably more prepared to make a guess this year than I ever have been. Thanks to the Cybil awards process, I have actually read several books that were published in 2007. So here are my predictions:


1. Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. I thought this book was the best of all of the books I read that were nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the final cut for the Cybil award, so maybe I can send good vibes about it to the Newbery folks. I’ve only read about 17 of the Cybil nominees and dipped into 3 or 4 that I didn’t like enough to finish them. I did fall in love with Clementine. Oh my darling, oh my darling . . .


2. Alabama Moon by Watt Key. Even though I thought Alabama Moon was more appropriate for young adults (high school age and up) than for middle graders, I did like the book itself very much. Well-written story, interesting subject, good characterization —a good candidate for some award somewhere. Why not the Newbery?


3. Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata. I liked this book even though it wasn’t my favorite. I think the elite of the children’s literature world will love it. It’s multi-cultural; it’s anti-war; and it’s a good story. I suppose the only problem is that Cynthia Kadohata has already won the Newbery Award once, but it’s been awarded twice to the same author before. They could do it again.

4. Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy. If funny books like Clementine don’t win the Newbery, if we have to have a Serious Subject, then Yellow Star is my personal favorite for the award. It’s deep, disturbing, with an interesting twist at the end that ties into the title, and it’s still accessible to children. My then-eleven year old read it and liked it and learned from it.


5. Rules by Cynthia Lord. This one’s a dark horse, first children’s book published by Ms. Lord, possible winner, IF the committee members appreciate the story of a girl growing up with an autistic brother and making friends with a severely handicapped young man in a wheelchair.

If The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak wins, I will resign myself to the idea that I just don’t get contemporary children’s literature and go back to my pet project of reading all the Newbery Award and Newbery Honor books of the twentieth century. If all the world proclaims that The Book Thief is the best book ever written, I will still say, “I just don’t get what all the fuss is about!” Death narrates a book about the Holocaust, indeed! Give me Yellow Star, a real Holocaust story sans the bizarre narrator.

OK, I just figured out that Marcus Zusak is an Australian and lives in Sydney, and the Newbery Award is only awarded to American citizens. Oh, well, I needed to get that rant off my chest anyway after seeing Death Takes a Holiday, aka The Book Thief on every blogger’s year-end list of favorites from here to Kalamazoo.

Philippa Pearce

Jan3

Author Philippa Pearce died December 21, 2006 after suffering a stroke, at the age of 86. (HT: H2Oboro Blog) She wrote several books for children, including her most famous fantasy Tom’s Midnight Garden. This book is classic British fiction about time travel and the ending of childhood.

The Independent: Obituary for Philippa Pearce

Telegraph: Obituary for Philippa Pearce.

Two articles from Horn Book, one by and one about Philippa Pearce.

Philippa Pearce was born on January 23, 1920. Have you read Tom’s Midnight Garden or her Whitbread prize-winning book, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak? I read Tom’s Midnight Garden a long time ago and remember it fondly if not too clearly. I seem to remember a strange sort of clock that strikes thirteen to signal the onset of magical events, but I may be mixing it up with something else.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born December 30th

Dec30


Rudyard Kipling, b. 1865, d. January 18, 1936.

Kipling was wildly popular in his time; he’s now condemned as a moralist, a racist, and and imperialist. Nevertheless, his poetry and his stories are a delight, even if it’s sometimes necessary to suspend one’s cultural assumptions and attitudes. Eldest Daughter took a Victorian fantasty class last semester, and the class read Puck of Pook’s Hill, a tale of Puck, the Last of the Little People, who takes two children, Dan and Una, on a journey through a fantastical version of ancint British history. They hear stories from Puck and see the adventures of Picts and Danes, knights and Romans, and other more fairy-like folk.

THe following poem is from the book Puck of Pook’s Hill by Rudyard Kipling:

Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs,
(All of a Midsummer morn!)
Surely we sing no little thing,
In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Oak of the Clay lived many a day,
Or ever AEneas began.
Ash of the Loam was a lady at home,
When Brut was an outlaw man.
Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town
(From which was London born);
Witness hereby the ancientry
Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Yew that is old in churchyard-mould,
He breedeth a mighty bow.
Alder for shoes do wise men choose,
And beech for cups also.
But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,
And your shoes are clean outworn,
Back ye must speed for all that ye need,
To Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth
Till every gust be laid,
To drop a limb on the head of him
That anyway trusts her shade:
But whether a lad be sober or sad,
Or mellow with ale from the horn,
He will take no wrong when he lieth along
‘Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;
But–we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!
And we bring you news by word of mouth-
Good news for cattle and corn–
Now is the Sun come up from the South,
With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs
(All of a Midsummer morn):
England shall bide till Judgment Tide,
By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

In the story Puck swears “by Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.” If I were going to swear an oath by anything, I would enjoy that one. I do like the Victorians and Edwardians. There’s something solid and comforting and indestructible about even the most doubting and wavering of the Victorians, not that Kipling falls into the latter category. I’m sure that Tolkien and Lewis read their Kipling and were influenced by him. Doesn’t the tree poem remind you of Tolkien’s love of trees?

If you can get your hands on a copy, I would recommend a romp through Puck of Pook’s Hill. In the same class on Victorian fantasy, Eldest Daughter also enjoyed Thackeray’s The Ring and the Rose, also worth searching out.

Complete Collection of Poems by Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling’s Birthday, December 2004: “When Earth’s Picture Is Painted.”

Heat by Mike Lupica and Alabama Moon by Watt Key

Dec28

Michael Arroyo, age twelve, and Moon Blake, age ten, both have the same problem. Each of their fathers has died and left them without a parent to take care of them. And neither of them wants to go into foster care. Mike’s brother, Carlos, calls government people “Official Persons” and distrusts and avoids them. He and Mike manage, with the help of a friend, to hide their father’s death from NYC Officialdom and live on their own, sort of successfully. Moon Blake, down in the backwoods of Alabama, also distrusts the government and tries to hide the death of his father.

Heat by Mike Lupica and Alabama Moon by Watt Key do share a similar plot device: a young boy who has reasons to distrust the representatives of the state must figure out how to continue life on his own terms while navigating the adult world and avoiding both the well-meaning and the badly-intentioned interference of grown-ups. Finally, both boys must decide whom to trust and how much trust they can afford and how much help they need.

But there are some differences in the two books. Heat is set in New York City, and Michael’s father was a good man who died of a heart attack, unexpectedly leaving his boys fatherless. Michael does have his brother, Carlos, to take care of him, but Carlos is a minor, too, almost eighteen. The two boys are from Cuba, hence their lack of turst in the government, and they try to live in New York’s inner city on their own. But the adult world won’t leave them alone, and Michael finds out that even Little League baseball is played by rules that adults make and that kids need help to play the game. Michael know how to play baseball, but he doesn’t know how to take care of himself in New York City and neither does Carlos, really.

Moon of Alabama Moon, on the other hand, is much more prepared to take care of himself in some ways. His father is a survivalist, a believer in government conspiracies and in coming world war, and he’s taught Moon how to take care of himself in the woods. Moon knows how to hunt and fish, and build a shelter, and survive in the wilderness. He’s doesn’t determined to live free, just as he and his father did, but he doesn’t know what to do about all the people who won’t allow him to be on his own. And he doesn’t know how to cope with his own loneliness and isolation. Moon makes some friends after his father’s death, but having friends means living by society’s rules. Moon’s not so good at following rules made by other people.

Heat would be great book to recommend to baseball fans or kids who are interested in immigration issues or kids who read sports fiction in general. There’s lots of baseball description, but I found it fascinating rather than dry and technical. Michael’s difficult life and his father’s death are handled with sympathy, but nothing’s too dark or gruesome. Michael has friends and an interest in life (baseball) to keep him going. Even when Michael’s brother, Carlos, flirts with a life of crime in order to support himself and Michael, nothing too grim or dangerous happens. Carlos gets off with a warning, and the boys end up surrounded by love and support from friends.

Moon, the character, ends up OK, but the book Alabama Moon is much darker and more frightening than Heat. I liked Alabama Moon very much, but I wouldn’t recommend it for middle grade (3rd-6th) readers. It does feature a ten year old protagonist, but the subject matter and tone of the novel would be more appropriate for young adult and even adult readers. Moon’s father is mentally disturbed, and Moon must come to terms with the rest of the world after living his first ten years in isolation with only his eccentric father to teach him. The book also has a villain, a redneck Alabama constable who is just as mentally unbalanced as Moon’s father was. Alabama Moon is a dark and violent story in spite of its happy ending, and it raises questions that would be difficult to answer at the level of ten, eleven, or even twelve year old child. I know that Karate Kid (age 9) and even Brown Bear Daughter (age 12 today) would have trouble understanding why the father in the story was so distrustful and even mean to his own son and why the constable is so violently determined to capture Moon.

So, here are two great books with similar themes, one appropriate for boys (and girls) up to age twelve or thirteen, and the other for mature young adults who are beginning to understand that parents aren’t perfect and that some have serious problems. I was quite impressed with both books, and I’ll be looking for more from each of these talented authors. Both of these books were nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

Dec20

Okay, fine. Clementine has had “not so good of a week.” The week starts with a visit to the principal’s office and ends with an almost disastrous going away party. In between, Clementine, although she almost always means well, manages to frustrate her best friend, her friend’s mom, her teacher, the principal, the principal’s secretary, and even her own mom. And she’s reminded to “pay attention” about a hundred times, give or take a few.

Clementine reminds me, of course, of Ramona Quimby. The book itself is a bit easier to read and a bit shorter than the Ramona books. (The book is written on about a second or third grade reading level, and it would make a great read aloud for classes at those grade levels.) But Clementine is definitely spunky just like Ramona. The picture of the little redheaded fireball upside down on the cover of the book reminds me of my little seven year old Bee. Any day now, Clementine should be joining the ranks of Jen’s Cool Girls from Children’s Literature, if she hasn’t already.

Clementine is not so good at journal writing and paying attention, better at math. She’s great at helping her comedian dad fight off the pigeons that mess up the front of their apartment building each day. She’s also a pretty good artist, but not so good at sitting still. In short, Clementine is a typical, wiggly, impetuous, bull-in-a-china-closet, little girl. She gets into lots of trouble, tries to help, and worries that maybe her parents will get tired of all her messes.

I think girls and boys will love reading about Clementine. Bee-girl, age seven, has started the book, and she’s enjoying it. Clementine is one of the best of the books nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.

Other blogger reviews of Clementine:

park(dale) life: “Okay, this book? The one that’s written for kids, like, less than a quarter of my age? It TOTALLY RULES.”

The Planet Esme: “I love these drawings, they are so timeless. Can they give a Caldecott for a chapter book?”

Fuse #8 Production: “Engaging, mischevious, never ever dull, and topped off by illustrations by Marla Frazee, Pennypacker’s early chapter book, Clementine, is everything you could hope for in a story for kids. Finally, a character that can challenge Ramona Quimby for her throne.”

Okay, fine. I think you could say we liked this book —a lot. And Amazon indicates that there’s a sequel, The Talented Clementine, coming out in April, 2007. Yes!

Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata and Blue by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

Dec15


Two books set during World War War II: One takes place in California and Arizona; the other book is set on the other side of the country in North Carolina. Sumiko is twelve years old and lives with her aunt and uncle and cousins on a flower farm; Anna Fay is thirteen and has become “the man of the house” since her daddy’s gone to fight in the war. Both girls are typical older children, responsible, obligated to grow up fast and take care of younger brothers and sisters. Both girls use gardening as a way to work through their problems and challenges. And each must face her own war, her own imprisonment, and her own fight against ignorance and prejudice.

Sumiko, heroine of Weedflower, is a Japanese-American girl; her parents are dead, and she faces prejudice against “orientals” from the beginning of the story when she is dis-invited to a birthday party for a girl in her class. The challenges only get worse after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and all the residents of Japanese descent on the West Coast are gathered and sent to internment camps. Sumiko, her aunt, her two older cousins, and her little brother are sent to Poston in Arizona. There Sumiko must learn to survive and even overcome the heat, the dust, the hostility of neighbors, and even the threat of succumbing to “the ultimate boredom.” The latter is her grandfather’s term for the temptation to give up, to lose your dreams, to surrender hope, a temptation that Sumiko must face and defeat if she is to win her war.

Anna Fay, the main character in Blue has a battle to fight, too. A polio epidemic has invaded western North Carolina in 1944, and Anna Fay’s little brother Bobby falls victim to the dread disease. Later in the story, Anna Fay herself must battle polio, even as she worries about her daddy fighting Hitler in Europe and about whether her family will ever be together again. Anna Fay is trapped in the polio hospital just as Sumiko is trapped in the internment camp, and Anna Fay faces boredom and prejudice, too. The discrimination comes when Anna Fay becomes friends with a “colored girl” who also has polio, but the two girls can’t convince anyone that they should be allowed to share a hospital ward as well as a friendship.

I thought both of these books were excellently well-written. Blue goes for the tear-jerker, drama reaction; the writing in Weedflower is a little more restrained. Sumiko is the stereotypical Japanese, determined to keep her emotions under control and her tears hidden; Anna Fay is comforted by her friend’s word picture of a God who saves each person’s tears in a bottle on a heavenly window-sill. (Anna Fay’s bottle is blue.) Each girl compares herself to a flower: Sumiko is a weedflower, a flower of the field that is both beautiful and resilient; Anna Fay is sometimes as fragile as a mimosa blossom and other times as tough as wisteria.

These books would work well, paired, in a unit study on World War II to give students a good picture of different aspects of the time period. Other World War II books for girls:

Denenberg, Barry. Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows, Hawaii, 1941.
Denenberg, Barry. One Eye Laughing, The Other Weeping: The Diary of Julie Weiss, Vienna, Austria to New York, 1938.
Greene, Betty. Summer of my German Soldier.
Osborne, Mary Pope. My Secret War: The World War II Diary of Madeline Beck, Long Island, New York, 1941.
Rinaldi, Ann. Keep Smiling Through.

Weedflower and Blue also have another thing in common; both books are nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.