Genre 6: Fantasy

Bibliography

Appelt, Kathi.  The Underneath.  New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 2008.  ISBN:  978-1-4169-5058-5.

Summary

Three stories intertwine as all of the respective characters and spirits cross paths.  In the first, a pregnant calico cat is abandoned in the woods on a stormy night.  In the distance, an old hound dog sings the blues in a most plaintiff, mournful voice.  The cat follows his song to find the hound and is led to a dilapidated house, where an aura of death and foreboding hangs.  Ranger is chained to the porch as eternal punishment for one failed hunt.  The cat sidles up to him, sympathizing with the agony that he sings about.  They stay safe in “the Underneath”, a place under the porch, with Ranger adopting the calico cat and kittens as his family.  They name them Puck and Sabine and implore them never to leave the Underneath.  Puck wanders out from under the porch, is caught – along with his mother – by the sadistic inhabitant of the leaning, and thrown into the pond.  

While the calico mother drowns, Puck survives and is driven by his promise to free Ranger and leave the Underneath forever.  The abominable man in the crooked house is called Gar Face.  As a boy, he lived with his father, an abusive alcoholic.  The boy reveled in torturing and killing animals. His father struck him in the jaw and knocked it out of place irreparably, giving him his ominous name. Gar Face retreated from Houston into the woods of East Texas, which is inhabited by the spirits of the Caddo tribe and magical animals. Grandmother Moccasin is half snake, half human. 

She lived in human form, had a husband who betrayed her and daughter who left her to be a human and marry.  After deceiving her daughter into returning to animal form and leaving a string of death in her wake from the betrayal, she was trapped in a decorative jar beneath the roots of a tree.  All of their worlds interact, then collide in a strange twist of faith when the once vengeful old snake emancipates the makeshift family from the evil Gar Face.  

Critical Analysis

The Underneath can be considered high fiction because it involves a completely alternate, ancient universe and mythical powers “to wield or escape” (Vardell 210).  Because there is such profound sadness and loss throughout this novel, I would recommend it only for 8^th graders and up; to be quite honest, I do not think juvenile fiction is the appropriate classification. Readers will be quickly endeared to the poor calico cat, with her gentle, motherly manner that extends even to Ranger.  They will adore the blues-singing hound and share in his joy of finding love after being beaten and chained for so very long.  Puck’s playful, impish ways are balanced by meek, intuitive huntress Sabine.  Students will find Gar Face and Grandmother Moccasin every bit as loathsome as the rag-tag animal pack is lovable.  Grandmother is so selfish and caustic that it literally courses through her pores in venom, and Gar Face is just a savage of the lowest order – who drowns a mommy cat, abuses a faithful pet, and uses other domestic animals for bait? The setting is the East Texas woods, territory of the ancient Caddo Indians.  

The scene is created with detailed descriptions of the Tartine Bayous, the wise trees who see and feel all, and the enchanted animals and therianthropes who live there.  The magical animals have the ability to assume a human body, with the understanding that once they trade their flesh back in – “don their animal forms” – they may not become human again.  The animals communicate, calling one another brother and sister, and the primal spirit that infuses them all moves upon some beasts and trees to help others in distress.  Themes include:  love that conquers all, the power of hope, history’s grip on the present, and respect for nature and the spirit world.  Sadly, there is an overall tone of grief and injustice, with little retribution for wrongs committed. Appelt uses intrigue and suspense liberally, introducing main characters and history first frame-by-frame, often with a warning, then switching between each of them.  Her style is elaborate, poetic in its refrains, with dialect from an obviously ancient time.  There is a lot of repetition on words and phrases for emphasis and poetic quality.

Awards and Reviews

• 2008 National Book Award Finalist
• 2009 Newberry Honor
• 2009 American Library Association Notable Books for Children Award
• Booksense and New York Times Bestseller

School Library Journal:  Three separate but eventually entwined stories are told piecemeal. There is the tale of an abandoned, pregnant calico cat who finds shelter and friendship with the bloodhound, Ranger. He is the abused and neglected pet of Gar Face, a broken-jawed recluse who lives in the Texas bayou, where he fled 25 years previously to escape an abusive father. And finally there is the story of Grandmother Moccasin, a shape-shifting water snake who has lain dormant in a jar for a thousand years, buried beneath a loblolly pine tree. The threads are brought together when Puck, one of the newborn kittens, breaks the rule of straying from the safety of The Underneath, the sliver of space beneath Gar Face's porch where Ranger is chained and the cats live. The pace of this book is meandering, and there is a clear effort by the dominant third-person narrator to create a lyrical, ancient tone. However, the constant shift of focus from one story line to the next is distracting and often leads to lost threads. Small's black-and-white illustrations add a certain languid moodiness to the text. Themes of betrayal, hope, and love are reflected in the three stories, but this is a leisurely, often discouraging journey to what is ultimately an appropriate ending.

Connections

The Caddo tribe plays a tremendous role in The Underneath, making it an easy segue into a research project and/or spin-off of a History unit on Native American culture and beliefs.  Students can split into groups and choose among several tribes to investigate.  Items for considering:  habitat, style of dress, cash crops and primary game, enemies, and deities.  This would also be a stellar opportunity for artwork.  Students can create pieces of pottery or “cave drawings” make a presentation on meanings and relationship to a certain tribe.  As for related literature, Shiloh, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian would be good choices. 

 Bibliography

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.

Summary

This story follows the life of the main character, teenager Hazel Grace Lancaster, who has cancer.  Not only is Hazel grappling with the fact that she's going to die, she's also agonizing over how her parents will cope with her death.  In the midst of her life's trials, she meets a boy named Augustus Waters, with whom she makes an instant connection.  Just like Hazel, Augustus was diagnosed with cancer and lost his leg as result.  He now wears a prosthetic one, and has a better much better chance of survival than Hazel does.

Their friendship grows as they share their favorite books with each other,  Both Hazel and Augustus make a personal connection with Anna, the main character of An Imperial Affliction, which is Hazel's favorite book.  Anna also has cancer, and both Hazel and Augustus are on pins and needles to find out how the story ends, since the author abruptly ends the book without writing a conclusion.

In a miraculous twist of fate, Hazel and Augustus get the opportunity to go to Amsterdam to meet the author of the book, Peter Van Houten.  It is there that Hazel learns that the cancer has spread throughout Augustus' body.  The two spend Augustus' last days spending quality time together. 

Awards and Reviews

The New York Times Best Seller List, January 2012

"At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph." -Booklist

"He’s in remission from the osteosarcoma that took one of his legs. She’s fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited.  Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She’s smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his—based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green’s signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: “My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched.” Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.  Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus’ poignant journey." -Kirkus

Connections
Looking for Alaska
An Abundance of Katherines
Paper Towns
Let it Snow:  Three Holiday Romances

Bibliography

Krosoczka, Jarrett J.  Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf. 2009.  ISBN:  978-0-375084683-0.

Summary

Nerdy Hector, cool Terrance, and spunky Dee are three friends who are curious about what their lunch lady does after the apron and oven mitts come off at the end of the day.  Their imaginations run the gamut from her owning a bevy of cats to secretly saving the universe.  A strange new substitute, Mr. Pasteur, informs them at lunch that beloved teacher Mr. O’Connell will be out indefinitely.  As he has never missed a day in 20 years, Lunch Lady is instantly suspicious.  With the help of sidekick Betty and some spy equipment cleverly disguised as kitchenware, they gather enough evidence to warrant that Lunch Lady follow him home after school.   Meanwhile, the trio follows her, as well.  They all arrive at a warehouse, where they discover that reviled teacher Mr. Edison is replacing all of the popular teachers with cyborgs so that he can become the favorite and win Teacher of the Year.  Lunch Lady uses crime fighting tools that look like various foods to defeat Edison’s robot clan.  He is thrown into jail, Mr. O’Connell returns to school, and the kids agree to keep Lunch Lady’s other day job a secret.  In a cliff-hanger, Edison gives cyborg sub Pasteur further orders via jail phone, and Hector finally bucks Milmoe the bully.

Critical Analysis

Lunch Lady meets the criteria for a low fiction series – it is comical, light, the lunch lady’s superpowers are regarded almost as normal/expected, and there is a large fan base ready to devour each subsequent helping of what the Lunch Lady is serving (Vardell 209; 211).  Young readers (3^rd grade and up) will relate to the curious trio, as they themselves have probably questioned the mundane, assigning alternate identities to the seemingly boring adults in their lives.  Girls will silently fist bump for Dee, who is the de facto leader of the pack, always with the plan of action and the guts to stand up to Melmoe the bully.  They will also root for Hector, who refuses to give up his lunch money at the end, while Terrance is the easy-breezy balance of the two extremes.  Their comraderie with Lunch Lady is also a refreshing twist – she does not thrust stomach churning fare on them or chide them for their curiosity; she is just plain cool, like teens and tweens are always imploring adults to be.  With Mr. Edison, this graphic novel brings the stuffy, academic side of schools down to earth by showing that popularity is important and everyone, even a teacher, wants to be liked. The lunchroom setting is perfect for a fantasy novel, as kids spend the bulk of their time in school.  The genius thing about Krosoczka’s choice of venue is that no one ever expects exciting, supernatural happenings in the dullest place and starring dullest person.  The author makes excellent use of everyday cafeteria utensils and foods, transforming them into weaponry:  fishstick nunchucks, a hairnet net for trapping villains, lunch tray laptop, spatu-copter, and a lab in the boiler room where it all goes down.  Some lessons we learn include standing up for oneself and one’s convictions, the dangers of greed, the redemptive powers of being curious, and the power of innovation. The style is very informal, with fairly large writing, sparse and simple words, and the distinctive black and white with yellow accented illustrations that the series is famous for. 

Awards and Reviews

• 2009 Kid’s Indie Next List “Inspired Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers” Award
• 2010 Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices Award
• IRA Children’s Choices Award
• 2011 Flickr Tale Children’s Book Award Nominee

Kirkus Review, 5/20/2010:  Classmates Hector, Dee and Terrence have always wondered about the Lunch Lady: What does she do when she’s not making chicken-patty pizza? Tending to her many cats? Taking care of her family? After some amateur sleuthing, the kids discover that their Lunch Lady is out fighting the forces of evil, of course, with her trusty sidekick, Betty. This dynamic duo uncovers a nefarious plot hatched by a villainous teacher to overrun the school with cyborg substitutes. Backed up by Betty’s ingenious arsenal of amalgamated cafeteria utensils including Spatu-copter, Chicken Nugget Bombs and Lunch Tray Laptop, the two are on the case. This graphic novel alternates between boxy, regular panels and full-page spreads, keeping readers’ visual interest piqued. Filled with goofy puns and grayscale art with cheery yellow accents, this is a delightfully fun escapist read. 

Connections

In elementary school, I had a music teacher who would make us sing the lamest songs and confine us to very traditional, classic choir standards.  I would fantasize about making a video game in which he trapped kids in music staffs, accosted them with musical notes, and sang to them until they simultaneously combusted.  Glad to see I was not alone in my musings!  I am sure that like me, kids have taken common places and plagues and turned them into something fantastical, hence a creative writing project would be ideal.  In clusters of 3-4, students can create a comic, video game, or play in which they transform a regular place into something theatrical.  I would urge them to experiment with settings and characters – consider the coach, sanitation worker, or bus driver.  They can also be “Betty” by devising their own secret cafeteria weapon, drawing a picture, and writing a detailed description of how it would be operated and its main functions.

Genre 5: Historical Fiction

Bibliography

Cushman, Karen.  Catherine,Called Birdy.  New York:  Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994.

Plot Summary

Fourteen-year-old Catherine lives in Lincoln, a shire of England. In an effort to refine her manners and make her more educated, her brother, Edward, has her to keep a journal for a year.  Since her father is a minor knight, she is part of the nobility and must abide by the restrictions of her somewhat lofty class, much to her chagrin.  She undergoes extensive training on being a docile lady: spinning, embroidering, brewing medicines, all of this with intention of making her a teen wife to increase her family’s financial holdings.  What she longs to do is gather apples, partake in the village festivities, and rollick with her friend Perkin and his goats.  

When her greedy father puts together an assembly line of repulsive suitors, Catherine hatches plot after hilarious plot to run them off.  After pulling every prank imaginable, from blacking out her teeth to setting a would-be husband on fire, she meets the one suitor she cannot dispel, Murgaw/Shaggy Beard.  The negotiation of her marriage to a hairy man three times her age, the love affair blossoming between her favorite uncle and best friend, and her mother’s difficult pregnancy all threaten to smother Catherine’s free spirit.  A twist of fate delivers Birdy from Shaggy Beard, and she is betrothed to his son instead.  Little Birdy learns that it is not always necessary to beat your wings against the cage, and that circumstances do not have to change who you are inside. 

Critical Analysis

England in the 1200s is a far cry from modern times, so this novel would be most appropriate for intermediate level or above. Students will fall in love with the spunky Ms. Birdy.  She is commissioned by her big brother to journal, and like her, teens and tweens will undoubtedly relate to being cajoled into doing a writing assignment in their leisure time.  The main character tells cheeky jokes by the boatload – the reader feels as if s/he is on a tour of the shire, peeking into the secret affairs of neighbors who sneak off to the haystacks together or get caught in compromising situations.  Birdy is quite the prankster; all of her half-baked schemes to repel bachelors by making herself unattractive or undertaking jobs that she is horrible at will keep readers in stitches.  Birdy learns that people are not always as they appear – the father and brother who once repulsed her with their loud, chauvinist ways reveal themselves to be tender and heroic at times. 

Review Excerpts

1995 Newberry Honor

1995 Golden Kite Award

1996 American Booksellers Book of the Year Nominee

1996 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award Nominee

1997 Young Reader’s Choice Award Nominee

School Library Journal, 1994:  This unusual book provides an insider's look at the life of Birdy, 14, the daughter of a minor English nobleman. The year is 1290 and the vehicle for storytelling is the girl's witty, irreverent diary. She looks with a clear and critical eye upon the world around her, telling of the people she knows and of the daily events in her small manor house. Much of Birdy's energy is consumed by avoiding the various suitors her father chooses for her to marry. She sends them all packing with assorted ruses until she is almost wed to an older, unattractive man she refers to as Shaggy Beard. In the process of telling the routines of her young life, Birdy lays before readers a feast of details about medieval England. The book is rich with information about the food, dress, religious beliefs, manners, health, medical practices, and sanitary habits (or lack thereof) of the people of her day. From the number of fleas she kills in an evening to her herbal medicines laced with urine, Birdy reveals fascinating facts about her time period. A feminist far ahead of her time, she is both believable and lovable.

Connections

The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman 

Castle Diary:  The Journal of Tobias Burgess by Richard Platt

Bibliography

Yelchin, Eugene.  Breaking Stalin’s Nose.  New York:  Henry Holt & Company.  2011. 

Plot Summary

A young, ten-year-old Sasha Zaichik shares a communal apartment with over 40 people and his father in Communist Russia.  He admires his father, a decorated state security officer serving at the pleasure of infamous USSR dictator, Joseph Stalin.  Stalin, much like Adolf Hitler, has completely brainwashed the people of the Soviet Union.  They believe that he is their protector, provider, and bright future, and that under his tutelage, everyone is equal as a part of the Communist “we.”  Sasha is enthralled with everything Communist, and his fondest desire is to become a Young Soviet Pioneer to serve his country like his father, who he deeply admires.  

One night, a group of secret police ransack Sasha’s apartment and arrest his father, declaring him an “enemy of the people”.  Knowing his father’s dedication, he insists that the arrest was mistaken – they were actually reported by a neighbor who coveted their large unit – and is certain that great Stalin will free his dad and punish the fools who made the error.  Turned away by family for fear of punishment, Sasha lives in a basement and returns to school, still excited about the Young Pioneer induction ceremony.  

When charged with the honor of carrying the Soviet banner, he accidentally knocks over a bust of Stalin with one of the poles, chipping the nose off the statue.   A savage witch hunt ensues amongst the student body.  Finklestein, an ostracized Jewish child who wants to be united with his jailed parents, takes the blame for damage.  Sasha is given a proposition:  he can be a spy for the Communist police reporting on his classmates’ anti-Party activity, or be banished to an orphanage.  After seeing how harshly the Soviets deal with Finklestein and Vovka’s families, as well as his own, he refuses the offer, renounces his dedication to the Party, and visits his father in jail.

Critical Analysis

Sasha is only ten years old, and it shows in his innocent, unshakable admiration for his father, and dedication to his countrymen. For example, he initially thinks that the neighbors who reported his father were being kind by cleaning up the things the police ransacked, when in actuality, they were packing the Zaichicks up to make room for themselves!  Sasha also feels fortunate when he is given a carrot, failing to realize that Stalin’s food rationing policy is leaving people hungry, or that sharing an apartment makes citizens easier to control.  

The capitalist children whom he pities are really well-fed, while it is he who is living in pitiful conditions. He begins as loyal and eager to please, but later develops discernment and a heightened sense of justice as the Communist system fails him more and more.  When he learns that some of the most dedicated followers have been executed by the secret police and watches as even his peers are jailed as “enemies of the people” for the smallest infractions, he begins questioning his beliefs about the teachers and leaders he once trusted. By the story’s end, he has abandoned his most cherished wish and discovered how Communism caused his mother’s demise. 

Review Excerpts

2012 Newberry Honor

2012 ALA Notable Books for Children Award

Kirkus Review, 7/20/2011:  Yelchin’s debut novel does a superb job of depicting the tyranny of the group, whether residents of a communal apartment, kids on the playground, students in the classroom or government officials. It’s the readiness of the group to create outsiders—bad ones, “unreliables,” “wreckers”—by instilling fear in everyone that chills. Not many books for such a young audience address the Stalinist era, when, between 1923 and 1953, leaving a legacy of fear for future generations. Joseph Stalin’s State Security was responsible for exiling, executing or imprisoning 20 million people. 

Sasha is 10 years old and is devoted to Stalin, even writing adoring letters to Comrade Stalin expressing his eagerness at becoming a Young Pioneer. But his mother has died mysteriously, his father has been imprisoned and Sasha finds he has important moral choices to make. Yelchin’s graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha’s steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale.  A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they believe to be right,” as that of Yelchin’s childhood.

Connections

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Young Reader’s Choice Award

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

1990 Newberry Medal Honor

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

2002 Pura Belpre Award

2001 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award

Bibliography

Garcia, Rita. One Crazy Summer. New York: Amistad, 2012.

Plot Summary

In a story set during a pivotal time in history -the Civil Rights Movement- eleven-year-old Delphine has assumed the responsibility of caretaker for her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. Their mother, Cecile, was never really interested in motherhood, and abandoned the family shortly after giving birth to her third daughter.  Cecile fled to California, in an effort to escape the responsibilities she never really wanted, and continue to build her own selfish identity, uninterrupted.  

The girls’ lives are turned topsy-turvy when their father announces that they will take a trip to California to meet their mother.  While the girls look forward to a fantasy trip to Disneyland to meet Tinker Bell, they get a rude awakening when they meet their hostile mother and discover firsthand the secretive little nuances of her Black Panther lifestyle.  The girls end up learning many things about their mother, the Black Panther lifestyle, and the past during one crazy summer!

Critical Analysis

Delphine is a saucy, independent tween who has been robbed of her childhood innocence and unfairly charged with the task of caring for her sisters. To add insult to injury, once she arrives in California, she is greeted by a mother who tells her that she and her sisters didn’t have to come.  The prevailing theme here seems to be discovery, as the girls learn more about The Black Panther Party, their family’s past, and their strong bond of sisterhood. 

Review Excerpts

2011 Coretta Scott King Award Winner

2011 Newbery Honor Book

2011 Scott O’Dell Prize for Historical Fiction

2010 National Book Award Finalist

Junior Library Guild Selection

Texas Library Association Best Book for 2010

School Library Journal:

It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Delphine, 11, remembers her mother, but after years of separation she's more apt to believe what her grandmother has said about her, that Cecile is a selfish, crazy woman who sleeps on the street. At least Cecile lives in a real house, but she reacts to her daughters' arrival without warmth or even curiosity. Instead, she sends the girls to eat breakfast at a center run by the Black Panther Party and tells them to stay out as long as they can so that she can work on her poetry. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. Emotionally challenging and beautifully written, this book immerses readers in a time and place and raises difficult questions of cultural and ethnic identity and personal responsibility. With memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading.—Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Library 

Booklist:

Eleven-year-old Delphine has only a few fragmented memories of her mother, Cecile, a poet who wrote verses on walls and cereal boxes, played smoky jazz records, and abandoned the family in Brooklyn after giving birth to her third daughter. In the summer of 1968, Delphine’s father decides that seeing Cecile is “something whose time had come,” and Delphine boards a plane with her sisters to Cecile’s home in Oakland. What they find there is far from their California dreams of Disneyland and movie stars. “No one told y’all to come out here,” Cecile says. “No one wants you out here making a mess, stopping my work.” Like the rest of her life, Cecile’s work is a mystery conducted behind the doors of the kitchen that she forbids her daughters to enter. For meals, Cecile sends the girls to a Chinese restaurant or to the local, Black Panther–run community center, where Cecile is known as Sister Inzilla and where the girls begin to attend youth programs. Regimented, responsible, strong-willed Delphine narrates in an unforgettable voice, but each of the sisters emerges as a distinct, memorable character, whose hard-won, tenuous connections with their mother build to an aching, triumphant conclusion. Set during a pivotal moment in African American history, this vibrant novel shows the subtle ways that political movements affect personal lives; but just as memorable is the finely drawn, universal story of children reclaiming a reluctant parent’s love. -Gillian Engberg 

Kirkus:

Each girl has a distinct response to her motherless state, and Williams-Garcia provides details that make each characterization crystal clear. The depiction of the time is well done, and while the girls are caught up in the difficulties of adults, their resilience is celebrated and energetically told with writing that snaps off the page.

Connections

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Newberry Honor Award

Coretta Scott King Award

The Watsons Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis

Newberry Honor Award

Coretta Scott King Award

Genre 4: Nonfiction

Bibliography

Jenkins, Steve. Just a Second: A Different Way to Look at Time. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011.

Plot Summary

This concept book is a first introduction to time in a fun, fascinating way.  It uses the most basic examples of nature to explain man-made time concepts of the second, minute, hour, day, week and year.  In addition, it seeks to explain “very long” and “very short” lengths of time by comparing them to natural, earthly occurrences.

Critical Analysis

A human being can blink seven times in one second.  A hamster’s heart can beat 450 times in one minute.  A mole can dig a 20-foot long tunnel in one hour.  The population of India increases by 47, 000 people in just one day.  These are some of the basic facts that Jenkins uses to explain the concepts of time.  

Artful and colorful illustrations accompany the facts, sparking the curiosity of the reader, making it an interesting and attractive read.  Each increment of time is introduced in a predictable layout, with the introduction of the concept first, accompanied by illustrations, with the text appearing as captions to each picture.  Jenkins also includes a brief history of timekeeping, some additional reading, and a note about facts, figures and sources at the end of the book, for further reference.

Review Excerpts/Awards

"Jenkins renders this package both eye-catching and mind boggling. Teachers will find good jumping-off points here for math, science, and history discussions."— School Library Journal

“With a dazzling array of science and nature facts on the order of Ripley's Believe It or Not, Jenkins succeeds in teaching children about time even as he's bound to pique their interest in a wide variety of behaviors, animal, human and mechanical. The material is organized and arranged with care by Jenkins, whose meticulous cut-paper collage illustrations are detailed and yet unfussy.” –The New York Times Book Review

“Jenkins brings fresh perspective to the passage of time in a thought-provoking picture book that features his typically elegant cut-paper collages. With a particular focus on the natural world and mankind's impact on it, Jenkins lists diverse events that occur in the space of a second, a minute, an hour, and so on.”  —Publisher’s Weekly

Connections

Other award-winning Steve Jenkins books:

What do you do with a tail like this?

Caldecott Honor 2004

The Beetle Book

Kirkus Reviews Best Children’s Book of 2012; NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K—12: 2013; SLJ Best Children’s Books 2012, Nonfiction; Booklist Top 10 Books for Youth 2012, Science & Health; Booklist Lasting Connections of 2012, Science; ALSC 2013 Notable Children’s Books, Middle Readers

Living Color

2008 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award, Recommended, CCBC Choices 2008, The Natural World, Book Sense Children's Picks - Fall 2007, Booklist Editor's Choice 2007, Publishers Weekly - Best Children's Books 2007, Children's Nonfiction

Bibliography

Nelson, Kadir. We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. New York: Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.

Plot Summary

We are the Ship tells the story of the origin and establishment of the Negro baseball leagues.  Each chapter of American history is organized by innings, as the text and illustrations tell the story of the struggles, setbacks, challenges and triumphs of the Negro National League.

Critical Analysis

Imagine a grown man being called every disrespectful, degrading name but his own—and he can’t do anything about it.  Envision a baseball field where fans are allowed to throw trash on the field and yell obscenities at players during a game.  Consider taking a long, exhausting road trip, only to realize that you have been denied food or lodging because of the color of your skin.  

These are the types of atrocities that black baseball players had to face during the establishment of the Negro Baseball League.  The chapters of baseball’s rich history are written by innings, with vivid and beautiful illustrations of the events of the day.  Nelson acknowledges many African American baseball legends as sources of his research at the end of the book, where is also includes an extensive bibliography and filmography information.

Review Excerpts/Awards

“A lost piece of American history comes to life in Kadir Nelson's elegant and eloquent history (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun, 2008) of the Negro Leagues and its gifted baseball players.”

 –School Library Journal

“Award-winning illustrator and first-time author Nelson’s history of the Negro Leagues, told from the vantage point of an unnamed narrator, reads like an old-timer regaling his grandchildren with tales of baseball greats Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and others who forged the path toward breaking the race barrier before Jackie Robinson made his historic debut.”

–Booklist 

2009 Coretta Scott King Honor and Illustrator Award

Connections

Other books by Kadir Nelson:

Heart and Soul:  The Story of America and African Americans

2012 Coretta Scott King Honor and Illustrator Award

Nelson Mandela

Kirkus Reviews Best Children’s Books of 2013; 2014 Coretta Scott King Award Honor, Illustrator; ALA 2014 Notable Children’s Books, Younger Readers

Bibliography

Kerley, Barbara, and Ed Fotheringham. What to Do about Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! New York: Scholastic Press, 2008.

Plot Summary

What to do About Alice? is a story about the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt.  Alice Lee Roosevelt is a rambunctious little girl who loves life and adventure, despite losing her mother shortly after she was born.  The story chronicles her childhood in the White House, her father’s struggles to raise her as a “civilized” lady, and her eventual role as personal advisor to her politician husband and father.

Critical Analysis

She wanted to see how high the springs sprang or her grandparents’ favorite sofa.  She wanted to own a pet monkey.  She joined an all-boys club.  She owned a pet snake.  Alice Lee Roosevelt wanted to eat up the world!  What to do about Alice? is a remarkable story about Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, from her rambunctious adventures as a young girl living in the white house, to her jetsetting days of traveling to foreign countries.  Her father could run a country, but he could never figure out what to do about Alice!  The illustrations of the book are artsy and fun, and the muted colors represent the historical era very well.  The author recognizes fact checking and artwork, and lists a bibliography of sources at the end of the book.

Review Excerpts/Awards

2009 Robert Sibert Honor Book

 “Irrepressible Alice Roosevelt gets a treatment every bit as attractive and exuberant as she was....The large format gives Fotheringham, in his debut, plenty of room for spectacular art.” --Booklist 

“Theodore Roosevelt’s irrepressible oldest child receives an appropriately vivacious appreciation in this superb picture book....precise text presents readers with a devilishly smart, strong-willed girl who was determined to live life on her own terms—and largely succeeded.” --Kirkus 

“Text gallops along with a vitality to match her antics, as the girl greets White House visitors accompanied by her pet snake, refuses to let leg braces cramp her style, dives fully clothed into a swimming pool, and also earns her place in history as one of her father’s trusted advisers. Fotheringham’s digitally rendered, retro-style illustrations are a superb match for the text.”

–School Library Journal

Connections

Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan

ALA Notable Children’s Book, Book Sense Book of the Year Finalist

When Marian Sang:  The True Recital of Marian Anderson by Pam Munoz Ryan

2003 Robert Sibert Honor Book

Genre 3: Poetry

1.       Bibliography

Hopkins, Lee Bennett. I am the Book. New York: Holiday House, 2011.

2.       Plot Summary

I am the Book is a beautiful collection of thirteen poems by various authors that celebrate the joy of reading.  The collection would be most enjoyable for children ages preschool to fourth grade. The various uses of land and sea themes serve as descriptive metaphors for the feelings evoked after reading a great book.

3.      Critical Analysis

The easy rhythm of most of the poems in the collection is readily identifiable, making the poems easy to engage younger audiences.  The matching sounds and expert use of consonance in A Poem Is, “humming, thrumming, drumming, strumming…,” creates movement and encourages the progression of thought.  The language inspires imagery and sparks imagination, as seen in the metaphor When I Read, “…the ebb and flow of tidal words easy under me.”  The illustrations lend a visual element to the text, by capturing the fantasy and whimsy of the words, alluding to the idea that reading a great book will take a person to a fantastic or majestic place.

4.      Review Excerpts

Lee Bennett Hopkins is the recipient of the NCTE Poetry Award.

Lee Bennett Hopkins is the founder of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award (1993).

“Fun for sharing with preschoolers, this will spark discussion in grade school writing and art classes.” –Booklist

5.      Connections

More poems from NCTE award winning poets:

Another Jar of Tiny Stars

Other books of poetry that celebrate reading:

The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter, PARENTS CHOICE AWARD

BookSpeak!:  Poems about Books by Laura Purdie Salas

All of these selections would be ideal for teaching onset and rime in the early grades, and fostering a love of reading.

1.       Bibliography

Lewis, J. Patrick. The Bookworm's Feast. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1999.

2.       Plot Summary

The Bookworm’s Feast is a delightful book of poems arranged by appetizers, sherbets, entrees, side dishes and desserts, with random topics ranging from animals, to travels, to reading and love.  The collection is a celebration of life, expressed through poetry, with a culinary theme.

3.      Critical Analysis

Throughout each poem in the collection, language takes the reader on a journey of movement.  In Autograph Verse, the word progression from top to bottom, then bottom to top mimics the imagery of rain coming down and the sun coming up. In Green Willy, Lewis uses figurative language to describe a green onion stalk named Willy, a carrot named Dick, and an island of Broccoli Trees.  The illustrations are vivid and colorful; they support the text by inciting fantasy and imagination.

4.      Review Excerpts

J. Patrick Lewis was named the third U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate (2011-2013) by the Poetry Foundation.

“…a whimsical confection of poems and drawings in a format just as enjoyable as the poems themselves.” –Publishers Weekly

“A smorgasbord of poetic forms and moods.” –School Library Journal

5.      Connections

Other J. Patrick Lewis poetry books:

Everything is a Poem

Please Bury Me in the Library

Face Bug, 2014-15 Texas Bluebonnet Award

Gather other award-winning poetry collections:

Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein

ALA Notable Book Award, 1974

Outstanding Book Award, 1974

A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein

Best Book Award, 1981

1.       Bibliography

Hemphill, Stephanie. Wicked Girls. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

2.       Plot Summary

Wicked Girls is a novel written in verse, which gives a fictitious account of the Salem Witch Trials.  Nicknamed “The Seers,” three teenage girls find themselves thrust into the spotlight when they begin wrongfully accusing various townspeople of witchcraft.  Each of the girls has her own agenda, and these agendas reveal common issues teenage girls face, like petty jealousy, the need for acceptance, boredom, female rivalry, control, and attention and affection-seeking.  In the end, the girls’ dishonesty spirals completely out of control, and they begin turning on each other to save themselves.

3.      Critical Analysis

The use of language in Wicked Girls is indicative of the time period, which enhances the feeling of anticipation and suspense, yet begs the patience of a slow and deliberate plot.  Modern-day teens that enjoy the Twilight Saga series would find this novel interesting if or when they are able to get past the period language and the text in verse.

4.      Review Excerpts

“Teens may need encouragement to pick up this book, but it deserves a place in most high school collections.” –School Library Journal

“Hemphill offers a fresh perspective on an oft-told tale by providing lesser known Salem accusers with a variety of compelling motivations that will resonate deeply with contemporary teens.”

 –Kirkus

5.      Connections

Gather other verse novels by award winning authors:

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

New York Times Bestseller

Newberry Honor

National Book Award

#3 in Children’s Historical Fiction, Amazon.com

The Secret of Me:  A Novel in Verse by Meg Kearney

Gather other books by Stephanie Hemphill:

Your Own, Sylvia:  A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath

Things Left Unsaid:  A Novel in Poems

Printz Honor, 2008

YALSA Best Books for Young Adults (Top 10), 2008