214. Down Down Down by Steve Jenkins

This was an unequivocal favorite among the young children to whom I read this book. We had a large group of children of both kindergarteners and first graders and they all unanimously loved it. The pictures kept them enthralled. I read bits of the text here and there, and, though I’d anticipated that the text would be daunting for the children, I was wrong. They seemed to follow it well. I can only surmise that the pictures and the movement of the book, going deeper and deeper down into the ocean with every page, kept them going.

A Sample:

“Near the surface the water is warm and brightly lit by the sun. Light-loving plants, algae, and bacteria—most single-celled and too small to see with the naked eye—are found here in uncountable numbers. Almost all life in the sea depends on these microscopic organisms, which use the sun’s energy to help them manufacture their own food. They themselves are food for billions of animals….”

Children’s Comments:

Down, Down, Down

Sheridan, 6, said, “I liked the last page.”

Shelby, 7, said, “I liked the part where it got darker and darker.”

Jacobe, 6, said, “I liked the very end.”

Edwin, 6, said, “I liked the sharks.”

Ariana, 7, said, “I liked the dolphin jumpking in the water.”

Kali, 5, said, “I liked all the neat creatures.”

Children’s Ratings: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5,

14 Cows for America

14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy

My Thoughts:

Whew! What a life-affirming story! It gives you hope for the world.

The pictures are up close and personal. The text is vivid and rings with compassion for the world.

Here’s the story, if you don’t know it: A Kenyan wins a scholarship to go to America and become a doctor. While he is there, he experiences 9/11. He returns to his people, a tribe once renowned as warriors but who are now known as master cow herders. The tribe feels great sorrow when the young man tells them of the tragedy in New York City and the members of the tribe want to do something to help America. Thus, fourteen cows for America.

The children were very moved by the story. They were happy when the tribe gave the cows to America and danced for America. Some of the story was over their heads, but they got the gist of it.

A Sample:

“Because there is no nation so powerful it cannot be wounded, nor a people so small they cannot offer mighty comfort.”

Children’s Comments:

Aryn, 6, said, “I did not like how their heads look red.”

Stevie, 6, said, “I liked the pictures.”

Joaquin, 6, said, “I liked the picture of the tribe.”

Kaylin, 6, said, “I liked the picture of the cows.”

Children’s Ratings: 5, 5, 5, 1

You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!

You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! By Jonah Winter and Andre Carrilho

I loved this book and couldn’t wait to share it with the children at my school. As I’d expected, they loved the cover, a wonderful lenticular picture of Koufax pitching. They also loved the way the illustrator used gold on the pictures here and there.

The story was a little too hard for them. They were confused with the author’s use of first person plural. They did not get the way the author used the vernacular voice to tell the story. They needed more background information about Koufax.

But they loved that it was about a baseball player. They liked the voice of the author and thought it was fun. When it came down to voting, the room was clearly divided: Children who loved baseball rated it a 5 and those who did not like baseball rated the book a 1.

It is a book with wonderful facts about a fascinating man. I would suspect that ten and eleven year olds would enjoy the book a bit more than my young students, but I bet that a lot of the cleverness and fun of the book would elude even them.

Maybe we need to create a new category of books: Picture Books for Grownups. I loved this book and would definitely recommend it to parents or teachers to read with their kids who love baseball. Not sure many children would really hang in there with the book on his own. Not even a big baseball fan. Not even a big baseball fan living in NY.

A Sample:

‘One day one of our scouts, Al Campanis, invites Sandy to Ebbets Field—home of our team, the Brooklyn Dodgers—so’s he can see the hotshot pitch. After battin’ just one time against him, Campanis has seen enough. He says to Sandy, “Kid, how’d you like to play for us. Don’t think too hard.” Quick as you can say “Jackie Robinson,” this nineteen-year-old squirt was wearin’ Dodgers blue and earnin’ more dough than some of us old-timers.’

Children’s Comments:

Elyssa, 6, said, “I liked how the words were written.”

Chloe, 6, said, “I liked how he did the glove.”

Sylvia, 5, said, “I liked the front cover.

Jase, 5, said, “I liked the pictures.”

Children’s Ratings: 5, 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 5, 1

Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude

Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude by Jonah Winter

Thoughts:

Go ahead and call it a children’s picture book, but I think you are wrong; the children I read this book to looked at me in bewilderment. It looks like a picture book. It reads like a picture book. But reading it to young children is like asking junior high students to read Great Expectations; it can be read, but it should be saved for those old enough to really appreciate it.

I loved it. It would probably be among my top picks for best nonfiction picture book. It’s bright and colorful. The text mimics the style of the subject, poet Gertrude Stein. It’s funny.

As Gertrude Stein might say, A picture book is a picture book is a picture book is a picture book. But sometimes it’s not.

A Sample:

“Talk talk talk talk. Laugh laugh. More talk.

Laugh. Okay. Enough.

And now it’s time for tea.

Teatime is teatime.

And look who’s here,

in time for tea.

It’s Pablo Picasso the Spanish artist.

Pablo Picasso looks so angry but no.

Pablo Picasso is Pablo

Picasso.

He just invented Modern art

which is not the same thing as being angry

but then again maybe it is.

Maybe it is

and maybe it isn’t.

Then again maybe it is.

It’s so hard to invent

Modern art.

Maybe it is

and

maybe it isn’t.

Maybe.”

Children’s Comments:

Sydney, 6, said, “Never want to read. It’s wacky.”

Vanessa, 6, said, “It’s weird because they have a dog named Basket.”

Joey, 6, said, “The title was weird.”

Jony, 6, said, “The bear was in a chair!”

Children’s Ratings: 3, 1, 4, 1, 3, 4, 5, 2

Between Panic & Desire by Dinty W. Moore

211. Between Panic & Desire by Dinty W. Moore

I was disappointed to see this book when it arrived for me at the library. Awful cover. Looked like my fifth grade niece did the artwork. I’d read Moore’s piece, Son of Mr. Green Jeans, for a class this summer and loved it. Raved about it. Masterful. This was the first selection in the book. Oh dear. Is Moore a one-hit wonder?

No. Happily I can say no. Ignore the cover. Moore can write, at least about the sadnesses of his life. It’s a lovely book. Funny. Clever. Glad I read it.

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld

210. A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld

A graphic novel told from seven points of view about the events before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. I loved Zeitoun, a recent read about Katrina. I loved A.D., too. I suppose I will always find it jarring to see comic book characters smoke and drink, but hey, I would imagine there was a lot of smoking and drinking in NO after Katrina.

The Royal Ghosts: Stories by Samrat Upadhyay

209. The Royal Ghosts: Stories by Samrat Upadhyay

Two things intrigued me when I saw this book posted at BookCrossing: the Nepal setting and how much the reader loved the book.

Story one left me regretting my decision to join the ring for this book. What? I thought. But then I got into the way the author writes and I liked it. Each story felt like the author had written an entire novel about the characters and then randomly deleted the first fifty and the last hundred and fifty pages.

Abrupt starts and stops. Unfinished narratives. Events, conversations that sounded like they could have been taking place in my small Texas town and then, suddenly, the author throws in a Nepalese festival or food or riot and I realize, Hey, wait, this is not Kansas.

But it turns out that I liked the book a lot. Yes, I’d recommend it.

Beowulf at the Beach by Jack Murnighan

208. Beowulf at the Beach by Jack Murnighan

I do not think there could be a person on earth (1) who obviously loves reading as much as I do, yet (2) who has completely and totally opposite reading tastes.

Let me make one thing clear: Jack is a GUY. He is looking for action in books. Plot. Fighting. Killing. Plunder. You know. That sort of stuff.

I could care less about plot. I want to get inside people’s heads. I want to understand people. A group of intriguing people, sitting around in chairs, talking? Excellent book for me.

So Beowulf at the Beach had nothing for me. Jack looked at fifty classics and showed all the violence and action you didn’t know was there.

The good news is that I think I can safely cross about twenty books off my list of Books to Read Before I Die. I’m just not interested in ever reading Blood Meridian or Lolita or Tropic of Cancer or, really, Faulkner. I can get that on the six o’clock news or the latest blockbuster movie.  So that is a kind of usefulness, Jack. Thank you for that.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

207. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Would this book never come in at the library for me? I finally broke down and used a gift card to buy it while on a Wal-Mart run. (That doesn’t count as really buying a book, does it? No money was actually exchanged.)

I’m glad I did. I don’t often buy fiction, but this was ten dollars well spent. And, of course, like book one, book two left me desperate to read book three.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz by Michela Wrong

206. In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo by Michela Wrong

Whew. A book you read, thinking, I wish this had never happened….please don’t let this be true. So jarring it leaves you despairing about Africa. Surely there must be happy stories there; not all can be tales of greed and corruption.