Book Review: Bunny Days

I like to keep a basket of rotating picture books in our family room. The kids, every one of them, enjoy discovering each new selection of books, and I love watching them turn the pages and READ. Even my grown-up fourth and sixth graders, who might think they are too big to check out picture books from the library, like to see what I’ve put in the basket. That makes me so happy. Picture books engage the senses on so many levels, and can be profound in their simplicity. Some are nuanced and sophisticated in ways chapter books can’t be. And they are always beautiful.

Today it was time to put out some Easter-inspired books.  Easter-bunny that is. Here is what I chose:

HOP! by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Holly Meade. The perfect book for toddlers. It shows five adorable baby bunnies scratching, scritching, wiggling and twitching, and of course, hopping.  A fun read-aloud, with rhyming words and repetitive sounds that make it 0h-so-accessible for the diaper crew. And the sweet little bunnies are a happy reminder of the bouncy baby you are reading to.

HOP! by Phyllis Root

The next book is just as charming. Bunny Days by Tao Nyeu.  It features not five, but six little bunnies. And these bunnies have a friend named Bear who helps them out of some very bunny business. Told in short episodes which are all set in a charming pastoral farmscape of soothing greens and blues, Bunny Days is the perfect combination of sweet and silly. Preschoolers will love to see Bear’s surprising solutions to the bunnies’ predicaments.

Bunny Days by Tao Nyeu

My last bunny book is Bunnies on the Go by Rick Walton, illustrated by Paige Miglio.  The bunnies in this book love to be on the move, whether that means taking a bike or a balloon, a train or a truck. Each page gives a little hint of what is to come to the observant reader. I love the way the soft, cuddly-looking bunnies team up with all-terrain vehicles to make a book that both boys and girls can enjoy. Another bunny book by the same team is So Many Bunnies: A Bedtime ABC and Counting Book.  My daughter used to love reading it, tucked up in her bed, when she was younger.

Bunnies on the Go by Rick Walton

Book Review: and then it’s spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead

and then it's spring by Julie Fogliano and Erin E. Stead

This book is a treasure. I love everything about it. The sparse, expressive text that reads like a poem. The soft illustrations full of humor and emotion. The little boy who waits patiently for the seeds he has planted to change the brown to green. And his friendly entourage – a bunny, a turtle, and a dog whose expressions somehow capture a new emotion with each turn of the page. I was so happy to read this book a day after complaining about the muddy footprints my son spread through the house. It was a gentle reminder that when you are wishing for the green of Spring, first you must have brown. Brown with “a greenish hum that you can only hear if you put your ear to the ground and close your eyes.” I read this book to all of my kids tonight (ages 11, 9, 7, and 4) and they all thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thursday’s Book Review: London Town

In the second installment of the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series, The Hidden Gallery, Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia join Miss Penelope Lumley, their stalwart governess, on a trip to London.  The Incorrigible Children are as endearing as ever, with their quirky but charming wolf-like qualities.  They mistakenly attack the guards outside Buckingham Palace, thinking the guards are bears in their tall furry hats.  But they also master the intricacies of the Peloponnesian War in their history lessons, and rescue an elephant in distress at the zoo. 

Penelope attempts to guide the children through the city of London, where cultural and historical lessons abound, but finds that her Hixby’s Guide, the travel book given to her by her old school teacher at Swanburne Academy, is less than useful.  It is full of pictures of alpine meadows instead of images of London, and alludes to a secret portrait gallery in the British Museum, holding works of art that seem obscure, at best.

During their travels through London, Penelope and the children encounter a mysterious gypsy woman, a courageous playwright, and bloodthirsty pirates.  They meet with hilarity and escape danger.  And along the way, Penelope collects intriguing clues about her own past, the enigma behind her employer, Lord Ashton, and her connection to both the esteemed Agatha Swanburne, founder of her alma mater, and, possibly, to the Incorrigibles themselves.

My children and I are anxiously awaiting the third, and hopefully final, installment of the Incorrigibles saga.  It looks like it comes out in February of 2012, and we can’t wait to read it and find the answers to all of our questions about Penelope and her wards.   The first two books have given us a lot to think about, and have unfolded a mystery we are anxious to unravel.  The Hidden Gallery left us with even more questions than The Mysterious Howling, but it showed us who we can trust in the drama that will ensue – Old Timothy, Simon Harley-Dickinson, Miss Charlotte Mortimer, and who to be suspicious of.  And of course, the writing is so engaging, with its tongue-in-cheek humor and delightful characterizations, that reading Wood’s work is always a pleasure.

In the midst of reading about the London adventures of Penelope and her Incorrigibles, my husband took a business trip to London.  My children were so enchanted by the places Wood describes in her book, and by the book’s mysteries, that they begged him to visit the British Museum and find the Hixby’s hidden gallery.   Unfortunately, he was in business meetings all day and wasn’t able to make it to the museum before closing hours.  Instead he took walks around the city, and when he got home he told them what he had seen, using this book as his guide:

A Walk in London, by Salvatore Rubbino, is an absolutely charming picture book about a mother and her young daughter taking a day trip to explore the city of London.  They arrive in Westminster on a bright red double decker bus  to the sound of Big Ben chiming out the hour.  From there they walk through St. James’s Park and arrive at Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard.  The illustrations are full of movement and personality, with just the right amount of detail to capture the sights and feeling of the city.  A fold out page gives a wonderful panoramic view of the Thames, which allowed my husband to show the kids just where he had been during his short time in London.  It was such a delightful book, and can be enjoyed on many levels with its engaging story for younger readers, and subtexts full of interesting facts spread out all over the page for older readers.  I’d love to find a copy of Rubbino’s A Walk in New York, and hope he continues to explore other cities with his cheerful art and storytelling.

Thursday’s Book Review: Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Drawing on her own family history, Pam Munoz Ryan tells the story of a young Mexican girl, Esperanza, living during the time of the Great Depression in America.  She is the cherished daughter of a wealthy padrone, and lives in luxury and ease until political upheaval and the greed of her own step-uncles rob Esperanza of both her father and her wealth, and send her fleeing to California with her mother for safety. 

Esperanza quickly learns that America is not the answer to all her problems.  Nor does it provide the new life Miguel, her friend and former servant, hopes for.  There is still the vast divide between rich and poor, only now those inequalities are compounded by differences in language and race.  Ryan wields these issues deftly.  They never become oppressive or political.  She keeps everything true to what Esperanza sees and experiences.

Esperanza is the perfect representative for the plight of the poor laborer.   She is incredibly wealthy before her troubles begin, so she experiences what it means to be poor for the first time, and we see it through her eyes.  It is a rag to riches story in reverse.  And it does not end with an easy answer.  Only the reassurance that life’s most important riches are family, friends, the fruit of the land, and the power of hope.

Thursday’s Book Review: Summer Reading – Human Rights

Human rights sounds like a serious topic for summer reading, but this selection of books has been one of the best things about our summer so far.  Of course the kids would probably rank Monday’s fireworks WAY above the book reports we worked on together, but one of my happiest moments as a mom – ever – was listening to my three oldest kids present their books to each other. 

At the beginning of the summer I decided to have my kids write reports for each month of summer vacation, and for June’s report I wanted to talk about the way people are sometimes treated when they are different.  I found a book for each of my kids that centers on some aspect of human rights.  They read the books and answered some questions I put together for them, and then we presented our books to each other and had a wonderful discussion.

My ten-year old, Hunter, loves engineering and science and knowing about how things work.  Lately he has been interested in learning about World War II.  Particulary the aircraft and the battles.  He is a serious boy, who thinks about serious things.  So I thought he was ready to read Susan Bartoletti’s historical fiction, The Boy Who Dared: a Novel Based on the True Story of a Hitler Youth.  It is the story of a young German boy who finds himself a part of Hitler Youth.  He is forced to do things that go deeply against his conscious, like writing a report about how Hitler is the savior of Germany when he knows otherwise.  He has a shortwave radio and has been listening to BBC reports about the war.  He knows that Hitler’s propaganda is false and feels like he must do something about it.  He uses his skill as a writer to secretly get the truth out, but he is arrested for it, and ultimately, in the final pages of the book, executed.  I know that is a major spoiler, but it might make the book too difficult for some younger readers, so I thought I should put it out there.  Here is Hunter’s response to the questions I gave him: 

“In the books we read, people are treated badly because they are somehow different from others.  For your report, answer the following questions:”

1) Who gets treated differently and why?

Jews.  Hitler always hated Jews, and when he comes to full power he sends them to horrible places, closes their businesses, and makes them wear different clothes so everyone will know they’re different.

2) What do you think about the way your character or people in your book are treated?

Putting people in jail and killing them for their beliefs or for telling the truth is horrible.

3) How does the protagonist show courage?

By showing the people of Germany the truth about the Government and by trying to stand against what the Government was doing.

4) How should we treat people who are different from us?

Treat them like your brother or sister.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, so try and find their strengths and forget their weaknesses.

My eight-year old, Hattie, is an inquistive, independent soul who sometimes has a hard time understanding when people act, look, or think differently than she does.  I thought it would be good for her to read Rickshaw Girl, by Mitali Perkins, a story set in India about a girl named Naima.  Naima is a talented artist and the daughter of hard-working rickshaw driver.  When her father gets sick and can no longer pull the rickshaw, Naima wants to help her family.  She sees her friend Saleem, the neighbor boy, pulling a rickshaw and decides she can do the same.  But because she is a girl, this is not allowed.  Naima is frustrated, but determined.  She manages to find a way to help her family that is appropriate for a girl in India, using her artistic talents.  Here are Hattie’s answers to the questions:

1) Who gets treated differently and why?

The girls get treated differently because the boys think the girls aren’t strong enough.

2) What do you think about the way your character or people in your book are treated?

I wouldn’t like not getting to work.  They weren’t treating the girls fair.

3) How does the protagonist show courage?

She tried working even though she was a girl.

4) How should we treat people who are different from us?

We should play with them and be kind to them.

My six year old, Sawyer, and I read his book together.  He is a tender-hearted little guy, who hates to be teased.  We read  Thank you, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco.  It is a book based on Polacco’s own childhood, about a young girl, Trisha, who can’t read no matter how hard she tries.  Children tease her all through grade school until she finally gets a teacher who tries to understand her plight, Mr. Falker.  With Mr. Falker’s help, Trisha learns that the kids at school have been wrong about her.  She isn’t dumb.  She can read, and words become as sweet to her as honey to a bee.  Here are Sawyer’s answers to my questions:

1) Who gets treated differently and why?

Trisha, because she doesn’t know how to read very well.

2) What do you think about the way your character or people in your book are treated?

I felt bad for Trisha, because people weren’t treating her very nice.

3) How does the protagonist show courage?

She doesn’t get mad at the other kids, she just works hard at learning to read.

4) How should we treat people who are different from us?

We should be nice, because everyone is our friend.

I was so pleased with my children’s thoughtful responses to the books they read, and so grateful for excellent children’s literature that can open their eyes to worlds and people beyond their own neighborhood.

Thursday’s Book Review: Cesar’s Way by Cesar Millan

A few weeks before we brought our new puppy home, I spent all my reading time trying to figure out how to care for and raise a happy and healthy dog.  By the time I’d finished my stack of books, I was convinced I knew everything about dogs, and would be able to handle any situation we might encounter.  You would think four kids would have taught me otherwise.  Now that we’ve had the puppy for three weeks, I’m sufficiently humbled.  I’m not sure any of the books I read could have totally prepared me, but I really enjoyed Cesar’s Way by the renowned “dog whisperer” Cesar Milan.

The first part of the book reads like a personal history.  Milan describes his early experiences and connection with dogs on his family’s farm in Mexico, and what it was like for him to immigrate to the United States.  The autobiographical portion of the book is relevant to his overall message, because he approaches dog training and his work with dog rehabilitation as an outsider to the American way of perceiving dogs and pets.  Milan believes that American dogs often suffer under the care of well-intentioned owners because they are treated like people instead of like dogs, and this can cause anxiety, confusion, and fear.  

Milan’s basic premise is that dog’s need strong ‘pack’ leaders to follow, and that dog owners need to exert a certain kind of energy.   He calls it “calm-assertive” energy, “relaxed but always confident that he or she is in control.”  This is a point he emphasizes again and again throughout the book.  He encourages dog owners to transform themselves, if they lack this kind of energy, to visualize it until it becomes natural to them.  I can’t refute or validate his premise about pack leaders and “calm-assertive” energy as it pertains to dogs, but the week I spent reading his book I found myself suprisingly calm.  I don’t think I raised my voice at my kids a single time.   I was channelling the “calm-assertive” energy.  It worked so well, that I’m not sure if I should shelf this book in the parenting section of my home library, or put it with the other dog books. (I’m kidding.  Kind-of.)

Milan concludes his book by giving readers a simple formula for working and living with their dogs: Exercise, Discipline, and Affection – in that order.  According to Milan, dogs need frequent exercise to calm and center them.  He calls walking a dog a “primal activity” that puts dogs in tune with their inner canine.  It also creates a bond between dog and owner.  I’ve tried very hard to follow this step of his formula, though sometimes I feel I’m overdoing it a little when I put my 11 week old puppy on a leash and try and get her to follow me around the park.  She’d rather sit and watch the birds fly by.  The next step is discipline, which basically means sticking to a routine, and keeping expectations firm and clear.  And affection comes last, after the first two steps have been met.

Cesar’s Way gave me a lot to think about, and was a quick and enjoyable read.  Milan’s methodology is largely based on intuition and his extensive experience with dogs.  It doesn’t always translate into understanding and solving everyday problems you might encounter with your dog.  I still don’t know how to keep my puppy from chewing on everyone’s feet, or my four year old from taunting her.  I tried coaching my four, six, eight and ten year old into owning their “calm-assertive” energy when they interact with the puppy, but I think that is asking a little much.  I’ve resisted calling a trainer because of the impression I received from Milan that dog training amounts to teaching a dog tricks, while his methodology builds strong relationships between dogs and owners, and healthy, balanced, naturally obedient dogs.  But with all the biting and nipping around her, I might have to call a trainer anyway.

I just picked up a copy Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend to Your Pet by John Bradshaw.  I’m eager to add it to my doggie bibiliography.  We’ll see how it compares with Cesar’s Way.

Thursday’s Book Review: Mirror Mirror, A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer

For Easter I always like to give my kids a book with their baskets of candy.  It is fun for me to try and find titles that I think they will love and want to read.  As much fun as hunting for Easter eggs!  So my next few reviews will be of the books that the Easter Bunny left at our house.

The first one, Mirror Mirror, written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by Josee Masse, is my daughter’s.  It is a poetry book with a twist.  Each poem is told from two points of view.  If you read the poem from top to bottom it gives one point of view, and if you read it from bottom to top you get the other point of view.  For example, if you read “In the Hood,” from top down, you get Little Red Riding Hood’s voice as she skips through the woods with her basket of treats.  If you read it from the bottom up you get the wolf, hungrily watching Little Red on her way to Grandma’s.  Reading the same words in different directions give the poem a whole new meaning.  It is reversible poetry.

My daughter loves the way each poem reads like a riddle to be puzzled and delighted over.  She also likes the recognizable characters in the poem: heroes, heroines and villans from popular fairy tales.  I’m impressed by Singer’s inventiveness and creativity, and by the fact that each poem, no matter what direction you read it in, can stand alone.  The entire collection is lively, fun and entertaining.

It was recently listed as a 2012 Beehive Book Award Nominee here in Utah.

Thursday’s Book Review: Townie by Andre Dubus III

I typically review children’s picture books and middle grade/young adult fiction on Thursdays, but I have to make an exception today.  I recently finished reading TOWNIE, an amazing memoir by the writer Andre Dubus III, and it is one of those rare and precious books that touch the soul and leave a lasting impression.  I’m still sorting through my reading experience, but these are the words that come to mind: courageous, honest, transformative, redemptive.

In the book Dubus tells of his childhood in the blue-collar mill towns of Massachusetts, growing up in a single-parent home with three siblings.  His family barely scraped by on his mom’s meager wages as a social worker and the child support they received from his dad, a writer and professor at a nearby college.  The neighborhoods they lived in were full of violence - drugs, alcoholism, bullying, theft and abuse.   Everyday was dangerous, and Dubus did his best to hide from it until his younger brother was beaten bloody in front of their house and all Dubus could do was stand and watch.

Dubus writes of the pivotal moment following this scene, where he faces himself in his bathroom mirror. 

I stood in front of the sink and the mirror.  I was almost suprised to see someone standing there.  This kid with a smooth face and not one whisker, this kid with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, this kid with narrow shoulders and soft arm and chest muscles and no balls.  This kid had no balls.  I looked into his eyes: I don’t care if you get your face beat in, I don’t care if you get kicked in the head or stabbed or even shot, I will never allow you not to fight back ever again.  You hear me?

From this moment, Dubus molds himself into a fighter.  He becomes a vigilante, back to the wall, eyes on the door, always watching, waiting for a chance to beat out his fear into the faces of the bad people – the men who injure and abuse.  He starts lifting.  He learns boxing.  And he sends a lot of people to the hospital, always in the defense of someone who is being victimized.  Violence becomes part of his nature – how he views the world and himself in it.  It also gets the attention of his disinterested father for the first time in Dubus’ life.  Now that he’s strong, filled-out, disciplined, and scrapping in restaurants and bars, his marine-trained father is impressed and starts spending more time with Dubus.

Gradually Dubus begins to realize that he has lost control.  He doesn’t like the person in the mirror anymore – the person he has willed himself to become.  He has to change.  But fighting has become a reflex. Violence has become his lens for viewing the world.  It isn’t until one night, after a hard day of hanging sheetrock, when he finds himself boiling tea and sitting down at his small kitchen table with a notebook and pencil, that he finds the way out.  Writing.  It comes to him like a gift, and gives him the ability to see the world and himself in a new way.  It gives him the power to transform himself.

Dubus is committed to honesty in his writing.  He learns to see what is false and leaves it behind.  The more honest he is with his writing the more honest he can be with himself.  And the more empathetic he can be with others.  The role of writing in Dubus’ life fascinates and inspires me.  He creates a new life around his writing, which requires sacrifice and dedication.   The motivation for this change seems to come from a desire to see things in the most honest and original way possible, including himself.   I loved TOWNIE for this.  It creates a forward-moving momentum in Dubus’ life, culminating in a scene on a train that I can only describe as holy.

Holy is a word that Dubus’ father uses in the book.  The elder Dubus is a great writer, and he is as dedicated to writing as his son is.  He admits to giving the best part of himself to writing, which is the same part of himself that he saves for God and mass.  Thus, writing is something of a holy experience for him.  It elevates him.  It is a daily ritual.  But the relationship he has with writing prevents him from being a present part of  Dubus’ childhood.  Dubus struggles to accept this absence, working it out with pencil and paper in his early writing.  From there the relationship grows and develops, becoming a major force in TOWNIE and a source of redemption and resolution.

Thursday’s Book Review: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien

I read this book with my 10, 8 and 6 year old, and I was interested to see how they would respond.  After all, this classic was first published in 1971.  Would it have the zing of more contemporary stories?  Would it draw my young readers in – even with anthropomorphic mice and rats as the book’s protagonists?I was suprised to find that in the opening chapters my kids were immediately drawn to the characters. They worried about Timothy,a little mouse suffering from pneumonia, which led to an extensive discussions about their individual bouts with illness. When Timothy’s mother, Mrs. Frisby, went looking for help from an owl, the only one who might have the answers to help save Timothy, my kid’s sensed the danger of a mouse paying a visit to a natural predator, and admired Mrs. Frisby’s bravery. In later chapters they were fascinated by the story of Jonathan Frisby and the rats of NIMH, their intelligence, daring, and vision in the face of being imprisoned by scientists and forced to become experimental lab mice and rats. My kids seemed to understand the ethical dillema the rats found themselves in after they escaped.  They wanted to break their ancestral link with humans and no longer base their existence on stealing. The rats’ remarkable inventions, like the elevator in their underground burrow, kept my kids’ brains buzzing after we closed the pages of the book each night.  The exposition in this part of the book dragged a little for me.  There was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing since Nicodemas is recounting past adventures to Mrs. Frisby.  But this didn’t seem to bother my kids at all. The concluding pages of the book do not leave all of the characters with a happy ending, and my children were saddened by the possible deaths of some of the rats who had become tiny heros at our house. But O’Brien balances the tragedy of some of the concluding events by showing Mrs. Frisby back in her nest, warm and safe with all of her children. Her older boy, Martin, vows to set out soon to find the rat colony, which allows readers to savor a sense of hope and courage for the future. After we read the book I went to Netflix and found the old 80′s movie I remembered watching as a kid.  My kids were not impressed.  The film version was much spookier and more violent than the book, and the characters just weren’t as endearing.  As fun as it is to see a film adaptation of a favorite book, I always love it when my kids prefer the book.

Thursday’s Book Review: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Elijah Freeman is the first child born free in the Buxton Settlement in Canada West.  He might be a bit fra-gile, and prefers meandering donkeys to quick-paced horses, but he is also the best rock chunker you’ll ever meet, and the truest friend.

Curtis does such an exceptional job introducing the reader to Elijah and showing us his life and the things he cares about, that this sincere, playful, endearing, almost-growed eleven year old felt absolutely real to me  by the time I finished reading the book.

Not just Elijah either, but a whole cast of characters came alive as my nine year old and I read through the pages.  I read the book out loud to my son, which was fun because of the engaging dialect Curtis uses throughout the book.  Rather than distracting from the book, the vernacular adds a wonderful authenticity and personality.

Because of the time Curtis devotes to setting and character growth, which are so important in a historical work of fiction, the pacing of the overarching plot is a little slow in the first third of the book.  My son would occasionally ask me when something was going to happen.  I tried to help him understand why what we were reading was important to what would come later, and would ask him what he thought might happen.  His understanding of the characters made it clear to him which direction trouble would be coming from.  And while we waited for that something big to happen, we were thoroughly entertained by the episodes Elijah recounts of his life on the Elgin Settlement – a place of refuge for freed and runaway slaves escaping slavery. 

When the crisis in the book does occur, you are grateful for the time you had enjoying Elijah and his life in Buxton, because what Elijah sees and experiences changes how he will see the world.  He comes face to face with the horrors of slavery.  Horrors he has been largely unaware of.  He has heard stories, and in different ways seen the effects of slavery on the families he knows in Buxton, but it isn’t until he sees, hears, touches, smells and tastes it that he understands the suffering of so many people.  The final chapters of the book are harrowing.  Elijah is a true hero throughout, and just as tender, or fra-gile, as ever.  But he is just one small boy confronting the great beast of slavery.  He finds a small but significant way to fight against it, but he is frustrated by his inability to do more, and so was my son, the reader.

However, that is what makes Curtis’ work so exceptional.  He is true to history, and unequivocal in expressing the experience of slavery to his readers.  He couldn’t have done better.  To make Elijah more powerful would have been to weaken history, and the truth.  But he does give us Hope, both literal and figurative, when Elijah’s ordeal ends, and that his great gift to the reader.