Coraline

Coraline

by Neil Gaiman

Coraline is the story of a young, adventurous girl, whose curiosity leads her to find another family that she is a part of in another world. Just when she starts to feel so comfortable in this other world with the other family that she considers staying permanently, she realizes its flaws and traps and horrible aspects. I thought the book was pretty eerie from the start, almost with a The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe feel in that she's a child who's bored and trapped in her house with nothing to do but explore. But I'm wondering if I would have still felt this eeriness from the beginning had I not known anything about the plot or the movie going into it? I'm not sure.

This book is definitely a fantasy in that it focuses on the concept of an alternate reality. This reminded me very much of the times that I have dreams that seems so real that I wake up feeling like they really did happen, especially the part when she first discovers the brick behind the door has turned into a hallway and she wanders down it and sees that it very much resembles her real house.

Obviously this is children's literature, but I wonder if there was a specific age for which the author intended? I thought it was very interesting that what is immediately creepy to me seemed to appeal to a young girl of this age, hungry for adventure. For example, when the author described Coraline's first adventure into the other world, the button eyes and white skin, the fingers that were too long, the rats to play with, and the shocking color scheme for her room, I was immediately repulsed, but it seemed that Coraline seemed to enjoy these things due to her naïveté and yearn for adventure.

I think this book sends several great messages to children, the first about bravery and doing what's right to protect those you love. Second, this book teaches children to be careful what they wish for and to be grateful for what they have, and also to not judge people too early or dismiss them for petty reasons before you get to know them. Coraline's experience also shows children that they can conquer their fears, or at least that circumstances could be a lot worse, so there's not point in wasting time worrying about the small things.

Neil Gaiman website: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Coraline/

The BFG

The BFG

by Roald Dahl

I was so excited when my group chose this book for our book club discussion because I distinctly remember reading it in Mrs. Froeschle's 3rd grade class and loving it. I love how the author jumps straight to the action from the start, not even allowing any time for a reader to get bored waiting for the plot to pick up. Plus, the quick action at the start of the book gets us excited knowing that there'll be a bigger climax to come.

Roald Dahl's language is indescribable and so many things at once: impeccable, breathtaking, intricate, and creative yet sloppy. I think it is one of the aspects that sets this book in a league of its own when it comes to children's literature. Some of my favorite words that he invented and used were "scotch-hopper," "humplecrump," "wraprascal," and "crumpscoddle," and of course, the infamous "snozzcumber." Just when you think there cannot possibly be any more strange words for him to come up with, he introduces more. He can't stop! And every new word stretches children's imaginations further.

The BFG himself is such a unique character too. Different and scrawnier than the other giants, and always trying to do the right thing, I've realized that he reminds me so much of one of my close friends, and I love having that personal connection to refer to whenever I please. The BFG is so lovable: as the book goes on, I think any young child would love to get abducted by him. One of my favorite quotes that he says, when he's distressed over his sloppy language, just makes me love him more: "But please understand that I cannot be helping it if I sometimes is saying things a little squiggly. I is trying my very best all the time" (50).

The BFG also sends such wonderful messages to children, as I referenced above, about choosing what's right over what's popular and showing character. He also makes a wonderful point about not having to see something to believe it: "Just because we happen not to have actually seen something with our own two little winkles, we think it is not existing" (48). I think this is such an important point for a child to learn early on and carry into their adulthood. Hooray for our favorite gangly, giant hero!

Roald Dahl's official website: http://www.roalddahl.com/

"Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry

Number the Stars

a novel by Lois Lowry

John Newbery Medal

For my second historical fiction book, I chose Number the Stars for several reasons. First, I remember reading it as a child and wanted to revisit a book that has already had some impact on my life, just as I did with Out of the Dust. Second, my class at Matoaka used this book as one of our first guided reading group books. And lastly, I thought it would fit in nicely with the other books I'm working with right now: Out of the Dust features a young girl about the same age who is forced to show courage during difficult times in her country, and The Devil's Arithmetic, my one-on-one lesson book, is also about World War II, the Holocaust, and its associated Resistance movements.

This novel is unique in that, instead of focusing on a Jewish child who attempts to survive the Holocaust, the main character is a nine year-old blonde Danish girl named Annemarie Johansen, who proves incredible courage in helping her friends and other Danish Jews resist capture by Nazis. What also makes this book special is its emphasis on loyalty. Previous to German Occupation in 1940, Denmark was ruled by King Christian X, who stepped down from his throne to let the Germans occupy rather than let his people get killed in a senseless battle of Resistance. Similarly, when the Germans were coming to take over the Danish fleet in their harbor, the Danish sailors blew up all of their own boats out of pride and loyalty so that the Germans could not control them. Throughout the Occupation, King Christian still continued his daily horseback rides through the city of Copenhagen, greeting his people, without bodyguards. One time, a German soldier saw him and asked a nearby teenager, "Who is that man who rides past here every morning on his horse?" (13). The boy told him cheekily that it was the King of Denmark; when the soldier probed as to where was his bodyguard, the boy responded, "All of Denmark is his bodyguard" (14). This story has been documented, and that record still exists today. This extreme sense of loyalty to King and country resonated throughout Denmark at this time, and as Number the Stars explains, this loyalty was immediately transferred to Danish Jews after their New Year in 1943 when Nazis began to capture them.

With these significant factors laid out, Lowry paints a phenomenal picture of suffering, bravery, emotion, and quick thinking, and relates these complex themes to young readers, both in and out of the context of the Occupation. Lowry's nuances are very in-depth and multi-faceted: she expresses the anger and blunt cruelty of the German soldiers, Annemarie's frustration with her five year-old blabber-mouth sister Kirsti, instances of the secret code used among Denmark resistance over the telephone, and the tactic of pretending to be a "silly little girl" or "playing dumb" as a child towards German soldiers so as not to reveal secret information entrusted to a child (114). One detail of the book that really stuck out to me was Lowry's multiple mentions of the food and materials rations in Copenhagen. She did a very good job making it clear that the absence of butter, coffee, cigarettes, rubber, and meat was now a way of life that the children understood, but she did so in a way that makes readers stop and think about how different and awful their lives would be without these things.

I liked how Annemarie's family never considered fending only for themselves an option: "it's what friends do" (128). The content and events in this novel definitely make readers grateful for the freedom from persecution that they hopefully experience today and achieve the vision of a "world of human decency" that Lowry hoped to create (137).

Out of the Dust

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse

Karen Hesse's novel Out of the Dust, comprised entirely of poems, is probably the most depressing book I've ever read; it brought tears to my eyes on several occasions. And yet, I remember reading it at the beach one summer after 4th or 5th grade, but don't quite remember it having the same effect then. The novel tells the story of Billie Jo Kelby, a gangly, young, redheaded girl with a knack for piano-playing, who undergoes more suffering and loss than any child ever should. Hesse paints a picture of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl so sharply and accurately that readers are enthralled from the very first page.

Her poetry is absolutely fantastic; I honestly haven't read any other like it. She uses phenomenal sensory images: I can taste the dust on my tongue and feel it on my skin as I read the poems that make up her novel, which are all from young (but incredibly mature) Billie Jo's perspective. The first poem that really stuck out to me when I began the book was called "State Tests" on page 30. Billie Jo describes to her mother how their school scored the highest in the state on achievement tests and she scored the highest in the 8th grade class, but her Ma merely says "I knew you could." She knows her mother is proud, but she won't praise, thus Billie Jo feels like her Ma "makes me feel like she's just/taking me in like I was/so much flannel dry on the line" (30). This was the first personal connection I made with the story because I had such a polar opposite experience growing up: my parents made sure to praise me at every appropriate opportunity, and I couldn't imagine how discouraged she was feeling. However, the sentiment hit me as a reader even harder later in the book, with the poem introducing Winter 1935 called "State Tests Again." At this point, her mother has died a painful death, and Billie Jo says she "Wish I could run home and tell Ma/and see her nod/and hear her say,/ 'I knew you could.'/It would be enough" (99). When I read that poem, in light of the first one, my heart broke.

After the first state tests poem, the next page's poem is called "Fields of Flashing Lights," in which we have our first experience with dust, and the events of the book seem to all go downhill from there.

The tragic turning point was the poem "The Accident," on page 60, in which Billie Jo's father leaves a pail of kerosene near the stove that Ma thinks is water, then when a small fire starts and she runs outside, Billie Jo grabs the pail and throws it out the door to prevent the house from burning down; but instead, it splashes Ma completely, and she gets badly burned. A few pages later, "Devoured" describes her death while giving birth to a son, who also dies a few days later. As if these events weren't horrible already, the author reminds the reader throughout the rest of the book that Billie Jo's hands were also maimed by burns when she tried to save her mother from the flames, so her piano talents are crippled forever. This recurring detail is just crushing to anyone who reads this book.

The rest of the novel continues in a similar manner: at times, Billie Jo seems hopeful because rain will come, but then the reader is trapped on an emotional roller coaster once more as a dust storm worse than the last occurs. People and animals die, crops suffer, technology fails, the economy plummets; but dust prevails. After trying to run away to the West, only to come back because she felt even lonelier without her Daddy, and after her father begins to court his night class teacher Louise, Billie Jo finally starts to feel the sense of a family again; and with that comes hope. But in the end, this novel is much more a reflection on the worst economic times of our country and forces children readers to connect to a world of misery they could not even imagine existed. It made me thankful for what I have.

William's Midsummer Dreams

William's Midsummer Dreams

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Children's Fiction Book

In Snyder's William's Midsummer Dreams, companion to William S. and the Great Escape, William and his three siblings Jancy, Trixie, and Buddy have just escaped their abusive Baggett family to their aunt Fiona's house and legally become Hardisons. In this book, William begins a new life as an 8th grader at Gold Beach High, battling with his scrawniness and awkwardness, and continuing his love of Shakespeare and acting by keeping in contact with his drama teacher at his old school, Miss Scott. With the help of Miss Scott, he is able to go to a Shakespeare Festival at Mannsville College that summer, where he successfully scores and performs the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and gains multiple life experiences. After the final show, William is confronted by two of his ex-siblings, who demand money from him. When he refuses, they knock him unconscious, but luckily they are scared away by Sargeant Blanding, a new friend of William's, and Blanding returns William to the safety of his new family.

When I began this book, one of the ones that I picked out from Mrs. Johnson's free collection, I was immediately surprised to see how easily it could be compared to Hollis Woods. Both feature runaway characters who are somewhat orphaned and possess an artistic skill that helps them find release in some way. For Hollis it's drawing, and for William it's acting, particularly Shakespeare. Although the emotional depth associated with this book may be difficult for most elementary--middle schoolers who have never experienced anything similar to escaping an abusive family, I think a lot of young readers will be able to relate to the battle against awkwardness and to make friends that William is struggling with at this point in his life.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder's language is very descriptive and rich: she places a lot of emphasis on the senses and often describes flashbacks that challenge the reader's ability. Snyder weaves theatrical references into everyday matters often throughout the book. For instance, when William goes to the Shakespeare Festival in Mannsville, she describes how he "fools" everyone that he encounters the first day into believing that he is confident and belongs there, when he really is overly self-conscious and it is revealed that he has major self-confidence issues. Instead of naturally becoming more comfortable at the festival with time, he has to create a character who is cool and experienced and nonchalant, and forces himself to act it out until he realizes that he actually does have every right to be there and possesses a lot of talent. As part of her incorporation of Shakespeare and acting into daily life, Snyder also changes the font for any proper nouns related to Shakespeare: from the play's title A Midsummer Night's Dream to his collection The Complete Words of William Shakespeare, to William's middle initial "S."

Something unique that I especially enjoyed and thought set this book apart was William's devotion to his siblings. I know for me, personally, growing up, I was so caught up in my school friends and dance friends and trying to fit in that the time I spent with my little brother often fell to the wayside. But the reality is that I will probably know my brother longer and keep in touch with him more often than any of my friends from growing up, and that time with him should be treasured too. I absolutely love that William puts his siblings first and would do anything for them, and how they prove that they would go out on a limb to protect him too, even if they are younger, smaller, and weaker.

Pictures of Hollis Woods

Pictures of Hollis Woods

Patricia Reilly Giff

Pictures of Hollis Woods may be one of the most intriguing and obscure children's books I have ever written. Although this is a chapter book with little to no illustrations, I believe the front cover makes a striking impression on readers and has them wondering what on earth this book could be about from the get-go. The image of the bottom half of a little girl baffled me before I opened the book: could this be a horror story, like something similar to the Blair Witch Project? Is this a fun children's book, or is it supposed to be eerie and creepy like some might interpret the front cover to be? What exactly do "pictures" and "hollis woods" refer to, anyway?

We soon learn that there are actually several interpretations of the title that arise in the book, which is a factor that I think really makes it multi-dimensional. "Pictures" here can mean actual artwork done by the little girl named "Hollis," or they can mean snapshots of her life throughout this book as a wandering foster care child trying to find the meaning of family. "Hollis Woods" is the name the little girl takes on as a young, abandoned child, but "Hollis woods" also refers to an actual forest after which she believes she was named. Just this simple analysis of the title reveals that this book contains some complex themes for an elementary schooler.

I feel that both the plot and the layout of the book itself are very unique and different. I like how the author intersperses the past with the present: Hollis's "pictures" of her life with the Regan family before the accident, and the chapters on her present day "Time with Josie." It's an interesting format that really challenges the minds and imaginations of young readers as they read. Each section is filled with rich language, especially for independent elementary readers. I especially love how she describes places, such as the houses that Josie has lived in, and people, upon first impressions. For example, when the "mustard woman" from the agency takes Hollis to live with Josie, a stark painting is set to describe our first look at Josie: "I did blink then, of course I did. Anyone getting a first look at Josie Cahill would do the same. It wasn't just that she was movie-star beautiful, or that she was wearing a blue dress made of filmy stuff that floated around her, and rings on eight fingers. It was this: She had a knife in one hand. She held it in front of her so it caught the glint of the late-afternoon sunshine and became a silvery light itself" (7). With words like these, Giff does a wonderful job of capturing the eerie seriousness of the situation, but also in a childish way through Hollis's perspective.

I really love how the author relates the child's life so much to art: I think that Hollis's pictures and Josie's wood-carving really convey the heart-wrenching themes contained in this book and help make them more relatable to children. Though I do not have a personal connection with being homeless or working through the foster care system, I do have experience with my grandfather's alzheimers, which I feel is a topic that a lot of children reading this book may not fully understand. However, I think that Giff captures the emotions beautifully, as she displays Hollis's desperation and worry versus Beatrice's light-heartedness and hope for the best attitude. Even though Hollis feels like her world is crumbling and she has been forced to take on the role of cartaker, Beatrice easily agrees to come home to live with Josie at the smallest request: "Don't worry. I'll move right in with Josie...I'm already sick of painting the desert. I need some snow in my life." I believe Giff does a perfect job of introducing children to these issues through literature in a meaningful and productive way, and not with the intention to scare them, but rather as a growing experience.

Poetry! My Dog May Be a Genius

My Dog May Be a Genius

by Jack Prelutsky

illustrated by James Stevenson

When we were given this assignment, of course my first thought of which author’s poems I wanted to read was my childhood favorite, Shel Silverstein. I grabbed A Light in the Attic off the shelf at the library, and was about to check it out, when I was distracted by this one instead: My Dog Might Be a Genius, by Jack Prelutsky. I knew that I had seen random other Prelutsky poems growing up, but I was intrigued by the fun red cover and the big gold sticker reading “Children’s Poet Laureate” on the front. I thought I would delve into something new, and I haven’t looked back since! Prelutsky claims that in school he “developed a healthy dislike for poetry due to a teacher who ‘left me with the impression that poetry was the literary equivalent of liver. I was told it was good for me, but I wasn’t convinced.’” This collection makes it very clear that Prelutsky has since turned poetry around for children and made it fun, enticing, and even addicting to the point where you can’t put down the book!

Upon opening My Dog May Be a Genius, you are captivated by the first poem (appropriately, “My Dog May Be a Genius”). The rhythm and flow of the poem is whimsical and playful, and you soon learn that all of his poems in this book are like that! They are bouncy and so much fun to read (especially out loud!). Actually, the third poem, “The Underwater Marching Band,” just naturally caused a tune to form in my head to which the entire poem could be sung! Not even a tune I’d heard before, but a completely new one that surfaced in my brain on its own.

Stevenson’s black and white illustrations seem very freehand, childlike, and carefree. Using pen and ink, he draws the figures, then inks them in without being afraid to color outside the lines a little bit, which I highly appreciate in an adult artist!

The first few poems seem pretty normal and believable content-wise, but then appears the “Zeenaleens” and a “Blue-bean-bonking bupple,” and we know there must be many fantastical elements incorporated here! I love how Prelutsky stretches the imaginations of children, but also includes relatable experiences too, all while using such succulent language: my favorite line so far is “famous frozen feud,” which has such a rich alliteration that I adore!

Also, you absolutely MUST check out his website! It’s outrageous and great for kids!

http://www.jackprelutsky.com/flash/index.html