Category Archives: ..Children/Picture Books
Wild Rose’s Weaving by Ginger Churchill, illustrated by Nicole Wong
As her name suggests, Wild Rose is no wallflower. She’s too busy running through the meadow spooking the sheep, avoiding lightning, whirling in the wind, splashing in the rain’s leftover rivers, to answer her grandmother’s call to come learn to weave. While Wild Rose enjoys the storm outside, Grandma’s fingers finish a rug with “life in its colors … peace in its pattern.”
As Wild Rose recognizes the meadow, sky, and sunshine beams of Grandma’s creation – “‘A rug is not just a rug … It’s a picture of life,’” Grandma explains – she too is finally ready to learn … although not before taking Grandma’s hand and dancing under the rainbow.
Author Ginger Churchill, herself a weaver, is the third generation (at least) of women artists in her family. “As a child, Ginger came to the conclusion that art is an essential part of life,” her author bio shares. “It is Ginger’s hope that each person will find joy in expressing pieces of themselves and their lives through whatever art they choose.” The art of weaving, she adds at book’s end, “binds us together across the world … [and] also ties us to centuries past.” Churchill reminds us that like Grandma and Wild Rose, to bequeath these traditional arts to younger generations is a precious gift to embrace and cherish.
Illustrator Nicole Wong (who also gently captures Andrea Cheng’s Only One Year and Brushing Mom’s Hair, just right) imbues Churchill’s sweet story with winsome whimsy. Wong’s signature delicate lines and softly glowing colors move effortlessly between Wild Rose’s whirlwind adventures and Grandma’s patient artistry. The effect is indeed a “picture of life” – an inviting celebration to join in.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Crouching Tiger by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Yan Nascimbene
Celebrate the lunar Year of the Water Dragon with Ying Chang Compestine‘s latest picture book which reminds us all again (gently and poignantly) about the value of patience and perseverance (especially relevant in this Dragon year!), the wisdom of elders, and the importance of cultural connections.
Ming Da greets his grandfather upon his arrival from China with a bow, just “as Mom had told me to.” When he sees his grandfather practicing tai chi the next morning, he immediately wants to join in, but not before he shows off his own version of kung fu “kicks and punches.” Tai chi is slow, and makes Ming Da’s legs and arms heavy and wobbly. “As the weeks passed, I felt cheated,” Ming Da complains. “Maybe Grandpa didn’t know real kung fu.”
Ming Da’s disappointment leads him to avoid Grandpa: he reads on the bus on the way to school, hides in his room, even resorting to headphones to shut out his grandfather. But one morning, Ming Da watches Grandpa avert a serious accident, saving two people on the street: “In a smooth motion, Grandpa crouched like a tiger, swept up a leg and kicked the board, breaking it neatly in half.” Ming Da’s shocked reaction – ”‘Wow, Grandpa, how did you do that?’” – is met with the expected answer: “‘Lots of practice,’” followed by “‘I started at your age.’” Finally Ming Da is ready to train.
When New Year arrives, Grandpa gives Ming Da “a red silk jacket embroidered with dragons.” [That mythical beast had to pop up somewhere!] Ming Da’s embarrassment over “this silly jacket” eventually becomes beaming pride as he experiences quite a memorable night, filled with tasty treats, hóng bāo (red envelopes with lucky money), and an unexpected, unforgettable starring role in Chinatown’s traditional lion’s dance.
Ming Da’s journey toward recognition of his grandfather’s accomplishments which leads him to honor his own dual heritage is gloriously captured in the soft watercolors of veteran illustrator Yan Nascimbene‘s full-page panels: Grandpa in his traditional suit with Ming Da side-by-side in his jeans and perpetually untied high-top sneakers; dozing, shoe-less Mom reading her Chinese magazine while wild-haired, booted Dad delves into a thick English book, a Picasso-esque Cubist canvas hung next to a floral brush painting on the back wall; the diverse, overflowing (literally onto the facing page) crowds of New Year celebrants scattered like confetti throughout Chinatown. From the mini-Ming Das demonstrating tai chi poses on every left page, to the aquarium rug, to the bus ads, to the pigtailed neighbor and her dog peeking over the fence, Nascimbene makes sure that Compestine’s story of youthful self-discovery is wonderfully enhanced by his many delightful, surprising details.
To check out more of Ying Chang Compestine’s titles on BookDragon, click here.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Chinese American
Which Side Are You On? The Story of a Song by George Ella Lyon, artwork by Christopher Cardinale
If you’re an American of a certain age, and went to public school when music class was still considered relevant and mandatory, you’ll most likely recognize this historical song. Here’s the link to legendary folk singer Pete Seeger’s rendition.
“What’s going on here?” the front book flap asks. “Let Omie, the eldest, tell it – eighty years after it happened.” That 80 has since become 81, but the story’s power doesn’t age. Welcome to Harlan County, Kentucky in 1931 where the men work long, dangerous hours in the coal mines: ”We live in a coal company house on coal company land, and Pa gets paid on scrip that’s only good at the company stores. He says the company owns us sure as sunrise. That’s why we’ve got to have a union.”
But Pa’s views don’t make him popular with the controlling coal company, nor with the local sheriff and his “gun thugs.” With mounting threats, Pa goes on the run. Ma stands firm, announcing “‘We need a song’” to her frightened children hiding under the bed. “‘This ain’t easy, but sometimes you’ve got to take a stand,’” she insists. “This is how the night goes: bullets through the walls, talk under the bed, words on the page.” When Pa returns, he recognizes that Ma’s newly composed rallying cry will “bring folks together … And it still does.”
Harlan resident George Ella Lyon tells the remarkable story of how Florence Reece wrote “Which Side Are You On,” the song that “has been sung by people fighting for their rights all over the world.” The broad strokes of graphic artist and muralist Christopher Cardinale (who imbued magic realism onto the pages of Luis Alberto Urrea’s Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush) add a sense of urgency, the firm depictions emphasizing the determination to survive and succeed.
After the story — which came to Lyon via “Bev Futrell, a member of the Reel World String Band, who heard it from Reece herself” – Lyon’s informative “Author’s Note” is not to be skipped. “Whenever one side has all the power in a relationship something needs to change,” she writes, while also acknowledging that “[l]ike anything we humans make, unions are not perfect.” Greed and power plague unions, too, but unions can play a positive role in improving work conditions and establishing fair workers’ rights, she explains.
Like the song’s rallying cry, Lyon’s storytelling is ultimately a powerful call to seek social justice at any age: “It’s never too soon to become informed, decide what you think, and speak out. You have a choice. You have a voice. We are how change happens.” Great advice for the 18+ set, too, especially in this election year …
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Nonfiction, Nonethnic-specific
Freedom’s a-Callin Me by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Rod Brown
From the power duo who created We Troubled the Waters comes another memorable volume detailing the African American experience – this time, re-imagining the death-defying, life-saving journey from slavery to freedom along the Underground Railroad.
Combining powerful verse and richly textured paintings, Ntozake Shange and Rod Brown begin in the fields, where the horror of “that whip bouncing off somebody’s back” means a momentary “chance to get / right out of here” while the brutal overseer is otherwise engaged. In spite of attack dogs, hunger, and exhaustion ahead, the mere possibility of “ah may may be free” drives the dangerous journey onward.
Season after season, brave souls attempted freedom by “followin the north star,” relying on “this one good white man [who] got a clue for me,” choosing “death or freedom,” outrunning the slave trackers, mourning the “one of us [who] didn’t make it north,” and doing anything and everything possible to get to “freedom’s land” … until “finally ah am ridin through free air.”
From the legendary Sojourner Truth to “treacherous” slave hunters, to a wealthy abolitionist who may “look jus’ like mastah / oh but he aint,” to all the brave heroes – black and white – who never gave up on the promise of freedom regardless of personal cost: “Lawdy Lawdy we been blessed / Glory Hallelujah”!
As we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. today, we must also remember the heroes whose names did not survive history, but whose selfless deeds helped ensure a better future. Freedom’s a-callin’ us all: listen carefully and ensure that the courageous, all-too-often anonymous struggle for equity and justice continues throughout the world …
Readers: Children
Published: 2012 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Poetry, African American
Only the Mountains Do Not Move: A Maasai Story of Culture and Conservation by Jan Reynolds
Surely this is one of the most dramatic before-and-after reading experiences I’ve ever had: I read Mountains last fall when it first landed on my desk and then again just recently after I landed back from East Africa. What a difference a few thousands of miles and a couple of weeks make …
Globetrotting author/photographer Jan Reynolds takes young readers on a tour of a traditional Maasai village – an enkang – in Kenya, introducing some of the smiling inhabitants, their enkaji (traditional huts) and their prized cattle and goats, explaining their wandering, herding lifestyle which remains virtually unchanged over many hundreds of years.
In spite of their long history, today’s Maasai –predominantly living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania – face new 21st-century challenges. Global warming makes their lands dry and barren. Tourism is encroaching into Maasai tribal lands, denying their herds necessary grazing space and unbalancing already delicate cycles of survival. In spite of the hardships, “the next generation of Maasai are also learning ways to adapt to a changing environment,” Reynolds assures near book’s end.
Without a doubt, Reynolds’ story is informative, the photographs striking, and her ultimate message inspiring and hopeful that the traditional Maasai way of life will continue. It’s also kiddie-age-appropriate in introducing the very real dangers of animal extinction, environmental threats, and cultural challenges.
And yet … oh, and yet. On the book’s final page, Reynolds offers a link to a helpful Maasai reference website: http://www.maasai-association.org. Here’s the last few sentences from their “Maasai People” page: “The level of poverty among the Maasai people is beyond conceivable height. It is sad to see a society that had a long tradition of pride being a beggar for relief food because of imposed foreign concepts of development. The future of the Maasai is uncertain at this point.”
That, unfortunately, is the Maasai experience we had. Tourism has tragically fueled a beggar society, where the sound of a vehicle brings children running with outstretched hands shouting for money, food, water. A visit to an off-the-beaten-path-but-tourist-approved (!) Maasai boma (or enkang) little resembled Reynolds’ Maasai adventure: from the comparatively minor (children encrusted with flies and other bugs), to the brutal (women bearing the heaviest physical labor), to the shameful (a teenaged third wife of a much older village ‘leader’ whose back bears both a young child and the purple marks of repeated abuse).
To echo the title, only the book did not change … but certainly my reading did. From a guiltily overprivileged ‘after’-vantage point, I wonder if in a future edition, the final single page might become a more robust appendix to help educators and parents share this cultural experience at a deeper level with younger readers. The “Children Helping Children” section that is just two lines now hints at both need and possibility; it could surely provide further opportunities to engage – and enable – children both here and there.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Nonfiction, African
The Year of the Dragon: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac by Oliver Chin, illustrated by Jennifer Wood
Well, FINALLY, it’s my turn! The rest of the family got their Rabbit, Tiger, and Rat editions over the last few years … but lucky #7 in Oliver Chin‘s rollicking 12-part Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series is actually devoted to me!
Welcome to 2012 – the year of the DRAGON! Hear my joyous, hope-filled, tenacious roar!
“Dragons are special,” young Dominic’s mother tells him. They can control the winds, rain, and even advise the Emperor, his father adds. Dom certainly is one accomplished dragon: “This slinky serpent could play ping-pong, pick an entire orange tree, and roast marshmallows all by himself.”
Dom quickly becomes friends with local boy Bo and his buddies. Together, the motley crew decide they want to join the villagers on the river as they are practice for the big boat race next week. But no one seems to have the time to teach them to paddle. The Emperor lends them his “sleek ship,” but rowing with speed proves impossibly challenging.
While the seasoned boaters look on with jeers (adults behaving badly again!), Dom devises an unconventional new plan that just might help his team win the big festival race. Whatever the outcome, Dom, Bo, and their pals “… learned how to be good sports and make their parents proud of them in new ways.” Oh, if only my own brood were that malleable, ahem!
Wondering about all the dragons in your own menagerie? “People born in the Year of the Dragon [1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024] are strong and passionate, as well as idealistic and independent. But they can flare with emotion and be temperamental risk-takers. However, dragons are energetic and shoulder responsibility well, which make them the most reliable companions.” Sound like anyone you know?
As we dive all too quickly into 2012, here’s to a peaceful, contented, accomplished, happy new year indeed!
Readers: Children
Published: 2012 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Chinese American
Love Twelve Miles Long by Glenda Armand, illustrated by Colin Bootman
Trust me on this one: Debut author Glenda Armand‘s Love Twelve Miles Long is THE perfect book to share today.
“This was a special night,” the story begins, “Mama had come to visit …” Mama and her young son Frederick are slaves, forced to live separate lives, their moments together precious and brief. Mama walks 12 long miles to visit her son, but “‘[t]he way I walk makes the journey shorter.’” Mile by mile, she tells Frederick about her sojourn toward reunion: “‘Every mile is special … Each mile is for something different.’”
The first mile is for forgetting … about the pain and exhaustion from her endless labors out in the fields. But the second mile begins her remembering: her inquisitive son, how happy he makes her, how proud she is of him. She remembers to listen to the night sounds around her, to look at the stars that light her way. She spends the sixth mile in prayer, “‘… that one day we will all be free.’” She sings, she dances, she gives thanks, she hopes, she dreams … and finally she reaches the twelfth mile which is devoted to love. And there at journey’s end is her beloved son … yet all too soon, she will hug and kiss him one last time as he falls asleep, just before she must slip out into the moonlit light, alone once more.
Rendered in rich, glowing watercolors by award-winning Carlos Bootman, Armand’s first-ever book is a true story, oh so gorgeously told. Mama’s name was Harriet Bailey; her son changed his last name to Douglass when he escaped from slavery. Just as Mama hoped and dreamed, Frederick Douglass grew up to “‘ … do big and important things.’”
Newbie she might be, Armand will certainly continue to ‘do big and important things’ with her writing. Back in 2006, Armand won Lee & Low Books‘ New Voices Award, and her winning Love just hit shelves last month. Let’s hope Love finds a home in every library, public and private. Surely this is one gift that will keep on giving for decades to come.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Biography, .Nonfiction, African American
Irena’s Jars of Secrets by Marcia Vaughan, illustrated by Ron Mazellan
On his deathbed, Irena Sendler‘s father taught her the lesson that would guide her life. At age 7, she internalized his dying words: “… if she ever saw someone drowning, she must jump in and try to save that person, even if she could not swim.” By 1940, Hitler had ravaged Poland and 400,000 Jews were corralled into the Warsaw Ghetto. Sendler, a Catholic social worker, realized “The Jewish people are drowning“; she donned a nurse’s uniform and talked her way into the “nightmare” ghetto, providing food, clothing, and medicine as best as she could.
In 1942 when the Nazis began the mass removal of Warsaw Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp, Sendler joined the underground resistance organization Zegota and became the head of the children’s section. She helped smuggle the youngest victims out of the ghetto, and provided each with false identity documents before sending them to orphanages, convents, and non-Jewish foster homes. In the havoc and panic – not to mention the extreme danger – Sendler had the foresight to keep careful records of each child’s true and false information so that each might be reunited with their families after the war. Those records she buried in jars under an apple tree in a friend’s garden.
Sendler miraculously survived the war, including being captured and tortured. She returned to the garden, and dug up the names of some 2,500 children she had helped to save …
In 2007 when Sendler was reported to have been nominated (a closed, secret process) for the Nobel Peace Prize (Al Gore won that year to the very public disappointment of the International Federation of Social Workers), people saw her photo in newspapers and began to call: “‘I remember your face … It was you who took me out of the ghetto.’” In her final years (she lived to be 98!), Sendler’s caretaker was a woman who had been a Warsaw Ghetto baby carried out in a carpenter’s box under a load of bricks.
Discovering new heroes is surely one of the very best gifts of the holiday season. Author Marcia Vaughan’s words presented just right for younger readers, together with Ron Mazellan‘s deeply textured illustrations, offer a gentle way to share this courageous story with your ready readers, to inspire and teach them how a single, determined person can indeed save the lives of thousands.
Readers: Children, Middle Grade
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Reaching by Judy Ann Sadler, illustrated by Susan Mitchell
It’s another weekend … which, if you’re a parent, means you’re probably driving (or, if you’re lucky enough to have options other than being stuck in your car, you’re walking, bus-ing, subway-ing) helter-skelter trying to get your kids to practice, games, meets, study groups, meetings, and on and on …
In our too-hurried, overscheduled lives, we all need the occasional reminder to reconnect with our families. Indeed, raising a baby takes at least a whole village of extended family … oh, but the reward of those soft snuggles! [Anyone have a baby I can borrow for a few hours?]
Mama, Daddy, Sister all reach out to Baby to huddle and cuddle. Grandma and Grandpa, Oma and Opa are happy to play, while cousins join in on the fun (Puppy, too!). Great-gran is ready with a book, while Auntie and Uncle lovingly hover near by. So many family members buoy up Baby, until all too soon, “Baby is reaching / For everything new / Looking and pointing – /There’s so much to do!” Thankfully, his parents have a little more time before “Baby will reach / For the moon and the stars … / But not quite yet, Baby, / For now you’re still ours!”
Author Judy Ann Sadler creates a gentle lullaby while illustrator Susan Mitchell adds a colorful touch … not just in her choice of color palette but with clearly multicultural grandparents (Oma and Opa in addition to Grandma and Grandpa) and multi-ethnic cousins and Auntie, too. In today’s world of shifting borders, Reaching is a timely reflection of the global village in so many of our own families!
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific
A New Year’s Reunion by Yu Li-Qiong, illustrated by Zhu Chen-Liang
The simple things in life always deserve our greatest gratitude: Today, this day of turkeys and thanks, those of us with our families close by are quite possibly the luckiest people on earth.
Take the small family of three in this gorgeous yet bittersweet story … mother and tiny child rejoice because “Papa is coming home”: “Papa builds big houses in faraway places, / He comes home only once each year, / during Chinese New Year.” He arrives with open arms that sweep up his young daughter, even as she protests about his prickly new beard. After sharing his gifts, he goes to the barber shop to get his hair and beard cleaned up – so that “everything will go smoothly in the new year.” The little girl peeks up: “The Papa in the mirror is getting more like / Papa the way he used to be.”
Papa’s short reunion is filled with precious family time: making sticky rice balls, one of which hides a special “fortune coin” that will bring good luck to the person who finds it; working on small house repairs; enjoying the dragon dance on Main Street; playing in the newly fallen snow.
But Papa’s three short days are over far too quickly … and as he prepares to leave once again, the little girl places the lucky fortune coin, “all warm from being held / in my hand for so long,” into her father’s open palm – sharing her good fortune for the upcoming year she will not be able to see him.
Zhu Cheng-liang’s remarkable illustrations are saturated not only with brilliant color, but with unmistakably deep emotional bonds. The father’s gentleness with his tiny daughter is something to behold – father and daughter’s hands next to one another, her cautious climb up to the roof into her father’s waiting embrace, her lofty view from his shoulders, her tears as he comforts her, and the final picture of father/daughter goodbye … Zhu makes palpable the most profound joy to the deepest sorrow.
“The family in this book is a fictional one,” the book’s final page explains, “but there are in reality over 100 million migrant workers in China, many of whom work hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles away from home, returning only once each year, for just a few days, at New Year’s.” That sort of endured separation seems almost impossible to fathom – let this serve as a gentle reminder for those of us who are blessed with togetherness to never take that basic happiness for granted.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, .Translation, Chinese
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