2book

Children's & YAPicture Book

Imaginative adventure stories perfect for bedtime reading

Feature by Julie Danielson

Vincent van Gogh famously said that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. Two new picture books about imaginative nighttime adventures prove the validity of this claim.

If it wasn’t already clear from award-winning team Philip and Erin Stead’s previous books, Music for Mister Moon demonstrates that these two really get introverts. In the first pages, we meet a cello-playing girl named Harriet Henry with long bangs hanging in her eyes. She loves playing her instrument, but only for her stuffed animals. She’d rather not play for crowds, thanks very much.

One night she strikes up a conversation with the moon after inadvertently knocking him from the sky with a teacup she throws in frustration at a loud owl. Mister Moon sometimes tires of being the moon and would like, for once, to float on a lake. With great determination, as well as the help of some friends (including the owl with whom she makes amends), Harriet makes that wish come true. After hauling the moon back up to the sky, Harriet plays her music for “no one but Mister Moon.”

With monoprint illustrations done in oil inks, along with additional flourishes in colored pencil, illustrator Erin Stead subtly anthropomorphizes the moon and creates exquisitely expressive characters and indelible images, like Harriet pulling the massive Mister Moon in a small wagon and rowing him in a frail boat on the lake.

Although she has help, it is the resourceful Harriet who primarily moves the story forward, and author Philip Stead gives her tremendous agency (and a sharp imagination). She makes herself a ladder to retrieve the moon, and she makes the wagon used for transporting him. She can even “change her room into a little house” so that she can make her cello sing. With a superb balance between text and art, Music for Mister Moon is a vivid journey into a child’s nuanced inner world.

David Zeltser’s tale of adventure, The Night Library, is inspired by Patience and Fortitude, the lions sculpted from pink Tennessee marble that guard the main entrance of the New York Public Library. The story—rendered by illustrator Raúl Colón with reverence, energy, cool blue hues for the night sky and warm earth tones for indoors—is told from the point of view of a young boy on the eve of his 8th birthday. He is disappointed when his parents give him a book, but later that night, he is greeted by a lion named Fortitude who stands outside his bedroom window. They take off together on a night journey into the “heart of the frozen city” and to the library, where the boy meets the second lion and tours the building with his new feline friends.

In the children’s section, the books fly off the shelves and form themselves into iconic book characters, such as Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor. The boy is moved to see another set of books form itself into the shape of his grandpa, reading to him. Before the boy heads home on the back of Patience, the boy spends quiet time in the library falling in love with literature, reading books he once shared with this grandfather. He writes it off the next day as a dream—until he finds a new library card, just for him, on the doormat outside his home.

Children’s books about the importance of reading are a dime a dozen, but The Night Library resonates on another level as it is also the story of a boy’s lingering grief following the loss of his grandfather. But sometimes richly colored stories can provide healing as well as adventure.

 

Julie Danielson conducts interviews and features of authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children's literature blog primarily focused on illustration and picture books.

Two new picture books, Music for Mister Moon and The Night Library, follow children on imaginative nighttime adventures.

YA FictionYA

Spotlight on YA fantasy

Feature by Annie Metcalf

Two new female-helmed YA fantasy novels draw from South Asian folklore and traditions. Whether you’re looking for a romantic and roguish tale set in an alternate India or a magical warring djinn story set along the Silk Road, these stories will keep readers on the edges of their seats.

In The Tiger at Midnight, Swati Teerdhala’s first installment in a new series, an assassin and a soldier cross paths on a fateful night, setting off a tense game of cat and mouse. Esha is the Viper, a legendary killer for the Dharkan rebels, and her target is General Hotha, leader of the Jansan army. When Esha arrives to find the general already mortally wounded, she realizes she is being framed. Esha rushes to escape the crime scene, and she is followed by a select crew of Jansan soldiers. Most of these young men are at the disadvantage, not knowing that the Viper is a woman, except for Kunal. Kunal was raised by his uncle, the General, since the rest of his family’s death in the coup 10 years ago. He already suspects that the Viper is the compelling girl he met outside the fort on the night of his Uncle’s murder, and he soon determines that his hunch was correct. Her identity discovered, Esha and Kunal cross paths throughout Jansa, engaging in banter and developing a delicate code of honor as they fight, save, betray and escape one another.

While journeying, Kunal’s eyes are opened to the growing environmental disaster and spread of poverty in Jansa’s towns, causing him to doubt the work of the military he’s spent his life serving. Meanwhile, Esha struggles with feeling that her self-identity has been consumed by the personality of the Viper, and wonders if there’s hope for a life untethered from death and deception. A fascinating world with a landscape dependent on a mystical blood bond between humans and nature surrounds the characters, but the reality of the environmental disaster isn’t woven into the plot as well as it could be. A hint of intriguing myth and history runs through this debut, but most of the novel is spent on an enemies-to-lovers romance. Whether readers love or loathe this trope will determine their enjoyment of this #ownvoices debut.

Nafiza Azad’s The Candle and the Flame is a magical tale based on Arab and Muslim djinn folklore that is set in a vibrant city spanning two climates and encompassing a multitude of faiths and peoples. When Fatima was very small, the Shayateen, a race of chaotic djinn, attacked her family’s caravan along the Silk Road. Years later, the Shayateen launched an unprecedented attack within the walled city of Noor, killing every human but Fatima, her adopted sister and an elderly woman. Fatima and her companions survived because Fatima’s blood proved deadly to the Shayateen, though Fatima has never known why. After that night, the maharajah has relied upon the aid of the Ifrit, the djinn of order, who have controlled half the city of Noor—and protected the whole of it—ever since.

Now a young woman, Fatima spends her days working as a delivery girl and studying with an elderly djinn bookseller, Firdaus. But when disaster befalls Firdaus, Fatima realizes he was not just any djinn and Fatima is then reborn as something new. Pulled into a world of politics, ancient grudges and magic, Fatima struggles to hold onto loved ones while becoming closer to the Ifrit, especially Zulfikar, the Emir of Noor City.

Utilizing multiple narrative points of view with an excellent supporting cast (including djinn and humans), Azad shows a deep understanding of the folklore and culture that inspires her plot. Readers are immersed in both the human and djinn culture, and they are trusted to follow along without unnecessary exposition in this mature and sure-handed debut. A satisfying ending will allow Fatima’s story to stand alone, but intriguing open-ended plot points make it possible for Azad to continue the story of Noor and its world. Readers looking for fresh plots, enticing settings and strong female characters will sincerely hope she does.

Two new female-helmed YA fantasy novels draw from South Asian folklore and traditions.
Audio

Audio: May 2019

Feature by Anna Zeitlin

TOP PICK
Mitchell S. Jackson (The Residue Years) is a stunning writer, and his personal memoir, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family, ties his experience of growing up in Portland, Oregon, to the stories of his family members and to the larger black experience throughout American history. None of the challenges his family faced are isolated events; they are all part of a bigger picture, wrapped up in history, tradition and laws trenched in racism. For example, he begins a section on his mom’s drug problems by taking us through the entire history of cocaine. Jackson does a beautiful job connecting all the puzzle pieces, and his rhythmic, poetic narration enhances the written word and demonstrates his mastery of language. Yes, it’s a personal memoir, but it tells a much larger story.

Aimee Sinclair is a London-based actress who is wrapping up a film shoot when her husband goes missing. The police find it suspicious when she continues to live her life as if nothing has happened, and she quickly becomes the primary suspect. But Aimee has a complicated past: She was kidnapped as a child. I Know Who You Are splits the narrative between her experience with her kidnappers and the current day, when her life is once again unraveling around her. Aimee has killed before, but she doesn’t understand how she could possibly be responsible this time. Maybe she’s going crazy. Alice Feeney’s latest thriller is a compelling listen that had me on the edge of my seat to the very end. Narrator Stephanie Racine deftly portrays characters from a variety of regions and classes across the U.K. and Ireland. She shines in this first-person narration, capturing Aimee’s self-doubt, worry and determination. 

In Too Much Is Not Enough: A Memoir of Fumbling Toward Adulthood, theater and TV star Andrew Rannells recounts his life and career from his first audition as a young boy to his first role on Broadway in his late 20s. From dinner theater in Nebraska to summer stock theater and finally Broadway, he tracks his career through a series of humorous and touching vignettes. A misguided tip to drop off his headshot at every stage door on Broadway surprisingly leads to his first Broadway audition. He shares lessons learned from failed romances, and you won’t believe which rock star he met in full Star Trek regalia during “kink night” at the bar. As a narrator, Rannells lets his peppy personality shine as he dishes about bad acting experiences and stooping to playing a stereotype in the musical adaptation of a children’s cartoon. This audiobook is a must-listen for fans of musical theater.

TOP PICK
Mitchell S. Jackson (The Residue Years) is a stunning writer, and his personal memoir, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family, ties his experience of growing up in Portland, Oregon, to the stories of his family members and to the larger…

Cookbooks

Lifestyles: May 2019

Feature by Susannah Felts

TOP PICK
What good can’t a walk do you—especially with the perfect sidekick? The beautifully designed Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking, a combination of journal and quote compendium, is just that. Each of the book’s six sections—Sense of Place, Well-Being, Attention, Exploration, Devotion and Transcendence—helps you attain the benefits of walking in a different way. Each features thoughtful prompts for filling the blank pages and a wealth of passages from diverse literary and philosophical texts. Author and Belmont University professor Bonnie Smith Whitehouse brings a deep knowledge to this endeavor, so even if you never pen a word on these pages, you’ll be wiser just having perused them. Should you wish to track down the books, poems and essays she draws from, “For Further Reading” at the back of the book is a fine place to start. I’d like to give a copy of this smart, fetching book to everyone I know.

A cookbook is a popular wedding present, so why not gift one specifically written for a new duo? The Newlywed Table: A Cookbook to Start Your Life Together makes the brilliant assumption that both spouses will be getting their hands dirty at mealtime: “Let’s do away with any notions of who should be responsible for cooking and start with a clean slate,” writes author Maria Zizka. “You’re in this together. You’re a team.” This solid, basic guide is full of modern recipes with origins in diverse culinary traditions. A section on “Common Cooking Issues and How to Fix Them” is a godsend. And there’s a recipe for Chocolate Toast. Um, hello. Newlywed I am not, but my husband of 13 years and I will find much to work with here.

“Perhaps we have reached peak distraction,” Rob Walker writes in the introduction to The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday. “Attention panic” is another term he uses to describe this modern crisis. In this ingenious book, Walker compiles 131 specific ways to restore our capacity for attention. These activities are designed to employ the senses strategically: look with the eyes of a child or historian; listen selectively; create sound maps and inventories of objects around you. Some of these exercises are more surprising than others, as Walker draws from his own experience teaching at the School of Visual Arts as well as research on artists, designers, writers and entertainers. One of my favorites? A prompt from cartoonist Lynda Barry. What do you notice and why? It matters, and you can control it, and this book will show you how. 

What good can’t a walk do you—especially with the perfect sidekick? The beautifully designed Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking, a combination of journal and quote compendium, is just that. Each of the book’s six sections—Sense of Place, Well-Being, Attention, Exploration, Devotion and Transcendence—helps you attain the benefits of walking in a different way.
NonfictionAmerican History

Trouble in the City by the Bay

Feature by Keith Herrell

Ah, San Francisco—a tourist mecca with cable cars, the Golden Gate, steep hills and more. But the city’s cosmopolitan image doesn’t quite match up with its rough-and-tumble, often racist history, as demonstrated by two new books that might cause you to look at its past differently.

Already a bustling seaport while Los Angeles was still in its infancy, San Francisco in the mid-19th century was a major entry point to the American West and beyond. At the height of the California gold rush, thousands of men streamed in from China in search of jobs. Women followed, of course, and many encountered challenging and dangerous conditions—including involuntary prostitution. In The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Julia Flynn Siler recounts the history of these girls and women, as well as the social pioneers who battled Chinatown gang leaders and the city bureaucracy to rescue them from sex slavery and indentured servitude.

At the center of the story is Donaldina Cameron, a Presbyterian missionary nicknamed the “White Devil” by her many opponents in an attempt to keep their victims from fleeing to her. Operating from the Occidental Mission Home at the edge of Chinatown, Cameron provided a refuge for escapees, even seeking them out and spiriting them away from their captors. (Ironically, once safely at the mission, the girls and young women were subject to strict supervision, partly for their safety, and required to convert to Christianity.)

Siler tells the stories of many of these women in episodic fashion, with short chapters that keep the reader turning the pages. Heart-tugging personal stories include the history of Tien Fuh Wu, who was brought in the arms of a policeman to live at the mission as a child, and Tye Leung, who fled at age 12 to avoid an arranged marriage with an older man. Both women became trusted aides at the mission.

Iconic San Francisco historical events are prominent in Siler’s book, including the 1906 earthquake and fire and two outbreaks of the bubonic plague in the first decade of the 20th century. David K. Randall focuses on the plague in Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America From the Bubonic Plague. Chinatown is again the locus of events, as the first victim of the city’s plague outbreak in 1900 was a Chinese immigrant, and city officials immediately ordered a quarantine of the neighborhood. 

Racist leaders demanded that Chinatown be burned down, and corporate interests minimized the threat of danger to “European” residents of the city. It took a man of science with a compelling personal story, U.S. Public Health Service official Rupert Blue, to convince civic and corporate leaders that only the eradication of rats—and the fleas that carry the plague virus—would stop the disease’s spread. Randall brings Blue to life through letters to his family and co-workers and convincingly maintains that, had his efforts not been successful, the disease would have spread across the continent and San Francisco would not be the dream destination we know today.

Ah, San Francisco—a tourist mecca with cable cars, the Golden Gate, steep hills and more. But the city’s cosmopolitan image doesn’t quite match up with its rough-and-tumble, often racist history, as demonstrated by two new books that might cause you to look at its past differently.

YA FictionYA

Coming-of-age while out and proud

Feature by Jill Ratzan

In decades past, the world of queer YA literature comprised cautionary tales and sob stories. Thankfully, these two novels stand out for their uplifting and romantic perspectives.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a funny, sweet romantic comedy, and How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom by S.J. Goslee delivers.

Sixteen-year-old Nolan Grant would be content to secretly crush on the handsome Si while making art, working at the gardening store and hanging with his adoptive family during their board game tournaments and pancake marathons. But his older sister, Daphne, has other plans. 

When Nolan is pressured into a very public promposal orchestrated by Daphne, things go horribly wrong. Instead of asking Si, Nolan accidentally asks Ira “Bern” Bernstein, a bad boy everyone (including Bern himself) thinks is straight, as he recently split with his girlfriend. When Bern accepts, Nolan finds himself in a pickle. To keep up appearances, he has to pretend to date Bern until prom night. Meanwhile, the Gay-Straight Alliance—which Nolan reluctantly joins in his ongoing effort to impress Si—taps Nolan’s art talents for the prom after-party, and the situation between Nolan and Bern might be on its way to becoming real.

As the prom approaches, art projects go awry, siblings squabble and a budding romance overturns everyone’s expectations. Will prom night be everything Daphne has in mind for Nolan, or will nothing go as planned? And when everything starts to go wrong, does that mean that everything’s actually going right? Comedy, romance and feel-good family dynamics combine in what’s sure to be one of this summer’s most fun YA reads.

Things take a turn toward the fabulous in Tanya Boteju’s Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens. Biracial teen Nima Kumara-Clark anticipates another boring summer of working, hanging out with her best friend and hoping to win the affections of her crush, Ginny. But when Nima takes a chance and sees an unusual act featuring drag queens at her town’s annual festival, she meets the mesmerizing Winnow and is instantly smitten. 

Hoping to see Winnow again, Nima follows her to a drag show, where she connects with Deidre, a drag queen who takes Nima under her wing. What follows is a summer that’s anything but what Nima expected. Attending drag shows awakens her, and soon she’s ready to do more than just watch. 

As Nima learns the art of being a drag king—a woman who dresses and performs as a man—she also gains new knowledge about long-hidden family secrets, her friends and even herself. Why did her mother leave her family, with only the briefest of notes, a year and a half ago? Why has Gordon, once a friend, become so bitter and distant? And why, if Nima’s confident that she likes girls, does being labeled a lesbian feel so awkward?

Boteju uses her own life experience in the world of drag to tell a story filled with glitter, feather boas, lip-syncing and dancing, where gender identity is flexible and performance is the embodiment of joy.

In decades past, the world of queer YA literature comprised cautionary tales and sob stories. Thankfully, these two new novels stand out for their uplifting and romantic perspectives.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Two sweet stories for baking enthusiasts

Feature by Billie B. Little

In two middle grade novels, intelligent and lovable young heroines solve problems and find their sense of self through baking. Growing up is tough, but it can also be filled with sweet victories.

In Margaret Dilloway’s Summer of a Thousand Pies, 12-year-old Cady is sent to live in a new town with her Aunt Shell, who feels like a total stranger. Cady’s father is in jail and struggling with addiction. Since her mom died when she was 3, it’s always been just Cady and her dad, homeless and living in a beat-up van.

Cady’s dad kept her from meeting her extended family, so she doesn’t know anything about Aunt Shell or her housemate, Suzanne. Cady has always wanted to learn to bake but hasn’t had a kitchen to practice in, so she’s happy to discover that her aunt runs a pie shop. Cady misses her dad, but her new life seems a perfect fit, especially when Cady makes a new friend, Jay, whose family lives on Shell’s property. Shell tells Cady she has to bake 1,000 pies to become an expert, and Cady happily takes on the challenge, but soon her new, nearly perfect life is threatened. The pie shop is failing and may be sold, and it will take more than Cady’s baking skills to turn the shop around. And when Cady learns that Jay is an undocumented immigrant, she begins to realize that everyone—not just her—has their problems.

Dilloway shines in her complex portrayal of Cady. Mistrustful and lacking confidence, Cady responds to new situations with anger, but as time passes, she’s able to depend on others, make friends and forge relationships. Dilloway’s gentle humor and lively dialogue make this warm-hearted story ring true.

Midsummer’s Mayhem, Rajani LaRocca’s debut novel, is as dense, flavorful and complex as an artisanal cupcake. And though the story is all about baking, it’s also about magic and mysterious woods, Indian folklore and food, friendship and family.

There is mayhem of all sorts in 11-year-old Mimi’s life. Unlike her talented siblings, she feels like a failure. Her successful mom works too hard to notice her much, and her dad has changed on a dime. A food editor, he has begun cramming sweets into his mouth without the smallest amount of discernment. Worse yet, her father has always been her biggest fan, but now, when she needs his expertise to help win a baking contest, he doesn’t have time for her.

Numerous threads intertwine through this story of Mimi, the youngest in a family of impressive siblings, as she tries to figure out a niche where she, and only she, can excel. Mimi’s desire to be good at something will feel familiar to many young readers, as will the dismissive siblings, busy parents and, naturally, the way-too-pretty mean girl.

Based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this story may be a tad convoluted for readers who aren’t familiar with the source material, but Mimi’s desire to succeed and her quest to win a baking contest carry the story.

In two middle grade novels, intelligent and lovable young heroines solve problems and find their sense of self through baking.

YA FictionYA

Explore a new world with two YA tech thrillers

Feature by Jill Ratzan

Teens and technology are natural companions, in part because both are drawn to challenging limits and pushing boundaries. Two new YA thrillers set in the not-so-distant future explore the complex relationships between humans and their digital creations.

At a theme park called the Kingdom, dreams come true, ugliness is against the rules and everything ends happily ever after. Teenage Ana, a cyborg princess known as a Fantasist, lives with her sisters in the Kingdom, where she spends her days entertaining guests with her beautiful appearance, delightful manners and unfading smile. Surely a creation like Ana, designed to be flawless in every way, couldn’t be capable of murder. But when a park employee is found dead, Ana is the most likely suspect.

Starting an hour after the murder and then jumping back and forth in time, The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg alternates between Ana’s voice and a series of interview transcripts, court documents and news clippings. Theme park aficionados might smile in recognition—or wince in pain—as their favorite attractions become instruments of dystopian horror. Could faulty settings at the Princess Palace have caused Ana to snap? Did she encounter someone on the monorail connecting Magic Land with Winter Land? Or maybe the blame lies with a quickly covered-up incident at the Mermaid Lagoon? As the Kingdom Corporation defends Ana’s inability to supersede her programming, Ana herself begins to question all she has known. Is everything in the Kingdom really as ideal as it seems? Is she able to doubt, deceive or love? The Kingdom invites readers to ponder how far technology can—or should—go in the quest to create a perfect world.

High school can be a theme park all its own, as Arvin Ahmadi’s Girl Gone Viral attests. Students at the exclusive Palo Alto Academy of Science and Technology (PAAST) build virtual reality worlds, interact with wall-size screens in their dorm rooms and grumble about using old-fashioned iPhones in their history of social media class. Opal Hopper isn’t distracted by holos, Zapps or even her college applications. She and her friends are focused on entering the Make-A-Splash virtual content creation contest. The winning team will be showered with rewards, but the prize Opal cares about most is a meeting with Silicon Valley superstar Howie Mendelsohn, who may hold the key to understanding why Opal’s father mysteriously disappeared seven years ago.

The team—Opal, Moyo, Shane and Kara—hopes that their show “Behind the Scenes” will reach top popularity in a virtual universe where success is measured in LiveTags, comment volume and number of avatars in attendance at each broadcast. Viewership of “Behind the Scenes” skyrockets, but their success has its downsides: Opal’s values are questioned at every turn, including her decision to make her budding romance with Moyo part of her public persona. Meanwhile, a presidential election pits a progressive candidate against one from the anti-technology Luddite party. College acceptances come in, friends and couples at PAAST bicker and fight and make up again, and the truth that Opal seeks lurks constantly in the background, waiting to emerge. Pick up Girl Gone Viral for a boarding school mystery with a technological twist.

Two new YA thrillers set in the not-so-distant future explore the complex relationships between humans and their digital creations.

Children's & YAPicture Book

The wilder side of life

Feature by Angela Leeper

Two new picture books with expertly crafted illustrations encourage young readers to venture off the path.

In Susanna Mattiangeli’s The Hideout, a young girl named Hannah decides to live in the park. Topping off her orange hair with a raccoon hat, Hannah sets up a shelter amid the dense foliage. She’s not alone, though. After finding an Odd Furry Creature, she shares her secret hideout, making them each a bed out of leaves and matching capes out of feathers.

Together, they relish their time in the wild, eating biscuit cookies, roasting pigeons on the campfire and collecting caterpillars, sticks and other bits. But what does this Odd Furry Creature even look like? Illustrator Felicita Sala’s intriguing watercolor and colored pencil illustrations slowly reveal its unusual features, from its talon fingers to its fluffy blue tail. Sala also conveys the differences between the quiet and increasingly overgrown vines of the hideout and the bustling activity in the rest of the park.

Although Hannah enjoys her undisturbed time with the Odd Furry Creature, she also realizes that time spent with dogs, balloons and people is also important. She leads her new companion out of the thicket and into the brightly lit park, but when an adult calls to her again, the story ends with Hannah back in her bedroom. With a fine blend of imagination and friendship, Hannah’s adventure is reminiscent of Where the Wild Things Are.

Once there was a river that flowed through a forest. But it didn’t know it was a river until Bear came along. When Bear’s tree-trunk perch snaps, it sends Bear floating down the river on the log, but he doesn’t know it’s the start of an adventure until Froggy hops on him. Thus begins Richard T. Morris’s uproarious Bear Came Along. The fun continues as Bear and Froggy are joined by the Turtles, Beaver, the Raccoons and Duck. Encouraged by the river’s twists and turns—and Beaver’s captain skills—they don’t know to be cautious until a waterfall comes along.

As the woodland animals hold onto one another, they survive the fall, enjoy the ride and realize that although they sometimes live separately, they all rely on one another. Illustrator LeUyen Pham’s watercolor, ink and gouache illustrations show the animals’ exaggerated expressions, which add to the hilarity and tension leading up to the waterfall, and the details in the patterned landscape offer an enriched reading experience.

The opening endpapers offer a black-and-white panoramic view of the story ahead. As children turn the pages, they’ll notice more and more colors as each animal arrives. The final scene and endpapers burst with colors as nature thrives together. Many humans will find plenty to learn about friendship and community from these spirited animals.

Two new picture books with expertly crafted illustrations encourage young readers to venture off the path.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Tips for teachers: Moving to a new home

Feature by Emmie Stuart

I recently bought a house. After 12 years of moving around a total of 13 times, when I finally moved into my new house, I had the process down to a science. Always focused on the details of the move, I was never emotional about leaving one dwelling and moving to another. Filled with frequent change, the 20s and 30s are naturally transient times in the lives of many adults, and we can forget how emotionally hard moving can be for young children. Moving houses, cities or states means that a child’s sense of place, routine and familiar touchstones are significantly altered.

The following three picture books validate feelings children experience during the moving process. Offering affirmation and encouragement, these are excellent vehicles for opening up classroom discussion about life changes—moving or otherwise—with your students.

Home Is a Window by Stephanie Parsley Ledyard and Chris Sasaki

Using simple and lyrical prose, author Stephanie Parsley Ledyard reflects on what it is that turns a house into a home as a girl prepares to move. “Home is a window, a doorway, a rug, a basket for your shoes . . . a table, with something good, and the people gathered there,” her young protagonist explains. But what happens when you must leave the safety and comfort of your home? As the girl discovers, home is more than just a physical dwelling. It’s the people, shared experiences and seemingly trivial routines that make a home. With understated perceptiveness and vivid language, this is a powerful book that is sure to prompt discussion about the qualities that turn a physical structure (house or classroom) into a home.

  • Five Senses Poetry
    The little girl discusses both tangible and intangible things that are “home.” Discuss the differences between tangible and intangible. As a class, reread the book and chart the tangible and intangible items on a piece of chart paper. Briefly review the five senses, and draw a picture (for younger grades) or write the sense next to each thing listed on the chart (long quiet = sound, lamplight = sight). Give students a graphic organizer with a box for each of the five senses. Allow time for children to quietly reflect on their own home and the tangible and intangible things that make it special. Give students another five senses graphic organizer for them to fill out when they are home. Encourage them to spend time intentionally noticing the sights, sounds, smells, textures and tastes of their home. How does home make them feel? Students will use their graphic organizers to write their own “Home is . . . ” poem.
     
  • Urban and Suburban Art
    As a class, look at the front and back endpapers. The front endpapers and title page show a distinctly urban city block, and the back endpapers show a more suburban neighborhood. Ask students to tell you what they notice about each endpaper, and jot down their observations into a T-chart graphic organizer. Discuss similarities and differences between living on a bustling city block and living in a suburban neighborhood. What are the pros and cons of each? What are the sounds, sights and smells of each? Provide 11” x 14” sheets of paper, colored and patterned paper cut into various sizes of squares, rectangles and triangles, and oil pastels or markers. Students will use the paper and pastels to create an urban or suburban block. On the back of their paper encourage them to write the sights, sounds and smells that they imagine in their picture.
     
  • Text Sets: Home
    Extend the idea of “home” by reading more books with home at their heart. Read aloud This Is Our House by Hyewon Yum, Home by Carson Ellis, A House Is a House For Me by Mary Ann Hoberman, Let’s Go Home: The Wonderful Things About a House by Cynthia Rylant and Town Mouse, Country Mouse by Jan Brett. For nonfiction books about houses, read If You Lived Here: Houses of the World by Giles Laroche and House and Homes by Ann Morris. As I was reading these books aloud, students kept shouting wait, go back! so they could study the illustration details.

When You Are Brave by Pat Zietlow Miller and Eliza Wheeler

As her family drives away from their old home, a girl looks at a photo album and nostalgically reminisces about the house, friends, school and town that she is leaving behind. Instead of wallowing, she remembers that “some days are full of things you’d rather not do. Like plunging into a pool all by yourself, hoping you’ll swim and not sink. Or standing alone, in front of a crowd, searching for one friendly face.” By the time her family arrives at their new seacoast home, the girl has a renewed sense of confidence. Warm and vivid mixed-media illustrations reflect the girl’s emotional journey, further emphasizing the idea of bravery in the face of uncertainty and change.

  • Simile Illustrations
    The text begins with several strong “Brave as . . . ” similes. Teach or review the simile, and remind students how writers use similes to add depth and richness to their stories. Allow time for students to brainstorm their own similes. When students have written 3 – 4 similes, let them choose their favorite. Pass out watercolor paper, and tell each student to write his or her brave simile on the top, and then illustrate it using watercolors. Combine the simile illustrations into a class Brave book.
     
  • Art: Expressing Emotion Through Color
    Beginning with deep blues and golds and ending in a full-color palette, Wheeler’s illustrations expertly use color to reflect the young girl’s emotional journey. Show students different colors and shades, and give them time to discuss what feelings and thoughts they associate with these colors. Read Emily’s Blue Period by Cathleen Daly, My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss or The Noisy Paint Box by Barb Rosenstock. Provide various forms of colored art materials. Play classical music, and give students time to use color to create a piece of artwork that reflects their feelings.

A New Home by Tania de Rigil

Written in dual narration, a young girl and young boy share their hesitations and fears about moving cities. The girl is moving from Mexico City to New York City, and the boy is making the opposite transition. As each child reflects on what he or she loves about their current city, it becomes obvious that the two cities are more alike than different. The illustrations extend the text, offering readers insight into each city’s cultural traditions and landmarks. Tackling both big-life concepts—fear and sadness that accompany moving—as well as geographic and cultural concepts, it’s an excellent read-aloud that will provide a solid foundation for further classroom learning.

  • Reflective Writing
    Tell students to pretend that they have just gotten the news that their family is moving to another country. Ask them to list the things that they will miss about their current neighborhood or city. Younger students may need help with the names of landmarks or buildings. Remind students to consider the climate, people and culture of their current city. Older students can take their lists and craft them into a piece of reflective writing, a love letter to their current neighborhood and city.
     
  • City Similarities
    Create a three-column chart, and label the columns “Experience,” “New York City” and “Mexico City.” Reread the book aloud while taking pauses to fill in the chart. With each experience (after-school snacks, sporting events, etc.), write down the specifics for each city. The chart will show students that although the specifics are not the same, the cities and cultures are more alike than different. The back of the book has excellent information about the places in each city. Use Google Earth to visit a few of these landmarks.
     
  • Cross-Cultural Pen Pals
    Connect your students with the world! Use an established site to register your students with an international pen pal. Communicating virtually via email is a quick option, but snail mail is my preference. Writing to their international pen pals is exciting for students and provides a real-world opportunity to practice letter writing and communication skills. Connecting with an international school via Mystery Skype is another activity that brings the world to your classroom. Prepare a list of questions beforehand. Afterward, create a City Similarities chart (see above), highlighting the ways the other students’ lives in the other country are similar to life in the United States.
The following three picture books validate feelings children experience during the moving process. Offering affirmation and encouragement, these are excellent vehicles for opening up classroom discussion about life changes—moving or otherwise—with your students.
Romance

The fine line between love and hate

Feature by Amanda Diehl

Tensions run hot, but chemistry runs even hotter in these two enemies-to-lovers romances. Christina Lauren’s The Unhoneymooners transports two prickly siblings-in-law to gorgeous Maui, where the fiction of a honeymoon becomes quite real. And The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker gets creative with live theatre, as a snarky critic butts heads with an actress who comes from a theatrical dynasty.

Olive Torres and Ethan Thomas’ siblings were due to be married and off to Hawaii for their honeymoon. But when a food-borne illness ravages the wedding party, Olive and Ethan are the only two left standing. With the honeymoon nonrefundable, both bride and groom insist they go in their stead. The only problem is that Olive and Ethan don’t exactly get along. In fact, simply uttering a kind word to each other would take an act of god.

They set off for Maui with the understanding that, once there, they would do their own thing until the honeymoon is up. Unfortunately, familiar faces pop up in paradise, and Ethan and Olive get caught up in their newlywed charade. As they enjoy a couple’s massage, snorkeling and even a frustrating game of paintball, Olive and Ethan realize that their dislike stems from terrible first impressions on both sides. Though, when a huge secret is revealed, any hope for a friendship, let alone a romantic relationship, seems to be heartbreakingly dashed.

Filled with Christina Lauren’s seamless blend of wit and romance, and peppered with adorably nerdy moments, The Unhoneymooners perfectly illustrates how easy it is to get swept up in the tranquil bubble of a tropical vacation, where everything seems perfect, your nemesis looks positively criminal in their bathing suit and mai tais are a powerful, transformative truth serum. But what happens when real life resumes? If you can’t make it to a gorgeous Hawaiian beach, this warm and bubbly romance isn’t a bad substitute for sunny relaxation.

Though The Austen Playbook doesn’t have sandy beaches, the insular setting of a live television production amps up the stakes of this romance. Freddy Carlton is a veteran of the theatre scene, having started her career at the age of 11. When she’s cast in a new interactive murder mystery play titled The Austen Playbook, there’s only one thing that can dampen her excitement: James “Griff” Ford-Griffin.

Griff is one of the toughest theatre critics around, known for his caustic reviews and harsh sarcasm. He also panned one of Freddy’s recent performances. Too bad for Freddy that Griff is personally invested in The Austen Playbook, as the production will be performed at his family’s estate.

Freddy is an eternal optimist, a direct contrast to Griff’s more grumpy nature. With the two temporarily fixed in each other’s orbit during the play’s production, Griff’s moody disposition is hopelessly drawn to Freddy’s infectious and affable nature. If a live TV production wasn’t enough to tip Freddy and Griff’s relationship over the edge, there are high-strung actors, fraught moments of backstage cattiness and juicy family secrets. Learning her lines is the least of Freddy’s worries. Both Freddy and Griff have their own motivations for making the show a success, but flirtations, scandals and schemes push the pair to their limits.

Charming and honestly just plain fun, The Austen Playbook should be an immediate hit with Austen fans and theatre geeks.

Tensions run hot, but chemistry runs even hotter in these two enemies-to-lovers romances: The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren and The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker.

NonfictionAmerican History

Going South

Feature by Sam Worley

Two new tomes of nonfiction grapple with the South’s racist history while rustling up hope that this complex region can lead a better way forward.

Recent years have seen the massacre of black worshippers at a South Carolina church, fierce debates over the memorialization of white-supremacist American leaders and the ascendancy of a president who admires Andrew Jackson, a slaveholding Tennessee “populist.” As progress toward racial equality seems ever in danger of being erased, Americans have sought to make sense of the present by looking to the past—and looking south.

Two decades after Confederates in the Attic, Massachusetts-based journalist Tony Horwitz dips back below the Mason-Dixon Line and into an ongoing national conflict in Spying on the South. The book retraces an antebellum journey undertaken by Frederick Law Olmsted, who explored the southern U.S. as the country careered toward civil war. Olmsted wrote dispatches for northern newspapers that were later collected into The Cotton Kingdom, a window into a society structured around slavery. Horwitz similarly seeks to shed light on the region. Pondering the “inescapable echoes of the 1850s” in today’s politics, he travels down the Ohio River on a coal barge, finds the remnants of a massive cotton and sugar plantation in Louisiana and even embarks on an uncomfortable mule ride through Texas. Horwitz is an amiable narrator who marries a journalist’s knack for scene-setting and chatting folks up with the ability to tell a good historical tale. Back up north, he concludes with a walk through New York’s Central Park, the crowning jewel in Olmsted’s subsequent career as a landscape architect.

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall’s Sisters and Rebels is a master class in how to write history. The founding director of the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Hall tells the story of three sisters from the Lumpkin family, whose father was a violent Reconstruction-era Klan member. While one daughter followed her father’s Lost Cause ideology, more compelling are the two who struck further out. Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin became involved in interracial organizing with the YWCA, enjoyed a prolific career as a sociologist and authored The Making of a Southerner, which explores the roots of racism and sexism in her own childhood. Grace Lumpkin moved to New York, joined the labor movement and wrote the influential proletarian novel To Make My Bread. Hall deftly situates each moment of these women’s lives within its historical context, producing a vital, timely narrative about how attitudes are formed and how they can be reshaped. This triple biography is also a corrective to histories of the South that emphasize its white male bigots, as Hall places women’s progressive political and intellectual work at the book’s heart. Despite being about a single family, Sisters and Rebels is breathtaking in its historical scope and flawlessly executed. The arc of the Lumpkin women raises at least the possibility of redemption—that the sins of the father need not be repeated by the daughters.

Two new tomes of nonfiction grapple with the South’s racist history while rustling up hope that this complex region can lead a better way forward.

Romance

Austen adaptations: Pride, prejudice and pakoras

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

It’s been over 200 years since the death of Jane Austen, and it’s a testament to her storytelling that variations on Pride and Prejudice continue to charm readers over and over again. But it’s also a testament to the authors of these latest releases that their takes on the classic feel current, relevant and new. 

Uzma Jalaluddin’s debut novel, Ayesha at Last, challenges expectations right from the start by moving Austen’s story from the much-romanticized drawing rooms of Regency England into a community of Muslim immigrants in Canada. As you might imagine, there’s (unfortunately) plenty of prejudice to spare, particularly towards Khalid Mirza, a computer programmer in Toronto whose devout Muslim faith and strict adherence to tradition make him an immediate target. But he’s not above a little hasty judgment himself, leading to instant conflict with Ayesha Shamsi when he meets her at an open-mic poetry event. Something about Ayesha moves Khalid, but this also disturbs him, since he’s been raised to believe that love is meant to come after marriage—a marriage that must be arranged by his family and his bride’s. Jalaluddin’s modern story blends shockingly well with the original plot of Pride and Prejudice. Khalid and Ayesha’s close-knit Indian-Canadian community bears a striking resemblance to Regency-era British society, with its sharply defined ranks, rapid-fire gossip, emphasis on parents arranging matches and potential for a scandal to sink the matrimonial fortunes of an entire family. Would a modern Elizabeth Bennet, living in England, worry that her sister’s elopement would cast a stain on the family? Nope. But a modern Ayesha Shamsi would.

The blistering dynamic between Darcy and Elizabeth has been captured in many different forms over the years, but in Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, Sonali Dev absolutely nails it to the wall. Her take on Austen borrows its structure from the original but weaves in engrossing new plot threads and dynamic emotional twists. Trisha Raje is a renowned neurosurgeon, the descendant of actual Indian royalty and the sister of the leading candidate for governor of California, so perhaps she has some justification if she is, indeed, proud. (Spoiler: She is.) But her behavior makes it all too easy for DJ Caine—an accomplished chef who has used his skills and reputation to rise above a background of poverty and racism—to willfully misunderstand her. (Spoiler: He does.) However, DJ also happens to need Trisha, since she’s the only surgeon who can successfully extract the brain tumor that’s killing his sister. Not to mention that he can’t pay the medical bills without the catering contract he hopes to secure from Trisha’s fabulously wealthy, influential family. Dev pushes the couple together in an exquisitely agonizing dance of one step forward, two steps back as DJ’s wounded pride and Trisha’s social awkwardness turn every conversation into a worst-case scenario. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors is surprising and unexpected, delivering unapologetic lessons about what prejudice looks like today. From police discrimination opening Trisha’s eyes to her own privilege to a late-in-the-story confession darkly echoing the #MeToo movement, Dev transforms a 200-year-old tale into a searing, clear-eyed portrait of our current reality.

It’s been over 200 years since the death of Jane Austen, and it’s a testament to her storytelling that variations on Pride and Prejudice continue to charm readers over and over again. But it’s also a testament to the authors of these latest releases that their takes on the classic feel current, relevant and new. 

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