In and out of classrooms all year long, I am constantly sharing books with children. When I'm not sharing books with children in schools, I'm sharing them at home. I'm always on the look out for wonder-filled books. Those are the books that I can almost guarantee will promote laughter, thought, and imagination.
I watch parents in bookstores trying to discern which books work amid selections chosen from the the over five thousand children's books released each year. I've developed a certain sense about the kind of books that will succeed with children, be enjoyed by parents, and create magical moments where the world gets slowed down enough to savor words, smell new pages, and create conversations you'll never forget.
I'm big on books for family reading, especially in the holiday season. They're a wonderful antidote to holiday stress, an instant way to regroup and spend relaxed and loving time together. When all else fails remember that books can give you all the best of the season; community, sharing, and magic.
I believe all young children should have a second mother....Mother Goose, that is. Noted illustrator Rosemary Wells writes: " The rhymes of Mother Goose represent our language at it's most innocent, playful, and profound. And now they are in danger of disappearing completely." Hopefully she and famous folklorist Iona Opie will change that with their My Very First Mother Goose (Candlewick, $19.99; ages 0 and up). Opie selected more than sixty rhymes which she wisely arranged from the bouncy odes like "Jack and Jill" to the dreamier lullaby poems like "Wee Willie Winkie" Rosemary Wells has portrayed each with bold colors and humorous characters that frolic across the generous pages.
Writer Julius Lester and illustrator Jerry Pinkney, both African-Americans, grew up loving the story of Bannerman's Little Black Sambo and hating its racism. This fall they collaborate on Sam and the Tigers (Dial, $15.99; ages 5-10) which sets the story in Sam-sam-samara a place where all people are named Sam and all of them live and work together with animals. Pinkney brings everything so much to life that observant children may notice that even the trees have grown faces. Sam still eats one hundred and sixty-nine pancakes, loves bright clothes, is waylaid by tigers and there's plenty of repetition, but now there's a new musicality when Sam chooses a coat "as red as a happy heart" and silver shoes "shining like promises that are always kept." This fairy tale voice is mingled with urban slang as each Tiger tells Sam, "Ain't I fine!" Pinkey's whirling tigers, emotion-filled faces and vivid watercolors are just as fresh!
Evelyn Coleman, an amazing new African-American voice, blends magic, social understanding, and strong emotions. In her White Socks Only (Whitman, $15.95; ages 9-12), a young country girl dresses in white and journeys into town to see if you really can fry an egg on the sidewalk. Thirsty, she removes her black shoes and innocently drinks from a "white's only" fountain. Her act becomes example inspiring those around her and leads to a magical occurrence raising more questions than the story has already requested readers to consider.
Mimi Otey Little's Yoshiko and the Foreigner (F,S,G $16.00; ages 8-12) tells a family story of the meeting of Little's American soldier father and Japanese mother. Struggling to speak to the young Japanese woman in a language that's beyond him, the soldier misinterprets his guide book and loudly proclaims in a crowded train, "I am a dancing girl. Where is the doctor?". This is a humorous introduction to a story that also holds themes of the universality of love, respect for culture and tradition, family understanding, and post-war prejudice. All of these told with the kind of warmth that only a family-treasured story holds.
Hudson Talbott's picture-filled novella Amazon Diary: The Jungle Adventures of Alex Winters (Putnam, $15.95; ages 8-12) drops a young boy into the middle of the Amazon jungle. When Alex's plane crashes, he is taken in by the Yanomami and all kinds of relationships and adventures ensue. The book is a fascinating blend of fact and fiction, drawings and Polaroids, all told with an authentic preadolescent voice. This is a perfect book for readers who have a strong visual proclivity and will be impressed with how story and picture merge.
Two historical novels for young adults to ponder. Katherine Patterson's Jip, His Story (Lodestar, $15.99; ages 11 and up) tells the story of a young boy living on a pre-Civil war poor farm. Questions about his parentage are solved with an intriguing plot twists and turns. And the heroine of Karen Cushman's The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (Clarion, $13.95; ages 10 and up) wonders what she wants out of life as she deals with the crudeness of her Gold Rush life, grieving for her recently deceased father and her Eastern ancestral home, and the emotions coming of age brings. Cushman fans wonder if this third book will win her another third Newbery medal.
Suzanne Staples' Dangerous Skies (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, $16.00; ages 12 and up) tells the horrifying story of a young white boy and his best friend, a young black woman. The two grow up sharing the same last name, secrets getaways and fishing adventures on the Chesapeake. In adolescence everything changes: their relationship, the young boy's vision of family and community, and his picture of his best friends life. The book builds to a startling, shattering conclusion where the boy learns the horrible truths that beneath the surface of his peaceful world.
Children who want answers to our fall winds, will be well-satisfied with the pictures and straight-forward explanations in Patricia Lauber, Hurricanes: Earth's Mightiest Storms (Scholastic, $16.95; ages 7-11). Other books with amazing illustrations, unusual angles, and clear writing that will fascinate young readers are: Sandra Markle, "Outside and In" series Sharks (Atheneum, $16.00; ages 5-10); and Seymour Simon, The Heart (Morrow, $16.00; ages 8-12).
For older non-fiction readers who are history absorbed, Henry Holt's new w5 (who,what,where,when and why) series has cutting-edge graphics and interesting perspectives. The first set of books creates an impressive tour of ancient eras with Michelangelo and His Times, Alexander and His Times, Ramses II and Egypt and Caesar and Rome . (all books from Holt, $19.95; ages 10 and up)
Gary Paulsen's Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers: Reflections on Being Raised by a Pack of Sled Dogs (HBJ, $15.00; ages 11- adult) begins in the Minnesota wilds as the author hears a favorite sled dog making love. He sees her through birthing puppies in the freezing winter, raising them while watching them destroy his home, and finally seeing her suffer when she can no longer run. All these rites of passage are celebrated with Paulsen's prosaic worship of the animal culture and the learning it holds for all human beings.
Patricia Polacco's The Trees of the Dancing Goats (Simon and Schuster, $16.00; ages 6-10) is a tale of the miracle of the holiday season. Young Trisha and her family, eagerly awaiting and prepare for the advent of Hanukkah, when they discover that all their Christian neighbors are ill with scarlet fever. The family decides to put aside their own celebrations to bring Christmas to their community. Their carved Hannukah presents become decorations on small pine trees and they cook a feast as well to carry to their ailing friends. The outcome? A miracle wrought by friendship and the magic of the season.
Last, a locally-produced book that's the perfect representation of all the best emotions of the holiday season. First, there's the miracle nature of the book, Maya Ajmera and Anna Rhesa Versola's Children from Australia to Zimbabwe (Shakti for Children, $18.95; ages 5 and up) began as the vision of one woman, Maya Ajemra, who wanted to show the laughter and play that children from around the world share. And the miracle came to pass with the collaboration of so many people. The book is published by Shakti for Children, a nonprofit organization committed to fostering global citizenship. The bright, emotive photographs came largely from Peace Corps volunteers from around the world. They are in perfect alignment with the mission, for they capture the smiles and playful action, costumes and culture, and beauty of children from twenty-five country.
The writing is a perfect accompaniment too, for it gives children the kind of facts they want to know. Each country is given not only basics like capital, languages and population, but the favorite sport and the number of children. There's also a child-grabbing environmental fact. For example we learn of the strong sun in Australia which encourages children to " 'slip, slop, and slap' - slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, and slap on a hat."
The book faced the problem all alphabet books contend with---what do you do with X, especially because there are no countries beginning with this letter. The creativity, sense of community, and devotion to children, so representative of the book took over again. One hundred and fifty children from Forestview Elementary School in Durham worked together to create words, mural, and the dream of an imaginary country called Xanadu where the language Is "Kindness and Respect" and the number of children is "all children who dream of a better world." The mural was completed with the help of art teacher, Marylu Flowers-Schoen, who just received the North Carolina Art Educator of the Year for 1996.
The book also faced the horrors of publication. And once again collaboration rescued the project as financial support came from numbers of both national and North Carolina organizations, including The Body Shop, American Express, and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation to afford self-publishing. And a final touch of beauty, there's a lovely forward written by Marian Wright Edelman.
Magic and community made this book work. And now, in keeping with the season, the project ends by giving. A portion of the profits raised will be donated to community-based educational programs for children around the world. And that's not all, every single elementary school in North Carolina, this week received three copies of the book to give the gift of the community of children to our children. The book, a limited release, can be found in bookstores across the state.
This year I read Ken Mochizuki's Baseball Saved Us (Lee and Low, $14.95; ages 7 and up) to a group of fifth graders. The main character, a young Japanese boy learns to play baseball while trapped in an interment camp. He's driven by his rage at an ever-present guard and later, on release, by the jeers and taunts of name-calling adults who watch him play.
When I asked the fifth graders about the theme, they guessed endlessly, remote guesses, floundering guesses. When I prompted them by giving them the first letter of the word prejudice, they still didn't have an inkling. It took clue after clue for them to pull the answer from them. And I had sense of guessing frenzy rather than comments inspired by thoughtfulness.
I'd like to say that this was an uncommon scenario, but in three years of teaching writing residencies in the public schools, regardless of locale, I find many children, are reluctant to learn, unprepared to think, unable to sustain interest, and difficult to engage.
Groups like Citizens for Excellence in Education, American Coalition for Traditional Values, and Christian Educators Association have attacked series and programs that focus on the very things I see missing in classroom. Parents are most often the means to the ends these groups envision.
Parents become fearful because materials are described as "harmful" or "attacking". Parents, who unlike me, have not been in classrooms and seen how unprepared our children are to greet the complexities of life in the 21st century. Children I see in classrooms are desperate to be heard, to get answers for their thoughtful question, to receive help in finding answers to complex decisions. Parents are their best resource.
Family reading can help parents who are afraid and overwhelmed by their children's needs. The American Booksellers for Children has put forth a motto which I see as a practical way to begin chipping away at the fear. "The most important twenty minutes a day," they remind us, "...read with a child." Here for overwhelmed parents is a specific suggestion and a concrete object to help them frame meaningful discussion and question asking. But I wonder, will they find the questions in books? By example, I offer three new books, rich with discussion potential, and some questions to begin a thoughtful discussion in your home. Some of the most amazing books are those that can weave philosophy and meaty material for thought into a first story books that is simple in appearance and sparse in prose. Ellen Stoll Walsh's Hop Jump (Harcourt Brace, $13.95; ages 3-6) tells the story of a frog named Betsy who wants more than the usual hopping and jumping her friends find satisfying. Betsy tries to float like leaves. She leaps, turns, twists, and discovers dance. When ridiculed by the hop-jumping frogs, she find a place for dancing only. Curious hop-jumpers can't stop themselves from observing, then dancing, then trying to limit a frog given to hopping. Betsy is quick to disagree, "Oh yes, there's room," she tells him, "For dancing and for hopping." The message of tolerance and a strong female role model who follows her amphibian heart can lead to a philosophical discussion with a preschooler.
Wondering with Walsh: (Questions for pre and early schoolers) Would you be a hop-jumpers, dancers, or both? How would you feel if someone told you that you couldn't do what you wanted? Tell me something that happened to you that made you feel like Betsy did.
One of the books that has led to some great in-depth discussion in classrooms is Patricia Polacco's Babushka Baba Yaga(Philomel, $14.95; ages 5-10). The title alone is intriguing. The sounds of it are inviting and explanation of what the words mean leads to the first contradiction worth considering. Polacco combines two Russian traditions that are polar opposites. Baba Yaga is famous in the folklore as a child-eating witch and Babushka means grandmother. In Polacco's story, this Baba Yaga longs to cuddle, not eat children, and more than anything wants her own grandchild to love. She discovers Victor, a young child who lives with a single, struggling mother. When the storytelling grandmothers tell Vincent the horrifying lore of Baba Yaga, the heroine leaves rather than endanger his sensibilities. She re-enters his life with an unfolding drama of surprises. Polacco's vision teaches and re-invents Russian lore, gives us an endearing older heroine, shows how one grandmother enters a family from an unexpected direction, and reveals a fresh and very satisfying view of love. Why not plunge into comparative literature by reading the elegantly illustrated, spirited new telling of the classic by Marianna Mayer, Baba Yaga and Vasilisa (Morrow, $16.00; ages 5-10).
Pondering Polacco: (A few questions to pose to upper elementary schoolers) Why did Polacco write this book and why did she change the character of Baba Yaga? Why does Babushka Baba Yaga leaves what she loves most? How is her dream more complete in the end of the book when when the town knows who she really is?
Suzanne Staples won a Newbery honor for Shabanu, the story of a girl growing up on the Cholistan desert who marries a man forty-five years her senior at the books close. Staples now has written a sequel and companion, Haveli (Knopf, $18.00; 12 and up) which begins a new stage of the heroine's life. Shabanu now lives in her husband's home where his other wives hate and defame her. She's trapped and oppressed by Pakistani values and customs, the willful danger of the women who surround her, and even the weather. And yet, Shabanu is able to remain powerful by searching for her choices and manipulating small freedoms. In this novel of a woman's survival against incredible odds, there is a haunting quality that invites women of all ages to think about the value systems of different countries and view a culture where teaching manipulation to one's daughter is a necessity. Due to material that is sometimes sexual and consistently complex, this book is best recommended to a young adult who has the maturity needed to understand the issues presented. The sexual component is a great point for discussion. Here you have a heroine who is sixteen, married to a man decades older, and sexuality one of the best manipulative tools Shabanu has. I recommend parents read this fast-paced book for best discussion...better yet, share it aloud.
Seeking answers with Staples. Ask your young adult reader What are the difficulties of American and Pakistani women and how do they compare? How do the different characters view love and view power? What defines Shabanu as a character?
My greatest love of children's books has been for the questions and concerns that they have raised and answered in our family. It becomes more and more apparent to me that it's not really the books I admire, but the relationship, growing, and thought they have inspired.
Here are some general guidelines to help you prepare for the "most important twenty minutes of your day". Begin by taking the phone off the hook, or at least let the machine field calls. Indulge yourself and your children with time that's uninterrupted. Remember that your kids are your greatest fans, you can be as dramatic and foolish as you want and they'll love every second of it. Ask open-ended questions before, during, and after reading. Don't look for right answers by throw out ideas that will let you wonder together. Maybe you can compare the book to others you've read or to your own life. If your child doesn't understand a question, don't worry, ask another. Here are ten leading questions to breed "booktalk":
(Go for a record/ or see how many things you can get in a minute)
2.What is the problem in the story? Does it get worse? How does it get solved?
What do you think of the ending? Why does it work or not work? How would you change it?
Would you do anything to change the book?
What do you think the author is trying to say? Why did the author write the book?
Why are the illustrations important to the story?
What kind of choices does the main character make? What would you do differently?
Tell the plot of the story in just two sentences. If you can tell it in one, that's even better!
If you've read other books by the same author tell how they're alike or different?
What are two things you can tell a friend that will make your friend want to read this book? Or two things that will make a friend not want to read?