So Many Books, So Little Time...

Well, just so you know, I did cheat a little tiny bit, because a few of these books I read before my "official" start date--but only by a week or two. I also need to fill in with picture books when I have one or two longer things in progress. For instance, right now I am reading The Leader in Me for professional reading, the audiobook of Dead End in Norvelt (when driving or doing dishes,) and I'm about to begin a YA novel called Code Name Verity (can't wait for that one--it got really good reviews!)

So, anyway, recently completed books include:

Small Acts of Amazing Courage by Gloria Whelan (ISBN: 978-1-44240931-6) [This is probably a middle school book on average, though with some understanding of the context, a fifth grader could read it just fine.] I loved Gloria Whelan's National Book Award-Winning Homeless Bird, which was also set in India. That book had a young Indian widow as the main character. The protagonist in this story is English, and the setting is just after WWI. Although Indian soldiers fought alongside English in the war, afterwards the English expected things to go right back to the way they had been before. In this world, English people live in their own sheltered world, struggling to maintain the lifestyles they had in England. But as the story opens, change is brewing. Gandhi is encouraging non-violent resistance to English rule. Rosalind, who has never been good at fitting in, is fascinated by Gandhi, and, because her best friend is Indian, she knows how unjustly people have been treated. Rosalind needs to decide how much she is willing to risk for her beliefs. This book isn't perfect--the journey to England seems like an interruption to the story--and unlike One Crazy Summer, there is some explaining of the history which can distance the reader emotionally. However, this was an amazing time and place in history that most Americans know little about, and if Gloria Whelan decides to write a sequel (Rosalind's story seems to be just beginning,) I'll go out and read that too!

Shark Wars by EJ Altbacker  (ISBN: 978-0-545-44728-7) I pulled this one out of the bookfair this spring, and I read it for my boys. It's another humanlike-animal story, destined to be a series, in the vein of Warriors and Guardians of Gahoole. (To my knowledge there is at least 1 more already published.) Like those other books, this one stars a misfit/outcast male main character, reveals a "culture" based on qualities/behaviors of the real animals, has a bad-guy leader of a bad-guy gang to test the strength of the young hero, and a mystical elderly character who will lead the young (in this case, shark,) to enlightenment. The elements are all in place, and the story is adequate to carry the reader along. There is real peril here, real fighting and death, which some boys will find enticing. An underlying environmental message helps to make the bad characters less black-and-white. My favorite part of this book was actually the shark language. A "shiver" is a group of sharks under a leader and his "five in line." If a shark dies, he goes to the "Sparkle Blue", etc. Certain boys just love sharks, and this book would be right up their alley--with a shark encyclopedia by their side so they can really imagine all the different characters. I'll see how it circulates before I buy more, but the title alone might "sell" it!

Now, 2 of the NH Ladybug Picture Book Award Nominees...

Perfect Square by Micheal Hall (ISBN: 978-0-06-191513-0) This book has a terrifically simple message--make what you can out of life, no matter what life hands you. It's never stated in the book, but as the "perfect" square is transformed by an unseen force on each successive page, it transforms itself into something new and equally joyous. The message isn't stated, but it's not buried--a third grader raised his hand and happily told me "this teaches us to just keep going, no matter what--but the purely graphic representation of this idea is perfect for elementary school kids. I could see pairing it with the activity where a child starts a squiggle drawing that gets passed down the line and changed each time. It would pair nicely with other art-themed books, like Ish by Peter Reynolds. 
Calvin Can't Fly, the Story of a Bookworm Birdie by Jennifer Berne (ISBN: 978-1-4027-7323) I have a confession to make--I dislike most "Isn't reading GREAT!" books, and cringe when there is one on the Ladybug list (which there often is.) There, I said it. Does that mean I'm not a true librarian? Actually, this book has a bit of a twist on the standard fare, in that it turns out to be quite a problem for Calvin that he only reads, but never practices what he reads about. In the end it's clear, both reading and doing are necessary parts of life.