Diamonds - a girls best friend??

Adolescence Book Review: Diamonds in the Shadow

Cooney, C. B.  (2007). Diamonds in the Shadow.  Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook.  [Suspense]

               Life is pretty sweet for 16-year-old Jared Finch, with nothing worse than an annoying little sister to disrupt his easy life in suburban Connecticut.  Sweet, that is, until his parents volunteer to take in a family of African refugees, forcing Jared to share his life, school, and even his bedroom with a total stranger.  But this African family is not quite what they seem; they are hiding secrets that could put Jared and his whole family in serious danger. 

                This novel by prolific author Caroline B. Cooney sheds light on the painful truths of civil war in Africa and the trade in illegal diamonds that fund those wars.  The story is told from the point of view of various characters in turn, which adds to the suspense of the story while highlighting the contrasts between the comfortable life of suburban Americans and the deprivations of refugees in Africa.  The story of the silent and traumatised Alake, who has witnessed and participated in such atrocities, is particularly poignant.  Although the work is entirely fictional, the author drew on her own experiences of sponsoring and hosting a refugee family. 

               A gripping and thought provoking novel, full of suspense and mystery, questions of guilt and innocence, and ultimately of hope and acceptance.  A great read for older bookworms.

Check out Caroline B. Cooney's website to find out more about her, her books, and the ideas behind them.

Kiwi as!

Middle Childhood Book Review:  The Phar Lap Mystery

Masson, S. (2010).  The Phar Lap mystery (My Australian story). Lindfield, NSW, Australia: Scholastic.  [Historical novel]

               The story of Phar Lap is as Kiwi as Buzzy Bee or pavlova, and here is a book that introduces kids to our equine hero in an exciting and unusual way.  Though the book is part of a series called My Australian Story, Kiwi kids will be pleased to find that due credit is given to New Zealand, since, as we well know, Phar Lap was born and raised here. 

               The novel takes the form of the diary of an 11-year-old girl, Sally, whose father is hired as a private eye to investigate the attempted shooting of Phar Lap in 1930.  When the investigations stir up trouble, putting Sally’s Dad is in danger, she is able to help the investigation in an unexpected way.  Sophie Masson writes a convincing account of Phar Lap’s exploits, and skilfully brings the mystery to a satisfying conclusion, while remaining true to the facts of the historical story and the mystery that still surrounds Phar Lap to this day. 

               There is more to this story that just Phar Lap, however.  It is also a story that about true friendship, the meaning of family, and fulfilling your dreams.  This novel will appeal to kids who enjoy reading mysteries, diaries, pony stories, and more.  I thoroughly recommend it for confident little bookworms.

Sophie Masson has written lots of books for kids and teens. If you would like to know more about her, you could visit her website

Come play with me...

Baby and Toddler Book Review: Peepo!

Ahlberg, A. (1997). Peepo! (J. Ahlberg, Illus.). London, England: Puffin. (Original work published 1981). [Interactive Picture Book]

               If you are looking for a fun, readable book for babies that will be enjoyed for many years, then Peepo! by husband and wife team, Janet and Allan Ahlberg, is just the thing.  The story, which is told in rhyme, follows a baby boy through an ordinary day, from waking up in his cot, in his mum and dad’s bedroom, through to bath-time, and bedtime.  The lyrical rhyme makes it a perfect book for reading aloud, while the repeated phrases make it very appealing to babies and toddlers.

               An entertaining feature of this book is the holes in alternate pages which give a sneak peek at the illustration on the coming page.  In board book format, this feature is very robust, giving the book a longer life-span than many other interactive books.  The illustrations, which are a vital part of the story, are beautifully executed by Janet Ahlberg, a Kate Greenaway Medal-winning illustrator.*  The highly detailed pictures depict Allan Ahlberg’s childhood in the 1930’s and 40’s.**  Children and adults alike will enjoy the “eye-spy” nature of the illustrations, with recurring features such as the dress the mother wears which is first seen hanging in the wardrobe,*** and the baby’s ball and teddy which appear on several pages.  The cover extravagantly proclaims that it is ‘the BEST book ever published for babies.’   Hyperbole though that may be, Peepo! truly is a delightful book for littlest bookworms.

*You can find out more about the Kate Greenaway Medal here

**You might like to visit the Puffin Books website to find out more about Janet and Allan Ahlberg

***Listen to Allan Ahlberg talking about Peepo!

The Book Rescue Begins

It's happened several time now.  I find just the book I'm looking for on the library catalogue, but when I go to request it, turns out that that very book is stuck in a munted library.  So when I saw on the news that the rescue  of the central library books had begun, I really felt like celebrating!!  One quarter of the cities books have been stuck in that library for one year and one month!  And that's just one library.  The library I used to work at was also munted, and most of those books had to be put into storage when the library relocated to a new site that was about the size of the staff room...and that's just two of the munted libraries...I can't even remember how many there were all together...was it six?

Hurray for the book rescue team!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar again

As you may have already read, we just love The Very Hungry Caterpillar at our house, and it has recently become my sons favourites.  As it was a favourite of mine as a child also, I wrote some thoughts about this book the other day for my class...if you're in my class, you've probably already read this, but here's what I wrote, just in case anyone reading this is not in my class, or happened to miss my post:

"Two of my favourite books when I was very young were 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  I was recently talking about caterpillars with a friend who had some monarch caterpillars who were very hungrily eating her swan plants, and this brought me to look anew at The Very Hungry Caterpillar so that is the book I have chosen to talk about.  My copy is a 1973 reprint, and it has thankfully survived intact through my own and my children’s reading of it.  Carle’s style of collage illustration is unique, and I remember as a child being fascinated by the pages for Monday through to Friday with each one being bigger than the one before, and by the holes, by the way the caterpillar seems to come through the holes, and the same fruit is represented on both sides of each page.  I believe the book still holds the same fascination for children today.  I wonder if it was the first picture book with holes?  There are plenty of them around now, some good, some not so good.  As McCahon (1999) puts it “the picture book market has witnessed an astonishing growth in books with added extras” such as holes, flaps, pull tabs and so on, these are “sometimes worthwhile but too often mere gimmicks.”  I wonder what The Very Hungry Caterpillar would look like if it had been written and illustrated today?  One thing I noticed about my copy is that the pages are matte and the colours are rather dirty (the pages are a bit that way too, but that’s just old age ^_^).  Picture books these days seem to be glossier, and the colours brighter.  I imagine the butterfly would be a pop-up, maybe even with sparkly wings like the fish in Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister.  That might be kind of fun, but certainly an unnecessary gimmick."


Well, turns out I was wrong, they haven't added pop-ups to this wonderful book, they've added sound!!  Oh, please!  Did it need that??  If it ain't broken, people, don't fix it!  Although I was interested to watch Eric Carle reading the book...and I did notice that the pages of his copy (surely a new one) are much glossier than mine, and the colours look a whole lot brighter!

The very hungry caterpillar, and a trip to the library

Over the last few days, I have read "the Very Hungry Caterpillar" to my son several times, it seems to be his latest favourite book.  When we get to the page with the butterfly he literally shivers with excitement!  I always loved it too.  Forty years and still going strong, so that says a lot.  So here's the thing...my boy is 2 1/4 and quite a talker already, he parrots what we say all the time...and yesterday I noticed that he was "reading" the book himself.  He said "moon" and "egg" as he pointed to them, "slice of cheese," "wamermelon," and "saudos" on the page with all the food, again pointing to the pictures.  And then "fat caterpillar, hungy anymore"..."pwetty butterfy"!

So...what's going on here?  He is clearly learning to associate the words that I read with the pictures that he sees on the page, and is able to imitate what I read.  How wonderful to be able to watch that emerging language and literacy, all happening before my eyes.

I didn't learn to read until I was 8 years old, because the school I went to believed that children will learn to read when they are ready...well, I did learn eventually, but not without feelings of inadequacy from being around children from other schools who were already fluent readers, while I was still struggling with the whole thing.  In the meantime, I memorised my favourite books.  I was able to recite, cover to cover, several different books.  I don't know exactly how it happened, but when I look back on it, one day I just suddenly knew that the words on the page were the words that I was reciting, and then I wasn't reciting them anymore, I was actually reading!  It's interesting to watch my son doing the same thing, learning the words that go with the pictures and repeating them...I will be very interested to watch him learning to actually read!

So, on to our trip to the library the other day...  Miss Missy loves to read, and can polish of a book in a couple of nights or so.  So, we get to the library, and what does she say?  "There's no books here, Mum"  What nonsense!  We go to a fairly large community library, in fact it is one of the biggest in Christchurch, they have plenty of books!  But she will come away with only one or two books, if we're lucky.  I find this rather frustrating, as I know that they will certainly be read within a week.  I'm not exactly sure when it started, but it seems to be linked with her moving from picture books to chapter books.  She now refuses to read books that I recommend to her (fair enough, what would Mum know?) but she also seems to be unwilling to read anything that is not in a series or by an author that she has not already read.  This is so limiting!  I know that there are many wonderful books to read for kids, I've read plenty of them myself, over the years, and I know that there are lots of wonderful books recently published that I haven't yet read.  But here we will be at the library, and if there are no Tilly's Pony Tales, or Stacey Gregg books on the shelves, she says there are no books here!  I wonder if this is typical of her age (9)?  I've been thinking that I should try and get her to talk to the librarian about what to read, they may know some really good pony books that she hasn't yet read, and perhaps she'll listen to the librarian when she won't listen to me.  I just hope that she starts to expand her book horizons soon!

Quick Library Round-up

I went to the library the other day to look for some picture books.  I've been reading about picture books in my course, and wanted to find some of the books used as examples.  I started out looking for One Boy  by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, which was supposed to be on the shelf...but in the way it often goes with the children's library, I couldn't find it, but instead came home with a bunch of other picture books, all of which were new titles for me.


Here is a rapid fire review of them all


Spot's Hide and Seek by Eric Hill.  Spot without flaps = boring!


Questions, Questions by Marcus Pfister.  I really liked the illustration style, which as it happens was explained at the back of the book - shapes cut from thick card were painted and then used as stamps.  Very effective.  Lovely textures and colours in the illustrations.  Illustrations grabbed me more than the text, which was a series of questions.  I can imagine a very curious child would enjoy it, it was nice, but not amazing.


Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell and Helen Oxenbury.  I loved this!  Funny text, so simple, the humour is in what is not said.  The illustrations are wonderful, they add a real richness to the story...in fact, without the illustrations, it just wouldn't work.  I always do like Helen Oxenbury.


The Dirty Great Dinosaur by Martin Waddell and Leonie Lord (I only just realised I had two by Martin Waddell).  This was a good giggle.  Fun story, clever boy hero.

The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss (ok, might not be a new title, but I didn't at first remember reading it before).  I read "What was I Scared of?"  It's Dr. Seuss, what more need I say?

Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker.  Didn't like this much.  Too didactic I think.  Miss Missy was not impressed either.  The illustrations are kind of fun and funky, but the concept seemed a bit strained to me.  The square cat feels left out because it's different.  The other cats climb inside boxes so they can all be square.  Nice message, but not very well done, I thought.  Maybe if the story had been a bit less obvious, it would have worked better.

I Went Walking by Sue Machin and Julie Vivas.  Sweet illustrations, very simple text, the picture on each page has a hint of what's to come on the next.  Very readable, repetitive story, so would be great to read to little ones.



So, there's todays picks for Little Bookworms...some great, some not so great.  Happy reading!

Spot

Kids all seem to love Spot!  My kids certainly do.  I think lift the flap books have a universal appeal, and Spot is a fun, cheeky character.  The text is usually simple, which is appropriate for the board book audience.  Also, children at this early stage are learning object permanence, so exploring lift-the-flap books with objects that are hidden but are still there even when the child can't see them is appropriate for their stage of cognitive development.

This audio of Eric Hill talking about Spot is quite interesting.  (My Young Lad thinks he looks like Grandpa ^_^)

I had a quick read of the Wiki article about Spot and I was very surprised that it claims that there is a book called Spot Saves China!  Apparently Spot stands up to an oncoming tank!  I have to say, I'm wondering if this is one of those times when Wikipedia is wrong.  It hardly sounds like the usual subject matter for a Spot book, would toddlers even understand what's going on?? It certainly is quite a departure from the life of a young child at home that Eric Hill talks about as the idea behind his stories.  If anyone has heard of this book, or even seen a copy, I'd love to know!!

There is also a Spot website with lots of fun activities.  My Young Lad, who is 2 years old, just loves this website.  I think it is well done, and the games are at an appropriate level for children who likely to read and enjoy Spot books.  It can be really frustrating to find that the games on a website or computer game are just far beyond the abilities of the age group it is intended for, and I have found this all too frequently.  Fun With Spot, as the site is called, has a fun interactive intro, which involves typing in the child's name, and then there is a little mini game where children can click to see who is hiding behind the door, in the clock, and under the stairs, just as in the book Where's Spot?  When Spot is found, the text includes your child's name saying "Well done .... ! You've found Spot."  I think this is a nice touch, it helps children to recognise the shape of their name and makes the site more personal.  My son has just learnt to control the mouse, and now enjoys finding Spot by himself in the intro.  He is also able to successfully use the colouring puzzles, so I think the difficulty level of the games is spot on (no pun intended ^_^)

There are certainly more Spot books than I have read, but I have noticed that in the first book (Where's Spot?), there are un-named animals hiding in Spots house who later become characters, and in later books they are drawn rather differently, to make them look younger and less intimidating I suppose.  Also, the level of anthropomorphism seems to change.  In the first books Spot and his family are more dog-like than in later books.  They eat from dog bowls and sleep in baskets, although they live in a house that does not appear to have any humans living in it.  In later books, they eat at the table and sleep in beds.  I found that a little odd.  But even so, Spot is a definite favourite of mine, and a great book to share with little bookworms.

Snap!

I just went to visit this blog which was recommended in our course material...I can't believe how much it looks like mine!  I didn't copy, honest!!  Unbelievable how we both came up with almost the exact same customization of the blogger template!  Oh well, great minds think alike maybe???

Weblinks and Lois Lowry

I have been looking at links on the Ministry of Education website, and discovered Lois Lowry's website.  I just had a quick browse, but I suddenly remembered how much I enjoyed reading her books!  I remember Anastasia Krupnik, although till just now, I'd forgotten about those books.  Lois Lowry is still writing, and she's won the Newbury medal a couple of times, so now I'm thinking I should read those books, I think they would have been written when I was a bit older, and no longer reading her books.  Number the Stars and The Giver are the two books that one medals...I think I'll see if I can find them at the library, they sound like good books.