Reading Journal April 27, 2011

It’s really hard to keep up with all my reading—I’ve been reading a lot, mostly picture books and poetry for kids. I had 26 books checked out, but then I had to return them, having renewed them all twice, without really reading them as thoroughly as I had hoped. I have the printouts from the checkout machine, so I can track them down again. Meanwhile, this is what I’ve read most recently:

Sahara Special

By Esme Raji Codell

Hyperion Books For Children, New York, 2003

Middle grade novel, 175 pages, no illustrations

Sahara Special is the story of a girl who has to repeat 5^th grade. She writes in her journal that she wants to be a writer and her teacher, new to the school, writes, “I believe you.”

I love this book. I have read it 3 times. I study it to see how Esme has developed the characters—there is no “information dump”, as Arthur Levine called it at the recent SCBWI-IL Spring Thaw. We jump right into the story and into the problem of the story (Sahara misses her father, who abandoned her and her mother) and we are drawn to Sahara immediately by her unique and compelling voice.

Sahara is called “Sahara Special” because she was required to sit in the hall with the special needs teacher the year she failed fifth grade. The way the story is told, we, the readers, know something that the other characters do not. We share the secret with Sahara, that she is really smart and articulate, which we know through her first-person narration of the story. Her descriptions and ability to draw characters, and ultimately her essay about her name reveal her to be a gifted writer. But she hides this from all her teachers and classmates. It is only Miss Pointy, the new fifth grade teacher, who does not know Sahara’s history, who makes up her mind for herself, who suspects that there are sides to Sahara which have not been revealed.

This is a warm and unsentimental school story. I loved the setting—an urban school--, Sahara’s classmates, her teachers, and her mother. And I was rooting for Sahara all the way through. Even though I have never flunked a grade and my father never left us, I felt Sahara’s emotions and I identified strongly with her at every turn. It did not hurt that I, too, wanted to become a writer. This book is worthy of a Newbery.

Reading Journal March 22, 2011

Firefighter Ted
By Andrea Beaty and Pascal Lemaitre
Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
Copyright 009
Book design by Ann Bobco
Text is set in Bliss
Illus. are done in brush and ink, colored digitally
32 pages, not counting bright orange-red end papers. 594 words

Very dryly funny picture book about a bear who pretends to be a firefighter. The pictures carry much of the humor while the text is quite deadpan. For example—text: “Firefighter Ted looked everywhere.” Picture: Ted is shown looking inside his firefighter’s hat and bending over, looking between his legs.

Good use of repetition—“The crowd was speechless. ‘No need to thank me” said Firefighter Ted”—this is an event that happens 3 different times (rule of three). Also, Ted puts out fires at home, on the way to school, and at the science fair (again, rule of three.)

The book begins and ends with Ted in bed, covering the course of one day. Ted perfectly captures the imagination and energy of a young child.

Reading Journal

I just finished reading:

Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker
by Megan McDonald
illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
Candlewick Press copyright 2006

This is the 5th or 6th book by Megan McDonald that I have read in the Judy Moody and Stink series. She is a smooth writer with a great feel for the interactions and dialog between a bossy older sister and a pesty younger brother. The story unfolds quickly, with great humor and wordplay. This book emphasizes "Idioms", which Stink is studying in school. Also letter writing, another of Stink's lessons from school. So it has great curricular tie-ins while being an easy to read, high-attention, humorous book about family, school, and friends. What's not to like?

I do wonder if some of the language--slang--will date the book quickly, expressions such as "way cool." However, I think she makes up some of the slang, such as Judy's expression, "rare". Will these books have the staying power of Beverley Cleery's Ramona books? I don't think they have the depth, but they do have the humor.

Chasing Vermeer
by Blue Balliett
illustrated by Brett Helquist
Scholastic, Inc. copyright 2004

While the plot is a bit contrived, I found this a very satisfying book to read. It raises some very interesting points about coincidence and intuition and patterns. It's like The DaVinci Code for kids, only much smarter, better written, and with real characters. The portrayal of friendship is very true to a six grader's experience, I think. I read this a while ago and have forgotten some of the details. This is a book I would enjoy rereading. It values asking questions more than answering questions.

The Wright Three
by Blue Balliett
illustrated by Brett Helquist
Scholastic Inc. copyright 2006
edited by Tracy Mack
agents Doe Coover and Amanda Lewis

While the 2 main characters from Chasing Vermeer also star in this book, there is a third character and we see the story mostly from his point of view. Balliett is one of only a few authors I've read who can successfully shift point of view from one character to another and make it satisfying and convincing. I don't feel she does it because she doesn't know how to tell the story in a more consistent way, the way I usually feel when an author flits from one characters interior to another. She develops clear differentiation between her characters and putting the pieces together is part of the story. Again, this book is intellectually satisfying and challenging. And the characters' interactions are honest and yet surprising.