Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Twelve-year-old Rosie can see color when she hears music and she hears music when she sees colors. Her perfect “echoic” or audio memory mean that she is surrounded by constantly music, including in her thoughts. In the beginning of her story in The Color of Sound by Emily Barth Isler (Carolrhoda Books, 2024), Rosie is
Dear Katie, The Volcano is a Girl by Jean Craighead George (illustrated by Daniel Powers; Hyperion, 1998) is the story about a grandmother and a granddaughter on vacation in Hawaii. They tour a volcano, and while Katie insists that the volcano is Pele (a goddess) her grandmother disagrees and explains how volcanoes form because cracks
TIn Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martin (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2023), the author shares a pivotal time from his childhood, specifically when he traveled to Mexico to retrieve his ailing grandfather and return with him to the United States. Pedro, who is also called Peter, feels conflicted by his half-American, half-Mexican identity,
Most kids would be happy when their parents don’t make them eat their broccoli. But ten-year-old Charlie wants his parents to care for him. As is, they care more than the endangered animals they travel the world to help. It’s only when his parents leave him with his TV-obsessed grandparents and Charlie solves a small-town
The Turtle of Michigan by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow Books, 2022) picks up right where the The Turtle of Oman ends, as young Aref sits on an airplane to head to the United States from Oman. In The Turtle of Oman (reviewed here), Aref had spent a week with his grandpa, coming to terms with
It is not often that I find a book that takes place in the Middle East, let alone a children’s book. The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow, 2014) is a unique look into not just the culture and traditions of living in a different country but also the sweet geographic feature and
The children’s picture book Grandpa’s Garden by Stella Fry and illustrated by Sheila Moxley (Barefoot Books, 2012) follows a child helping his grandpa in, as the title indicates, caring for his garden. They plant the vegetables and fertilize them with compost. The boy waters the growing plants and waits to see the sprouts. Together, grandpa and
Tashi’s grandfather Popola is very ill in Tashi and the Tibetan Flower Cure by Naomi C. Rose (Lee and Low, 2011), but after reflecting on her grandfather’s stories of the traditional Tibetan healing power of being out in a garden, Tashi decides to help him get well by surrounding him with flowers, even in the American world they
These Hands by Margaret H. Mason and Illustrated by Floyd Cooper (Houghton Mifflin, March 2011) tells two stories: one of a grandfather teaching his grandson how to do great things with his hands, like tie a shoe and shuffle cards. The other story the grandfather teaches his grandson is how those same hands were not allowed to
My four-year-old and I read The Beeman by Laurie Krebs and illustrated by Melissa Iwai (The National Geographic Society, 2002) many times this week. In some senses, this book is simpler than the other bee books we read. Rather than providing a story, it shows, through rhyming descriptions and illustrations, the tools the beekeeper needs to take
Grandpa Green by Lane Smith (Roaring Brook, August 2011) is the story of a past generation through the eyes of a great-grandson. The young great-grandson knows Grandpa’s story because Grandpa, a gardener, has created a topiary garden with statues that remind him of the past. My son (age 4) and I loved the story of
My Caldecott challenge: Although these Caldecott winner and honor books are not, for the most part, books I’ve read aloud to my son, I still found them interesting. A few I had strong negative opinions of; they show that even books that earned the Caldecott award do become dated! The illustrations in The Hello, Goodbye
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