Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
If your typewriter could speak, what would it say? What if your typewriter could type back everything that has ever been typed into it? This is the premise of the middle grade novel Olivetti by Ali Millington (Feiwel & Friends; March 2024). Olivetti is told from two perspectives, that of Olivetti the typewriter himself and
Still riding the success of The One and Only Ivan, winner of the Newbery Medal in 2013, Katherine Applegate has added a fourth tale to the “Ivan and friends” series with The One and Only Family (Harper Collins, 2024). This book details Ivan’s experience in becoming a silverback and a father in the wildlife sanctuary.
History in the Making by Kyle Ward (The New Press, 2006) is a nonfiction volume of curated and categorized passages from a variety of high school American history textbooks, from the early days until 1999, showing the ways various stories from history have been told to students over the years. The lengthy subtitle of the
I have read many books and novels about the Japanese-American Internment program during World War II, but nothing quite as unique as Seen and Unseen by Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki (Chronicle Books, 2022). This nonfiction middle-grade Siebert Award winner is subtitled “What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adam’s Photographs Reveal about the Japanese
8 Class Pets + 1 Squirrel ÷ 1 Dog = CHAOS by Vivia Vande Velde (Holiday House, 2012) has a nearly impossible title to type up, but it is a truly fun early reader. In this book, a dog chases a squirrel into the school on a quiet night. The pets in the classrooms end up
Lost Cat by C. Roger Madder (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) has gorgeous illustrations of a cat and the feet it encounters as it tries to find its owner after it’s lost during a move. I love how the pictures showed things from the cat’s perspective! Each of the different shoes he met gave him a
What is your favorite fairy tale? Mine has always been Beauty and the Beast; I loved the Disney movie when it first came out. I’ve always wondered, though, how the Beast became so beast-like so fast and that no one remembered him in that castle! The Beast Within by Serena Valentino (Disney Book Group, July
The Crossing by Donna Jo Napoli and illustrated by Jim Madsen (Atheneum Books, 2011) is a creative retelling of the Lewis and Clark journey, as told from the perspective of the infant Jean Baptiste strapped on the cradle board on Sacagawea’s back. Brilliantly illustrated pictures of the various North Western American landscapes and careful descriptions
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
I knew my son (age 3) would love this book as soon as I skimmed through it. Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein (Candlewick, 2010) tells of a father rooster who is trying to tell his daughter chicken some traditional fairy tales, but she keeps interrupting to save the character from the wicked witch, the mean old wolf,
When I was in third grade, I was very awkward and shy (but who isn’t). Picture a skinny eight-year-old girl with red-haired pigtails and buck teeth. That was me. I sat at my desk and paid attention to my teacher. One particular day, I wasn’t happy. I had talked back to the fifth-grade teacher on
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