Child of Spring - a review

We receive news of current events from many sources: news outlets, Facebook, BuzzFeed, friends, family, etc. Some of it is accurate, some of it is false, much of it is biased.  At best, each source reveals a glimpse of a larger picture.

I am in not suggesting that children's literature or cooking shows* can replace knowledge of current events, but it's easier to understand what's happening in a location if you understand what it's like to live there, play there, work there, learn there, and eat there.

I feel like learned more about the Iranian people from reading Persepolis or watching *Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown: "Iran" than I gleaned from "news."  Similarly, I never truly grasped the standing of females in Saudi Arabia until I read The Green Bicycle, based on the award-winning documentary, Wadjda. In The Green Bicycle, Wadja opens readers' hearts to the everyday struggles of girls in Iran. 

In Child of Spring, Basanta will open a door to the lives of children in a small Indian community.  You will be glad you passed through.

Child of Spring by Farhana Zia.
March, 2016, Peachtree Publishers.
(Advance Reader Copy)

Basanta lives in a small hut in India. Though only 12-years-old, she, and most of her friends, work.  Her best friend, Lali, takes care of siblings while her mother works.  The handsome Bala is a jack-of-all-trades - begging, gambling, stealing, or performing.  Beautiful and wily, Rukmani makes clay pots.  Basanta works at the Big House with her mother - cooking, cleaning, and serving the whims of a wealthy family, 

     The station tower clock struck seven times.  One by one, the residents of my busti ducked out of their huts.  Bangles jangled on the women's wrists..  The men puffed on their cheroots and coiled head cloths around their heads.
     The line at the water tap was already getting long and Rukmani was at the front of it, filling her pretty clay pots.  I ducked my head and walked by quietly  I didn't want to be peppered with questions about life at the Big House: "How many fluffy pillows on Little Bibi's bead, hanh?  How many ribbons for Little Bibi's hair?  How many eggs on Little Bibi's breakfast plate? Come, tell me, na?"

The life is hard, but the bonds of friendship and family within the impoverished busti make life bearable, even enjoyable.  Basanta is a good and generally obedient girl, but prone to clever scheming.  When she becomes the unlikely possessor of an expensive ring, a plan forms in her mind.  In practice, however, it turns out much differently than she expected! Spanning only a few weeks, the story ends on a hopeful note during Divali, The Festival of Lights.

Child of Spring is a sometimes predictable story, but its strength lies in the rich cultural detail of life in Basanta's community, and in the joy the residents find in life's small pleasures.

A Glossary of Indian terms and expressions is included.

From the publisher:

• F&P (Fountas & Pinnell)

• F&P Level: U

• F&P Grade: 5

Read an excerpt of Child of Spring here.

Caminar - a review

Brown, Skila. 2014. Caminar. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.


While many other families in Carlos' rural Guatemalan village are large and boisterous, he and his mother live alone.  He's not yet a man.  He's afraid of the dark. He listens to his mother.

Guerilla Rain

They came
in rain,
the end
of wet
season, when
rain was
no longer
welcome.

          Yet
it beat
our roof,
turned floor
to mud,
washed off
the army
camp.
          Guerillas.

they came
in rain.
We huddled
inside, waited
for earth
to stop
its          slide.

They came,
sacks          empty
bellies         empty
guns            full.

          Rebels.

They marched
right through
our town,
made their
way into
the jungle.

And when
the last
of them
had been
sucked in
by thick
green arms,

the rain
stopped.

       
 
After the rebels pass, his mother knows that the soldiers will be back, and she tells him,

"You
 will
 run."

Unsure of who is the enemy, the rebels or the army's soldiers, Carlos heads for the place where he is most comfortable, the trees. In the cover of the trees, he makes his way up the mountain toward his grandmother's village.  When he meets up with guerilla fighters, he must make the biggest choice of his life.

A debut novel in verse, Caminar is a rural boy's perception of a sad time in 1981, when the fighting between Guatemalan rebels and soldiers (which, according to the author's note claimed 200,000 lives over the course of time), disrupted his village of  Chopán forever. In Carlos' fictional Chopán, where the people still speak indigenous languages, there is disagreement.  Are the guerilla fighters Communists, rebels, freedom fighters? Are the Guatemalan soldiers oppressors, liberators, defenders?  To non-Spanish-speaking, non land-owning villagers, it matters not.  In the end, they are both the enemy.

Featuring different types of poetry, including one styled after Marilyn Singer's unique "reverso" poems, Skila Brown often employs "concrete" effects, using spacing to punctuate a feeling or mood.  Poetry is an excellent vehicle for delivering a complex and nuanced book on a disturbing topic to a young audience. Brown deliberately leaves space for reflection between the leaves.

A Note from the Author, Glossary, Q&A with the Author, and Acknowledgments help to round out the historical aspects of the story. Best for middle-grade readers.

Review copy supplied by the publisher.  Due on shelves in March, 2014.

Fallout by Todd Strasser - a review

Strasser, Todd. 2013. Fallout. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.
(Advance Reader Copy)

In many ways, Scott Porter, a soon-to-be sixth grader, is a carefree boy of the 1960's, palling around with his friends - Ronnie, Freak O' Nature, and Why Can't You Be Like Johnny?  But the summer of 1962, is not carefree to most of the world.  While many of his suburban neighbors have fatalist or devil-may-care attitudes, Mr. Porter is busily preparing for the nuclear war that he feels is sure to happen.  Neighbors ridicule the family as Scott's dad builds and stocks his underground bunker.

And then, in a twist of revisionist history, it happens.  The Soviet Union attacks the United States with a nuclear bomb, and the Porter's bomb shelter, designed to accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Scott, and his younger brother, Sparky, is now the only possible option for survival.

Set in the tense, crowded, and contentious atmosphere of the over-filled bunker, the story is revealed in flashbacks of neighborhood and school events leading up to the attack.  But it is not the past that matters.  As the situation grows increasingly desperate, the bunker's inhabitants, once friends and neighbors, live only for the present.  Who deserves to eat and drink, to use the sparse toilet paper, to wash, to live -- to die?  Disability, race, personal property rights all are examined in this gritty novel.  Powerful and affecting, the baseness of the human species is uncomfortably unveiled in Fallout.

"So?" Mr. McGovern demands.

Dad gathers himself up. "I said it before and I'll say it again.  Over ... my ... dead ... body."

"It won't just be your dead body -- it will  be everyone's," Mr. McGovern counters, then turns to the Shaws. "Who gave him the right to make decisions for all of us?  Because it's his bomb shelter?  I'm sorry, but I don't think that matters anymore. We're all in this together now. Are you really comfortable putting yourself in his hands?  Letting him decide how much we eat and drink?

An Author's Note, complete with photograph of his own family's underground bunker, follows the story.

For mature readers ages 10 and up.  Due on shelves in September, 2013.

A Fallout Discussion Guide.

Pair this one with Deborah Wiles', Countdown (2010, Scholastic) or Bomb: The Race to Build -- and Steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Flashpoint, 2012).



Note: 
I realized that in the last month, I've reviewed  I Survived: The Japanese Tsunami, 2011, Bomb: The Race to Build -- and Steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, City of the Dead: Galveston Hurricane, 1900, and The Superstorm, Hurricane Sandy. This was not an intentional dive into a literary world of disaster - just interesting titles that have arrived in my mailbox.  I think I'm done for a while now, while my cheery disposition is still intact. :)

Hokey Pokey - a review

Spinelli, Jerry. 2013. Hokey Pokey. New York: Knopf.
Advance reader copy provided by NetGalley

In the world of Hokey Pokey, populated by Snotsnipppers, Newbies, and Gappergums, and others, The Kid is king. In fact, kids are its only human inhabitants.

For Big Kid, Jack, days pass in a comfortable rhythm of regularity - hanging out with his Amigos, LaJo and Dusty, and riding his bike Scramjet, the envy of every kid in Hokey Pokey.  The rules are simple.  Just remember the Four Nevers:

Never pass a puddle without stomping in it. Never go to sleep until the last minute. Never go near Forbidden Hut. Never kiss a girl.

It's a simple life, a good life.  Until one morning, when things are not the same.  His bike is gone, and

Jubilee

Rides!

Hokey Pokey is unusual fare for Jerry Spinelli.  It's an allegorical story of childhood delivered by a narrator following the escapades of several different children, and focusing primarily on Jack and his rival and antagonist - the girl, Jubilee.  It's recommended for ages 10 and up, but the beauty of  Hokey Pokey is that it may be read on several levels.  Though the symbolism may be somewhat obvious for older readers, younger readers may simply enjoy Hokey Pokey as a fantasy adventure in an alternate universe. Older readers will see beyond the obvious symbolism of the approaching train and will ponder the relationships between older kids and younger, boys and girls.  Short and thought-provoking. Recommended reading.

Hokey Pokey received starred reviews in School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews.

 Preview the book here:


Interesting note: This is the second book that I've read that features living bicycles. Anyone know the other one?

Three Rivers Rising

Richards, Jame. 2010. Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood. New York: Knopf.

This book debuted in April 2010 to well-earned, rave reviews. In sparse verse, author Jame Richards, tells a story of devoted high society sisters, Celestia and Estrella, Whitcomb, their coldly calculating, businessman father, a miner's son, Peter, Maura, the wife of a Pennsylvania railroad engineer, and Kate, an obsessive-compulsive young widow struggling to find a purpose in life. Their lives become intertwined due to the tragically preventable Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood of 1889. Chapters of free-form verse alternate between the voices of the six characters.  An author's note separates the facts of the actual flood from the story. More than 2200 people died in the flood, including entire families.

The Johnstown Flood is the backdrop, but Three Rivers Rising is foremost a story of society, class, and first (or forbidden) love.
Highly recommended for grades 8 and up.


A reader's guide is available for teachers, librarians and book clubs.

The aftermath of the Johnstown Flood.

(Photograph from Wikimedia Commons, originally taken by an employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

Information about the flood and its victims is available from the Johnstown Area Heritage Association.