Threads - a review

Threads 

by Ami Polonsky
Disney Hyperion, 2016

I have always appreciated an interdisciplinary approach to everything.   My favorite children's science books integrate the hard and fast facts of science with the ways in which science affects people's lives.  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition) and The Day the World Exploded are two fine examples of this style of writing.  The same interdisciplinary approach can be taken with the social sciences. My children will attest to the fact that when they neglected to wash strawberries before eating them, I would point out that they may be riddled with toxic chemicals.  If they protested that I had purchased organic berries, I would counter that many migrant farm workers who pick strawberries have inadequate access to clean bathroom facilities.  In this way, they understand that there are choices to be made in the cultivation and harvesting of food. Produce does not arrive in the grocery store by some tidy and precise process. Hard human labor is behind every easy purchase.

Ami Polansky takes an interdisciplinary approach, and thereby broadens the reader's scope of the world while addressing a very personal and intimate problem.  Threads is a book about loss and grief and the difficulty in carrying on in the wake of a loved one's death.  However, she has placed it in within the broader story of Chinese adoption, forced child labor, and the complexities of Chinese culture.

In first person voice, 12-year-old Clara struggles with her adopted sister's death from cancer, while simultaneously attempting to assuage her grief by rescuing a similarly aged girl working in a sweatshop somewhere north of Beijing. 

A car horn honks and I snap my head up.  Dad is waving to me through the closed window, the air around his car glistening in the heat.  I stand up.  I don't know what to do with this letter and photograph, but Dad will.

He's scrolling through something on his phone--probably a text from Mom asking him how I'm doing, if I seem like myself.  I open the car door and look one more time at Yuming's photograph before getting in.

Yuming, the unfortunate captive girl, also relates her story in the first person; and chapters alternate between the two girls.

The door to our room creaks open.  My heart flutters, and I look back down at my sewing.  I know very well that by now someone in America could have found my note, and I curse myself yet again for signing my name and including the photograph.  I wasn't thinking; those risks were unnecessary.  Whoever finds the note could easily notify Mr. Zhang or the police.

Clara and her family journey to China, but with different goals in mind.  Clara hopes to find Yuming.  Her parents hope to find closure.  Yuming's goal is more immediate.  She needs to escape Mr. Zhang's purse factory.

This is a satisfying story on all fronts and I was thankful that I had a realistic conclusion.


From the publisher:

• Age Range: 8-12
• Grade Range: 3-7
• Pages: 256

My copy of Threads is an Advance Reader Copy supplied by the publisher.

The Year of Shadows - a review

Let me begin by saying that it's very hard to review a book that has already been so spectacularly reviewed by none other than its own author and main character!  Check out Claire Legrand's review of The Year of Shadows here.

Below is my more feeble attempt.

Legrand, Claire. 2013. The Year of Shadows. New York: Simon & Schuster.

(Advance Reader Copy)

Twelve-year-old Olivia Stellatella is a loner.  Black is her color of choice, and she prefers the company of her ever-present sketchbook to that of her peers at school.  It's been a difficult year, what with "The Economy" and all.  Olivia doesn't know exactly what "The Economy" means, only that in her case, it means that she now shops at the "charity store" and the orchestra that her father conducts may go out of business, taking his job with it. And her mom has left, an occurrence she blames solely on the Maestro. If that sounds bad, just wait; it gets worse.  Having spent all the family funds on the Philharmonic, the family's new "home" is the backstage area of the crumbling Emerson Hall, home of the Philharmonic orchestra.

Initially, her only "friend" is the peculiarly intuitive and communicative cat, Igor.

The cat rolled over at looked at me upside down. "Who's the Maestro?" I rolled over on my back too. Staring at him like this made my head hurt, but it was kind of fun. "Well, technically, he's half my DNA. But I don't like to think about that."

The cat blinked slowly, like he was already half asleep.

"I mean, I guess, yeah, he's my father." I made quotation marks with my fingers. "On paper, maybe. But not to me. I've disowned him, I guess you could say. " I paused, tapping my feet together. "Everyone at school thinks I'm crazy these days, you know.  Because of my clothes and because I draw all the time instead of talking to people.  I guess by talking to a cat I'm proving them right." 

Until she makes an unlikely friend in Henry, the "perfect" kid from school.

"Hey, cool," a voice said from above.  "You found a cat."

I scrambled up into a sitting position and faced the voice: red hair, tons of freckles, stupid ears that stuck out.

Henry Page.

Ugh. 

Together, Olivia and Henry meet the other inhabitants of Emerson Hall - ghosts, or more specifically, the affable Frederick, the mysterious Mr. Worthington, and the close yet strangely disconnected pair, Tillie and Jax. Frederick and friends may be friendly, but they are desperate as well.  Desperate to move on to the world of Death. And there are other more dangerous things than these ghosts haunting Emerson Hall.

If the orchestra cannot make enough money, the hall will be demolished.  If the hall is demolished, Olivia and her ghostly friends will become homeless.   Olivia believes that perhaps by helping set the ghosts on their way, she can begin to find her own way.  In the process, she learns that sometimes, it is only by looking outward to the plights and concerns of others,  that we can begin to understand our own.

The Year of Shadows is a dark and gripping tale that is not without humor, supplied primarily by the wryly comedic cat, and the antics of  Joan, Olivia's classmate and resident intermediate school protest performer. Olivia has just the right amount of sass and sarcasm for a troubled, but ultimately good, young girl. Goth-lite for middle school readers.

The publisher's site suggests The Year of Shadows for Grades 3-7.  I would suggest Grades 4-8, depending on the reader.

Look closely at the cover art for The Year of Shadows and in addition to Olivia and Igor, you will see Frederick, Mr. Worthington, Tillie and Jax.

Coming to a shelf near you, August 27, 2013.

Note:
If you're a librarian or book blogger, you may request an Advance Reader Copy of The Year of Shadows on the author's website.  I did!

Looking for Me - a review

April is National Poetry Month, and I realize that I've almost let the month slip away without any poetry book reviews.  Just in time, I came across my Advance Reader Copy of Looking for Me, which went on sale April 17.


Rosenthal, Betsy R. 2012. Looking for Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Based on the real stories of her mother and many aunts and uncles, Betsy Rosenthal tells a story in verse of her mother, Edith - the fourth child in a large, Jewish, Depression-era family in Baltimore,

Family Portrait, Baltimore, 1936

We're lined up:

girl boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl boy

and in the middle of us all, Dad,

who ordered us to smile

right before the Brownie clicked,

standing stiff as a soldier

no smile on his face,

and Mom's beside him,

a baby in her arms

and in her rounded belly

another one,

just a trace.

Girl, boy, girl, boy, count them up - twelve children in a row house, sleeping three to a bed, always short of money, new clothes and food.  Edith's teacher asks her to write about her family, but she doesn't write about herself.  After all, who is she in this great big family?  Looking for Me chronicles Edith's quest to find individualism in a time when, seemingly, there was no time for such frivolous thoughts. Rosenthal's poetic style varies from free verse, to concrete to metered rhymes.  The subject matter varies as well - following the ups and downs of a year in Edith's life, which, while harsh and disciplined, also held moments of great joy and fun,

They're Lucky I Found Them

Lenny, Sol, and Jack

said Mom left them sleeping

on the sofa bed,

or so she thought,

and ran to the store.

But after she left,

they started to bounce

and bounce

and bounce some more.

Then the bed closed up

and they were stuck

until I came home

and changed their luck.

Some poems are heart-wrenching depictions of life as an 11-year-old Jewish girl who has been touched by death, poverty, meanness, bigotry, and indifference.  Others are uplifting,

Floating

I am a bubble

blown full

with Miss Connelly's words,

floating out of the classroom,

bobbing across the grassy lot,

drifting by Levin's Bakery,

letting the breeze carry me to the diner.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?"

Dad yells when I come in,

but I just float right by him.

It's always said that it's best to write what you know.  This is Betsy Rosenthal's family, and she knows it well.  The poignant stories of her mother, aunts, uncles and grandmothers have lived on in her home, and she has done us the very great favor of inviting us in to hear them.

Picture Book Roundup

In no particular order, these were some of the wonderful picture books

 that I found in my book bag this week! I loved them all.

Spinelli, Jerry. 2010.I Can be Anything! Illustrated by Jimmy Liao. New York: Little, Brown.

A rhyming romp through all of the possibilities of the future - "cross-legged sitter, make-believe critter, deep-hole digger, lemonade swigger." Who knows? Bright and joyful illustrations!

Fuge, Charles. 2010. Yip! Snap! Yap! New York: Sterling.

Another lively, rhyming romp! This one featuring delightfully goofy dogs!

Thomson, Bill. 2010. Chalk. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish.

The illustrator of the exquisitely illustrated, Baseball Hour, Bill Thompson outdoes himself with Chalk - a wordless book that tells the story of a magical, rainy day at the playground for three children and a mysterious bag of chalk.  Let your imagination run wild and enjoy Bill Thomson's hand-crafted brilliance!

Geringer, Laura. 2010. Boom Boom Go Away! Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. New York: Atheneum.

Music lovers, noise makers, and children who don't want to go to bed will love Boom Boom Go Away! Its cumulative rhyme is full of playfulness and imagination.  The warm illustrations evoke picture books of an earlier era.

Jeffers, Oliver. 2010. The Heart and the Bottle. New York: Philomel.

This is not a book for storytime.  It's a serious book for a special child - perhaps a grieving child, a child with a profound loss, a child who may have placed her heart in a bottle, a child who needs to know that there is a way to retrieve her own heart.  Gently and tastefully done.

Bottner, Barbara. 2010. Miss Brooks Loves Books (And I Don't). Illustrated by Michael Emberly. New York: Knopf.

The tagline for the book is "a librarian and a contrarian face off in this tale of a very reluctant reader." I predict that this will become a librarian favorite! When Miss Brooks assigns a book report (in costume!) for Children's Book Week, it prompts the best line in the book -

When I get home, I ask my mother if we can move to a new town. My mother says there's a librarian in every town.

 Too funny!

Share

The Very Little Princess

Bauer, Marion Dane. 2010. The Very Little Princess. New York: Random House.

"All books are judged by their covers until they are read."
from The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling, by Maryrose Wood.


I try to read across a broad spectrum of children's literature, to help me in my job as a children's librarian.  I take Reader's Advisory seriously and try hard to match each child with the perfect book. Towards that end, I picked up The Very Little Princess, thinking that I have been neglecting, (for lack of a better term) "girly-girl" books. The delightful pink cover with Elizabeth Sayles' fanciful artwork attracted my attention and sealed the deal.

I could not have been more wrong, however, in classifying this short tale as a lighthearted story for girls. (spoiler alert)

One fine June morning, Zoey is surprised by her mother's off-hand remark that they will be leaving soon for her grandmother's house.

Of course, visiting your grandmother probably is natural for you.  But it wasn't for Zoey.  The truth is she had never met her grandmother.  Until that moment, she hadn't even known she had a grandmother!

Zoey dutifully packs a cardboard suitcase (she is by nature a dutiful girl) and goes off to her grandmother's rural home where she is again surprised to find that her mother and grandmother do not appear to be on good terms.  In fact, they argue heatedly, prompting Zoey to go exploring, and thereupon to find a most beautiful three and one-quarter inch tall doll.  She is further surprised when the tiny doll sits upright and sneezes!

What child has not dreamed of a doll that comes to life?  But this is not the doll of dreams.  Princess Regina, (as she likes to be called), is a self-centered, bossy doll, a doll that treats Zoey as a servant.  But Zoey, being by nature a dutiful girl, is not particularly bothered by Regina's selfish, narcissistic behavior.  In fact, she comes to love the diminutive princess, and in her fashion, the princess loves Zoey, too.  As the book jacket declares in similar terms, this is an expertly crafted story of family, friendship, love and loss.  It is.  It also, however,  the story of a loss so profound that the dust jacket's cheery countenance might leave a young reader bereft, as she reads that Zoey's mother leaves her, with nothing more than a cheerful, "Be good," with a woman that a day ago, she never even knew existed.  Zoey is left with her grandmother because her mother needs to be alone. Does this really happen?  I'm sure that it does.  Should it happen in a short, cheerful, small-sized book that is suggested for ages 6-9?  I'm not sure.  In the final chapter, the reader finds that the grandmother turns out to be a kind, wise, and loving woman, but the loss is still great. Place this book in the hands of a child who is capable of understanding and appreciating the story.

Read it as a well-told story, a unique story, even an enchanting story; but don't judge this book by its cover.

Share