Growing Up in Coal Country - an audiobook review

My review of Growing Up in Coal Country as it appears in the April, 2013, issue of School Library Journal.

Growing Up in Coal Country. By Susan Campbell Bartoletti. 2 CDs. 2:18 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4558-5821-7. $49.97.

Gr 5-8--In eight chapters divided into various aspects of coal miner culture and job types (nipper, breaker boy, spragger, and mule driver were the typical jobs for children), Bartoletti recounts (Houghton Mifflin, 1996) life in Northeastern Pennsylvania coal country around the turn of the 19th century utilizing oral history and archival documents. Although the focus is on the lives of children, first-hand accounts of adults who remember life as child laborers or miner's daughters help to tell the story. Only the forward indicating her family's mining connection gives a slight indication as to the author's viewpoint about the industry. As in her award-winning Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Scholastic, 2005), Bartoletti's approach is devoid of bias or sensationalism. No embellishment is needed for the stories of men crushed so badly by cave-ins that they were scraped off the mine floors with shovels, children secretly sabotaging company equipment to ensure a day at the circus, young boys losing fingers and limbs in accidents, boys playing with homemade baseballs and engaging in strikes, and mine owners who valued mules over men. The clear, no-frills delivery by Suzanne Toren is perfectly suited to Bartoletti's style. The joy, the horror, the tenacity, the valor, the perseverance, and the loyalty of children growing up in coal country is presented, allowing listeners to form their own opinions. The only thing that could make this powerful audiobook even better would be the inclusion of the compelling black-and-white photos from the print version. With the current focus on Common Core Standards, this outstanding nonfiction selection fits the bill.

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Copyright © 2013 Library Journals, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

Listen to an audio excerpt from Growing Up in Coal Country on the publisher's website. 

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is at A Mom's Spare Time 

(What?  We're supposed to have spare time?)

Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace - a book trailer

Today is the official launch date of Nan Marino's new book, 

Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace (Roaring Brook Press, 2013).

 In honor of the new book, I've created a short video booktalk to go along with my previously published Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace booktalk . Enjoy them both, feel free to share, and be sure to read the book!


 



Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace 
(a booktalk by Shelf-employed)

Cecilia has no rhythm, and not too many friends; but she has something special - a story. A story of a song that connects her to New Jersey's wild Pine Barrens as firmly as the roots of its Pygmy Pines and Atlantic Cedars. Everyone in Wares Grove knows the story of the song played by the forest on the night of Cecilia's birth. Only the story of the Pineland's most famous inhabitant, the Jersey Devil, is known more widely.

But two unexpected things occur as Cecilia's 12th birthday approaches. Cecilia's mother begins to doubt the song, and a young boy, a boy who has perhaps lost a song of his own, has arrived in the middle of the night under suspicious circumstances - and he's hiding out at Piney Pete's Pancake Palace.

A song, a secret, and the legendary tale of the Jersey Devil are entwined in this imaginative story of discovery set on the fringes of New Jersey's Pine Barrens, a natural wonder.

Find out who's Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace.

Picture Book Roundup - Nonfiction Monday

It's Nonfiction Monday again (where did the week go?).    It's also spring and baseball season.  With those in mind, I'll highlight two books that feature America and her national pastime.

• Bates, Katherine Lee. 2013. America the Beautiful: Together We Stand. New York: Scholastic.

With illustrations by a group of stellar artists (including Yuyi Morales, Bryan Collier and Mary GrandPré) and appropriate margin quotes from selected US presidents, this is a large and beautiful picture book rendition of one of America's favorite songs, "America the Beautiful." Rounded out with a collection of useful facts about the nation and its system of government, this is a "must-have" book.

• Tavares, Matt. 2013. Becoming Babe Ruth. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

Baseball, the Babe, and Matt Tavares - if that's not a triple play, I don't know what is!  Matt Tavares' reverence for the sport of baseball shines through in this inspirational and entertaining third-person bio, focusing on the earlier years of one of baseball's greatest players.  Get an inside glance at the author's website. An Author's Note, Stats, and Bibliography are included. For young and old alike.

And on a baseball-related note, my family went to see 42: The True Story of an American Legend on Friday.  A great movie - not just for baseball fans!  I highly recommend it.  Watch the trailer here.

That's the best of America.  Here's the downside - it's April 15th - tax day.  Although we can only wish that we could print our own money, kids may enjoy this video of how the government does it.

 

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is at NC Teacher Stuff. Stop by.

Monday Morning Miscellany v. 5

I've been off on yet another "college road trip," so no review today, just Monday morning miscellany.
Fans of UNCW, Tulane and/or UNH are welcome to chime in as we make our final decision :)

First up, it's National Poetry Month!

morgueFile license for reuse

There are many great resources and events out there for National Poetry Month, but here are some that you might not know:

• Today at Caroline by line, you will find my guest post, "Three Poems and Why I Know Them."  Caroline Starr Rose is the award-winning author of May B.: A Novel, a wonderful novel in verse that I reviewed earlier last year.  In celebration of National Poetry Month, Caroline is featuring a giveaway and a fantastic lineup of authors and poets for each day in April.  I am flattered and honored to be in such great company! Check out all the posts and enter the contest, too, at Caroline by line: On writing, reading, and waiting

• Over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, you can find the weekly meme, Monday Morning Poetry Stretch. For April, she appears to be featuring poetry every day. (Later in the week, check out the Poetry Friday meme, too!)

• Think science and poetry have little in common?  Check out the STEM Friday (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) haiku project.  Add your poem to the growing collection of STEM-related haiku, or check out the 2012 collection.

• Sylvia Vardell's site Poetry for Children, was established in 2006, and contains a wealth of useful, entertaining, and timely information  to help you share the art of poetry with children. (As a side note, she was my favorite professor in grad school.)

In other news,

• Today is Nonfiction Monday.  You can find it today at a wrung sponge.

• If you're wondering what to do after Google Reader officially "dies" in July, read my  guest post "Google Reader is Dead - Long Live RSS" on the ALSC Blog. It appeared on Friday. 

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin

Bryant, Jen. 2013. A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin. New York: Knopf.   Illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

(Review copy provided by the publisher)




If "a splash of red" was Horace Pippin's signature use of color,

"Make a picture for us, Horace!"

is the signature line in Jen Bryant's A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin. The phrase appears throughout this chronological account of Pippin's life and art, reminding the reader that although his first oil painting wasn't completed until  after he returned from duty in WWI and was more than forty years old, Horace Pippin's talent was recognized throughout his life by schoolmates, friends, family, co-workers and fellow soldiers, who frequently encouraged him to draw. As a child, he won a mail-in art contest and earned his first art set. A self-taught artist, and grandson of a former slave, Pippin's life was not easy,

Horace was in eighth grade when his father left for good.  The family needed money, so Horace quit school and went to work.

 For several years, Horace's big hands were always busy: stacking grain sacks at a feed store,
shoveling coat at a rail yard,
mending fences on a farm,
carrying luggage at t hotel,
making brakes in an iron factory ...
... packing oil paintings into large wooden crates.
Looking at these made Horace remember winning the art contest.  How proud he'd been!  How he'd loved those colored pencils, those brushes, and his first real box of paints!

In fact, after an injury to his drawing hand in the war, drawing and painting became even more difficult, but he persevered to become a renowned artist in his own lifetime. As told by Jen Bryant, his story is inspirational, his naive art style is accessible to children; and Melissa Sweet's interpretative illustrations, punctuated by the illustrator's renderings of Pippin's own words, bring them both to life. The collaborative work between writer and illustrator is apparent in A Splash of Red, as is their mutual regard for his life and work.

In addition to having its own website (http://asplashofredbook.com) with related articles and resources for teachers and librarians, the book contains Historical, Author and Illustrator Notes, as well as numerous sources, and suggestions for further reading.

The recommended age range is 5-8, however, older readers capable of understanding the Notes and other sources will find plenty of information here as well.  As always, I encourage teachers to give picture book biographies a chance.  There is more to a great informational text than the number of its pages.

Other reviews at

• The Nonfiction Detectives
• Kirkus
• Waking Brain Cells

Today is Nonfiction Monday, the weekly meme in which bloggers across the kidlitosphere write about nonfiction books for kids on Monday.  This week's host is Wendie Old of Wendie's Wanderings.