Review of Heart and Soul, by Kadir Nelson

Award Winners, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Heart and Soul

The Story of America and African Americans

by Kadir Nelson

Balzer & Bray, 2011. 108 pages.
2012 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
2012 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book
2012 Battle of the Kids’ Books Contender
Starred Review

Kadir Nelson’s paintings, as usual, are stunningly beautiful in this book. His use of light makes the people seem warm and alive.

In this book, he takes the voice of an old woman whose family has been in America from the start. She talks about the slaves who fought in the Revolutionary War. Then she talks about her grandfather, Pap, who was born in Africa, captured in 1850 when he was only six years old, and brought to America. She traces all the changes Pap saw — The Civil War, Reconstruction, moving West, the Great Migration, and through the Depression and the Second World War. She talks about the Civil Rights Movement as she saw it herself, and finishes up with an Epilogue that includes these paragraphs:

“Forty-five years after Dr. King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I marched my old legs to the polls along with millions of other Americans to vote in an historic election. It was the first time that an African American — Barack Obama — had won the Democratic nomination and appeared on the national ballot for president of the United States. As I cast my vote, I thought about my grandfather Pap, who didn’t live to see this moment, and my three children and two brothers, who did; I thought about my mother and father, and my aunts and uncles; I thought about Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman; I thought about presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall, the Freedom Riders, the marchers, and all the people who lived and died so that I might walk into this booth and cast my vote. I thought about them all and smiled; and as I walked away, I closed my eyes and said, ‘Thank you.’

“Our centuries-long struggle for freedom and equal rights had helped make the American promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness a reality for all Americans. We have come a mighty long way, honey, and we still have a good ways to go, but that promise and the right to fight for it is worth every ounce of its weight in gold. It is our nation’s heart and soul.”

The words alone of this book make a grand, sweeping story of African-American contributions to American life, but combined with the paintings, this book has majesty.

Kadir Nelson’s art continues to be breathtaking. He shows you the dignity and beauty of his subjects.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/heart_and_soul.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2011. 341 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Newbery Medal

It’s refreshing to read a book set in the Sixties that is not about the Cuban Missile Crisis or Vietnam! This book is about a kid’s strange and interesting summer. It’s surprising how much fun our hero Jack Gantos has, considering that he’s grounded the whole summer. Or at least, we readers have fun reading about it.

The most interesting things happen because Jack is asked to help his neighbor, the ancient Miss Volker. Miss Volker has terrible arthritis, so she needs Jack’s help to type up obituaries for the original residents of Norvelt, who seem to all be dying quickly this summer. Miss Volker tacks on a surprisingly interesting history to each obituary, and she knows relevant details about each resident.

On top of that, we’ve got Jack driving Miss Volker’s car around town. His Dad building an airplane and a runway. His Mom monitoring his behavior. His best friend, the daughter of the funeral parlor owner, teasing him about his fear of dead bodies. And then there’s Jack’s nose:

“How could I forget? I was a nosebleeder. The moment something startled me or whenever I got overexcited or spooked about any little thing blood would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames.”

There’s a lot of death in Dead End in Norvelt, including a Hell’s Angel who gets hit by a truck in town. But Jack Gantos the author manages to keep things funny. He gives us a great yarn about a kid just trying to stay out of trouble, and managing to learn lots along the way.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/dead_end_in_norvelt.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys

Award Winners, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Between Shades of Gray

by Ruta Sepetys

Philomel Books, 2011. 344 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Morris Award Finalist

Here’s a work of fiction that constantly made me forget it wasn’t nonfiction.

The book opens dramatically:

“They took me in my nightgown.

“Thinking back, the signs were there — family photos burned in the fireplace, Mother sewing her best silver and jewelry into the lining of her coat late at night, and Papa not returning from work. My younger brother, Jonas, was asking questions. I asked questions, too, but perhaps I refused to acknowledge the signs. Only later did I realize that Mother and Father intended we escape. We did not escape.

“We were taken.”

It’s 1941 in Lithuania. Stalin has annexed their country, and now he rounds up Lithuanian teachers, librarians, and university professors like Lina’s Papa, and their families. They are shipped in cattle cars to labor camps in Siberia.

The author, Ruta Sepetys, was from the family of a Lithuanian refugee who did escape and made it to America. But she researched this book well (even arranging to be locked away in a former Soviet prison!), and her words ring with terrible truth.

This is by no means a pleasant story, and though I was hoping it would end with Lina’s freedom, I’m afraid it doesn’t. An epilogue tells us that surviving deportees spent ten to fifteen years in Siberia. She does, however, manage to work in a message of hope, of the resilience of the human spirit, and of good even in apparent enemies.

This is a powerful and moving story about an episode of history I knew nothing about. The book is not only beautifully crafted, but does the good work of telling the world a story we should never forget.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/between_shades_of_gray.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Bootleg, by Karen Blumenthal

Award Winners, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Bootleg

Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition

by Karen Blumenthal

Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2011. 154 pages.
Starred Review
2012 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist

Before I read this book, I thought I knew about Prohibition. This book opened my eyes to how much I didn’t know. While keeping the story moving, the author shows us all the things that led up to Prohibition, how it worked out and didn’t work out, and what led to its repeal. She also talks about after effects.

I had no idea how, when our country was founded, rum was even used to pay wages. Even the Puritans were fond of it! (Who would have thought?) The Continental Army got a daily ration of hard liquor.

“In the years between 1800 and 1830, Americans drank more hard liquor than at any other time in their history, each imbibing on average roughly nine gallons a year, or about four gallons of pure alcohol, about twice the level of the previous generation. Beer and wine still had a place at the table, but less so than before.

“With more hard drink available, the number of taverns and tippling houses multiplied, as did seedier dramshops and gin houses. Not surprising given the amounts ingested, drunkenness also increased and with it, hardships for families affected by a father’s drinking.”

So in the 1830s, the temperance movement began to grow. She writes about Carrie Nation, who attacked saloons with an ax. There is a picture of a boy carrying a beer pail home and another of several young children sitting on barrels, drinking and smoking. I understand better now why the prohibitionists got so worked up.

Karen Blumenthal also explains the political situation that made those against Prohibition think the amendment would never get ratified — so they didn’t put nearly the energy into the campaign that the Prohibitionists did.

But then, after Prohibition passed, she outlines all the ways people got around the law, even as high up as the White House. She talks about law enforcement efforts and non-efforts, and tells the story of Al Capone.

Particularly interesting is her final chapter, “Success or Failure?” She shows us that this is a complex question.

“The men who helped launch the prohibition era and the one who filled it with machine-gun fire left a complex legacy. On the surface, an amendment that was passed and then repealed must have been a colossal failure, an embarrassing splotch in America’s history.

“But prohibition, short-lived though it was, was actually successful in some significant ways. The number of arrests for drunkenness and alcohol-related diseases, like cirrhosis of the liver, fell dramatically. The total consumption of alcohol slid to the lowest level in the nation’s history, especially during World War I and the first few years under the Eighteenth Amendment. Although drinking crept back up in the later 1920s and early 1930s, the amount of alcohol consumed per person each year actually remained fairly low for decades, and didn’t return to pre-prohibition levels until the 1970s, more than fifty years after prohibition took effect.

“In the course of nearly fourteen years of actual prohibition, aided by technology and other developments, Americans became more educated, more urban, and enjoyed far more entertainment. Radios and radio programs became widely available, and almost half the nation became avid listeners. Movie theater attendance doubled after films began to talk in 1926. With one car for every five people, more families headed for national forests and parks. The number of golf courses increased sevenfold. Saloons, the dirty and dangerous blight on the urban landscape, all but disappeared. Even young people had better things to do than hang out in a bar. . . .

“Where prohibition failed most, perhaps, was on a more personal level. Alcoholism and alcohol abuse remain significant social problems, affecting more than 17 million American adults and their families. Today’s problem of persistent homelessness, often linked to substance abuse and mental illnesses, has the same roots as the problem of drunkenness in the nineteenth century. Parents still worry about protecting their children, especially when government statistics show that an estimated 5,000 young people under the age of twenty-one die each year from alcohol-related car crashes or injuries.”

Her final summing up says it well:

“Today, each of us is accountable for our own behavior, and adult drinking is a matter of choice and personal responsibility. The days of outright prohibition are gone and likely will never return. But the powerful experience of prohibition continues to color our laws, our debates, and our personal lives. And the problems that brought us the Eighteenth Amendment — the pain that substance abuse inflicts on families, the devastation of alcoholism, and the impact of drinking on young people — remain a challenge to current and future generations.”

So in this book you’ve got an even-handed look at Prohibition that also manages to be gripping and fascinating. It’s written for children and young adults, but I think most adults will also find themselves learning a lot from this book.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/bootleg.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I received at the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Awards Reception and had signed by the author.

Review of I Want My Hat Back, by Jon Klassen

Animal Characters, Award Winners, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

I Want My Hat Back

by Jon Klassen

Candlewick Press, 2011. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Geisel Honor Book
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Picture Books

This book is brilliant. I was happy it won a Geisel Honor for a book for beginning readers, because it’s written in a way that makes it easy for beginning readers and tells a story that will delight them when they understand what’s happened.

I have a co-worker whose favorite picture books are ones where someone gets eaten. I made sure to bring this book straight to her when I checked it out. I also handed it to my teenage son to read. It’s the kind of book everyone enjoys.

The illustrations are simple and flat, with the eyes looking straight at the reader. The text is color coded for the speaker, with a bear walking through the pages looking for his hat. He wants his hat. He loves his hat. Each animal he meets, he asks, “Have you seen my hat?” After their various responses, he says, “OK. Thank you anyway.”

Eventually, after he’s lying down in despair, a deer asks him what his hat looks like. When he describes it, the bear — and the reader — suddenly remember where he’s seen it before. This moment of realization is portrayed so cleverly with a red page and wide open eyes.

Describing this book takes more words than are in the book — and reading the book is so much better. The ending is left ambiguous for the tender-hearted, but most kids will be proud to figure out what really happened. And you have to admit, the bear is repeating what was said to him.

I promise all ages will enjoy this book! Check it out and read it yourself.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/i_want_my_hat_back.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of A Ball for Daisy, by Chris Raschka

Animal Characters, Award Winners, Contemporary, Good for the Very Young, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

A Ball for Daisy

by Chris Raschka

Schwartz and Wade Books, New York, 2011. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Caldecott Medal Winner
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: Picture Books #7

Here’s a truly wonderful wordless picture book. Chris Raschka portrays the heights and depths of emotion with simple painted lines and colors.

A Ball for Daisy features a little dog named Daisy. You can clearly see that Daisy loves her red ball. She plays with it, wags her tail when she catches it, and cuddles up next to it for a nap.

But when Daisy and her owner take it to the park, another dog begins to play, and he pops Daisy’s ball. Daisy’s sadness when this happens is unmistakeable.

Fortunately, there’s a happy ending as the other dog and its owner make things right the next day.

The pictures in this book are exuberant and varied, making the simple story great fun to read. The pages where Daisy’s trying to figure out what happened to her ball include shaking the limp casing, howling, and just being sad. The pages where Daisy is playing or sleeping reflect Daisy’s joyful and unworried existence. There’s a nice circular feeling as the end echoes the beginning, with Daisy cozying up to her new ball. All’s right in the world.

What child doesn’t know what it feels like to lose something? The story is universal, and can be “read” by the very young, yet will still fascinate older people with the beauty of the artwork.

I’m pleased with the Caldecott committee’s decision this year, as I have a feeling children will be enjoying this book for years to come.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/ball_for_daisy.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Adventure, Award Winners, Science Fiction, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Little, Brown, and Company, New York, 2010. 326 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Printz Award Winner
2010 National Book Award Finalist
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Other Teen Fiction

Ship Breaker tells the story of a boy caught on the wrong side of progress in a future world after the Age of Acceleration has ended. The story is gripping, with Nailer in life-or-death danger on every page. Yet Paolo Bacigalupi builds a world that shows the consequences of society’s actions now, without ever letting the story slow down to tell us what’s going on. We learn through the eyes of the characters.

The book begins with Nailer crawling through the ducts of an old oil tanker, lit only by LED glowpaint on his forehead. He’s after the light stuff – copper wiring, steel clips, things that can be dragged out to his crew waiting outside.

The author doesn’t have to tell us they’re poor. He describes the wire being pulled out of the duct, “She sucked the wire out like a rice noodle from a bowl of Chen’s soup ration.” We begin to understand that he’s scavenging parts when we read about the new clipper ships: “Replacements for the massive coal- and oil-burning wrecks that he and his crew worked to destroy all day long: gull-white sails, carbon-fiber hulls, and faster than anything except a maglev train.”

Nailer was too slow in there, and he needs to go back in to get more scavenge before a big storm hits. He forgets to renew his LED paint, and gets caught in the dark. That’s okay, he’s finding plenty of copper wire that leads him out – until a duct collapses under him and he falls into a tank of oil.

“How could he die in such a stupid way? This wasn’t even a storage tank. Just some room full of pooled waste oil. It was a joke, really. Lucky Strike had found an oil pocket on a ship and bought his way free. Nailer had found one and it was going to kill him.

“I’m going to drown in goddamn money.

“Nailer almost laughed at the thought. No one knew exactly how much oil Lucky Strike had found and smuggled out. The man had done it slow, over time. Sneaking it out bucket by bucket until he had enough to buy out his indenture and burn off his work tattoos. But he’d had enough left over to set himself up as a labor broker selling slots into the very heavy crews that he’d escaped. Just a little oil had done so much for Lucky Strike, and Nailer was up to his neck in the damn stuff.”

Then one of his crewmates, Sloth, finds him. He begs her to bring help, to get him out, but she can’t resist the thought of pulling her own Lucky Strike. But when Nailer does find a way out, even though the oil goes out with him, Sloth is exposed as a traitor, and Nailer’s new nickname is Lucky Boy, because everyone knows he should have died.

That dramatic incident is important, because after the storm Nailer and his crewmate Pima find a wrecked clipper ship with one lone survivor. The rings on the girl’s fingers alone would be enough to set them up for life. But Nailer doesn’t have the heart to kill the girl, because he now knows what it was like to be left for dead. That incident gets him thinking throughout the book about what it means to be family, what it means to be Crew.

The tension in this book doesn’t let up for a second, and it’s life-or-death danger on almost every page. Nailer and Pima aren’t the only ones to find the girl, and the group with Nailer’s father is not at all interested in keeping her alive, only in getting money from her.

They go from one danger to another, with Nailer trying to figure out not only what’s the right thing to do, but also how to stay alive.

This book is a thriller all the way along, with a never-flagging plot. And it presents hard-hitting commentary and questions about our way of life now.

I finally read this book when taking a class on the Printz Award. It definitely seems worthy of the award it won: Besides telling a rip-roaring story, it warns us that in our policies even now, we should look out for the little guys. We should think about the consequences of the things we do.

Here are my notes on his brilliant acceptance speech at the Printz Awards.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/ship_breaker.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

2011 Cybils Finalists

Award Winners, General 0

Now that I’ve posted my own favorites read in 2011, I can stand to read the lists of Cybils Finalists! I’m very proud to be a book blogger, part of the Kidlitosphere, the people who do the Cybils Awards. With the Cybils Awards, the judges (book bloggers) try to balance literary quality with Kid Appeal. They want these to be award winners that kids and teens will actually want to read. I think they achieve this goal.

Another cool thing about the Cybils is the philosophy behind the Finalists. There are two rounds of judging, Finalists, and then one winner in each category. I’ve talked with some Cybils panelists, and they try to come up with a representative group of books for that category. You won’t find all historical fiction with girl protagonists, as sometimes happens with the Newbery. They are looking for a well-rounded list of the top books, and I think they also achieve this goal.

This year, I tried to nominate early, because last year all my favorite books had already been nominated. To my delight, three of my nominees are Finalists!

Those are:
Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George, in the category of Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction;

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang, in the category of Middle Grade Fiction;

Dodsworth in Rome, by Tim Egan, in the category of Easy Readers.

These are all great books, and I honestly hope each one wins, though at this point, I’m simply excited that they are Finalists!

My Crazy 2012 Reading Plans

Award Challenge, Award Winners, General 0

I’m going to interrupt my posts about Sonderbooks Standouts to talk about my new plans for reading books in 2012.

To understand this, and how much fun I’m having making plans, you probably should know that I am a rule-follower and love rules. I decided to channel this love in harmless, fun areas. I also check out way, way too many library books and get far too many Advance Reader Copies and other free books at ALA conferences. And I also buy more books than I can get read.

Up until the middle of last year, I had a problem that if I owned a book, I never got it read, because it didn’t have a due date. After ALA in June, with so many fabulous ARCs I really wanted to read, I decided to assign myself a rule: I will alternate reading Library books with books I own.

Later, I got to thinking that since I love rules and I love spreadsheets, why not make myself some rules about what books I’m allowed to keep checked out and which to turn in? I call it The Rule of Three, and basically I try to only have three books checked out in each category — and I have lots and lots of categories. When I check in books from having too many in a category, I put them on a list for a mythical future day when I will have less than three books checked out in that category. Theoretically, every day I get a pile down to three by checking in books from that category.

I’m having mixed results with The Rule of Three, but mostly it’s gotten me to turn in more books than I otherwise would have, and be slightly realistic about what I can get read, so I think it’s a good thing.

The alternating between library books and books I own, however, is working out super well. I’ve gotten lots of wonderful books I own read, and haven’t been too horribly much slower on the library books.

This brings me to 2012. When the year started, I received a package in the mail with four Advance Reader Copies that look really good. I looked at my piles of ARCs from ALA — and most of them have already been published. The point is kind of to read the books before they’re published, you know?

So, I thought I’d add a new rule. Every other time, with the books I own, I’ll read an ARC that hasn’t been published yet.

That led to another. With library books, I will also alternate between recently published books and others. Because I do like keeping up with what’s recently been published.

But then Mr. Schu from Mr. Schu Reads posted about The Newbery Medal Challenge. He’s going to read all the Newbery Medal winners in 2012.

That got me thinking. A year and a half ago, I took a class on the Newbery Medal and read many of the winners. Last year, I took a class on the Caldecott Medal and read all the winners. And finally, a few months ago, I took a class on the Printz Medal. When I took the Printz class, I decided that since it’s a much newer award, it would be much more manageable to try to read all the winners and honor books. So I made myself a list of all the ones I hadn’t read, starting with the present. There are 43 books on the list. But I hadn’t actually started reading any of the books on the list.

But why not do it as a challenge? And add it to my rules? So far, I had four categories I’m cycling through: A library book, a prepub ARC, a new library book, and a book I own. Well, why not add a fifth category. After those four categories, I’ll read an Award Winner!

But then, oh no, I got jealous of Mr. Schu reading the Newbery books. I thought, why not alternate my award winners between Printz Medal and Honor books with Newbery Medal and Honor books? I will start with the present — I always want to read the new award winners — and just list the ones I haven’t already read. There are 288, so I am not at all thinking I’ll finish this list any time soon. But what a fun use of rules to get myself actually reading them.

But, uh-oh, then I got to thinking: There are other award books I’ve really been wanting to read. How about the Morris Award? That’s a very new award, so there aren’t all that many books I haven’t read (17, it turns out). I can add that list as a third award-winning list. But I have a real soft spot for first-time authors, since I’m trying to get published myself, so I’d really like to read those winners and finalists.

And wait! What about the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award? (210 winners and honor books I haven’t yet read.) Or the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature? (154 winners and finalists I haven’t yet read.) And how can I forget the Cybils? They are chosen by Bloggers, my people. I’d been wanting to read those books, and it’s a newer award, so I don’t have to go back too far. In fact, it turns out there are 135 winners and finalists in the categories of Middle Grade and YA fiction and nonfiction and fantasy/SF fiction that I haven’t read yet.

Remember I told you you needed to understand that I’m a person who loves rules? Believe it or not, I had all kinds of fun making spreadsheets for each of these awards. And I’m so excited about my new plan, I just had to write about it. I decided, to make the whole thing even, I’d add one more category to my reading cycle: Rereads. When Sonderbooks was an e-mail newsletter, I always included one Old Favorite, but since I switched to a blog, I haven’t done nearly as much rereading, and I miss that. So why not include one every sixth book? Besides, I just got the sequel to Coronets and Steel, and I very much want to enjoy rereading it before starting the sequel.

Now, I should add that there will be exceptions. If I would ever get on an award committee (which I would love to do), I’d happily set aside these rules for awhile. And right now, I’m finishing up reading the Shortlist from the Heavy Medal blog so I can vote in the mock Newbery they’re hosting next week. Another exception is that when I go on plane trips, I only bring paperbacks, and usually ones I own.

Clearly, obviously, reading all these Award Winners is not something I’m going to finish this year, or maybe even in my lifetime. I will be very happy if I get all of this year’s award winners read before next year’s are announced! But I am very excited about having this objective method for choosing excellent books for one-sixth of my reading.

I do think it will be fun to blog and tweet about this process of reading Award Winners. All I can think to call it is #awardchallenge. We’ll see how I do.

Did you notice that I didn’t include Nonfiction or Picture Books? Those each have their own completely different systems. I won’t even start to try to explain them.

So, in summary, here’s my plan for reading this year (as soon as I finish The Trouble With May Amelia):
1. Reread a book. (First one will be Coronets and Steel)
2. Read a book I own. (First one will be the sequel to Coronets and Steel)
3. Read a newly published Library book. (First one will be Death Comes to Pemberley, by P. D. James)
4. Read an Award Winner or Honor Book, cycling in this order: Printz, Newbery, Morris, Boston Globe/Horn Book, National Book Awards, and Cybils; and beginning with the most recently announced books. (For example, I can already start on the Finalists for this year’s Morris and Cybils awards.) (First one will be Please Ignore Vera Dietz, by A. S. King)
5. Read a pre-publication ARC. (First one will be The Last Princess, by Galaxy Craze.)
6. Read any Library book. (I’ll probably take this one from my Rule of Three piles.)

Call me crazy, but I’m really looking forward to carrying out this plan!

It’s going to be a great year for reading!

Review of Me, Frida, by Amy Novesky and David Diaz

Award Winners, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review 0

Me, Frida

by Amy Novesky
illustrated by David Diaz

Abrams Books for Young Readers, New York, 2010. 32 pages.
2011 Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor Book

As appropriate for the story of an artist, this picture book biography is a work of art. David Diaz’s beautiful paintings are done in the style of Frida Kahlo and are simply beautiful to look at.

The story of the book tells about how Frida Kahlo got her start as an artist. She married her mentor, Diego Rivera, and very much felt herself in his shadow when they moved to San Francisco. But then she gained inspiration from the beautiful parts of the city and her memories of her home, and came into her own as an artist, with her own unique style.

This book tells a story of a woman working alongside someone she loves, rather than being content to stay in his shadow. It’s a lovely and inspiring book.

We have some fabulous picture book biographies in the library. I always think it’s a shame how hard they are for customers to find. A picture book biography is not necessarily a good source for a school report. It’s an inspiring story about someone amazing, told in simple terms and with accompanying pictures. I’d like to put picture book biographies in a place all their own, but will probably have to settle for doing a display now and then.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/me_frida.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.