Bugged!

Knudsen, Michelle. Blanche Sims, illus. Bugged!. Kane Press: 2008. “Science Solves It” early reader series, $5.95. ISBN-13 978-1-57565-259-7.

Targeted at a grade 1 – 3 interest level, with the large type and high-frequency vocabulary of early readers, Bugged! offers more than enjoyable easy reading with life science content about mosquitoes. As a sample of the “Science Solves It” series by Kane Press, Bugged! offers enough to interest me in the entire line of “fun stories with a curriculum connection” from this innovative publisher.

From a reading perspective, Bugged! provides a good mix of high-frequency sight words and multi-syllabic vocabulary words to offer young readers both success and surmountable challenges within the story text. Sidebars address content knowledge and vocabulary in reader-friendly bites that complement the story. Colorful illustrations depict multi-ethnic characters and inviting scenes that add depth and humor.

The science skills of observation, questioning, inference, prediction, experimentation, comparison, and communication are incorporated as students strive to solve the central problem of how to help Riley escape his plague of mosquitoes. The characters conduct research by using the Internet at home, consulting books in a well-populated library, and visiting an actual science professor in his college setting. Content information appears in the main text, the sidebars, the illustrations, and is reinforced by the “Think Like A Scientist” activity page following the story.

The publisher’s forward informs adults that Kane Press “Science Solves It!” titles have been reviewed by respected scientists and teachers during development to ensure accuracy and alignment with current content curriculum frameworks. This careful development pays off handsomely in an attractive, humorous story that children will be eager to read, explore, and revisit repeatedly. Titles address physical science, earth science, and life science topics. Some titles are also available in Spanish.

Thank you, Kane Press, for making learning fun and rewarding! Young readers will enjoy emulating the skills modeled by the characters as they solve their own scientific mysteries. Me? I’m off to break my piggybank so I can enjoy more of these delightful stories and explore the math, reading, and social studies nonfiction series titles, too.

The Picnic Basket rating: 5

Cynthia Winfield
educator & author

Review of "Up and Down the Andes"

The following was originally posted as a review on The Picnic Basket.

Krebs, Laurie. Aurélia Fronty, illus. Up and Down the Andes: A Peruvian Festival Tale. Barefoot Books: 2008. Picture book, $16.99. ISBN 978-1-84686-203-8.

Laurie Krebs’s seventh Barefoot Books title is an extraordinary celebration of language, color, and culture. Although this is only my first excursion into the world of Barefoot Books, I’m hooked—eager to explore more of this publisher’s list and of Krebs’s writing.

Beginning with the rich, vibrant acrylic illustrations by Aurélia Fronty—a full time painter, illustrator, and fabric artist residing in France—the reader is drawn into the world of Up and Down the Andes which is brought to life by the colorful paintings. The images grant the words possibility and promise without overwhelming the text. Seemingly-simple pictures illustrate a world begging discussion and further exploration, and provide a textured surface upon which to display the story.

Krebs also uses deceptively-simple and sparse text to draw in readers, yet each page presents a carefully-crafted rhyming couplet written in trochaic meter with a strong, masculine rhyme that tantalizes the ear and engages the mind. (More simply stated, each page offers two rhyming lines of text, each written in a DA-dum-DA-dum-DA-dum-DA rhythm.) The rhythm, rhyme, and meter conspire to bewitch readers and transport us fully into the story’s world. The text introduces characters from various points in Peru, traveling to Cusco to participate in the annual celebration of Inti Raymi honoring the Sun God on June 24th, the winter solstice, in a traditional Incan fertility ritual. Closing after a description of the festival, Krebs’s line “Up and down the Andes, There are children just like me” brings the reader into the discussion: In what ways am I just like the children in Peru? Finally, the last quarter of the book’s pages present the history, geography, and culture of Peru and its peoples—native and otherwise.

Suitable for lap-reading or Story Time, Up and Down the Andes could easily be used in classrooms. Krebs, a former elementary teacher, knows the elementary audience and has produced a book that teachers and librarians will treasure. As an eighth grade English Language Arts teacher, I can readily envision lessons in middle school history, geography, Spanish, English, and art classes; and with a little more work, the text could provide a springboard for lessons in math, music, drama, even Family and Consumer Science, computer, and shop classes. An independent school could readily devote a week, or more, to an interdisciplinary unit encompassing all classes of a grade either designed around or introduced or enriched by this particular Barefoot Book.

If all Barefoot Books achieve the goal of “celebrating art and story” to this extent, I shall become a devoted fan. Even the leaves are composed of “ancient-forest friendly,” “100% acid-free” paper, showing respect for the earth and providing yet another opening for inquiry and discussion.

The Brothers Torres

The Picnic Basket: The Brothers Torres • YA fiction
Voorhees, Coert. The Brothers Torres. Hyperion Books for Children, 2008, 316 pages.

Coert Voorhees’s first novel set in small-town New Mexico is an enthralling delight to read. Fast-paced, real and immediate, its characters face present day high school concerns—family, friendships, race, class, ownership, romance, and violence—with honesty and wry humor. Although I found it irritating in the first couple of chapters, the manner in which the first-person narrator, Frankie Towers, habitually separates from himself to observe himself is astonishingly well-done, imitating the self-consciousness of adolescent experience; within a few chapters I was hooked, with no desire to set down the book. His longings and desires contrast against the reality of his situation—where he’s the “good son” working at the family restaurant while his athletically-gifted older brother with college scholarship in hand is given the latitude to run wild (while his parents believe he’s studying or practicing football). Towers’ torn loyalties, desire to gain social status, longing to date the beautiful Rebecca, and sense of personal inadequacy in the company of football heroes and the bad cholos. Heritage—Spanish, white or Native American—is vitally important to the characters and yet easily joked about among friends. The Spanish language terms peppering the text add credibility and the many English translations easily woven into the story allow readers unfamiliar with Spanish to understand, and to learn bits of a rising language in the English-speaking USA.

This tale, authentically told, yet able to cross into the consciousness of diverse readers, earns a Picnic Basket rating of 5 from me. It will easily breach the cultural divides of the United States to bring YA readers of all cultures to a better understanding of the pressures of being a young, Latino-American male in the Southwest. The Brothers Torres is the dessert of a well-rounded picnic. Provide it as a free-choice title for grades 8 and nine; consider studying it as part of a literature course for grades 10 and above.

Watch for Voorhees’ name, as he is destined to be a rising star in the world of YA Latino-American literature.

Picnic Basket: 5

I look forward to reading this novel again.

Cynthia Winfield

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

Anderson, M.T. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves. Candlewick Press: October 2008, 592pp. Review originally written for The Picnic Basket

Volume I, a New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award winner, obviously appealed to an adult readership, and this volume will also.

Anderson’s second volume of Private Octavian Nothing’s life gives voice to a heretofore silent segment of society in US history—the slaves of African descent living along the eastern seaboard around the time of the Revolutionary War. With a keen eye for detail and an ear for language too-frequently missing in current YA fiction, even quality literature, Octavian’s life is narrated through his journals and through letters by and about him. His story is an historian’s delight: detail of civilian life in a besieged Boston; the story of Lord Dunsmore’s Royal Ethiopian Army—told by an enlisted private; the story of a cautious, somewhat reticent, well-educated black man living among the ordinary, illiterate ranks; details of life aboard ship and in battle in the late eighteenth century U.S.; and the multitude of men’s stories given voice through Octavian’s pen.

Scholars of US and African American history will find a multitude of enjoyment within these pages; however, the text is not for the faint of heart. The vocabulary and shear length are challenging, and I imagine a large portion of the students I have taught would abandon the text before finishing. Even so, the two volumes of Octavian’s life belong in public and school libraries nationwide, and on gift lists of readers with any interest in the topic. In my experience, young readers will persevere longer with a book given as a gift, even though it may challenge their abilities, and that tendency could be a viable avenue for bringing these important historical voices to life.

Teachers, this book offers a breadth and depth of knowledge unsurpassed in historical YA literature. With the guidance and assistance of a whole-class or literature circle read, Private Octavian Nothing’s story would be ideal for interdisciplinary study. Addressing the entire text might require the better part of a semester; however, the return on this investment may be astounding. Try it!

Even though the text will be too challenging for many an independent reader, this book earns a Picnic Basket rating of 5 from me for its historical accuracy and realism, and its literary merit.

Discovering Grandmother Ila

Grandmother Ila lived before my time. Her second son, my dad, was born during WWI; by the time I was born, the United States had survived the Korean Conflict, and was about to enter the Vietnam War. Wed to the Postmaster of Washington, DC, Grandmother Ila was a full time parent to three. While I know very little about her, I imagine she valued art, literature, and music. After all, my parents were both highly literate (their home library housed works in English, French, German, and Japanese), and my dad grew up singing in a choir. That his parents sent him off to study at the Saint Albans Choir School for Boys, of the National Cathedral, speaks to their appreciation for the arts.

When preparing my parents' home for sale, in 2008, I unearthed a twine-wrapped package that had evidently
been in the drafty old farm house's library closet since my parents had arrived in 1956. A torn brown paper bag bore a pencilled note in my father's hand indicating that the package contained paintings by his mother--one in the manner of C.C. Cotton, and one a river scene that was possibly unfinished. The photos accompanying this post document both canvasses as well as the material used to separate each canvas.

I had no idea that my grandmother had such artistic talents. Not only did she paint with a mastery far beyond what I might dream of accomplishing, but also she developed sewing patterns. The package separators were pieces of a pattern she had produced--directions for sewing a stuffed giraffe that she labeled "Hi-Boy: An Ilabeestie, copyright 1926." The label leads me to suspect that she had developed other stuffed animal patterns, in addition to Hi-Boy. The whimsical giraffe brought a smile to my face and I had to piece the pattern together and photograph it before such evidence of her talents vanished entirely.

The river scene, while well detailed, is not signed (which is why I believe it to be unfinished, that and my dad's note), and is very dark. The colors show up better in the digital image than they do on the actual canvas. Unless the paints darkened over time, I can only assume that she was very depressed when she painted this scene. (It's a reasonable conclusion considering the high incidence of mental illness on that side of my family tree.)

But it's the copy of C.C. Cotton's painting that impresses me the most. The painting shows some signs of age and wear. What first appeared to me to be a flower beside the subject's face is in fact two streaks of white canvas where the paint has fallen away. Even so, the painting is evocative of our current life, where the farm surrounds us in natural beauty. Several days before opening this package, I, too, had been wandering in a field and picking goldenrod, among other flowers, for the house. In my grandmother's painting, I see the remnants of a story I was never told about a talented, accomplished woman, who lived in a time when women wore skirts and bonnets out into the fields when picking flowers.

My housemate has decreed that this canvas will be hung over the mantelpiece, and I am quite pleased with that decision.

Parisian adventure

Vidalia in Paris by Sasha Watson

My GoodReads review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
A delightful Parisian adventure for teen readers. Buy a copy as a gift. Give a copy to your local library. Set aside an afternoon to savor this title. Vidalia in Paris is Watson's gift to readers. Enjoy!

(Note: a more detailed review will appear in an upcoming issue of VOYA magazine.)


View all my GoodReads reviews.

Dreams of a "retired" teacher

This is the first fall of many that I've not been in the classroom teaching. This fall I'm a student of agriculture and local geography, shifting from my identity as a classroom teacher to that of a small farmer. I love every day of this physical work, and I revel in the wonderment of a child as I watch geese bathe and drink, find chicken eggs for the first time, and learn to converse with little goats.

Even so, I still have the occasional teacher dream. After awaking from a classroom management nightmare (monitoring a study hall of students with whom I was unfamiliar and being assaulted by one--he managed to pick me up and spin me around on the soles of his feet while I watched the hard desk corners and such circle below me), it took me several moments to remember the high point of the dream.

Riding on a school bus, again with students unknown to me, and listening to some students banter with the long-haired bus driver, when the content of one exchange surprised me.

"Remember, Kevin," enthused an adolescent girl, "the time you stopped at the library so we could get books for the ride? That was so cool!"

"Yeah, yeah," the driver replied, and chuckled.

I was left thinking, wait a sec, he solved the chaos of a long school bus ride with reading books? Wow! Upon looking more closely at this unfamiliar driver, his features became suddenly recognizable.

"Er," said I, eloquently, "you were a student of mine, weren't you."

"Yeah," he agreed, smiling the boyish smile I recognized clearly as that of a former eighth grader, one I recall as being a reluctant reader. I saw his eighth grade visage emerge, nearly obscured by maturity, that freckled face and impish smile, and felt that thrill of recognition of former students-all-grown-up.

It took some moments to process: here was the embodiment of successful teaching. Sometime after I'd had him as a student, the requirement of carrying a free choice reading book with him at all times translated into the lesson that books provide desirable entertainment...and became a lesson that he passed on to others as a fun way to beat the boredom of long bus rides. Whoo hoo!

As I remembered this kernel of my dream, the nightmare that had woken me faded and I was suffused with that glow of success felt well beyond any Ah ha! moments (rewards in and of themselves) to that of a lesson taken to heart by an unlikely candidate and carried forward into his life where he passed it along to others.

My pride in this dream-driver's accomplishments was so great that I've stumbled up to my computer instead of returning to bed for the last minutes before heeding the crow of yon rooster.

Cockadoodledo! There's PrettyBoy now, calling me to feed his hens and loose the fowl from the night's captivity to roam upon their barnyard for the duration of daylight hours. Ta ta, I must be off as duty calls!

Please note: image acquired from www.mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com

Mason Bees

My mother used to keep honeybees in her backyard. I loved the honey, but disliked the bees who would choose to sun on the white bed sheets hung out on the line to dry. I don't recall ever being stung by one of her bees, but as a teenager I was fearful. Now that I'm an adult the fear is gone; however, as a new farmer I'm not keen to set up and manage hives of my own. Enter mason bees.

Christopher O'Toole's handy publication The Mason Bees: Taking the Sting Out of Beekeeping provided me fascinating reading this weekend. His "practical guide for gardeners and fruit growers to the propagation and management of Osmia lignaria, and its relatives, docile and efficient pollinators" is a highly informative, quite readable little book. From the opening chapter "Blue Orchard Mason Bees as pollination pets" through to the colorful illustration plates at the end, this little book got me all fired up for spring and eager to invite these bees to our little farm. We're starting with fruit trees and bushes, high hopes, very rocky soil, and our resident redworms. With the worms processing the compost at ground level, if we can encourage pollinators to settle here--we should be in fine fruit come summer & fall.

I highly recommend O'Toole's book for growers wanting to manage the pollination ecology in their gardens and orchards.

Visiting Dominica

I love to travel by book. My most recent literary vacation was on the island of Dominica, which is not to be confused with the Dominican Republic. Joanne Skerrett's newest novel, Letting Loose, provided me with a free tropical vacation in Paradise via the adventures of high school English teacher Amelia Wilson in this third work of African-American chick lit. by Skerrett. Although I rarely read chick lit. or romance novels, particularly because I'm put off by the women who need a man to feel complete, I still enjoyed Amelia's character. (Please understand, wanting a relationship is one thing, feeling incomplete without a partner just irritates me.) Beyond the needing a man aspect, I liked that Amelia taught public school in Boston, that she had a good sense of humor in spite of some students' disrespectful behavior, and that she allowed herself to indulge in a tropical adventure (albeit to meet the man of her dreams). From the edgy opening to the satisfying conclusion, Skerrett's novel kept me coming back for more. (See also my review at GoodReads.com ) ...Thanks, Joanne!

The Picnic Basket

The Picnic Basket is the brainchild of Deborah Sloan, whose company (Deborah Sloan and Company of Andover, MA) helps children's authors market and promote their work. When Sloan saw an online need for a book review site for the newest children's literature, she created The Picnic Basket. Speaking to "librarians, teachers, and other gluttons for good books," Sloan's site provides multiple reviews by and for those who know children's literature well. As one who has reviewed for VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine, published by Scarecrow Press of Lanham, MD) for some years, the advantage I see in Sloan's site is that it includes multiple reviewers for each title. Another aspect is that The Picnic Basket reviewers are self-selected, as are the titles they review; whereas, VOYA screens its reviewers, matches books to reviewer interest and expertise.

I love VOYA and what it does for YA literature and the youth advocates who write for and subscribe to the magazine. Teachers, you want to either subscribe yourself, or push for your local librarian to subscribe for you and your colleagues, for VOYA cannot be replaced. Although, for quick sampling, I recommend you bookmark www.thepicnic-basket.com on your computer.

Read on!