The Moon is Going to Addy's House by Ida Pearle

As Addy's family drives home from a play date in the city, she notices the moon is following them home. As the car continues to drive away from the city and back to her home in the country, Addy observes, not just the moon, but the wondrous world around her:

The moon is following us
across the bridge as the sun sets.
Roll down the window and breathe deep.
I've caught it! 
But only for a moment. 

Poetry doesn't always have to come in words. Sometimes poetry speaks in pictures, movement, music, or all of these things at once. The Moon is Going to Addy's House is a beautiful example of how poetry can be created in the confluence of art forms. It is a book that feels both classic and modern, both back in time and of the time.  

The whimsical, dreamlike illustrations evoke a sense of movement and flow, which is an incredible talent given that the medium Ida Pearle uses here is cut-paper college, which, in my observation, can sometimes be flat and stagnant. And despite the family in this book appearing like a typical middle/upper class family, there are page spreads, and even the cover, that give the book an almost indigenous or tribal quality to it, making it beautifully provocative, while also being sensitive and delicate at the same time.

I could see this book getting some love during award season.


The Moon is Going to Addy's House by Ida Pearle
Expected publication: July 7, 2015
Publisher: Dial
Pages: 32
Format: Picture Book
Disclosure: Finished copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

It's Monday! What are you reading? 6-29-15

Originally hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers also host a kidlit version of It's Monday! What are You Reading?

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.


Last week I reviewed:
 
Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael  Lopez


I finished reading:


French Milk by Lucy Knisley
This was a re-read for me. I read it back in 2009, but wanted to read it again because I have been on a Lucy Knisley kick lately, wanting to read ALL THE BOOKS by her.

Dogs are People, Too by Dave Coverly 
Reminds me of a dog-centric version of The Far Side. Clever and funny. What more could you ask for?


I finished reading with my ears:

Things We Know by Heart by Jessi Kirby 
I don't really have much to say about this book. It was a sweet summer romance but I won't be remembering much about it a few weeks from now. 


Picture books I enjoyed last week:
 

I'm Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton
Who says factual books can't be funny and full of voice? Certainly not Bethany Barton! This book helps arachnophobes come to grips with their fear through humor and logic.

Night Animals by Gianna Marino
Who knew that those nocturnal animals we're all scared of were scared of each other? 



Black Cat by Christopher Myers 
As much as I loved the illustrations, I am dying to type the text out and have it stand alone because Myers paints his words with such imagery and sensory detail. I definitely want to use this in my poetry writing unit. 

Space Boy and His Dog by Dian Curtis Regan, illustrated by Robert Neubecker 
This is a story about Niko and his dog, Tag, who go into outer space to look for Mrs. Jarabaldi's lost cat. But it is definitely NOT a story about Niko's sister, Posh.  


 Currently reading:

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
Jumped In by Patrick Flores-Scott


Currently reading with my ears:

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
This book is incredibly special. At one point I had to stop listening just to process all the things I was feeling from such profound, beautiful writing.


Last week on my teaching blog:
The promise of a blank notebook
Celebrate past, present, and future

Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael Lopez

This is the story of Millo Castro Zaladarriaga, a young Cuban girl who wanted desperately to play the drums, but she lived in a time when only boys were allowed to play them. That didn't stop Millo from dreaming, and eventually she became the first girl to crash through that barrier, one day having the honor of playing with some American jazz greats, as well as for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
 
Drum Dream Girl is a gorgeous poem that celebrates the power of a passion, which is paired beautifully with Rafael Lopez's vibrant, dreamlike illustrations. The magical realism of the illustrations evokes an emotional, empathic connection to the Cuban culture beyond the political narrative so many Americans are used to seeing and reading about. Drum Dream Girl is one of many Margarita Engle books that help to educate and remind us that Cuba is a country of people with hopes, dreams, and fears like we all are. This book, paired with Engle's upcoming memoir, Enchanted Air, has given me the itch to someday travel to this once verboten country.


Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael Lopez
Published: March 13, 2015
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Pages: 48
Genre/Format: Picture Book Biography
Audience: Primary/Middle Grade
Disclosure: Library copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

It's Monday! What are you reading? 6-22-15

Originally hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers also host a kidlit version of It's Monday! What are You Reading?

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.

I am  coming off an amazing weekend! The Kids Read Comics convention was in Ann Arbor this weekend, and it was pretty sweet getting to hang out with the likes of Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman, along with getting to see friends I don't get to hang out with that often. Check out the link above for a recap of the event.


Last week I reviewed:

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
The World on a Plate by Mina Holland 


I finished reading:


Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson 
Who would've guessed that a graphic novel about roller derby could get me so verklempt at the end? I wasn't expecting to feel ALL THE THINGS by the end of Roller Girl because Astrid was initially a difficult character to get behind. It wasn't until about 3/4 of the way through that she started to redeem herself. 

Displacement: A Travelogue by Lucy Knisley 
I haven't finished an entire book in one sitting in a very long time but I couldn't put this one down. A sensitive, earnest, fatalistic look at family and mortality, yet also done somehow with a lighthearted touch. 


I finished reading with my ears:

Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood
Given the events in McKinney, Texas, the subject-matter of this book compelled me to bring it to the top of my TBR pile. While I did wish that the story went deeper into the controversy of the town's pool closing, I also understand that Glory Be is told through the eyes of a young girl, and it was likely the right amount of depth for the age it was written for.  


Interestingly enough, I only finished two picture books this week, and they both had the same title:

Pig and Pug by Laura Marchesani & Zenaides M. Medina, illustrated by Jarvis
Pig and Pug by  Lynne Berry, illustrated by Gemma Correll


Currently reading:

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
Dogs are People, Too by Dave Coverly 


Currently reading with my ears:

Things We Know by Heart by Jessi Kirby 


Last week on my teaching blog I posted: 
Ladies who lunch 
The complexities of the human condition 
Celebrate going rogue 

Kids Read Comics 2015

This weekend I had the privilege of attending the Kids Read Comics convention at the Ann Arbor District Library and every year this event just gets better and better. It's hard to believe that the first year I attended, I did so with trepidation. I hadn't fully embraced graphic novels into my classroom library yet. Now thanks to people like Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Cece Bell, Jennifer Holm and Matthew Holm, I am a full-fledged comics geek!

With great events like Comics Quickfire and Iron Cartoonist, these comics artists showed just how talented they are, not only with their artistic skills, but their improvisational skills.

Comics Quickfire with Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, and Zac Gorman

Rachel Polk draws an epic llama doing shot put during Iron Cartoonist

The weekend was capped off with the Kids' Comics Revolution Awards, which were pretty awesome if I do say so myself. That has nothing to do with the fact that I got to be a presenter at the awards this year. ;) Laura Given and I presented the favorite graphic novel in 3 different genres: nonfiction/memoir, adventure, and humor. Dave Roman and Chris Duffy were the hosts, and you'd think they'd been hosting award ceremonies their entire lives with how entertaining they were. I haven't laughed so much and so hard in a long time. But the best part of the awards ceremony for me was to hear Raina Telgemeier say in her award acceptance for favorite cartoonist that Kids Read Comics is her favorite comics event to come to. Proving once again that Ann Arbor is a great place to be.

Kids' Comics Revolution Awards

Dave Roman gets to see one of his characters fully realized -- in muppet form! It's Blue from Starbunny!

Hanging out with friends, kids, authors, and artists: Could this weekend get any better?

The World on a Plate: 40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes, and the Stories Behind Them by Mina Holland

When we eat, we travel. 

And with that, Mina Holland lays out the thesis for The World on a Plate in the very first sentence. It's like beginning a piece of music on a crescendo. Unexpected and somewhat jarring, but certainly attention-grabbing. And every single chapter begins with these attention-grabbing statements that compel you to keep reading.

While not a cookbook in the strict sense of the word, The World on a Plate contains enough recipes to be considered a cookbook. But it is so much more than a cookbook. It's filled with history, culture, personal stories, and most importantly, decadent food writing.

I learned so much from reading The World on a Plate, most importantly, how to make a decent pomodoro sauce. Every time I make tomato sauce, it ends up tasting too acidic and raw, no matter how long I cook it or how much garlic and herbs I add to it. But Mina Holland teaches you the trick to the perfect tomato sauce with only three ingredients. She shares Marcella Hazan's recipe from the book The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking:

The Ultimate Tomato Sauce

Serves 4

2 yellow or white onions, halved
2 x 14 oz cans plum tomatoes
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
salt to taste

Lay onions cut-side down in a big saucepan. Pour tomatoes over the top, throw in the butter, cover and cook on low for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, blending in melted butter and gently crushing the whole tomatoes to a pulp. About 20 minutes into the cooking process you will begin to smell the flavors melding. 

I ended up using an immersion blender because I like a smooth tomato sauce, and I found this sauce to be a bit too chunky for my taste, so I think the next time I make this, I will true using canned crushed tomatoes instead of whole tomatoes. I also added oregano because I like my pasta sauce to have so Italian herbs in it. However you choose to doctor this up, just know that the richness from the butter and the sweetness from the onion is what makes the flavors come together.

Overall, The World on a Plate is a perfect read for someone like me who loves food and loves to travel. As Holland says in the introduction, food is a common language and it shapes our memory. It's hard to imagine talking about a culture without talking about its food. This is one book where I felt like I learned a lot and also enjoyed the beautiful writing. As evidenced by the myriad post-it flags, I will definitely be referring to this book for recipes, food information, and also a mentor text for really great writing.


The World on a Plate: 40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes, and the Stories Behind Them by Mina Holland
Publisher: Penguin
Published: May 26, 2015
Pages: 367
Genre: Nonfiction/Cookery
Audience: Adults
Disclosure: Review copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

How do you explain being there and being here at the same time? 

It's sort of like those moments when you're thinking about something big that burned itself a powerful memory. Maybe it's the time you scored the winning goal in the play-offs. Or maybe it's the time you got hit by a car on your bike. Good or bad, you're bound to relive it in your head now and then -- and sometimes after you've gone there, it's a shock to come back. You have to remind yourself that you're not there anymore. 

Now imagine being like that all the time -- never knowing for sure when you're going to be here, or there, or somewhere in between. The only thing you have for measuring what's real is your mind... so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar?

Caden Bosch is a young man with a bright future ahead of him. He's smart and athletic and has many friends. But Caden slowly begins exhibiting odd behavior. He thinks a classmate he doesn't even know wants to kill him. He tells his parents he joined the track team, when he really uses that time to walk miles and miles, lost in his disorienting thoughts. Despite his presumption that he knows more about science than his teacher, Caden fills in random bubbles on his scantron sheet instead of right answers. And the behavior only gets more extreme from there.

Challenger Deep is an incredibly powerful and personal tale of a young man's descent into the depths of schizophrenia. The book is a masterfully penned extended metaphor that would benefit a close reading of certain passages because important details are sure to be missed upon first reading. I was just in awe of how Shusterman could sustain a metaphor for a 300+ page book. That's a guy who knows his craft. Despite Shusterman being a prolific and sustaining presence in the world of young adult literature, and despite the fact that Challenger Deep is only the second Shusterman book I've ever read (I need to remedy that ASAP!), this book feels like a turning point in his career; a time when he's taken his writing to the next level. Much of that feeling comes from the deeply personal nature of the narrative, which was inspired by his own son Brendan's struggles with mental illness and is visually present throughout the book in the form of Brendan's artwork, "all drawn in the depths" as Shusterman notes in the author's note at the end. But not just the personal nature of the story is this a turning point for Shusterman, it's also one of the most painfully beautiful, literary YA novels I've ever read.


Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
Published: April 21, 2015
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 320
Genre: Realistic Fiction (?)
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Audiobook provided by publisher/ARC acquired at ALA Midwinter

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

It's Monday! What are you reading? 6-15-15

Originally hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers also host a kidlit version of It's Monday! What are You Reading?

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.


Last week I reviewed:

Positive by Paige Rawl


I finished reading:
 

Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Every child should have a Mr. Daniels in their life. I hope I can be that for my students. They should also get to have friends like Albert and Keisha. A beautiful, heartfelt story about overcoming learning differences and embracing the myriad ways someone can be intelligent. 
  
Dragons Beware! by  Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado
An enjoyable sequel to Giants Beware but I missed the sense and feel for character development that came in the first book that wasn't present in Dragons Beware. This volume spent more time on action sequences and less time on characterization and as someone who prefers character-driven stories, I definitely felt like there was something missing. Especially since the first book balanced the two so well. 



I finished reading with my ears:
 
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman 
An incredibly powerful and personal tale of a young man's descent into the depths of schizophrenia. The book is a masterfully woven extended metaphor that would benefit a close reading of certain passages because important details are sure to be missed upon first reading.


Picture books I read and enjoyed last week:


In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van, illustrated by April Chu
Beautiful, heartfelt circle story with illustrations that make the reader feel like both an observer and participant in the story.

Where are My Books? by Debbie Ridpath Ohi
 How can you not love a kid whose favorite book is Night-Night, Narwhal and carries around a stuffed narwhal like a teddy bear? 



I Will Take a Nap! By Mo Willems
One of my favorite thing about Mo Willems' books is that it has now become my mission to seek out characters from his other books in the one I am reading. Normally he finds a way to hide the Pigeon somewhere in his books (the Pigeon tends to hide in the end papers of Elephant and Piggie books, but you can find him in his other books too) but as you can see here, Knuffle Bunny makes an appearance in I Will Take a Nap! 

Pool by Jihyeon Lee
Despite the lack of words, this wonderfully imaginative tale has beautiful cadence and an ending that resonates.



Have You Seen My Monster? by Steve Light 
I didn't love this one as much as Have You Seen My Dragon. The shapes theme didn't feel as natural a fit for the story as counting did in Have You Seen My Dragon. Apart from the somewhat forced insertion of shapes into the story, I did love the illustrations, which are both bold (in line, not in color) and whimsical.  

Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery That Baffled All of France by  Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
Lots of fun new things to learn in this book, like how the word mesmerized came from Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who thought he had the power to heal patients with invisible forces. Also, that the placebo effect and blind studies can be attributed to Ben Franklin's testing of Dr. Mesmer's "powers" by blindfolding patients. History indeed does not have to be boring. 


Currently reading:

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson 


Currently reading with my ears:

Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood


Last week I also posted:
I'm bringin' foodie back...
Working on seeing the world... in my own home state
  

On my teaching blog:
I never stop thinking about literacy... even when vacation planning 
An English teacher poses a math problem

Working on seeing the world... in my own home state

One of the side-effects of having a traveler's heart, is often we miss what's right under our noses. In an effort to see the world, we ignore what's in our own backyard. That certainly is the case with me.

I live in Michigan, one of the most beautiful states in the country. We have the second longest coastline in the United States, behind only Alaska. Natural beauty abounds on our miles and miles of lakeshore. But being surrounded by so much water, you'd be shocked to discover I haven't seen much of it.

So my husband and I are working to correct that. Last weekend we traveled to one of the most beautiful areas of Michigan, Traverse City and the Leelenau Peninsula. Mario Batali, who has a summer home in the area, says it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

We explored Sleeping Bear Dunes and experienced the local food scene, but more importantly, we got in touch with the beauty of our state, something we plan to spend more time doing in the near future.

It was my husband's idea to climb a sand dune. #exhausting

Working on seeing the beauty of our own home state. Sleeping Bear Dunes is beautiful!