Migrant – Maxine Trottier

Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

2011, Groundwood Books

32 pages

Rating:  4

Endpapers:  Flying Goose quilt, red/pink background

Title Page:  White with flying goose triangles flying…

Illustrations:  simple, watercolors or watercolor pencils?

Setting:  Contemporary America, places where migrant farm workers live and shop.

1^st sentence/s:  “There are times when Anna feels like a bird.  It is the birds, after all, that fly north in the spring and south every fall, chasing the sun, following the warmth.”

OSS:  Anna and her large German-speaking Mennonite family live in Mexico, but travel north each year when it is time to labor on the farms.

The story uses a lot of “snazzy” figurative language…perhaps even a tiny, tiny bit too much.  Filled with metaphor, similes, and lovely descriptions, the story definitely does appeal to the senses and the imagination.

I will definitely use this book in my classroom when teaching figurative language, especially similes and metaphors.

“At night Anna is a kitten sharing a bed with her sisters, all of them under one blanket when the nights are cool.  A kitten is a good thing to be, a safe thing, curled there with your sisters by your side.”

When you look at the illustrations, you know that the characters are not Hispanic.  After the halfway point, you see the family lined up to go into a store, and you see the kerchiefs covering the female heads, the overalls, simple shirts, and hats covering the males heads. Then she mentions them speaking German, “….the good plain German rolling off their tongues as sweetly as sugar.”  But it’s not until the two-page afterward that you learn the particulars about the Mennonite workers that moved to Mexico in the 1920’s to become migrant workers, keeping their Canadian citizenship. 

Really interesting!  A great book to share when teaching about Mexico.  This was all totally new to me!

About the author:  a writer from Newfoundland, she wrote this story after meeting Mennonites from Mexico when she was visiting in Ontario.

Passing the Music Down - Sarah Sullivan

Illustrated by Barry Root
Candlewick Press, 2010
HC $16.99
32 pgs.
Rating:  4
Endpapers:  Light blue
Title page:  Small oval watercolor of a bridge over a river between two mountain/hills

Based on the true story of the friendship of an elderly fiddle player and a young boy who learns to carry on the tradition of mountain folk music.  The original story takes place in West Virginia, this story takes place in Tennessee.

Come August, with corn strutting high in the fields
and tomatoes plumping out on the vine,
folks get to talking about tuning up and
heading over twisty mountain roads
to hear fiddle players and banjo pickers
make music under the stars.

They travel through the heartland,
past cold factories and drifty towns
to the old, old mountains
slumbering east of Tennessee.

Full page illustrations are just gorgeous.

Full of alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification, and snazzy, snazzy verbs, the eloquent text is a joy, and the story is quite interesting.  I plan to look up some of the tunes mentioned, see if I can purchase or download them to share with my students when I share this beautiful book.  "Peg 'n' Awl," "Bonaparte's Retreat," "Cold Frosty Morning," "Liza Jane," "Yew Piney Mountain."

Author's Note, Lengthy bibliography, and a note on the tunes are at the end of the book.

Water Hole Waiting - Jane Kurtz & Christopher Kurtz

Illustrated by Lee Christiansen
Greenwillow Books, 2002
$15.95 then, $17.99 now
32 pages
For: pre K - 4th grade
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Yellow

Lots and lots and even more lots to say about his book. The story, the writing, the illustrations, are all wonderful. There is only one teeny-tiny weakness for me, and I bet if I read it a fourth and fifth time that won't appear a weakness anymore. More on that in a minute.

The story: Monkeys (apparently they are vervet monkeys) wait at a water hole as many animals who live with them in the East African savannah approach for their own drinks. We see hippos, zebras, a crocodile, a lion, elephants, and even a giraffe take their turns soothing their thirst.

Figurative language: Wow. Lots. And lots. And lots more:
Personification:
"morning slinks onto the savannah"
"the silence pokes monkey's ear"
"the sun cartwheels slowly up the sky"
"sun climbs the sky like an acrobat" (throw in a simile!)
"sun bristles, bright and round"
"sun somersaults down the sky"
"evening slinks across the savannah"
"evening sighs"

Alliteration here and there:
"heat sizzles the savannah, heavy on the monkey fur."

Metaphor:
talking about a crocodile: "the log sinks back and waits"

Snazzy words, including great verbs:
slinks, plops, grunts, foraging, nibble, prance, parched, splay...

The illustrations: Lovely. Just lovely. We are taken to the savannah. There's no white at all, just lovely scenery completely covering the page. Love it.

My only negative view: the rhyming here and there is a bit to haphazard for me. Almost like it's thrown in, and in places forced into rhyming when it's not really a rhyme. Oh well. The rest of the book certainly makes up for it. Give me more of these Kurtz siblings and Mr. Christiansen's artwork!