An Orange for Frankie - Patricia Polacco

Illustrated by the author

2004 Philomel

HC $16.99

40 pages

Goodreads rating: 4027 (332 ratings)

My rating: 5

Endpapers: Front:  an aerial view of the house, outhouses, and landscape during a winter storm/ Back: the same storm, looking at the house from the front, in the evening, and its close surroundings

Title Page:  Double-page spread - a train stopped in the middle of a snowstorm on the middle of nowhere

Illustrations:  trademark Patricia Polacco

1^st page:  "Every time I peel an orange and inhale the scent of it and feel the mist that sprays from its skin, I think of a very special Christmas and a flaxen-haired boy who lived many years before I was even born."

My comments:  What a moving Christmas story!  I was actually a little teary at the end.  Based on a true story, as many of Ms. Polacco's are, this one was told by her grandmother and based on her grandmother's youngest brother.  It is a story from a hundred years ago, still being kept alive and honored by her entire family.  It is full of pictures of America's past. A large, hard-working family enjoys a simpler Christmas than we're used to, one steeped in traditions and hard work.  A completely lovely "short story," illuminated by Patricia Polacco's incredible art.  Loved it.

Goodreads:  The Stowell family is abuzz with holiday excitement, and Frankie, the youngest boy, is the most excited of all. But there's a cloud over the joyous season: Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Pa hasn't returned yet from his trip to Lansing. He promised to bring back the oranges for the mantelpiece. Every year there are nine of them nestled among the evergreens, one for each of the children. But this year, heavy snows might mean no oranges . . . and, worse, no Pa!

This is a holiday story close to Patricia Polacco's heart. Frankie was her grandmother's youngest brother, and every year she and her family remember this tale of a little boy who learned--and taught--an important lesson about giving, one Christmas long ago.

One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordianry Advntures of Charles Darwin - Kathryn Lasky

Illustrated by Matthew Trueman
Candlewick, 2009
$17.99
40 pages
for: grades 3+
Rating: 5
Endpapers: green with lighter green ferny leaves twining around

Dedication from KL: "In celebration of children, whose boundless curiousity gives thme a right to know their history on Earth." Don't ya love it?

I've been trying to get my hands on this book for over a year. Thank you, Tucson Library for coming through. It only took a year!

This is a super biography of Charles Darwin - making him a real person. You can feel his curiosity, see his peering and examining and thinking. You can totally visualize the rain forests of South American...Patagonia...the Galapagos. Following his five-year journey on a map would be great - wish one were included in the book.

Kathryn Lasky discusses the controversy - and such a major controversy it is - between creationism and evolution. Theology vs. science? Hmmm.....

She tells how Darwin's father despaired over his son's lack of ambition with his studies, over his inability to find a career he deemed suitable. Even Charles' loving wife, Emma - who provided ten (TEN!) children for him - was not comfortable with his theories of evolution.

This is a wonderful, fascinating biography for 4th - 5th - 6th graders. Lots to think about, and lots to learn. A must-have for a biography unit.

Most of the illustrations are just great. A couple, of mountains and snow and the sea, are a little too barren for me - but I guess they're trying to depict the setting, huh? The illustrations in What Darwin Saw by Rosalyn Schanzer would go so beautifully with this - I'd use the two books together. Compare and contrast. Higher level thinking skills. Mmm hmm.

The Junkyard Wonders - Patricia Polacco

Philomel Books, 2010
$17.99
48 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers Aqua-azure

Patricia Polacco does it again - and of all her books - I do love 'em all - this is at the very top of my list. Why? It's about a very special teacher, which I think (as a teacher) is very cool. It's about a group of kids who are who they are -- they've had no choice in the matter. Whether the've got diabetes, tourettes, visual and/or physical handicaps, learning difficulties, they are all put into the same class. And they bond. They shine. They care about each other. And they're smart and special.

On the first day of school, Mrs. Peterson shares with them the following definition of GENIUS:

"Genius is neither learned nor acquired.
It is knowing without experience.
It is risking without fear of failure.
It is perception without touch.
It is understanding without research.
It is certainty without proof.
It is ability without practice.
It is invention without limitations
It is imagination without contstraints.
It is ... extraordinary intelligence!"

This story is about how five kids - our author; Patricia Polacco, Thom, Gibbie, Jody, and Ravanna, prove the genius definition. It applies to all of them.

At the end - as an afterward - PP tells what became of her "tribe."

Simply wonderful storytelling.

The Odious Ogre - Norton Juster

Illustrated by Jules Feiffer
Michael DiCapua Bks/Scholastic, 2010
$17.95
32 pages
Rating: 4
for older kids
Endpapers: Easter yellow

Lots and lots.....and lots......of high-level , fancy, wonderful words. There once was a horrendous ogre. "He was, it was widely believed, extraordinarily large, exceedingly ugly, unusually angry, constantly hungry, and absolutely merciless." He terrified one and all - until he met his match in a friendly, happy, positive-thinking young lady.

Talk with kids about the ending: "She also understood that the terrible things that can happen when you come face to face with an Ogre can sometimes happen to the Ogre and not to you."

I'm not usually a Jules Feiffer fan - but these watercolor illustrations, framed with a thicker line of paint, work perfectly.

Ling Cho and His Three Friends - V. J. Pacilio

Illustrated by Scott Cook
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000
Looks like it's out-of-print
Library: picture book section
32 pages
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: 4

This is a longish story told in couplets. The couplets are wonderfully rhythmic, use great words (fertile, entrusted, summon, reap, grueling, resolution, poverty, annual, depart, meager, transport, envision, destined, ...) and is full of alliteration. It's a tale of friendship and honesty. The illustrations are great at close examination, but would look blurry and washed out if read aloud and a listener was even a short distance away.

This would make a great reader's theater or choral reading for an older class.

Note: I took it from the library to read because i thought it might apply to my unit on China. And although the illustrations are about Chinese people, it could apply to any group of farmers that celebrate the harvest.

"In the wondrous land of China, many years ago,
There lived a wise and kindly man, a farmer names Ling Cho.
Together with his wife and sons, in fertile fields he'd toil;
Their lives entrusted to the land, true servants of the soil."

The Boy on Fairfield Street - Kathleen Krull

How Ted Geisel Grew Up to Become Dr. Seuss
illustrated by Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher
Dragonfly Books, 2004
48 pages
paper $7.99 purchased
Endpapers: pale green with various Seuss drawings

1- This is a well-written, somewhat lengthy-for-a-picture-book biography, more like a short story.
2 - This is really interesting.
3 - This is very informative.
4 - The illustrations are expressive, with one bordered painting on each double-page spread.
5 - Included at the bottom of each page of text is an actual Dr. Seuss drawing.
6 - At the end of the book are four more full pages of additional biographical information and a bibliography of his books.

This is a topnotch book. Ted Geisel was a "goof off" who was told that he would never be an artist. Huh!

This will showcase a weeklong unit in my class, including some of his famous books. I bet the kids'll love it.

The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig - Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Illustrated by Linda S. Wingerter
Houghton Mifflin, 2003
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: light blue

Set in Waldo County, Maine, this is the story of a girl named Isabel who lives with her grandparents. Her grandfather is a water man. He was a sailor until he married and settled down and is a gifted dowser. His divining rod is a Y-shaped stick. He finds more than water, he finds lost animals, too.

When he feels he has lost his touch, and when the family's pet pig goes missing, Isabel discovers that she, too, has the water gift.

Illustrations are framed with a thin black line and a white border. They are really lovely and depict rural Maine and the seacoast perfectly.

Bot the author and illustrator grew up in Maine. They've given this book the right feel.

Elsina's Clouds - Jeanette Winter

Frances Foster Bks, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004
O-O-P, found in the library
32 pages
Endpapers: Four squares coming out of each other, filled with colorful African designs

This book is about the "Basotho women of southern Africa." My research shows that Basotho is a part of South Africa, perhaps in and around the area of modern-day Lesotho. I'll have to look into this a little more.

Jeanette Winter shares the custom of the Basotho women painting their houses as messages to their ancestors to bring the rain. A nameless young girl paints the addition to her family abode that will house her soon-to-be-arriving baby sibling. She goes to bed at night and dreams about the rain coming to moisten her mother's crops.

This is the third time I've read that it's the WOMEN who plan, plant, care for, and sow the crops in many parts of Africa.

As always, I love Jeanette Winter's bordered, colorful, simple-yet-detailed illustrations. The story in this book, however, was a little too simple. I wanted more....more information....more about the symbolism of the painting, more about the paints themselves. Oh well. Can't have it all every time.

This would make a good companion book to Gugu's House by Catherine Stock, which is also about an African woman who paintis her house with decorations and waits until the rain washes it away so she can begin again.

The Great Smelly, Slobbery, Small-Tooth Dog - Margaret Read Macdonald

Illustrated by Julie Paschkis
August House, 2007
$16.95
32 thick, glossy pages
for: Young kids, fairy tale comparison studies
Endpapers: 12 boxes on each page (24 total). The separations are rope. Each box contains a plant and its "meaning". For example: Hawthorne/hope, Mustard Seed/indifference, Hazel/reconciliation, Sweet Pea/departure. These illustrations are sprinkled around on the pages of the book, so after reading, you could have a see how each accompanies that part of the story. Hmm. Clever idea.

A rich man is saved by a great smelly, slobbery, small-tooth dog and promises to give the dog one of his treasures. It is the rich man's daughter the dog desires, and she dutifully accompanies him off to his home -- which ends up being a spectacular castle. The daughter and the dog become close friends. One day he finds her crying and discovers that she misses her father. Upon the daughter's reconciliation with her father, the dog discovers that she had "the look of love in her eyes" for him, and he tore off his wooly coat and became a handsome prince. Well, I've got to say that I didn't consider him particularly handsome....

..... but I do love the illustrations. They have such a folksly, Scandinavian/Russian look to them. Julie Pachkis is such a wonderful artist. Each illustration is encased with the same rope that makes the squares on the endpaper. What is left in the white space are the words and branches of plants from the endpapers.

The moral of the story: Don't ever forget to be kind. Kindness. Is. Huge. And in the poor princess's case, it changed her life when she didnt goof up.

Beatrice's Goat - Page McBrier

Illutrated by Lori Lohstoeter
An Anne Schwartz Book, Atheneum, 2001
32 pages
5 stars
Endpapers: Cream, a rooster in the middle of the left side and a slateboard and chalk laying on a banana leaf on the right

Written in coordination with Heifer Project, we hear the true story of Beatrice and her family in Uganda, Africa, and how their lives become incredibly better because of the gift of a Heifer Project goat. One single, pregnant goat. The goat has two kids. The kids can be raised and sold and the mother, named Mugisa, will continue to produce milk, which they can sell.

Beatrice has always longed to go to school, but cannot afford the uniform or the books. However, the proceeds from the milk sales grow and school becomes a reality. So does a new house with a tin roof which won't leak. Wow.

Lori Lohstoeter's illustrations give a feel for the Ugandan countryside, for Beatrice, and for Mugisa. This is a very special book. I plan to read it to my student government kids (not baby goats....children) at our next meeting. They've learned much about Heifer Project during our last two Passport to Peace festivals. And I shall certainly read it to my fourth graders. Now, let's see....the current Heifer Project International Catalog says a goat can be purchased for $120. That's really so little to help create a much better life for an African family....

http://www.heifer.org/ Check it out.

I've also read about a book called Give a Goat by Jan West Schrock that's about a class of kids that reads Beatrice's Goat and what they do because of it. The library doesn't have it...but I plan to track it down!

But Who Will Bell the Cats? Cynthia von Buhler

Houghton Mifflin, 2009
$16.00
32 pages
My rating: 4
Endpapers: Rosy red

I enjoy adaptations of Aesop's Tales - more so since I created some cool Aesop's Fable lesson plans for fifth graders in the last few years. This version of "Belling the Cat" will be a fun addition to an Aesop collection - for two reasons. The story is clever. It's about a princess with eight pampered cats and the mouse and bat who live in the castle basement. And secondly, the artwork is cleverly different, to say the least -- von Buhler has created the rooms as tiny sets for her story. She painted, then cut out the characters beforeplacing them in the rooms and photographing it all. Font is white, pages are borrdered; really different and special on many counts!

Little Blue Truck Leads the Way - Alice Schertle

Illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Harcourt Children's, 2009
$16.00
40 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: rust

This book really works for me. Visually, I love it. Great size - perhaps 10 x 8. Color tones that really appeal, not too bright, not too washed out. Illustrations completely cover the page - the text is incorporated really nicely into the illustrations. The vehicles themselves have great personality. There are different views of the city from above, from WAY above, from the road, eye-to-eye. The city is depicted the way that I think of it - this could be Boston or New York...

The story is of a little blue pickup; small, old, and out-of-place in the hustle and bustle of the big city. When the pushy limousine that's driving the mayor breaks down, the little blue pickup gives him a lift. And then he teaches the push and shove, me-first crowd to chill out, be thoughtful, and enjoy life a little. At least this is my take. I liked it a great deal, on many levels.

It looks like there's another book about Blue that's already come out - Little Blue Truck. Gonna have to find it!

The Circus Ship - Chris VanDusen

Candlewick, 2009
$16.99
40 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: 2-color yellow, wide vertical stripes - very subtle.

This is the picture book my grandkids are getting for Christmas. With clever rhyming, snazzzy words, bright, fun illustrations, and rhythm shouting from every page, any kid would enjoy this. That it takes place on an island off the coast of Maine (home sweet home for much of my family) is an extra special touch. This island is SO Frenchboro or Islesford or Great Cranberry - and has its roots in a true tale from 1836!

A circus ship, loaded with animals, hits a ledge while heading south to Boston. Fifteen animals escape and swim to a nearby island. A sparsely, yet cozily inhabited, island. When the exceedingly mean circus owner comes to reclaim the animals, they are nowhere to be found. At least, not by him - but a bit of pouring over the two-page sperack and careful young eyes will find them all!

Wonderful in every way.

Check out Chris VanDusen's website.

January's Sparrow - Patricia Polacco

Philomel Books, 2009
$22.99
96 good-sized pages
For: grades 3/4+
Rating: 5
Endpapers: Pale, shimmery, sage green

When I was in college, the main owrk for passing my social studies methods course was creating a curriculum about the Underground Railroad. I read and researched every children's book I could possibly find. That was .... a number of years ago ... but I have added occasionally to that curriculum. This book has to one of the best of any of them.

This story begins and ends in the voice of January, a black runaway slave that was captured, tortured, and put to death for his actions. Two days later, his adopted family, the Crosswhites, decided to run when they discovered their sons were to be sold away from them. The youngest was a girl named Sadie, and most of the story is told from her point-of-view. It's not an easy story. It tells of violence and hatred and ridiculous laws. It also tells of compassion and caring that travels well beyond the usual bonds of friendship.

The Crosswhite family makes it safely to Marshall, Michigan, which is free. However, they are still runaway slaves and can be arrested and returned to their owners if they are caught. Marshall is a friendly town of blacks and whites living together, so they decide to stay and rest for awhile. Seasons come and go until they'v been there for four years, and a new baby girl has been born to the family. But then....yup....they are found by their viscious owner.

What brave people. Not just the family, but the people of the town. Apparently the town is only a dozen miles away from where Patricia Polacco herself lives, and she'd always heard stories about this family. One of the Marshall, Michigan middle school teachers did most of the research for the book. A destination for one of my upcoming summer trips? I've only spent a short amount of time in Michigan....

Okay, I'll admit to springing a few tears at the end of this long read. It's more than a picture book. I can't get through Polacco's fabulous Pink and Say without crying, and this is a wonderful addition to her collection.