Peaceful Reader

Boycott Blues

This wonderful picture book features a hound dog with a guitar for a narrator and tells the story of the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The text flows like a blues song and brings this important historical time to life because kids can’t help but be pulled in. Focusing on this part of Rosa Park’s story inspires us to really see how brave she was as well as all the people who carried on this life-changing boycott. As a peaceful teacher it offers me the opportunity to speak of non-violent protests on a grand scale.
The illustrations are very surreal, match the text so well and make you stop and really look. I love Brian Pinkney’s artwork-Max found two sticks is one of my favorite picture books.

I read Boycott Blues today to fifth grade students as part of our ongoing history quest; most of them were mesmerized. The few that weren’t just can’t seem to help themselves. They understood the story enough to ask good questions before, during and after we read the book. It’s very beneficial to have books just like this in order to understand important moments in history better without being dry and wordy.

Boycott Blues; How Rosa Parks inspired a nation (2008)

by Andrea Davis Pinkney;

illustrated by Brian Pinkney.

5/5 peaceful stars

Click here for The Reading Tub’s review.

Teaser Tuesday-Calpurnia Tate

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along!
Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

“Um. Do you…” I had made a hope-to-die promise I wouldn’t tell. And while I myself did not know of anyone who had died after breaking one, it wasn’t worth the risk.”

p. 138 The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Maribeth Boelts

Tomorrow night at our school we are hosting a brand new event; Literacy Night for parents and students. We will have four stations for everyone to listen to a “story time” come to life! We are featuring A Bad case of stripes by David Shannon, the entire Fancy Nancy series (Nancy will “be with us”), nursery rhymes and Kate DiCamillo, focusing on her chapter books. I will be doing a reading of The Magician’s Elephant (click here for my review). I am excited for tomorrow night because it is all about sharing books with our students, trying to get parents to do more reading at home-all good things-but I’m thrilled because we are hosting a real live local author!!

Maribeth Boelts will be at our school from 6-7, talking to everyone about writing and reading and she will sign books after. This should be a wonderful event for all involved. I will try hard not to blabber and gush to much when I meet her. I saw on her website she has a new blog-perhaps she will grant me an interview.
Click here for my review of Maribeth’s book, Before you were mine.

Smile

My baby (now 14) boy goes to the orthodontist tomorrow!!

Weekend Update

Early this morning I had a sorority meeting at my local B & N/Starbucks-for those of you paying any attention~I’m really not the sorority type! This is Alpha Upsilon Alpha, part of the International Reading Association, so it all makes perfect sense. One of my teaching mentors at my local alma mater recommended me for induction into the “society”-luckily I did not have to gulp goldfish or wear an odd robe and we mostly talk about reading, teaching and books.

Today we met for “Books and Brunch” and it was a blast! There was lots of quick and exciting conversations on a variety of topics. I was able to share a variety of books (Luxe was the first on my stack to share) and we did discuss (one of my other favorite topics) blogging!! There were only 7 of us there and truly, the meeting took way longer than I expected (10-1) but it was really enjoyable. This is my first year in the organization and we are trying to grow in ideas and membership. I will admit I was sad we spent so much time talking leaving me no browsing time-at all!!

One of the seven at the meeting was published author and a writing instructor at Wartburg, Barbara Harken and it was great to share ideas with her. I bought a copy of her book, had it signed and will make time soon to read it. Click here for her website.

Okay, the rest of the day I watched football and socialized with adult libations but the morning did start off very intellectually-stimulating!!
I should have been reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato….for Monday’s book club!!! Yikes!

And how was your Saturday spent??

End of the day

Sunsets are beautiful to watch. I watched one tonight with peaceful girl and we enjoyed the colors blending together. It was the in-between to a pleasantly busy day. The rest of the evening I ushered at a play at UNI-Marat/Sade...truly odd play with amazingly beautiful costumes. To end my evening I made brownies awhile I’m catching up on Tivo’d Monk. Still the sunset was my favorite part although the smell of brownies permeating the house is pretty wonderful.

Tomorrow I have a meeting at Barnes and Noble about reading!!
So what was the best part of your day?

Thursday Thoughts

I recently challenged myself to post every day and so far I’ve done it!! Yeah to me. Except today I can’t think of anything to write about so….I’m just going to write about my day!
I’m in the middle of watching The Dark Knight (Heath’s last movie, audible sigh from me). We had to stop it last night because it was getting too late for me. My teenage son feels I need to see the movie (his rite of passage for me) even though I didn’t want to see Heath in such a bizarre and scary role. I don’t like violence-surprise! and this movie has a ton of it yet I am going to grin and bare it for him an finish it tonight.

I am in the process of reading something very interesting, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel and Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I have to finish by Monday evening for my book club meeting. I dislike going and feeling unprepared. When I started the book I kinda thought I wasn’t going to like it because it’s written in letter writing format between several characters. Now that I’m more than a few pages into I’ve developed a relationship with the characters, especially Juliet. She’s written with such a great sense of humor!

I made a delicious potato soup for dinner specifically for the teenager; he had spacers added to his teeth preparing for braces on Monday, the 16th. His mouth is sore and his menu consists of yogurt w/ honey, chocolate pudding, chocolate ice cream and ramen noodles. I thought the soup would change it up a bit but only my husband and I liked it. I guess “delicious” depends on who you talk to…

We just came back from the high school play at my son’s school and it was a very funny rendition of Arsenic and Old Lace. I have to rent the movie and see Cary Grant as Mortimer! I don’t remember it being that funny but I was pretty young when I saw it!!

Oh, and my big news of the day was that I accomplished my observation today. My principal came and watched my lesson with a small group of Special Needs students. I read Big Red Barn and Goodnight Moon both by Margaret Wise Brown-we were looking for rhyming words. MWB was so amazing for her time. the students loved both books and are ready to explore some of her other books next week. We put together rhyming cards and played a rhyming game on Scholastic’s website. It was a fun-filled 30 minutes of rhyming words and the observation went very well!! One done, One still to go!

Okay, so a great, great day and I’m really looking forward to Saturday because I have a Saturday morning meeting at B & N, for coffee and book talks! I hope your day went just as well!

Journey of Dreams/Picnic_Basket Request

Journey of Dreams by Marge Pellegrino is set in Guatemala during the 1980’s political upheaval . It is the story of Tomasa and her family’s decision to leave their tiny village and head north, walking toward first the border of Mexico and then to the U.S. border. Tomasa’s mother leaves with the oldest son, Carlos because young boys have been captured in the village and forced to serve as soldiers. It becomes obvious within a short time that it is time for the rest of the family to go as soldiers take over their village during a festival.

Their entire journey is filled with risk and mishaps, especially trying to cross the river between Guatemala and Mexico. Once in Mexico, Tomasa, her brother Manuel and the baby Maria live temporarily in a park while the father goes off to work everyday. Eventually they are lead to a “safe convent” where they can stay in one room. A visitor from the U.S. brings news of Mother and Carlos and within a few monthes the family is together again in Phoenix. While they endure many hardships there is hope along the way. Because the author has such a close connection to Central American refuges I felt a real sense of loss for Tomasa’s character. She loved her life, as “poor” as they were, they were rich in culture, the beauty of the land and their own family strength. While still in their village Tomasa describes her home:

“Through the open door, the late afternoon sun deepens the blue of the sky. At this moment of the day, the green of the field and pine trees beyond glow. The blue and green next to each other look magical. The green crops grow from the gifts of the sky and earth. And we, the people of the corn, grew from those crops. Maybe that is why I often weave blue and green next to each other.” p. 23

I also greatly appreciated the father’s story-telling abilities and that they had these rituals every night when together. If you enjoy reading about other cultures or refuge experiences this book is well-worth it. It is a hope-filled and satisfying journey.

Marge Pellegrino’s blog
Click here for a map of Guatemala-it would have been a very long journey from Guatemala City!
Politics and Prose provides a synopsis here.

Teaser Tuesday

TEASER TUESDAYS, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Should Be Reading asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book
                                                       recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
                                                       Please avoid spoilers!

My teasers:

“Them German soldiers was as hungry as we was-with bloated bellies and no body warmth from food.

Well, I was tired to death of boiled potatoes and turnips, and I would have soon turned up my toes and died, when the Vega came into our port.”

p. 146 The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Micah is one of the strongest characters I’ve ever met in a book. In Liar she explains her life in before and after segments; before Zach died and after Zach died. Zach is the boyfriend killed in an extreme and mysterious manner; the catalyst to help us meet Micah. It seems easier as a grieving person to remember the before as amazing and the after as without reason. There is a second major part to this brutal tale but I’m not going to tell it here because its just worth it to read it and find out the mystery yourself. Zach’s death is enough of a crisis to deal with for most. Add that to the fact Micah lies, lies, lies-she doesn’t know how to not lie but it’s a defense mechanism; a way to keep alive and sane. She keeps thinking she wants to stop lying as if it is something she has chosen but she really has no choice but to continue to spin lies!! The love story between Zach and Micah is deep and I loved reading their together moments:

“He brushed his lips gently along my cheek. I didn’t move. The shock of it froze me. Why had he done that? He’d never looked at me that way. He’d never really looked at me any kind of way.
His lips were dry and warm. No other part of us touched. Blood moved faster through my veins and capillaries. Without willing them to, my lips parted slightly. An “oh” escaped from me.” p 52

This is just a really incredible story of a young woman dealing with so much and you feel for her no matter what-no matter what!! Here is Justine Larbalestier’s site to learn more. The controversy over the cover was well worth it and the second one works for my mental images. The second girl is the character that would have pretended to be a boy!
Recommended for high school- 5/5 peaceful stars.
Other reviews of Liar:

The Ya Ya’s
Lauren’s crammed bookshelf
Kidliterate
The Book Smuggler’s