picnic basket – Peaceful Reader

Raj the bookstore Tiger

by Kathleen T. Pelley
ill. by Paige Keiser
(2011)

Felicity holds up her beautiful new kitty and christens him “Raj” because of his golden coat and his chocolate stripes. Raj patrols Felicity’s bookstore with the ferocity of a real tiger, happy with his life. “Mornings began with a patrol of the storerooms, followed by sun basking in the front window.” and “after a face wash and a snooze, it was time to greet the customers with a leg rub or a hearty meow.” Oh the simple happiness.

And then Snowball comes to town…or at least to the bookstore and quickly dampens Raj’s tiger tendencies. Snowball now struts his stuff while Raj cowers under chairs. The reason for Raj’s sudden sadness…Snowball informs him that he’s “not a real tiger. In fact, you’re just a plain old marmalade kitty-cat with muddy brown splotches that some people might call stripes.” (insert snarky cat tone)

Oh, the indignation and with those words Raj is not the reigning cat of the bookstore.After days of kitty sadness, Felicity reads from William Blake’s The Tiger , perking Raj up just a bit. Then Sanjiv Patel comes for the bookstore’s storytime and shares a video of India. A Bengal tiger roars on screen, scaring Snowball and Raj, except he remembers Blake’s poem and “roars” back.

Words can help or hurt and someone can easily take your gusto away just as it happens to Raj. Reading this to students it could easily be applied to bullying and self esteem. Would you rather cower under a chair or rise up and roar!

Paige Keiser’s illustrations are charming and softly drawn. Kaiser has a wonderful blog…Fox in Socks.

Other thoughts:

Roxanne at Books That Heal Kids and
Successful Teaching review it as well.

The Little Piano Girl; The Story of Mary Lou Williams, Jazz Legend

Written by Ann Ingalls and Maryann Macdonald

Illustrated by Giselle Potter

2010

From the very first page you can tell this is going to be a fun book to read. Mary is riding on a train and is clapping and singing along to the sounds she hears. The author’s don’t just tell us that, they show us, “She sang the sound of its whistle, ‘Chug-ga, chug-ga, chug-ga…Toot! Toot!’ The train went faster, leaving home behind. ‘Clackety-clack! Clackety-clack! Clackety-clack! Mary clapped and sang softly so that Mama and her sister, Mamie, could sleep.” (1)

There seems to be a whole new genre of biographies in fiction format, making them perfect read-alouds. Authors Ingalls and Macdonald wrote this with such a good rhythm that the words practically POP off the page. Everything snaps together while we learn about Mary Lou Williams and how she learned to play sitting on her mother’s lap at the age of three. The illustrations by Giselle Potter (The Boy Who Loved Words) are bold and evoke an early era.

5/5 picnic basket rating

Buy The Little Piano Girl from an Indie Store

or The Boy Who Loved Words

The Reinvention of Edison Thomas

Jacqueline Houtman

2010

This is the story of Eddy; short for Edison because of a crazy old family tradition. He even has an uncle named Beckett Thomas. I immediately fell in love with Eddy. He’s charming throughout this difficult journey of self-discovery. When the story opens Eddy is competing at the Drayton Middle School annual Science Fair. He comes in third and is mad, disappointed that he won’t get the chance to compete in the regional science fair. It is easy to tell from his behavior at the fair that something is a little different about Eddy. He is affected by loud sounds and has a hard time processing events that occur around him. As Eddy’s story unfolds we never do get a full description of what causes his anxieties but we do learn what brings them out. He doesn’t like loud noises, he doesn’t understand common euphemisms, his social skills are low and his speech pattern is more robotic than pre-teenager. He is incredibly smart and loves to tinker around with used parts, trying out a variety of inventions. When the crossing guard is let go from the intersection closest to school Eddy becomes obsessed with the dangers this could cause to young students.

Many of his strong points make him a “geek” at school and because of his social skills he has a difficult time figuring out who his friends really are. Two of the bigger themes in this book are bullying and friendship. These themes play out as as Eddy tries to figure out why his old friend Mitch sends him such mixed signals. Eddy does make some real friends who can appreciate all of his good points while gently guiding him through the few little things that cause him trouble. Most of the characters were well-written by Houtman except the school principal and the therapist Eddy sees at school. They both annoyed me. I thought it was ridiculous that the principal didn’t realize he was being played and Tiffany, the therapist, didn’t have great follow-through with Eddy. I kept thinking this must be her first year as a therapist!

But I loved Eddy and was happy to see him begin to understand the true meaning of friendship and to cope with Mitch’s behavior.

Perfect Quote:

The last page of the pamplet appeared in his mind. He began to recite the speech he had prepared. “I may not be as popular as you-“

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Mitch as he found what he had been looking for in his locker and closed the door. “The square root of 1,225 is 35, but do not change the subject. I may not be as popular as you are, but I am a human being-” Eddy T. (152)

Mitch, who is a very believable bully, goes on to make fun of Eddy but what I love about this quote is it took me reading it twice to get it!! I love these little bits of subtle humor. This book would be a great read-aloud for its many themes including its wide use of common euphemisms. The author is a scientist and does such a good job of adding in random bits of essential information, which would make a cool student project-to collect those facts highlighted and study them! I recieved this from The Picnic Basket.
5/5 stars
elementary fiction

African Acrostics

African Acrostics; a Word in Edgeways

Poems by Avis Harley; photographs by Deborah Noyes

Candlewick Press, 2009

I knew the moment I took this book out of its bubble-infused envelope it was going to be amazing and it is. Just look at that attention-grabbing front cover! Students will flock to this book whether they are researching animals, poetry or just looking for a great book to enjoy.

The opening poem, in African Acrostics, reminds me of Shel Silverstein’s “invitation to young readers”:

“Welcome, all poets-both new

or well versed. Non-rhymers or

Rhymers! Come,

dive in headfirst!”

What follows is a well-written and unique poetry book with very real, close-up animal portraits. The beginning poem tells the reader just what an acrostic poem is, which is helpful. Many of us regard an acrostic poem as one made up of the letters of a name, but the form is much broader than that. Harley uses a variety of words to form her poems, which makes the reader work to relate the names to each animal. It is an inspiring method and serves to bring this form of poetry to life. For example: the ostrich poem anchor word is “fatherly advice” and the poem relays a father’s wisdom to his son. The father teaches his child to ignore humans (they only want your feathers) and to enjoy life for who he is! I now want to sit with my family and make acrostic poems on Christmas morning. Animal, poetry and nature lovers should unite over this beautifully done book. I can’t wait to share it with students and teachers in the new year.

Highly Recommended-elementary

5/5 peaceful stars

This book was a picnic basket gift.

***This post has been in my brain for several days but much has kept me from my computer. Then today I had a “crown lengthening” done and oh, my the pain that followed-and I have a fairly high threshold-was astounding! I had to take a painkiller (half) to get me through the last half of the day. All I can hope is the pain will diminish so I can enjoy Christmas.

Be Peaceful,

michelle

Picnic_Basket requests

It’s perfectly normal by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley celebrates 15 years in print with an updated version for the 21st Century! It takes me back to my Free to be you and me w/ Marlo Thomas! I love the pictures created by Michael Emberley and the text is very easy-to-read as well as fun. This is the perfect informational text/tool for parents to share with children when that time comes to have “that” important chat. This book could make this “chat” easy!! Shared together, parts of it would be appropriate for even young children. Other parts might be better left to when they are about to experience some of those wonderful changes. Here is a quote from the beginning:

“Sometime between the ages of eight or nine and fifteen or so, kids’ bodies
begin to change and grow into adult bodies. [insert cute cartoon picture
of bird and bee] Most kids wonder about and have lots of questions about what
will be happening to them as their bodies change and grow during this
time. It is perfectly normal for kids to be curious about and want to know
about their changing and growing bodies.” [p. 9, It’s perfectly normal]

Notice the repeated use of change and grow…and every page after demonstrates really succinctly exactly how bodies will…yes, you know it…change and grow. The bird and the bee help us understand little points along the way in a fun cartoon way while other illustrations show realistic people of all types.

Trust me, this is the bookyou will want in your hand before, during and after that “chat”! While it is not appropriate for an elementary library it is very appropriate for high school, middle school and on your shelf at home!

Robie H. Harris’ website is clickable here.

Michael Emberley’s site is here-this illustrator does an amazing job with body parts!!:)

2nd Picnic Basket holds multicultural treasure

Grandfather’s Story Cloth written by Linda Gerdner and Sarah Langford with illustrations by Stuart Longhridge is a very well-written tale of family bonds that hold us together no matter our cultural.

Grandfather lives with Chershong and his family in the United States. Chershong hurries home one day to share his 3rd grade art project with him only to find Grandfather out in the yard, gathering wood to build a fire not remembering the gas stove they use to cook. Chershong’s frustration grows and his mother shares Grandfather’s story cloth. Chershong is amazed to see the life his grandfather had in Laos all depicted in stitched pictures. He and Grandfather pour over the cloth as his grandfather tells stories from his past.

The story is very well-developed and easy for readers to understand that Grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and cannot remember where he is. Sometimes books like this tend to be so didactic they become textbook-like but this one is very a very enjoyable read. I can image classrooms creating story cloths of their own to connect with Grandfather. The illustrations, while dark, set a simple tone for the text and the end papers show traditional Hmong artwork. Highly Recommended.

A Picnic-Basket selection from Shen’s Books.

The Picnic Basket delivers

It is exciting when I click on the Picnic Basket site in time to be on what ever their latest offerings are! Recently I received Elizabeth Bluemle’s How do you wokka-wokka? with illustrations by Randy Cecil. I did one quick read-through right after I opened the package and I have to admit I was not that excited. It begins like this: “Some days you wake up and you just gotta wokka-“ and it continues through with adorable children asking how do you wokka-wokka. It was a bit too nonsensical for me but then I brought it home for story time and peaceful girl loved it!! She wokka-wokka’d all over her bed, her room and me with obvious delight!!! Maybe not great for bedtime but she loved it and kept wanting to go back to it when we moved on to her chapter book reading choice. With her as my guide I got it and it made me laugh. Looking through her joyful eyes at such fun, silly wordplay made the book come alive. I would highly recommend this choice for elementary students and I look forward to reading it to my 4 kindergarten classes just to see their own ideas of “how to wokka-wokka”!!! I’m sure my beautiful kinders will have lots of hip-shaking movements for wokka-wokka’ing!!!

***The author information at the back of the book says Elizabeth Bluemle owns The Flying Pig bookstore in Vermont, with lots of great information on their site. I dream of owning a little book shop myself!!!