It seems to have taken a while to get this year’s PaperTigers Round the World Reading Challenge off the ground in our house – but we’re flying now! We’re following a similar pattern to last year: a readaloud and the boys each reading their own choices…
The book we all read together was Planting the Trees of Kenya, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago…
Older Brother, 10½, has read The Cat who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth and illustrated by Raoul Vitale (Aladdin Paperbacks, 2008). First published in 1930, this is a short, beautifully written fable which centres around the Buddhist legend that the Buddha blessed all animals except the cat because a certain cat “was not overcome with awe”. It was a Newberry winner and was discussed recently, as it happens, in a fascinating post on The Newberry Project blog, which is where my quotation above comes from. The story certainly worked its charm on Older Brother:
It’s about an artist in Japan and his housekeeper bought a cat instead of their food with their money. They were very poor so the artist was not happy with her at first but then after a while he was able to start selling paintings. Then a priest came to his house and ordered a picture of the Buddha’s tomb and all the animals he blessed. He blessed every animal except the cat so the artist did not draw the cat at first – but his cat always looked upset that there wasn’t a cat in the painting so the last thing he did was paint a cat in it… and I’m not going to tell you what happened but there was a miracle.
It is actually a beautiful story. You know, there was a shelf in the artist’s room and the cat sat and looked at a special statue of the Buddha belonging to the artist and they both prayed in front of it. I like art and I thought that I was actually standing there watching it happening (that happens to me quite a lot in books, by the way – sometimes I think I’m the main character, sometimes I’m up in a tree watching).
And Little Brother, just turned 8, read Grandpa’s Indian Summer, the second of Jamila Gavin’s three Grandpa Chatterji books (Egmont, 2006 – and you can read PaperTigers’ full review here):
I loved this book. Especially the bit where Sanjay eats all the cakes and then he gets scared because all the ants come and he jumps onto the metal chest with all the cakes in. Everyone’s looking for him. And he’s got two cakes in his hands and he eventually gets found. Then Grandpa Chatterji gets into trouble because he’d been eating cakes and Sanjay found him and wanted to have some too, so it’s all Grandpa Chatterji’s fault!
I really liked the last page. The last sentence was the best!
It made me want to go to India because it’s a wonderful, colourful place. And I also like peacocks, although there aren’t any in the book. I also want to play cricket – and that is in the book!
Do let us know how you are getting on with our Reading the World Challenge – or if you haven’t started yet, here’s what it’s all about - there’s still plenty of time…
Our selection last month once again had us travelling all over the world and this time included poetry, fiction and non-fiction.
First of all, in honor of Poetry Month in the US, we chose Linda Sue Park’s Tap Dancing on the Roof as our reading-together book. We’ve all had great fun dipping into it and taking it in turns to choose and read the poems to each other. There were some gem moments like Older Brother discovering the sijo about how annoying it is to be summoned out of bed to go and clean your teeth – minutes after being subjected to the same treatment himself! The more we explored the poems, the more I marvelled at Linda’s knack for getting the words just right – whether she’s describing a very ordinary, every day event or taking off on a flight of whimsy and metaphor. I’ve already blogged about Tap Dancing on the Roof so I won’t say any more here, but pass on to…
… Older Brother’s choice, which was Grandpa Chatterji by Jamila Gavin, illustrated by Peter Bailey. Here’s what he (aged 9 1/2) has to say:
I really enjoyed Grandpa Chatterji and I thought it was very funny sometimes, especially the part at the fair when Grandpa and Sanjay went on the rockets and they flew up into the air – when they came off they were green! Then in the evening Sanjay said, “Shall we have another go next time?” and Grandpa replied, “Maybe.”
I learned that in India some people pray standing on one foot and then when they pray they say, “Om” and the O is like the shape of the sun. People think of God as the sun because he is bright and the light of the world.
I would recommend reading it because I think people would enjoy it. Now I want to read the other two Grandpa Chatterji books.
In the meantime, Little Brother has enjoyed dipping into and absorbing the Australian Creatures of the Rainforest:Two artists explore Djabugay country by 
Warren Brim and Anna Eglitis:
I love books, especially encyclopaedia books about animals. This book has some animals in that I love, like echidnas and kookaburras and bandicoots. I learned that some ants are edible (the green ants) and I learned some words in Djabugay like gurrina, which means echidna, and badil, which is a zamia palm tree. Luckily at the end there is a guide to how you say their letters.
The book is by two artists – first there are lino cuts then there are original aboriginal pictures. It is very good.
So, as you can see, we are very much enjoying the PaperTigers Reading Challenge and I know my boys are finding the books they’ve chosen to be fun and enriching. Do let us know how you are getting on – only a couple more months to go!
Andrew Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink has written a piece for us which helps us truly understand the origins of Thanksgiving. Despite its solemn origins we hope you have a truly wonderful (and apple pie filled) holiday.
Every American knows the story of the First Thanksgiving: Seeking religious freedom, the Pilgrims established a colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Native Americans taught them how to plant corn and hunt. When the crops were harvested, the Indians joined the Pilgrims at the First Thanksgiving by jointly gobbling up turkeys, saucing cranberries, mashing corn, and squashing pumpkins to make pies. It was such a memorable event that Americans have honored this day ever since, or so goes the story.
No one would be more surprised at this modern day story than would the Pilgrims. (more…)
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Andrew Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, wants to make sure you know what you are getting into this Halloween. In the post below Smith helps us understand the history of the holiday which inspires both cute bunny and naughty nurse costumes.
On the evening of October 31, an estimated 41 million children aged 14 and under, dress in costumes, and go house-to-house yelling, “Trick or treat.” Halloween derived from a Celtic holiday called Samhain, which celebrated the end of summer. Christianity established November 1 as All Saints Day, and its “eve” was celebrated the night. Halloween traditions were brought to American by Irish immigrants in the mid to late nineteenth century. (more…)
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