Bring me some apples and I'll make you a pie: A story about Edna Lewis, by Robbin Gourley
As soon as warm weather comes to Edna's family's farm, good things are ready to be harvested, one after the other. First, it's wild strawberries, which Edna and her sister gather (and eat - "One for the basket and one to taste"), excitedly anticipating the strawberry shortcake they'll prepare. Next, they gather the first wild greens of spring with Auntie, as Edna recites:
But I have never tasted meat,
nor cabbage, corn or beans,
nor milk or tea that's half as sweet
as that first mess of greens.
As Spring turns to Summer, Edna helps gather food that the family has grown (beans, melons, corn) and food that has grown wild (sassafras, honey), all the way to the apples and nuts of autumn. Each time, she and her family sample the goods as they're picking, but also talk about all the pickles, jelly, pies, and bread they'll make, and often quote some few lines of a song or rhyme.
This book is so seamless and languid and pleasant, even though everyone's doing a whole lot of work. The folk rhymes, the foods, and the seasons are woven together in a sunny, smooth, shining braid. And what a pleasure it is to read about the real Edna Lewis, who grew up to be a famous chef, in the Author's Note. We even get a recipe for that shortcake.
The Moon over Star by Dianna Hutts Aston, pictures by Jerry Pinkney
Give me a second. I am a mess. Let me get a Kleenex.
Wow.
I was four years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon (while their shorter, funnier counterpart, Michael Collins, circled the block in the car), and I still feel privileged to have witnessed that moment. Hell, my husband and I named a cat Buzz Aldrin, we're still so impressed with this human feat. So I guess I should have expected that this book would give me goosebumps.
But my goodness - this is one damn fine book. I summarized it to a jury of my (younger) peers later in the evening, and just my synopsis made them all choke up.
Dianna Hutts Aston gives us that day in 1969 as experienced by an eight-year-old girl (who may or may not be Mae Jemison) on her grandfather's farm in a town named Star. Mae and her cousins pray for the astronauts in church in the morning and build a rocket ship out of scraps from the barn in the afternoon. Mae is the oldest, so she gets to pretend to be Armstrong as they count down to liftoff together. Later, they watch Cronkite on TV and hear those immortal phrases, "The Eagle has landed," and even later, "One small step for man..."
In between times, Mae thinks about the astronauts' children and whether they are proud but also scared, and about President Kennedy, who did not live to see this dream attained, and about her own grandfather, who does not approve of the space program. "Why spend all that money to go to the moon when there's so many folks in need right here on Earth?"
When I googled this title, I learned that President Obama read this book aloud to a group of second graders at a charter school in D.C. two weeks into his presidency. Well. If I wasn't impressed by this man before (and I was), I am now. If I tried to read this thing aloud, I do not think I could manage it. Which, given the class of second graders I know best, would still be a fine thing, because they would want to know why, and I would have the opportunity to tell them.
Or I might just show them the back cover of this book, with Jerry Pinkney's freakin' masterpiece of a full moon, and then open to his two-page spread of the Apollo 11 rocket clearing the launch pad. When I see that image, I always think of my dad explaining to me, "The U.S. space program was miserable in the beginning. People used to say, 'Our rockets always blow up.'" (Tom Wolfe quoted the exact same line in The Right Stuff.)
But hundreds, thousands of people believed that we could do it, and in the end, that rocket didn't blow up, and those astronauts had the courage to strap themselves into it, and we went to the damn moon. And if all that can happen, and if Jerry Pinkney can paint the Moon just as beautifully if not more beautifully than he has always painted people and trees and birds... well, then, an eight-year-old black girl in the town of Star can do anything with her life, and that's the message of this book, and now I'm snifflin' again.
Grace for President written by Kelly DiPucchio, pictures by LeUyen Pham
A picture book that explains the electoral college? Gimme!
Like Katie in Madam President
, Grace considers her gender (and race, by the way) no barrier when it comes to her desire to hold the highest position in the land.
In Grace for President, we are witness to her first campaign - for president of 5th grade. Each 5th grader represents a U.S. state, and a corresponding number of electoral votes, so while Grace holds rallies and researches the needs of her constituency, her wily opponent, Thomas, tallies the demographics of the electoral college and discovers that boys hold a slim majority of the electoral votes. If everyone votes true to their party, he will win!
How do you think that's going to work out for old Thomas?
Ok, I've had it. Today I helped a teacher who was looking for picture books about dinosaurs and about weather. I found her plenty of nice books: Trouble at the Dinosaur Cafe
, When Dinosaurs Came with Everything
, Dino Pets
... Ohio Thunder
, Rain Play
, Yellow Umbrella
, Heat Wave
...
She was happy with these books, but especially with Rain Play. She took one look at the cover and said, "I can tell I like this one already." She told me that her class is primarily African American. It's not exactly a huge news flash that kids gravitate toward books that feature characters that look like them, so she knew this one would capture her kids' interest right away. But as we flipped through the dinosaur books, she asked, "Don't you have any dinosaur books with black children in them?"
And I wracked my brain. There's the Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs
series, but that's for older kids. Has Jerdine Nolen written a dinosaur book? Aw, heck. I couldn't come up with anything.
Later, I read and reviewed The Secret Olivia Told Me
. The kids in that book are primarily African American. I'm going to need to remember this book when I'm purchasing books for the school library this fall. So when I was applying relevant labels (problem solving, picture book, etc.) to the review, I hunted through my list of categories. What euphemism am I using these days: Multicultural? Diverse cultures? African American interest? "Urban," god help us?
And I decided, to hell with it. When parents and teachers come in looking for books that feature black kids, they ask for books about black kids. This is Baltimore. So I scrapped the euphemistic language and my new category over there to the right is "black kids". I chose "black" over "African American" because I have a ton of kids whose parents came here from Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon.
I've retained my "diverse cultures" label. I use it for books about non-Western and aboriginal cultures. I've also retained the "diversity" label. Click that category and you'll find books featuring people with physical, mental, or social differences.
It bugs the crap out of me that American kids of color are STILL underrepresented in children's fiction. I implore anyone writing a children's book: take a look at your cast of characters and see if there's any reason why they all have to be white. And I'm not talking some sassy sidekick, either. See Tip in The True Meaning of Smekday
or the little girl in Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm
if you are confused.
Done.
(nb: I am not picking on the authors whose work I reference above. Lynn Plourde is especially ecumenical in presenting all kinds of kids.)
The Secret Olivia Told Me by N. Joy, illustrations by Nancy Devard
Here's another book that must have crept right past me. A simple story about gossip and trust, it is brilliantly illustrated in black and white silhouettes, with a transparent red balloon representing the secret.
An excellent book to have on hand when some hurtful rumor runs rampant through 2nd grade. And I will be looking for more from Nancy Devard - those silhouettes are full of personality and life. Using this old, old technique, she has captured gesture and attitude to give us the very kids I see in the children's section every day.
i wept too! wonderful book.
I agree- lovely book! I've read the other landing-on-the-moon picture books this year- Moonshot and One Giant Leap- and Moon Over Star was the one that made me cry.