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| Fast |
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| Collect |
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| Sad |
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| Lost |
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| Rock |
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| Broken |
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| Jump |
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| Transport |
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| Flight |
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| Squeeze |
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| Big |
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By: Patrick Girouard,
on 10/25/2016
Blog: drawboy's cigar box (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: transport, black and white, jump, Wet, fast, big, flight, escape, squeeze, afraid, collect, Patrick Girouard, nervous, Inktober2016, tree, rock, lost, battle, sad, broken, Add a tag
By: Patrick Girouard,
on 10/23/2016
Blog: drawboy's cigar box (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: tree, rock, lost, battle, sad, broken, transport, black and white, jump, Wet, fast, flight, escape, afraid, collect, Patrick Girouard, nervous, inktober, Drawboy, Inktober2016, Add a tag
Ever since the Nazis invaded Denmark, David Nathan, 10, and his best friend Elsa Jensen have been hungry, despite the fact that his dad is the best baker in all of Copenhagen. But the Nazis have been helping themselves to whatever they want since 1940, and that includes anything that they fancy in Nathan's Patisserie
Now, it is September, 1943 and David is looking forward to Rosh Hashanah and his mother's special honey cake all month long. The Jewish New Year is always a family celebration shared with Elsa's family. If only he thought his sister might be there, but university studies keep her at school more and more.
Or so David's mother tells him whenever he asks about Rachel. But on their way home from school one afternoon, Elsa tells David her secret - Rachel and Elsa's cousin Arne are in the Resistance, doing whatever they can to sabotage the Nazis.
That very afternoon, when he arrives at his father's bakery, David is asked to deliver 6 éclairs to Arne's house and to make sure all 6 get there. But no sooner does David leave the shop, when he is stopped by two Nazi soldiers who insist on seeing what he has in his bakery box. Seeing the éclairs, each soldier helps himself to one.
Finally, David is able to deliver the remaining four éclairs to Arne, who immediately dips his finger into each, finally pulling out a piece of paper from the last one. All David can make out is the word train. A few days later, David's father tells him that a train has been sabotaged by the Resistance, and David proudly realizes he had actually played a role in that.
And at last Rosh Hashanah arrives. The longed for honey cake has been made, but when David and his father are sitting in the synagogue, the Rabbi announces that the Nazis are planning to round up Denmark's Jews that very night and advises everyone to go home and prepare for their escape.
Well, we know the end of this story because we know that Denmark's citizens did not allow the Nazis to capture most of that nation's Jewish citizens, and so we know that David and his parents escape to Sweden with the help of their friends the Jensens. But, of course, young readers may not know this.
A Time to be Brave is a nice easy reader chapter book that provides a good introduction to what happened in Denmark in World War II. It is the perfect book for a young reader who is not quite ready for Number the Stars.
The writing is simple. never condescending, the story is straightforward and the characters well-drawn. There is nice back matter, too, including a map of Denmark and Sweden, a World War II timeline, explanations of who Victor Borge is (yes, he in mentioned in the novel), the Resistance, King Christian X (an important figure to the Danish people during the war), and a recipe for honey cake (that I may have to try making).
If A Time to be Brave sounds vaguely familiar, it is because it was originally published in 2008 under the title Honey Cake. I suspect it has been reissued under the new title because it now has "updated content that emphasizes Common Core and renewed interest in nonfiction" even though the story is fiction. It is, however, based on a true story.
This book is recommended for readers age 7+
This book was provided by the publisher
By: Mark Miller,
on 5/5/2013
Blog: From the land of Empyrean (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: travel, salvation, amish, jules verne, escape, revelation, disney world, submarine, amish fiction, 20000 leagues under the sea, captain nemo, Murray Pura, Add a tag
This is the entrance to Captain Nemo's Nautilus (one of my favorite movies and Disney World extinct attractions). I can tell you my main character Luke did not take his family on a submarine. The question that Luke has to answer is "How far will you go to keep your faith?"
It is a literal and metaphorical question. He has to answer with both his heart and body. Volume 2 shows the first steps of the journey that will answer that question.
Thanks for reading my post today! Please be sure to like me on Facebook.
Black Radishes is another book that is based on the experiences of someone in the author's family during World War II. This kind of reality-based historical fiction often makes for an exciting, suspenseful story and Black Radishes is no exception. According to the author's note, Susan Lynn Meyer's father, grandmother and aunt were able to escape from France after its occupation by the Nazis, so she had lots of first hand material to create this stirring novel.
Black Radishes story begins in Paris in March 1940. As the German army gets closer to France, Gustave Becker, 11, and his parents, French Jews, firmly believe that the Maginot Line, the pride of France's border defense, will be able to hold them as bay. But even in Paris things are changing and now Gustave is beginning to experience some anti-Semitic feelings among the people there.
But when his parents tell him that they are going to leave Paris while they wait for American visas, moving to a village called Saint-Georges in the Loire Valley, Gustave doesn't want to leave despite the anti-Jewish graffiti and the Nazi's rapid advance in Europe. And he especially doesn't want to leave his friend Marcel Landeau and his cousin Jean-Paul.
Life in Saint-Georges is dull for Gustave, compared to Paris, with one exception. On their first Shabbat in Saint-Georges, Gustav is pushed into a fountain by a boy his age when he goes to buy the bread for that important meal, ruining the bread, his pride and any sense of safety Gustav may have felt there.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are rapaciously invading the country and country that spring of 1940 until they finally begin their invasion of France in June. Gustave's parents decide to leave Saint-Georges and head for the Spanish border.
But even in his father's truck, traveling is slow and difficult, the roads are clogged with so many people heading to the border. After traveling a few days and not making much progress, the crowd was attacked by Nazi planes machine gunning them. Gustave's parents decide to return to Saint-Georges. As luck would have it, when France was divided in occupied and unoccupied territory in the Armistice signed between France and Germany, Saint-Georges was right on the border of the unoccupied area, meaning that Gustave and his family could live in relative safety at least for the present.
In September life settles down, somewhat. Gustave starts school and discovers that his Shabbat tormentor is in his class. But he also meets and makes friends with Nicole. At home, there is nothing much eat because the Nazis take what they want from shops, homes and gardens, leaving little for anyone else. Gustave's father decides they will cross the border in his truck into occupied France and barter for some food, using the supplies he brought with him from Paris and his own Swiss ID papers. This works out well for them and they continue to cross the border for the next year and whenever they can, they make sure there a black radishes in view. They use they as a way to distract the German border guards, who like to eat them with their beer.
In the Fall of 1941, Gustave's mother finally hears from her sister in Paris, who tells them in coded language that things are getting bad for Jews there, that Gustave's friend Marcel and his mother are missing and they want to get away. Meanwhile, Nicole invites Gustave along for a bike ride to see the famous Chateau de Chenonceau, where her father works. It is a strange day out for Gustave, but it is the beginning of the part he will play in the French Resistance, along with his father.
How will they ever get Jean-Paul and his family out of Nazi-occupied France and to safety?
Meyer's realistic novel is an interesting coming of age story set in a time when coming of age happened quickly and young. The reader sees Gustave transformed from a boy who needs to carry his toy Monkey around in his pocket to see safe to a boy who takes dangerous action to do what is right. I liked that Black Radishes is set in the unoccupied part of France. So often, stories a set in the occupied part where there was so much more danger, but it is good to see that life wasn't easy in unoccupied France. Yet, Meyers depicts a very measured amount of violence and anti-Semitism as well as the fear, tension, cold and hunger that people suffered every single day in both parts of France throughout the novel making it an excellent choice for introducing Holocaust topics to young readers. Word is that Susan Lynn Meyer is writing a companion book which continues Gustave's adventures.
This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from the Webster Branch of the NYPL
Black Radishes has been give the following well deserved honors:
2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Award
2011 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book
2011 Boston Author's Club Highly Recommended Book
2011 Massachusetts Book Award Must Read Finalist
2011 Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Young Adult Top 40 Book
2013 Shortlisted for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award
By: Sean Qualls,
on 3/4/2012
Blog: News from Sean Qualls (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: slavery, underground railroad, escape, sally walker, sean qualls, freedom song, henry box brown, Add a tag
By: Shelley Workinger,
on 2/6/2012
Blog: But What Are They Eating? (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Teens, teen, Jungle, Toast, Escape, toastworthy, Kevin Lunsmann, Add a tag
"I’m reading Dave Dawson at Singapore.
I laughed when I read these words a few weeks ago because before I read Eddie’s War I had read another Dave Dawson book and was, by then, quite familiar with Robert Sydney Bowen’s World War II series for boys written during World War II.
Most people have heard of Oskar Schindler, the ethnic German who saved 1,200 Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis by employing them in his enamelware/ammunition factory, thanks to Thomas Keneally’s book Schindler’s List and Steven Spielberg’s movie based on the book. But not many have heard of Varian Fry, the 32 year old American who went to Marseilles, France in August 1940 to help rescue refugees stranded there after France fell to the Nazis. Many of these refugees had fled to France from Hitler’s Germany during the 1930s.
McClafferty details Fry’s mission beginning with a mob attack on Jews that he had witnessed on 15 July 1935 in Berlin, Germany. This left a deeply disturbing impression of Fry, and in 1940, three days after the armistice was signed between Germany and France, he attended a luncheon in NY about the situation of refugees. A collection was made at the luncheon that raised $3,000 and a private organization called the Emergency Rescue Committee or ERC was formed. Its purpose was to rescue Jews and non-Jews who were enemies of the German state and who were also well-known artists, scientists, musicians, and politicians. The list of almost 200 names included people like Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Lion Feuchtwanger. Feuchtwanger was a German writer who had written the first book about the life of a Jewish family in Berlin under the Nazis in 1933 called The Oppermanns (Die Geschwister Oppermann).
Taking the list of names and the $3000 donation money, Fry volunteered to go see what he could do about getting these renowned refugees out of occupied France. The job proved to be more than anyone had thought it would be. First, there was the problem of finding the people on the list, who were more than likely living scattered around the south of France under assumed names or, like Feuchtwanger, were in a French concentration camp awaiting deportation. And there was the problem of everyone having the right papers at the same time. Each family member had to have exit and entrance visas with the same dates, as well as travel visas to go through other countries. A valid passport was required everywhere and since all German Jews had become stateless with the passage of the Nuremburg Laws in 1935, they did not have and could not obtain a valid passport.
McClafferty describes in a very clear easy to understand way the complex problems Fry faced when he arrived in Marseilles and his trials and errors as he learned how to work around all the difficulties, done mostly with the help of very clever people and a lot of deception. And she chronicles the deterioration of Fry’s marriage as he became more involved with what he was doing. Fry began to believe that he was indispensable to the rescue operation, and this led not only to more problems with his wife, but also with the ERC. Fry’s original mission was to last only for a month, but by the end of that time he was too involved with what he was doing, and delayed his departure. Eventually, word go around Marseilles that he was there to help rescue people, and other refugees, ordinary people not on the list, began to show up outside his hotel. These people could only be helped with day to day expenses, not gotten out of France. So many refugees came to Fry that he had to hire some help and ultimately set up a relief organization called the American Relief Center or ARC.
It is unfortunate but in the end Fry was fired by the ERC and finally escorted out of France by the police in 1941. Yet he had accompli
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By: Mabel Kaplan,
on 9/24/2010
Blog: TALES I TELL (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Joice NanKivell Loch, incredible women, saving children, biography, WWII, autobiography, refugees, escape, Add a tag
By: Ann Pilicer,
on 6/26/2010
Blog: Picture Bookies Showcase (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: ann pilicer, escape, Add a tag
By: Roberta Baird,
on 4/20/2010
Blog: A Mouse in the House (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: illustration, roberta baird, black and white, artwork, a mouse in the house, elderly, Random Sketches, escape, Orin the Ordinary, Add a tag
By: Roberta Baird,
on 4/20/2010
Blog: A Mouse in the House (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: black and white, artwork, a mouse in the house, elderly, Random Sketches, escape, Orin the Ordinary, illustration, roberta baird, Add a tag
By: jeff,
on 9/3/2009
Blog: The MJM Books Blog: Featuring all kinds of info you never knew you needed! (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Adventure, Plan, Map, Evacuation, Confusing, Escape, Miscellaneous Thoughts, Choose your own, Flowchart, Add a tag
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By: Patrick Girouard,
on 10/25/2016
Blog: drawboy's cigar box (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: transport, black and white, jump, Wet, fast, big, flight, escape, squeeze, afraid, collect, Patrick Girouard, nervous, Inktober2016, tree, rock, lost, battle, sad, broken, Add a tag
By: Patrick Girouard,
on 10/23/2016
Blog: drawboy's cigar box (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: tree, rock, lost, battle, sad, broken, transport, black and white, jump, Wet, fast, flight, escape, afraid, collect, Patrick Girouard, nervous, inktober, Drawboy, Inktober2016, Add a tag
By: Alex,
on 7/23/2014
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Family, Friendship, Chapter Books, Denmark, Escape, Add a tag
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Family, Friendship, Chapter Books, Denmark, Escape, Add a tag
Now, it is September, 1943 and David is looking forward to Rosh Hashanah and his mother's special honey cake all month long. The Jewish New Year is always a family celebration shared with Elsa's family. If only he thought his sister might be there, but university studies keep her at school more and more.
Or so David's mother tells him whenever he asks about Rachel. But on their way home from school one afternoon, Elsa tells David her secret - Rachel and Elsa's cousin Arne are in the Resistance, doing whatever they can to sabotage the Nazis.
That very afternoon, when he arrives at his father's bakery, David is asked to deliver 6 éclairs to Arne's house and to make sure all 6 get there. But no sooner does David leave the shop, when he is stopped by two Nazi soldiers who insist on seeing what he has in his bakery box. Seeing the éclairs, each soldier helps himself to one.
Finally, David is able to deliver the remaining four éclairs to Arne, who immediately dips his finger into each, finally pulling out a piece of paper from the last one. All David can make out is the word train. A few days later, David's father tells him that a train has been sabotaged by the Resistance, and David proudly realizes he had actually played a role in that.
And at last Rosh Hashanah arrives. The longed for honey cake has been made, but when David and his father are sitting in the synagogue, the Rabbi announces that the Nazis are planning to round up Denmark's Jews that very night and advises everyone to go home and prepare for their escape.
Well, we know the end of this story because we know that Denmark's citizens did not allow the Nazis to capture most of that nation's Jewish citizens, and so we know that David and his parents escape to Sweden with the help of their friends the Jensens. But, of course, young readers may not know this.
A Time to be Brave is a nice easy reader chapter book that provides a good introduction to what happened in Denmark in World War II. It is the perfect book for a young reader who is not quite ready for Number the Stars.
The writing is simple. never condescending, the story is straightforward and the characters well-drawn. There is nice back matter, too, including a map of Denmark and Sweden, a World War II timeline, explanations of who Victor Borge is (yes, he in mentioned in the novel), the Resistance, King Christian X (an important figure to the Danish people during the war), and a recipe for honey cake (that I may have to try making).
This book is recommended for readers age 7+
This book was provided by the publisher
0 Comments on A Time to be Brave by Joan Betty Stuchner as of 7/23/2014 10:09:00 PM
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By: Mark Miller,
on 5/5/2013
Blog: From the land of Empyrean (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: travel, salvation, amish, jules verne, escape, revelation, disney world, submarine, amish fiction, 20000 leagues under the sea, captain nemo, Murray Pura, Add a tag
Promise of Tomorrow Volume 2: Discovery reveals some secrets.
My new Amish serialized novel started with the destructive forces of nature, sending the Umble family running for their lives. They boarded a transport as a tornado destroyed their home.
In Discovery, the transport arrives at their destination. I'm not going to spoil where they are going. However, when they step off the transport, they probably see something like this...
This is the entrance to Captain Nemo's Nautilus (one of my favorite movies and Disney World extinct attractions). I can tell you my main character Luke did not take his family on a submarine. The question that Luke has to answer is "How far will you go to keep your faith?"
It is a literal and metaphorical question. He has to answer with both his heart and body. Volume 2 shows the first steps of the journey that will answer that question.
“Here is a different take on the Amish and it's a good tale that is well told. Mark writes with honesty, compassion, elegance and strength. Any lover of the Amish and of Amish fiction will be blessed by this book. Five stars, Mark!” –Murray Pura, Bestselling author of The Face of Heaven
Luke Umble believed he was a man of God. One fateful decision could test all of his beliefs. With the support of his wife Annie, they uproot their family in an attempt to save the ones they love. Luke is challenged on all sides by his cantankerous father, his oldest son’s rebellion and even his youngest daughter’s Muscular Dystrophy.
In Volume 2: Discovery, the Umble family arrives at their destination. Their new life begins in a shocking way. From the first step out of the transport door, the seeds are sewn that will either tear their family apart or bring them closer than ever.
The one question he asks himself is “How far would you go to keep your faith?”
The only answer Luke can find lies in God’s Promise of Tomorrow.
Luke Umble believed he was a man of God. One fateful decision could test all of his beliefs. With the support of his wife Annie, they uproot their family in an attempt to save the ones they love. Luke is challenged on all sides by his cantankerous father, his oldest son’s rebellion and even his youngest daughter’s Muscular Dystrophy.
In Volume 2: Discovery, the Umble family arrives at their destination. Their new life begins in a shocking way. From the first step out of the transport door, the seeds are sewn that will either tear their family apart or bring them closer than ever.
The one question he asks himself is “How far would you go to keep your faith?”
The only answer Luke can find lies in God’s Promise of Tomorrow.
Thanks for reading my post today! Please be sure to like me on Facebook.
Promise of Tomorrow
Volume 2
Discovery
Kindle: http://amzn.to/133cJnt
Nook: http://bit.ly/YnO77b
Kobo: http://bit.ly/15ijsxq
0 Comments on Something to Discover as of 5/5/2013 12:13:00 PM
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By: Alex Baugh,
on 9/12/2012
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Family, Friendship, France, Escape, Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday, Add a tag
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Family, Friendship, France, Escape, Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday, Add a tag
Black Radishes story begins in Paris in March 1940. As the German army gets closer to France, Gustave Becker, 11, and his parents, French Jews, firmly believe that the Maginot Line, the pride of France's border defense, will be able to hold them as bay. But even in Paris things are changing and now Gustave is beginning to experience some anti-Semitic feelings among the people there.
But when his parents tell him that they are going to leave Paris while they wait for American visas, moving to a village called Saint-Georges in the Loire Valley, Gustave doesn't want to leave despite the anti-Jewish graffiti and the Nazi's rapid advance in Europe. And he especially doesn't want to leave his friend Marcel Landeau and his cousin Jean-Paul.
Life in Saint-Georges is dull for Gustave, compared to Paris, with one exception. On their first Shabbat in Saint-Georges, Gustav is pushed into a fountain by a boy his age when he goes to buy the bread for that important meal, ruining the bread, his pride and any sense of safety Gustav may have felt there.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are rapaciously invading the country and country that spring of 1940 until they finally begin their invasion of France in June. Gustave's parents decide to leave Saint-Georges and head for the Spanish border.
But even in his father's truck, traveling is slow and difficult, the roads are clogged with so many people heading to the border. After traveling a few days and not making much progress, the crowd was attacked by Nazi planes machine gunning them. Gustave's parents decide to return to Saint-Georges. As luck would have it, when France was divided in occupied and unoccupied territory in the Armistice signed between France and Germany, Saint-Georges was right on the border of the unoccupied area, meaning that Gustave and his family could live in relative safety at least for the present.
In September life settles down, somewhat. Gustave starts school and discovers that his Shabbat tormentor is in his class. But he also meets and makes friends with Nicole. At home, there is nothing much eat because the Nazis take what they want from shops, homes and gardens, leaving little for anyone else. Gustave's father decides they will cross the border in his truck into occupied France and barter for some food, using the supplies he brought with him from Paris and his own Swiss ID papers. This works out well for them and they continue to cross the border for the next year and whenever they can, they make sure there a black radishes in view. They use they as a way to distract the German border guards, who like to eat them with their beer.
In the Fall of 1941, Gustave's mother finally hears from her sister in Paris, who tells them in coded language that things are getting bad for Jews there, that Gustave's friend Marcel and his mother are missing and they want to get away. Meanwhile, Nicole invites Gustave along for a bike ride to see the famous Chateau de Chenonceau, where her father works. It is a strange day out for Gustave, but it is the beginning of the part he will play in the French Resistance, along with his father.
How will they ever get Jean-Paul and his family out of Nazi-occupied France and to safety?
Meyer's realistic novel is an interesting coming of age story set in a time when coming of age happened quickly and young. The reader sees Gustave transformed from a boy who needs to carry his toy Monkey around in his pocket to see safe to a boy who takes dangerous action to do what is right. I liked that Black Radishes is set in the unoccupied part of France. So often, stories a set in the occupied part where there was so much more danger, but it is good to see that life wasn't easy in unoccupied France. Yet, Meyers depicts a very measured amount of violence and anti-Semitism as well as the fear, tension, cold and hunger that people suffered every single day in both parts of France throughout the novel making it an excellent choice for introducing Holocaust topics to young readers. Word is that Susan Lynn Meyer is writing a companion book which continues Gustave's adventures.
This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from the Webster Branch of the NYPL
Black Radishes has been give the following well deserved honors:
2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Award
2011 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book
2011 Boston Author's Club Highly Recommended Book
2011 Massachusetts Book Award Must Read Finalist
2011 Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Young Adult Top 40 Book
2013 Shortlisted for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award
 |
| The Chateau de Chenonceau that plays an important part in Black Radishes |
7 Comments on Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer, last added: 9/22/2012
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By: KidLitReviews,
on 6/12/2012
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Middle Grade, circus, India, trust, elephants, Debut Author, loyalty, escape, 5stars, bondage, Library Donated Books, herds, Add a tag
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Middle Grade, circus, India, trust, elephants, Debut Author, loyalty, escape, 5stars, bondage, Library Donated Books, herds, Add a tag
5 Stars Meet Chanda. She is the catalyst for today’s review of Chained, a smart, well-written, and engrossing novel by Lynne Kelly. Chanda is a young girl bitten by fever mosquitoes and now carries a dangerously high temperature. She needs medical help now. With the help of a neighbor, Amma, her mother, takes Chanda to [...]
By: Sean Qualls,
on 3/4/2012
Blog: News from Sean Qualls (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: slavery, underground railroad, escape, sally walker, sean qualls, freedom song, henry box brown, Add a tag
The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books - Freedom Song: The Story of Henry “Box” Brown; illus. by Sean Qualls. Harper/HarperCollins, 2012 32p ISBN 978-0-06-058310-1 $17.99 R* 5-8yrs Ellen Levine and Kadir Nelson’s Henry’s Freedom Box (BCCB 4/07) sets the bar high for picture books about the Virginia slave who endured pummeling confinement in a crate as he had himself shipped to New York and freedom. Walker, inspired by the discovery that Henry Brown sang for many years in a church choir, takes a more poetic but equally successful tack, imagining that rhythm and song sustained Brown throughout his years of enslaved labor and inspired him to seek his freedom when his wife and children were sold away from Virginia. Walker infuses her text and Brown’s thoughts with patterned phrasing, from the “twist, snap, pick-a-pea” work songs he sang in the fields, to the “freedom-land, family, stay-together words” that comforted him as a child, to the “stay-still, don’t move, wait-to-be-sure words” that kept him silent as he waited for release from his shipping crate. Qualls’ mixed-media illustrations, far more dreamy and stylized than Nelson’s near-photorealistic renderings, are nonetheless an excellent match for Walker’s text. Even his signature aquas and pinks, embellished with free-floating bubbles, are tempered with more sober grays, browns, and deep blues, and weighted with heavily textured brushwork. An author’s note touches on Walker’s research and what little is known of Brown’s subsequent history; also appended is the fascinating text of a letter from Brown’s accomplice in 1849, detailing Brown’s escape and cautioning the recipient, “for Heaven’s sake don’t publish this affai or allow it to be published. It would . . . prevent all others from escaping in the same way.” EB
0 Comments on Another *Starred Review (BCCB) for Freedom Song as of 1/1/1900
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By: Shelley Workinger,
on 2/6/2012
Blog: But What Are They Eating? (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Teens, teen, Jungle, Toast, Escape, toastworthy, Kevin Lunsmann, Add a tag
Kevin Lunsmann, Jungle Escapist
It’s hard to imagine a more frightening situation than being kidnapped by Al Qaeda mercenaries while on vacation. That’s precisely what happened to Kevin Lunsmann last year in the Philippines, and the 14-year-old from Virginia not only survived, but in fact rescued himself.
Kevin was taken hostage along with his mom and cousin by a dozen armed men who stormed their resort in the middle of the night and took them to a remote island. Held captive for 5 months – during which time his mother was released by paid ransom and his cousin escaped – Kevin somehow kept his wits and was ready when opportunity presented itself. He tricked his captors by saying he was going to bathe in a nearby stream, then took off, only to wander barefooted through the jungle for 2 days before being found by helpful villagers.
Impressed? See Kevin’s story here:
http://www.firstpost.com/topic/place/philippines-kidnapped-american-teen-hero-escapes-al-qaida-captors-in-phi-video-3A78bZ65UMI-782-1.htmlDo you know a toast-worthy teen you’d like to see featured here at BWATE?
Comment below with your email address so we can get a post together!
0 Comments on Toastworthy Teens: Kevin Lunsmann as of 1/1/1900
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By: Alex Baugh,
on 11/30/2011
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: YA Fiction, Escape, Invasion, That's The Way It Was Wednesday, Add a tag
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: YA Fiction, Escape, Invasion, That's The Way It Was Wednesday, Add a tag
On the occasional Wednesday, I review a book written during World War II. It was a time when no one knew what was going to happen from moment to moment, so they offer a very different perspective on the war.
I’m most of the way done.
Thanks for sending it.”
pg 95
Dave Dawson at Dunkirk is the first book in the series and begins with 17 year old Dave waking upon May 10, 1940 in a hotel in Paris, thinking about how lucky he is to be in war torn Europe with his dad and about the day’s planned trip to the “impenetrable” Maginot Line. But when he goes to find his dad, Dave discovers he is missing. Dave is soon informed that his dad has gone to England on government business because Hitler’s forces had just invaded France. A Lieutenant in the French Army is to drive Dave north to Calais, where he is supposed to catch a boat to Dover, England and safety.
But the road out of Paris is crowded with French refugees trying to escape the advancing Nazis and the going is slow. Suddenly, a swarm of Nazi planes start shooting at the people on the road, and next thing Dave knows, he is waking up under a tree and it is night. As he tries to puzzle things out, Dave sees two headlights and runs out to the center of the road to flag down the approaching vehicle.
The vehicle is an ambulance, driving by a member of the British Volunteer Ambulance Service named Freddy Farmer, 16. Freddy offers Dave a ride and naturally the two boys become fast friends. But they don’t get very far when they are arrested as spies by the Germans. Seems they had unknowingly crossed from France into a Nazi occupied area of Belgium. Their captors continuously interrogate, but when they offer no information, the Colonel in charge has them brought to his office where threatens to have them sh
5 Comments on Dave Dawson at Dunkirk by Robert Sydney Bowen, last added: 12/1/2011
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By: MacKids,
on 5/6/2011
Blog: MacKids Home (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Teens, Futuristic, teen, Mary Pearson, Escape, Year of the Book, Add a tag
Blog: MacKids Home (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Teens, Futuristic, teen, Mary Pearson, Escape, Year of the Book, Add a tag
There's a character in The Fox Inheritance, Dot, who dreams of Escape. Dot has good reasons for wanting to escape, but I can't share her reasons here because I don't want to ruin the story for you. She knows that escape is probably not a likely possibility for her but she relishes the idea of helping others realize freedom. She uses the word Escapee to describe the people she helps like she is describing royalty.
I think we all dream of escape at various times and often accomplish it, even if it's just to bolt the bathroom door for one of those proverbial Calgon baths, or maybe our method of escape is a walk around the block, blasting our music, or even a full-blown vacation, or maybe it's something as simple as reading a book. In fact, reading a book is probably one of my favorite ways to Escape. And it's not all just about getting away to another world, but sometimes "escaping" some of my pre-conceived notions by seeing something through something else's eyes.
In The Fox Inheritance, Locke Jenkins is the Escapee, and his escape is much more a matter of life and death, but I think on a daily basis, he and all of us find our small ways to escape. If you've ever turned up the volume, if you've ever hit the road, if you've ever danced until you couldn't breathe, or, if you've fell into the pages of a book, you're an Escapee. Nice to know you. And Dot would be especially delighted to know you.
NOTE: If you would like an Escapee bracelet, leave a reply here saying you want one, and then send an email to [email protected] with your mailing address. (DO NOT post your address here!) and we will send you three bracelets--one for you and two for you to give to friends. Limited to first FIFTEEN posters only.
By: Alex Baugh,
on 11/22/2010
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jews, Escape, Historical Non Fiction, Friendship, Biography, France, WW II, Refugees, Add a tag
Blog: The Children's War (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jews, Escape, Historical Non Fiction, Friendship, Biography, France, WW II, Refugees, Add a tag
McClafferty details Fry’s mission beginning with a mob attack on Jews that he had witnessed on 15 July 1935 in Berlin, Germany. This left a deeply disturbing impression of Fry, and in 1940, three days after the armistice was signed between Germany and France, he attended a luncheon in NY about the situation of refugees. A collection was made at the luncheon that raised $3,000 and a private organization called the Emergency Rescue Committee or ERC was formed. Its purpose was to rescue Jews and non-Jews who were enemies of the German state and who were also well-known artists, scientists, musicians, and politicians. The list of almost 200 names included people like Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Lion Feuchtwanger. Feuchtwanger was a German writer who had written the first book about the life of a Jewish family in Berlin under the Nazis in 1933 called The Oppermanns (Die Geschwister Oppermann).
Taking the list of names and the $3000 donation money, Fry volunteered to go see what he could do about getting these renowned refugees out of occupied France. The job proved to be more than anyone had thought it would be. First, there was the problem of finding the people on the list, who were more than likely living scattered around the south of France under assumed names or, like Feuchtwanger, were in a French concentration camp awaiting deportation. And there was the problem of everyone having the right papers at the same time. Each family member had to have exit and entrance visas with the same dates, as well as travel visas to go through other countries. A valid passport was required everywhere and since all German Jews had become stateless with the passage of the Nuremburg Laws in 1935, they did not have and could not obtain a valid passport.
McClafferty describes in a very clear easy to understand way the complex problems Fry faced when he arrived in Marseilles and his trials and errors as he learned how to work around all the difficulties, done mostly with the help of very clever people and a lot of deception. And she chronicles the deterioration of Fry’s marriage as he became more involved with what he was doing. Fry began to believe that he was indispensable to the rescue operation, and this led not only to more problems with his wife, but also with the ERC. Fry’s original mission was to last only for a month, but by the end of that time he was too involved with what he was doing, and delayed his departure. Eventually, word go around Marseilles that he was there to help rescue people, and other refugees, ordinary people not on the list, began to show up outside his hotel. These people could only be helped with day to day expenses, not gotten out of France. So many refugees came to Fry that he had to hire some help and ultimately set up a relief organization called the American Relief Center or ARC.
It is unfortunate but in the end Fry was fired by the ERC and finally escorted out of France by the police in 1941. Yet he had accompli
0 Comments on In Defiance of Hitler: the Secret Mission of Varian Fry by Carla Killough McClafferty as of 11/22/2010 7:52:00 AM
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By: Mabel Kaplan,
on 9/24/2010
Blog: TALES I TELL (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Joice NanKivell Loch, incredible women, saving children, biography, WWII, autobiography, refugees, escape, Add a tag
Operation Pied PiperThe story of the rescue of 2,000 civilian refugees from Poland and 50 orphaned Jewish children Joice Loch’s account of events of her incredible rescue of Polish refugees and orphaned Jewish children in A Fringe of Blue are greatly understated. In fact, she makes no specific mention of Operation Pied Piper at all. I am left to wonder whether she didn’t recognise the enormity
0 Comments on SATURDAY FOCUS: REMARKABLE WOMEN(6) Joice NanKivell Loch as of 1/1/1900
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By: Ann Pilicer,
on 6/26/2010
Blog: Picture Bookies Showcase (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: ann pilicer, escape, Add a tag
Escape
© Ann Pilicer
www.annpilicer.com
www.annpilicerillustration.blogspot.com
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By: Roberta Baird,
on 4/20/2010
Blog: A Mouse in the House (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: illustration, roberta baird, black and white, artwork, a mouse in the house, elderly, Random Sketches, escape, Orin the Ordinary, Add a tag
What happened to the fellow who never feared a dream?
This place could not be home to him…..so he devised a little scheme!
0 Comments on Orin the Ordinary #4 as of 1/1/1900
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By: Roberta Baird,
on 4/20/2010
Blog: A Mouse in the House (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: black and white, artwork, a mouse in the house, elderly, Random Sketches, escape, Orin the Ordinary, illustration, roberta baird, Add a tag
What happened to the fellow who never feared a dream?
This place could not be home to him…..so he devised a little scheme!
0 Comments on Orin the Ordinary #4 as of 1/1/1900
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By: jeff,
on 9/3/2009
Blog: The MJM Books Blog: Featuring all kinds of info you never knew you needed! (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Adventure, Plan, Map, Evacuation, Confusing, Escape, Miscellaneous Thoughts, Choose your own, Flowchart, Add a tag
Can you figure out how to get out of here? Me neither! This was posted in one of the conference rooms at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Chicago (I followed Krista on another Staycation!). It reminds me of this flow chart representing all the choices involved in the Choose Your Own Adventure book “Journey Under the Sea”.
If you take a look at the data breakdown, over 75% of all possible outcomes are “unfavorable”, and almost half result in death. That is why this “Evacuation Plan” makes me so nervous! Take another look: choose carefully, because you can’t keep a finger on the page you’re leaving “just in case”…
MJM Books is currently developing an online “Choose Your Own Fairytale” application that will have a much higher success rate and an expanded range of adventure (it’s easier to have more pathways/pages if they’re digital instead of printed). Until then, there is a much lamer wiki that contains non-illustrated COA’s. I tried one and ended up following a duck trying to feed it an oatmeal raisin cookie. Something tells me that not all “adventures” are created equal.
…
Thank you for providing such a well written, detailed review. It makes me want to read this book even more and I'm not usually a fan of this type of novel. I'll have to see if my library has a copy I don't think I should miss an opportunity to read this one.
-Kimberly @ Turning The Pages
I hope you are able to find this novel. It really is quite good.
This sounds like a riveting read. I like the title because it is so unique. I am curious to know what happens to Gustave and his family and friends. Great review! I look forward to reading this one.
~Jess
I enjoyed this a few years ago. It was great to be reminded.
Thanks, Jess. This was a really good book, not what I had expected at all. Hope you enjoy it, too.
Yes, I remember reading your interview with Susan Lynn Meyer for the Sydney Taylor Honor Award back in 2011. I had put it on a TBR list then and finally got to it. Now I am sorry I didn't read it sooner, it was so good.
Interesting title and my interest didn’t fade as I read your excellent review.