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Mexico is currently in the midst of its Día de los Muertos celebrations and there are some wonderful pictures appearing on various blogs, which highlight the color and exuberance of the festival – such as this at Zocalo de Mexican Folk Art; while Sue at Cottage in the Cedars recalls a past visit to Mexico and gives lots of background information. There are some great children’s books around – I blogged about some last year (including author René Colato Laínez’ as yet unpublished Magic Night, Noche Mágica). My Readable Feast has a new post about the Global Wonders dvd, with an extract to view about The Day of the Dead –it’s also worth scrolling down through the tag to her previous posts too, both for suggestions for children’s books and to see some very impressive home-made sugar skulls…

A new book, Abuelos, by Pat Mora and illustrated by Amelia Lau Carling (Groundwood, 2008), explores a less well-known tradition which carries traits of both Spanish and Pueblo cultures, and which is celebrated further north, in the mountains of New Mexico, around the time of the Winter solstice.

“Los abuelos” are not only grandfathers, in this context they are scary, sooty old men who come down from the mountains once a year to make sure the children have been good. At the time of the abuelos’ visit, villages have a big party, sharing music and food around a huge bonfire, and men dress up to tease the children.

In this delightful story, the preparations and the party are seen through the eyes of Amelia, our narrator, and her older brother Ray, who have only recently moved to the village. Amelia’s feelings are mixed – she loves the excitement but she’s not completely convinced that the abuelos are wholly mythical. Her father reassures her that it’s fun to be have a scary feeling sometimes – like at Halloween – because actually “No one is going to hurt you”. Ray teases and scares Amelia unmercifully but at the actual party, she’s the one who courageously leaps in to push an abuelo away from him…

The writing and the illustrations together perfectly capture both the magic of this tradition seen through Amelia’s young eyes and the warmth of the village community set against the cold, winter landscape. Monsters loom large, whether in caves up in the snowy mountains, or in the form of masked villagers – certainly all enough to convince Amelia to do anything her mother asks her straight away!

This is a great new addition to the bookshelf, whether for a cosy winter’s bedtime or for those in hotter climes wanting to escape the mid-December heat – as Pat herself says in her author’s note at the end:

Since I’m easily frightened, I chose to write a gentle version of how I imagine a spunky little girl responding to a visit by “los abuelos.” Enjoy!

Within the opening chapters of Finding Miracles, readers soon realize that within a conventional high school setting, a young girl who does her best to appear conventional is under tremendous pressure to maintain that appearance. Milly is pretty, smart, popular, and plagued by a skin allergy that breaks out when “her real self” threatens to emerge.

Milly was born Milagros, adopted by her parents in an (undisclosed) country of Latin America where they served as Peace Corps volunteers. All that she has from her birth parents is kept in a handcrafted mahogany box, which was found with her when she was left at an orphanage as a newborn infant. Millie ignores these remnants from her origins, living her North American life with the only family she has ever known, until a handsome political refugee from her birth country, Pablo, comes to her high school as a new student.

At first this book seems as though it will be a typical high school “girl meets boy” story, but Julia Alvarez is far too skillful a novelist to stick to this well-worn territory. Swiftly the reader is drawn into Milly’s expanding world, as she reveals her adoption to her friends, begins to explore her origins through her friendship with Pablo and his parents, and learns that her most distinctive feature, her beautiful eyes, are inherited from the women of Los Luceros, a village in her home country.

As Milly returns to visit the country of her birth, Finding Miracles takes on a tone rarely found in young adult fiction, illuminating political repression, struggle, and rebellion through the stories of the women of Los Luceros, one of whom was Millie’s mother–but which one?  And does it really matter?

In her journey to learn how to be Milagros as well as Milly, this extraordinary young woman learns that her home can be in two countries and that family is an expandable concept, encompassing the parents she knows and loves as well as the parents who loved her and whom she will never know. The issues that she comes to terms with are presented in this novel as threads in a compelling story, examined thoughtfully while never overwhelming the plot, providing springboards for discussion between students and teachers, children and parents, or girls who read and enjoy the book together with their friends.

PaperTigers’ current Book of the Month, Alfredito Flies Home by Jorge Argueta and illustrated by Luis Garay (Groundwood 2007) is the story of Alfredito and his family’s return to El Salvador for the first time in four years, since arriving as refugees in San Francisco. The writing bubbles over with happiness and excitement as readers/listeners are carried along by Alfredito’s narration of events – the preparation, the flight and the hectic, happy holiday itself.

This opens the way for young readers/listeners to empathise with Alfredito’s experiences, even if they have never been in his situation themselves. They will then also be able to engage with those other moments which give pause for thought: such as the allusion to the family’s original journey to America under the guidance of “Señor Coyote”; the visit to his grandparents’ graves; or the underlying reality of separation, with some family in America, some in El Salvador.

For children who have parallel experiences to Alfredito’s, on the other hand, Alfredito’s story is invaluable: as Debbie of American Indians in Children’s Literature pointed out in her review.

Luis Garay’s sensitively attuned illustrations make this book extra special and provide plenty of details both within and outside the narrative – so there’s a lot to discuss. I would recommend this book be shared at least the first time children are introduced to it – not only because its tone so lends itself to being read aloud but also because of the discussion and/or questions it will provoke.

We will be publishing a full review of Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein with art by Ed Young in our next issue of PaperTigers so I’m not going to say much now - except that it is stunning and enriching, a gentle, heart-warming delight that lends itself to being read aloud in many different ways! It had already been nominated for a Fiction Picture Book Cybils Award by the time I got round to it (as had a couple of others on my list, making decisions much easier… I finally plumped for Colors! ¡Colores!, which I blogged about last week…).

We’ve been waiting for Wabi Sabi to come out for a while – and one of Aline’s and my thrills at the Bologna Book Fair in April was being shown the proofs for the book by Andrew Smith at Little, Brown and Company, where we learnt that we were not looking at the original but at the second version of art-work…

Yes, this book has an amazing, Wabi Sabi-esque story behind it. It’s hard to explain but Alvina, over at Blue Rose Girls, is the book’s editor and has blogged about its amazing story in four installments – read from Number 1 now! In the meantime, here’s what she says about what Wabi Sabi actually means:

Mark spent some time living in Japan, and while there he was introduced to the concept of wabi sabi. He asked many people about it, and they all paused and said, “That’s hard to explain.” but they would offer a poem, or a photograph, a small description, and gradually, Mark began to piece together the meaning of wabi sabi.

So, what is wabi sabi? Well, as I understand it, it is a Japanese philosophical belief in finding beauty in the imperfect, the unexpected, in simplicity and modesty. For example, a old, cracked clay tea cup is wabi sabi, but a fine china cup is not. Fallen leaves in muddy water is wabi sabi. A scruffy, multi-colored cat can be wabi sabi. Mark actually named his cat in Japan Wabi Sabi!

Her final post on the subject came out on Monday and has had me chuckling aloud – but only after I knew the outcome. All’s well, that ends well! Phew – if ever a book has gone through a parallel journey in real life, this is it!

Since we are already in the middle of National Reading Group Month, our thoughts have turned to reading suggestions for book groups for young readers. At PaperTigers, we are deeply committed to books on multicultural subjects that bring differing cultures closer together. So of course the books on our little list are novels that we think will accomplish that, while they keep their readers enthralled and provide the nourishment for spirited book group discussions. Almost all of the suggested titles are in paperback editions and all should be available in libraries. Most of them have been reviewed by PaperTigers and one has been chosen by our own online bookclub, The Tiger’s Choice.

1. Beacon Hill Boys by Ken Mochizuki (Written for older readers, this novel explores teenage rebellion, parental expectations, and racial stereotypes with humor and perception. This is a perfect book for boys who are reluctant readers–by the end of the first page they’ll be hooked.)

2. On Thin Ice by Jamie Bastedo (Through entries in Ashley’s diary that she keeps while visiting family in an Inuit village, this book addresses the issue of climate change in Arctic Canada, where the polar bears are coming far too close for comfort.)

3. Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild (Who are the “woolvs” who terrify Ben and keep him sequestered in a place where he is safe from them? This is a title for older readers that falls into the realm of picture book/graphic novel, and one that will keep them reading.)

4. Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (Winner of the  2005 Newbery Medal, this is a novel that takes a serious look at serious issues, through the lives of an extended Japanese-American family who are struggling in tough times.)

5. Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box by Juan Felipe Herrera (The tragedy of 9/11 as seen through the eyes and voice of thirteen-year-old Yolanda, whose uncle had “inhaled Twin Towers of dust,” while delivering flowers at the moment that the planes struck.)

6. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (This is a book group selection for all ages, and when we chose it for our own book group, the discussion was thoughtful and lively–much to think about in this slender little volume.)

And there is our baker’s half-dozen–what suggested titles would you add to this little list? Let us know!

Finding Miracles

Milly Kaufman is the typical American high school girl, pretty, popular, part of a happy family in a small town. So why, when asked to write two truthful details about herself, does she say, “I have this allergy where my hands get red and itchy when my real self’s trying to tell me something,”  “My parents have a box in their bedroom we’ve only opened once. I think of it as The Box,” and why does the appearance of Pablo, a new student from Latin America make her feel so uncomfortable? What is Milly’s secret–the one she has divulged only to her best friend?

Julia Alvarez, long acclaimed as an outstanding novelist for adult readers, turns her focus upon a young adult audience in Finding Miracles with the same skill that has made both In the Time of the Butterflies and How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents modern classics. While exploring Milly’s odyssey from the security of the family and community that she knows and loves to the unknown territory of a whole new world, Julia Alvarez creates a character and a novel that extends beyond age categories into the realm of fiction unlimited, while sensitively examining issues of identity and culture.

Please join us this month as we read and discuss Finding Miracles.

As I finish my preparations to return to Bangkok, I find myself thinking about this month’s Tiger’s Choice. The Happiness of Kati depicts a lifestyle that I have never seen in Thailand, and I find myself wondering if it is a realistic depiction.

Kati and her grandparents live as people in Thailand have for centuries–up until the present day. Their world is clean and quiet and filled with the blessings of nature. When Kati and her grandfather go out in their boat, they row through unpolluted waterways that Kati can dabble her toes in after she and her grandfather finish their picnic lunch. They live in a world untarnished by satellite dishes, cable TV, or mobile phones. There’s not a fast food venue or a 7/11 convenience store in sight. It is a world of the past that all Thai people yearn to return to, and it is portrayed in loving and idealized detail in Jane Vejjajiva’s novel.

And yet within this ideal world, harsh truths intrude and are handled fearlessly. Death, disease, desertion–these are examined carefully and unshrinkingly, through the eyes of a little girl and the family who loves her. It is the softened world that Kati lives in that makes it possible to look at grief and loss with a feeling of acceptance and hope. And it is the well-constructed characters who take life within a matter of sentences who take this book well beyond the realm of moral instruction into the enduring community of classic children’s literature.

Trickster tales are to be found in the repertoire of traditional stories from all over the world and are of universal appeal. Linking in with our current focus on the US’s Hispanic Heritage Month, here are two that are sure to have young listeners enthralled:

Love and Roast Chicken (Carolrhoda Books, 2004), retold and illustrated by Barbara Knutson, is the story of how Cuy the guinea pig saves himself and tricks Tio Antonio the fox not once but the archetypal three times. Children will laugh with glee at the narrative and will love the energetic woodcut-and-watercolor illustrations. Set in the Andes, the well-written story effortlessly interjects Spanish and Quechuan phrases into the English text – for which there’s a glossary at the end, as well as some background information. You can read about Barbara’s two years in Peru here, including a great suggestion to carry a sketch pad with you when you go travelling.

Yuyi Morales’ original story Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book (Chronicle Books, 2003) is another joy. Grandma Beetle is far too busy to go away with Senor Cavalero when he comes knocking. Death in the form of the humorously depicted skeleton is thus forced to wait, while she prepares one, two, three etc things for the birthday celebrations at the end: and eventually he gives up altogether and leaves in disgust. Yuyi’s humorous artwork and snappy dialogue mean that children will not be scared by the story – they are much more likely to be too busy cheering Grandma Beetle on. Indeed, Bever’s Book Blog makes the point that many young listeners will probably not even realise the book is about death until it is pointed out to them. Open Wide, Look Inside has this podcast, recommending the book for cross-curricular and multicultural teaching. Read our interview with Yuyi, where she talks about the book - including the many children she has met “who think that Señor Calavera, the skeleton in my book Just a Minute is a cute guy, and that I should marry him.”! And don’t miss Yuyi’s delightful Personal View, My Childhood Readings: A Short List to Grow On, in our current issue.

For more Latin American trickster tales, Latina storyteller Olga Loya has recorded four stories, told in both Spanish and English, for her audiobook entitled Tío Conejo. As well as the one about Uncle Rabbit, there are a monkey, an opossum and a dog.

Do let us know if you have enjoyed these or any other trickster tales…

When Jane Vejjajiva won the S.E.A. Write Award for The Happiness of Kati, it was quite a bit as though J.K. Rowling had won the Man Booker Prize for Harry Potter. This is a highly prestigious award given for extraordinary literature written in Southeast Asia, and it isn’t usually bestowed upon a  children’s book.

And yet this isn’t a book that is read exclusively by children. I received it as a Christmas gift from my good friend Yui, who is younger than I am but is certainly no longer a child. We both count it as one of our favorite books–and here are some reasons why.

From the opening sentences of this book, Kati’s life is described simply and yet in wonderful detail. Her grandparents, her school, her chores, her meals are all real to the reader well before the first twenty pages have been devoured. And yet, a sadness is slowly delineated in every chapter subheading–Kati’s absent mother takes on a phantom’s shape long before Kati is taken to be with her.

It is here that this book blossoms into a strength and beauty rarely found in a children’s novel. Kati’s time with her mother is brief, but their relationship has depth, sweetness, and a life of its own. The importance of family within Thai culture is made beautifully clear, and the respect given to a child’s decision offers an ethical guideline without moralizing.

Best of all–for me at least–is the masterful depiction of each person in this story. With a minimum of description, Jane Vejjajiva makes every one of her characters come to life, fully equipped to live on in the imaginations of those who savor this book.

If you agree–or perhaps disagree–please let us hear your comments before our final discussion next week.

Books that tell me what people wear, what they eat, and how they spend their time have delighted me since I first began to read, so perhaps this is why I love The Happiness of Kati. Like The Wind in the Willows and The Little House in the Big Woods, this small novel about a small Thai girl and her family has enlarged my world by describing a different way of  living.

And yet in the descriptions of a rural Thai childhood, there are hints given at the beginning of each chapter that there is a sorrowful mystery at the heart of Kati’s seemingly idyllic life, and when that mystery is divulged, the story carries the weight of loss and sorrow.

As the jacket flap informs readers, Jane Vejjajiva is the daughter of a doctor who researches Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), and this knowledge informs much of her story. In addition to this, Jane Vejjajiva was born with cerebral palsy, building a career as a writer, translator and publisher, traveling and studying abroad, and living a life filled with accomplishment and challenges. When she writes about disease and disability, she is well acquainted with these subjects, and depicts them without sentimemtality or mawkishness.

I am always struck when I read this book by the sensitive and skillful treatment of themes not usually found in middle-grade fiction in the United States. What do you think? Is this a book you would share with your child, your classroom? Tell us why–or why not!

Following on from our meeting with librarians-turned-publisher in Bologna, I recently discovered Silly Mammo by Yohannes Gebregeorgis (African Sun Press, 2002), the first ever bilingual English/Amharic book. It’s the story of a boy who keeps making mistakes by following instructions given in hindsight – starting with his mother telling him to put his earnings into his pocket so he doesn’t lose them (ie coins)… and then he is paid with a bottle of milk, which he then pours into his pockets… and so the story progresses: until he wins the hand of a beautiful girl by making her laugh. It’s a delightful story, which will make young listeners laugh aloud.

The illustrations are by Bogale Belachew, an Ethiopian artist, who has given the story a contemporary setting. This reflects the books initial raison d’être, which was to provide Ethiopian children with a story in their own language from their own culture.

“Yohannes emigrated to the United States half a lifetime ago. He became an American citizen. But he came back, giving up a comfortable life as a children’s librarian in San Francisco, because it bothered him that while Ethiopian kids may go to school, they have no books.”

He founded a mobile library with a difference in Awassa, Ethiopia: drawn by donkeys; and has then gone on to publish books for children to read in local languages. Silly Mammo was the first of these.

The book is available from Silver Chicks, with all proceeds going to EthiopiaReads (check out their blog too), also founded by Yohannes.

Read this article (where my quotation above comes from) and watch this video – the faces of the children say it all!

This month on PaperTigers, the question was posed, “And what better way to become globally literate than by exploring stories set in different cultures, whether next door or on the other side of the globe?”

This is a haunting question, especially when considered with the remarks made earlier this year by writer Lara Saguisag.

She pointed out that books written for children contain the values of the culture in which they were written, and that these books are often viewed through the prism of Western values and Western cultural norms.

Our current Tiger’s Choice, The Happiness of Kati, was rejected by a smart champion of middle-grade fiction because, she said, “It just didn’t grab me.” Her remark made me wonder how many books are cast aside because the unfamiliar cultural values made the characters seem too simplistic and the story too laden with a moral message that in American culture seems too heavy-handed.

If we in the world are going to understand each other, then we must do our very best to understand our different cultural values–and what better way to do that then through literature? And what better time to do that than in childhood?

Children need books that are windows and books that are mirrors, as Patsy Aldana was quoted as saying in a recent PaperTigers post. It would be a great mistake to dismiss a book  because its cultural values are distant from our own. The adventure promised by reading is not only that of enjoying the delights of a well-told story, but also of increasing our empathy and understanding, as our world draws closer together and becomes more intimately acquainted through the pages of a book.

Nine-year-old Kati lives an idyllic life in rural Thailand, cherished by her grandparents, surrounded by people who care about her, a modern girl whose days are shaped by customs that are steeped in tradition. Her world is secure and she is happy, except for the nights when storms blow in, lightning fills the sky and following the rumbles of thunder, Kati can hear cries of “heart-stopping despair” mingled with the sound of the rain.

Nothing in her life has ever been tinged with the sadness Kati hears in these cries–or has it? Is her imagination playing tricks on her or are these sounds emerging from forgotten memories? When Kati discovers the answer to these questions, she also discovers joy and the true meaning of family, as well as grief that few girls her age have to face.

This slender little book illuminates another culture while exploring the universality of love and loss. The 2006 winner of Thailand’s S.E.A. Write Award that is given annually for outstanding Southeast Asian literature, this is a novel that celebrates life’s everyday pleasures as thoroughly as it examines some of its deepest questions.

Please join us in reading and discussing The Happiness of Kati.

…that’s the question that Little Brother prodded me awake with two mornings ago. I have to say that my response did not immediately live up to expectations… However, having ascertained from the child-who-swallowed-the-animal-encyclopaedia-whole that lagomorphs are “rabbits, hares and pikas”, I was eventually able to fudge an answer.

Later on, I returned to the question and said that I had chosen the rabbit in the moon, at which Little Brother laughed at me and told me, “That’s just a myth.”, but he was more than happy to curl up and listen again to the story, so beautifully retold by Naomi Adler in The Barefoot Book of Animal Tales from Around the World (Barefoot, 2006). We agreed afterwards that even though a heart of gold is not really made of gold, it is definitely worth striving for and is “much better than a heart of stone”. I felt reassured that he may be able to recognise the fantasy element in myths and legends, but his imagination is still caught up in the magic of a good retelling: and this collection is an excellent one for reading aloud. Naomi Adler is first and foremost a storyteller and her background in the oral tradition shines through. In fact, her narration on the accompanying CDs is a joy listen to. I also like the page at the end of the book where she describes her sources for each tale – all passed on through the oral tradition by someone first-hand from the country in question!

Amanda Hall’s illustrations also contribute to bringing the stories alive. She emphasises their cultural diversity, by incorporating subtle variations in style according to the country of origin. I love the different borders/motifs, which give each story its own space and identity within the collection.

This version of “The Rabbit in the Moon” comes from India and describes how Rabbit influences all the other animals to aspire to be kind and good. The “great heavenly spirit” disguises himself as a beggar and tests Rabbit’s vow to offer herself as food. Astonished that she attempts to sacrifice herself, he rescues her and sets her in the moon as a shining reminder that “if you give something precious away you may receive something back that is very special.”

This story of the Rabbit in the Moon appears in many different traditions – Cat Mallard at Darbling Wood Studios outlines a different version here, alongside her own whimsical watercolour. This is the version, featuring a fox and a monkey, that is included on the acclaimed Tell Me a Story: Timeless Folktales from Around the World CD, which proved to be an unexpected bedtime hit with The Lovely Mrs Davis’ young son… you can listen to extracts here. Looking Around the World pays a visit to the Tsuki or Moon God Shrine in Japan, where rabbits are particularly venerated – and Sarx has some beautiful photos of a rabbit wood-carving from there too.

Crackle Mountain relates this very different story from Japan of Hare making his way to the City on the Moon, after overcoming the wicked Tanuki (”a raccoon-like dog often mistakenly referred to as a badger”) - it’s a gruesome tale and reminds us of how some traditional stories have been sanitised over the years – but not this one. If you can’t stomach the story, though, I recommend looking at the accompanying artwork – the eighteenth century porcelain dish is exquisite.

And a story, which is definitely not traditional but requires a background awareness of being able to see a rabbit in the moon is Kae Nishimura’s delightfully witty Bunny Lune (Clarion, 2007). We read it again this evening and had a good giggle imagining what our different moons would be – not fields of carrots like Bunny Lune’s!

There’s nothing more exciting than meeting a new small person who has embarked on the adventure of exploring the world–and that was the gift I was given when my buddies from Brooklyn came to town with their ten-month-old son. It was sheer, unadulterated joy to see Charlie enchant an entire coffeehouse without making a sound, simply through the radiance of his smile and the bouncing enthusiasm of his little body. He knows that everyone he sees will soon be his friend, and the delight that he finds in everything around him makes him irresistible.

Charlie’s father is a writer, and Charlie’s mother and I love many of the same books, so of course I wanted to know what have they read to Charlie? And of course, their answer was a story.

It was the end of the day and Charlie and his mother were snuggled together, when she realized that this was the perfect evening for their first bedtime story. She found Goodnight Moon, arranged the pillows on her bed to the proper level of support and comfort, placed the book so that Charlie would be able to appreciate the pictures while she read–and then Charlie’s father entered the room.

” Are you going to read Charlie his first bedtime story?” he asked, and then said, “No–wait.” He went off to his bookshelves and came back with the perfect words for his son’s introduction to the ritual of bedtime reading. That night Charlie’s parents prepared him for sleep by reading him The Odyssey.

As a parent who read Out of Africa, The Wasteland, and A Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud to my infant sons, I understood and loved this story. When we introduce our babies to words read aloud, we want those words to resonate, to imprint our children with the majesty of literature–then from there we turn to more conventional choices that are filled with color and delight and pleasure.

It’s no wonder that people not only love books, they are deeply attached to them. For many of us, being read to is one of our first memories, and our love for language on a page is intertwined with our memories of being warm, being snuggled, being secure, and being loved.

What was the first book you read aloud to your child?

Aline’s recent post about evolving definitions of literacy came just after I’d read that in China, writers text message extremely short stories on their cellphones. In the week before that I read two manuscripts on my laptop. Google News has almost replaced my daily newspaper, but I’m too much of a print junkie to quit the New York Times cold turkey.

The world of print is changing fast. A woman came into the store where I spend some of my time and bought three novels. She then took note of several other books that she wanted to download to her digital book collection. She saw me wince and explained that for travel this was a wonderful tool–she could take twenty-five books with her on a long flight. I immediately thought of the tote bag bulging with weight that I carry with me onto a plane so I will be assured of a choice of reading material, and my perspective began to change a tiny bit.

What if, instead of being that paragon of literacy, the devoted bookworm, I’m actually a person with deficient reading skills? What if I learned to enjoy the many different ways of reading–from a book, from a laptop, from a portable digital reading device, from the tiny screen of a cellphone? How much more freely I could roam the world, without the weight of my books and my need for bookstores that will sell me reading material in English.

Perhaps as we examine literacy we need to realize that children who rarely touch a book may be forging new ground for us all. They are literate in ways that many of us have yet to explore–and, in light of the world’s dwindling supplies of wood pulp, that we may be forced to explore sooner than we anticipate.

What about you? Are you a multi-faceted reader, or are you like me–helplessly enthralled by the weight of a book and the sight of print on a page?

Eleven years ago I made my first visit to Cambodia and fell in love. I was in Phnom Penh, which in 1997 was a city of hope, and the mood of joyous optimism that pervaded its streets was irresistible. The man who was my motorcycle taxi driver during my visit was a man whose smile touched his eyes but did not erase the omnipresent sadness that lived in them. His parents had been killed during the years of Pol Pot when he was just entering his teens, and he refused to accompany me when I entered the grounds of Tuol Sleng, the school that had been turned into a torture chamber , because that is the place that had made him an orphan. He took care of his younger brother as best as he could and they both survived.

He took me to his house in the rural outskirts of the city so I could meet his wife, his two small sons, and his baby daughter. His children all gleamed with the love that he gave them, healthy and happy. At one point during my time with them, my host tapped the side of a large and bulging burlap bag. “Rice,” he said proudly, “We eat it every day.”

When I read and reread The Clay Marble, it brings this memory so strongly to mind that I often find that I am in tears. Minfong Ho evokes the hunger of that dreadful time–for food, for family, for community, for the ability to know that a harvest of rice will soon be reaped, for the safety to sleep in one’s own house with safe and happy children close by.

Obviously I have emotional baggage that I bring with me to this book–would it have the same impact if I had not fallen in love with Cambodia? What about you? Does this book move you or is does it feel contrived? Is it an issue in search of a story or does it bring the refugee experience to life? Please let us all know what you think…

Yesterday we went to the library and signed up for the Summer Reading Challenge – this year it’s called Team Read - and judging by the piles of books we all came out with, we’re really going to enjoy it. A new book in was Kanako Usui’s The Fantastic Mr Wani. Hooray! It’s been out since 2005 and I certainly knew of it before now but we’d never actually read it – and since it features in our current Big Picture Gallery, it couldn’t have appeared on the library shelves at a better time.

Mr Wani is a crocodile who is in a hurry to get to a party but the journey proves to be rather eventful. The story is helped on its way by expressive punctuation and font sizes and the illustrations are just superb. I love the way Usui draws the various animals’ eyes and there are lots of expressions for listening/ reading children to enjoy imitating – like the squashed mice with their tongues hanging out. There is a glorious moment where you just know the inevitable is about to happen as you turn the book end on to see Mr Wani hurtling down from the sky over a sledge carrying three penguins.

That is the other lovely thing about this story. It completely enters the spirit of young children’s imaginations – the journey is totally matter-of-fact in its acceptance of mice carrying umbrellas, balloons attached to the signpost pointing to Town and then the three penguins sledging down a snowy hillside, followed by Mr Wani’s “Bump! into Mr Elephant’s rump” (a very satisfying rhyme that I can see finding its way into the family lexicon) and bouncing from prickly hedgehog to prickly hedgehog through the Froggies’ door and so into the middle of the party. There’s an extra little surprise at the end as well…

This is a great readaloud, with lots of potential for “audience participation”! Kanako Usui also has a great Japanese/ English bilingual blog – well worth a visit.

I grew up in a remote corner of Alaska, without electricity or a telephone, at a time when the Internet would have been considered a maniac’s wild fantasy. Anyone entering our house at night would have found everyone in our family clustered around a couple of gas-fueled lanterns in dead silence, each of us deeply immersed in a book–except for my little brother.

He loved books, as long as they were read to him, and I loved reading aloud, except when it cut into my own reading time. Often when my parents, my sisters, and I were all silently reading, my brother would be off in a corner alone, taking his tricycle apart and putting it back together or interrupting us with requests that one of us read to him for a while.

Scarred by an unsuccessful introduction to reading in the first grade, my brother had soon became embarrassed by his lack of skill in a family of bibliovores and was a resolute functional illiterate. The rest of us found this appalling as well as inexplicable and discovering a book that would make my brother a passionate reader became an overriding obsession for us all.

Not too far away there was a tiny library that was our family’s idea of paradise. Even my brother loved it, since it contained picture books and illustrated encyclopedias–and as it turned out, a sizable collection of Tintin books.

We were not a family of comic book readers, but when my brother came home with his first volume of Tintin, poring over the pictures and painfully puzzling out the words, it was a big day for us all. It was the moment that my brother became a reader and Tintin became a household saint. Now we all–even my little brother– were to be found clustered around the lanterns, blissfully engrossed in our books without being disturbed by “Won’t you read to me now,” or “Help me find the big crescent wrench, somebody” coming from a distant corner of the room.

As a bookseller, I love to find books for the uneasy reader and Tintin is always high on my list of suggestions. A colleague of mine specializes in turning reluctant readers into bookworms and in an upcoming interview she will tell us how she does it. What about you? What titles do you suggest for the uneasy readers of your acquaintance? Let us know!

Fleeing the horror that has turned her home in Cambodia into a battleground filled with death and starvation, twelve-year-old Dara and what is left of her family cross the border into neighboring Thailand and the safety of Nong Chan, a camp for Cambodian refugees. Quickly they become absorbed into the life of “a vast barren field teeming with refugees” which “had the feel of our village during the years of peace before the fighting started.”
This is a place with enough food for all, where Dara’s family joins forces with the family of Jantu, a girl who becomes Dara’s friend. Jantu has the gift of magic hands; she is able to turn clay and leftover scraps into toys and she makes Dara a clay marble that contains the magic and power that are badly needed in these troubled times. Even more magical and powerful are the bags of rice seeds that are given to the refugees and carry the promise of future crops in their abandoned fields in Cambodia. Dara and Jantu’s families dream of feeding themselves once again in Cambodia, but even in the safety of the refugee camp, war interferes brutally with their plans.
Written by Minfong Ho, who worked as a volunteer in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980, this book has become a classic since it appeared in 1991. Dara and Jantu, with their determination and courage, are characters who reach beyond borders and age barriers to show readers what it means to become refugees and how hope can bring people back to their homes. Please join us in reading and discussing The Clay Marble in July.

Well, we did it, though time nearly ran away with us at the end. We’ve had so many extra things going on this month that apart from anything else, I wasn’t quite organised enough to go out and track down books we didn’t already have somewhere around the house… Older Brother had already set his sights a while ago on Arctic Adventures: Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists by Raquel Rivera and illustrated by Jirina Martin (Groundwood, 2007); but we realised that our choice of books for the geographical area encompassing Southeast Asia on our PaperTigers map was somewhat limited. In the end, we revisited Asian Children’s Favorite Stories, retold by David Conger, Kay Lyons, Liana Romolo, Joan Suyenaga and Marian Davies Toth, and illustrated by Patrick Yee (Tuttle, 2006): Little Brother read the two stories from Thailand; and I read one from the Philippines and one from Indonesia as our official readaloud… of course, we did go on and read some of the others too – but it did serve as a reminder of the enjoyment you can get from just dipping into an anthology, rather than wading through the whole thing in one fell swoop, which is what I often tend to get carried away and do…

The two stories we read together, “The Mousedeer Becomes a Judge” and “The Golden Ring” both provoked quite a lot of discussion – the first because it had a strong moral which dealt efficiently with the nasty crocodile after he had tried to take a bite out of Buffalo, who had just saved his life; and the second because it is a folktale that explains why hawks and hens do not get on, and why hens scratch the ground, which we all enjoyed, even if we knew it wasn’t true. You can read a fuller review of the book here.

Of the two he read, Little Brother says:

I liked reading these folktales. The Fake Gem was about a person from Thailand called Phra who had a fake gem of glass and he was tempted to sell it to the Chinese Emperor Lao. Then Phra walked out and saw the bad thing he had almost done and in the end it turned out Lao wasn’t really a Chinese emperor anyway. “The Lucky Farmer Becomes King” was really cool because Lek was only a farmer but he managed to scare off invaders of Thailand but he didn’t have to fight them. Everyone thought he was brave but actually he was a scaredy-cat, except for when he fought a snake. The pictures are really funny, especially the snake one and the crocodile one where he’s cowering at the back of the boat.

Arctic Adventures: Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists is a stunning book and, as Older Brother himself noticed, it is remarkable because the stories are all true and were not the experiences of adventurers but people who grew up to become artists. I’m not sure how much he took in this time round of the actual biographies of the four artists featured but I think it is the kind of book that will be read many times, and which will grow with its readers. Jirina Martin’s palette reflects the far northern setting with its glacial blues and greens and varied shades of grey and brown, and her style complements the examples provided of the actual artists’ work. I think this is a great book for boys who are themselves creative but also love adventure: it just proves you can be both. Here’s what Older Brother wrote:

My favourite story was about a boy and a girl who went out hunting and made a tent on some ice. Then in the morning there was a cracking noise and the tent and the children and all their dogs had broken away and they were stuck on an ice floe. In the end, they managed to get home but it was quite scary for me to think that this was a true story. In fact, all the stories are adventure stories and they’re all true. And I thought when I was reading it that it was amazing to think that all the stories were from artists because I want to be an artist when I grow up.

And so we come to the end of our Reading Challenge for this year. We’ve all really enjoyed it and if I had reservations at the beginning that I might have to cajole my two into keeping going, I needn’t have worried as, after each mini review, I was nagged into helping them find their next choice; and they have been quite thrilled at the possibility of their reviews spreading their wings and being read from anywhere around the world…

So if you took part, do let us know how you got on; and we look forward to you maybe joining us next year, when our challenge too will spread its wings and be even more global…

Bruno, in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is one of the more problematic fictional characters whom I’ve found within the pages of a book. While Corinne said in her comments that she thinks his character is realistic, since he is a nine-year-old boy who has led a sheltered life, has an overbearing older sister, and lives in a time when there was no television or internet, I found his inability to understand his own language, as shown by his persistent usage of The Fury for the Fuhrer and Outwith for Auschwitz, to be unconvincing, contrived, and essentially unnecessary. However, it’s certainly true that without television and other mass media we could all be as uninformed and as naive as Bruno and that sometimes a character is more an instrument to advance a story’s plot than a breathing, convincing entity.

And Bruno certainly does advance the plot of this story. It’s a page-turner. As Corinne says, ” Once I started it, there was no way I could put it down until I had finished it.” I gulped it down as well and was relieved to know that this is the way the author intends for the book to be read.

Bruno’s simplified way of looking at the world around him makes this a good introduction to the Holocaust for children who know little about this time in history, and could work well in a classroom setting where there would be immediate answers to the questions that arise.

As an adult, I was annoyed by “red herring” portions of the book that were brought up and then never fully explored. Lieutenant Kotler is grilled by Bruno’s father over dinner one evening about the reason for Kotler’s father leaving Germany in 1938. Is Kotler’s father a Jew? A dissident? Who knows? It is never explained and left me wondering why the scene took place. It doesn’t seem to play a part in Kotler’s subsequent disappearance, which Corinne attributes to Kotler’s closeness to Bruno’s mother.

The shocking ending of this book comes so closely after Bruno’s betrayal of Shmuel and Shmuel’s subsequent punishment for stealing food that it could be wondered if Shmuel had intended for Bruno to stay behind the fence forever. Although Bruno is sheltered and naive, Shmuel understands the differences between the two boys, especially after living in the camp for a year. Corinne, on the other hand, says “Yes - I think Shmuel intended for Bruno to return home. I don’t think either boy had any idea what would happen or the risks they were taking when Bruno crawled under the fence.”

This is a book that bears discussion and I hope that it will be chosen for book groups, classrooms, and family read-alouds for years to come.
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…that’s a fear of solitude or “I don’t like being alone, or in the dark”, as Little Mouse puts it in Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett, which has just been awarded the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. While bedtime itself can be such a cosy, reassuring end to the day, with a story and a cuddle, there often comes a time when children don’t want to be left alone in the dark. Logical reassurances go unheeded and sometimes the turning-out ritual takes on the stuff of the very stories they’ve been laughing at, as monsters are chased from under beds and spooks are ousted from wardrobes… This is where Little Mouse comes in.

The book’s template is a self-help book for people to log their own fears: and each pair of phobias on a double page is cleverly interlinked.

“Each page in this book provides a large blank space
for you to record and face your fear using a combination of:
Drawing
Writing
Collage.

REMEMBER!
A FEAR FACED IS A FEAR DEFEATED.”

Only, what we have here is Mouse’s personally completed copy – and what a timorous wee beastie he is! He has filled in every page, from Entomophobia, a fear of insects, through monsters, yes, to, well, everything (that’s Panophobia!). In fact, Mouse has chewed it and glued it; and with all he goes through, it’s amazing that both he and his pencil survive until the end.

There is genius behind this book – every time I look at it I am struck by the lightness of touch Gravett has brought to this tricky subject. There is so much humor (not least in the way it ends) and this provides a very real opening for children to talk openly about their fears, however irrational – and, in fact, not just their own: my Arachnophobia (though I’m loathe to acknowledge it by its proper name) was pounced upon gleefully by my two…

The artwork is stunning, right down to the tiniest detail of a dog-eared page corner. As well as the holes and torn edges, there are collages with flaps, some terrifying feathers and an annotated “Visitors’ Map of the Isle of Fright”. This is a book to be drooled over - though perhaps not literally. Button and Mr Moo, the rats to whom the book is dedicated, have already done their business… In fact, some of the illustrative techiniques involved seem set to cause a furore – but that mustn’t be allowed to detract from the quality of the book itself. I go along with The Ultimate Book Guide’s comments about the publishers too – Macmillan are indeed to be congratulated; and I can only envy Daniel is preview peek at Gravett’s soon-to-be-published The Odd Egg!

Here’s a link to yesterday’s interview with Emily in The Guardian and do look at her own website, including this activity to “Make Your Own Collage of Fears”. She was also recently selected as one of The Big Picture campaign’s ten Best New Illustrators in the UK, as announced at the Bologna Book Fair. You can read The Big Picture’s interview with her here.

And a little PS – we will be featuring three of The Big Picture’s longlisted artists in our Gallery in our next PaperTigers update…

If sunlight and warmth have hit the almost-polar regions of the Pacific Northwest, then it must be summer everywhere in this hemisphere–time for lemonade, picnics, beaches, long days spent outdoors, and lots and lots of books!

Summer reading is its own special category of literature–it’s the time of year when we remember that books are instruments of delight and amusement. It’s also the time of year when so many other things compete for our time and attention that reading sometimes is put aside until autumn and the required reading lists roll around.

When The Papertigers blog first began, Corinne had a wonderful post that discussed summer reading programs presented by libraries (which, Marjorie told us, also takes place in England under the wonderful name of “reading schemes.” Wouldn’t you rather scheme than take part in a program?) and said that she and her children celebrated the end of school by going to their library, signing up for the reading program, and going home laden with books. What a splendid way to mark the beginning of summer!

Of course not everyone lives near a library that offers such a program–I certainly didn’t when I was a child–or perhaps a crowded schedule of sports, summer camp, and family vacations prevent participation in a library program. For these people, we invite you to make The Tiger’s Choice your summer reading program. It fits into any schedule since you can comment when you are ready, on your computer, at any time of the day or night. It welcomes readers of all ages who love children’s literature, so you can discuss books with your friends, your parents, or even your teacher! It’s also a great way for youth group leaders to supplement their own summer activities with discussions about books, or for educators to stay in touch with their students.

If the monthly selections don’t appeal to you, tell us what you are reading on your own and why you like it–you may help someone else to find a new favorite author. (This is what happened to kids who responded to our Asking the Kids questionnaire–Geronimo Stilton and Young James Bond now have new readers.)

We’ll keep track of your suggestions and comments–when the end of August comes around we hope all of us will have found new books to love and new ways at looking at old favorites. Please join us!

And please add your comments to our discussion of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which will end as June draws to a close.

In her post at the beginning of the month, Aline talked about books which help young people gain some insight into what it means to be a refugee, in light of World Refugee Day on the 20th June – and in fact we decided to bring her post up to the top on Friday to keep the day at the forefront of our minds.

She mentioned Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Williams and Khadra Mohammed (Eerdman, US 2008) and this really is a particularly special book for giving an idea of what life is like for children in a refugee camp.

Two other books for younger children which also highlight some of the difficulties faced by refugees but also, crucially, that in essence children are children the world over, are:

A True Person By Gabiann Marin, illustrated by Jacqui Grantford (New Frontier Publishing, 2007), in which a young girl, Zallah, is living with her mother in an Australian immigration detention centre, while they wait to hear if they will be allowed to stay in Australia - see our full review here; and…

One Green Apple by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Ted Lewin (Clarion Books, 2006), which tells the story of Farah, who has recently arrived in the US from the Middle East. She is not finding it easy to cope with a new culture and language – but on this, her second day of school, she is going on a field trip to an apple orchard and it is a chance for Farah and her classmates to make the first steps towards friendship and learn that there are ways to get over any barrier of language. Tone of voice, gestures, smiles – all these help to make Farah begin to feel welcome and recognise that some things can and will be just like they were at home.

Perhaps what makes the story so powerful is that Farah herself is the narrator – through the picture-book medium, Eve Bunting has given a clear voice to all those young people who arrive in a new place feeling vulnerable and unable to communicate. It is a story but it reflects certain aspects of reality – not everyone is nice and there are references to intolerance and impatience: but the overriding message for children in Farah’s situation is that it is possible to feel whole again; and it serves as a compelling reminder to children generally how to make a newcomer feel welcome and reassured.

Lewin’s stunning illustrations also deserve a special mention – they enhance the insight offered by the story through their perfectly attuned observation of body language as much as verbal communication; his children’s faces are perfect, whatever their expression. And the word luminosity comes to my mind every time I look at them, they are so enfused with dappled sunlight.

These are all well-written and beautifully presented books, which will make young children ponder, and probably ask lots of questions. Certainly they are best read aloud the first time they are introduced. Can anyone else recommend books for reading aloud to children which touch on the experiences of young refugees?