The last book of the year has been read (Sahwira: An African Friendship, by Carolyn Marsden) and a whole new year of reading is about to start. Oh the joys of being an avid reader!…
If, like me, you’re likely to ring in the New Year in bed, with a good book, you might want to consider Reading Into the New Year. “It hardly sounds like a challenge,” I hear you say. Well, it isn’t. It’s more like an invitation to have fun and share your passion for books with others. However, the book(s) you choose to curl up with to welcome the new year and new decade might reveal much about your aspirations and hopes—and I guarantee the fireworks in your mind’s eyes will be just as incredible as the ones outside!
Whereas I am still planning to get caught up with titles I missed from previous years, the list of 2010 releases I just started already excites me beyond words. Perhaps one or two of these titles might inspire you to start your own brand new pile of books to look forward to?
Ling and Ting by Grace Lin
A Million Shades of Grey by Cynthia Kadohata
Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
Our Grandparents: A Global Album (A Global Fund for Children book)
Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World by Jen Cullerton Johnson, illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler.
For an in-depth look at the best of the 2009 crop, the always reliable CCBC is hard at work: CCBC Choices 2010 will be available after March 6, 2010 (for information on how to have a copy sent to you, go to their website). And for a look at the best of the decade, Fuse#8 has a great post.
Happy New Year of Reading to all!
Coleen Mondor (Chasing Ray), Liz Burns (A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy) and other bloggers are organizing a new “One Shot World Tour,” a multi-blog effort to promote children and ya literature from/about different parts of the world.
Some of you might remember their Australia edition in 2007, and the Canada one in 2008. This time they encourage everyone to explore Southeast Asia. Needless to say, we will be joining in on the fun (there’s even rumor of an interview with PaperTigers, which will be such an honor for us!). The round-up of posts will be hosted by Chasing Ray on Aug 12, so if you have book reviews, interviews or other content that relate to the region by way of author, illustrator or theme, make sure to send them your permalinks. For the sake of this project, the focus will be on: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines, so don’t miss out on the chance to participate and share your old favorites and/or new discoveries with all of us!
Last week Black-Eyed Susan had a bit of a rant and threw down the gauntlet to “teen bloggers and those who blog for teens”. Read her post and you’ll understand why. And then consider taking up the challenge:
I’m making a 30-day challenge here. From now until August 30th, how many multicultural books will you read and review on your blog? Don’t know what to read or how to make this a success? Join us for CORA Diversity Roll Call and check out books reviewed for the Diversity Rocks! Challenge.
We’ve been incorporating the Diversity Rocks! Challenge into our reading for the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge, and will be continuing with it until the end of the year… we’ll see how we do in August too.
If you’re stuck for ideas, look no further than Susan’s fantastic Unofficial List of Great YA Books by or About Women of Color.
Yikes, I’m falling a bit behind on reporting back on this year’s PaperTigers’ Reading the World Book Challenge - but we have been cracking on so I hope I’ll be back in a week or so with Book #3. How are you all doing out there? For those of you who haven’t picked up on it, or need reminding, check out my initial post here - there’s still plenty of time to join in…
In the meantime, here’s what we’ve read for our books #2:
Together we read Tales Told in Tents: Stories from Central Asia by Sally Pomme Clayton and illustrated by Sophie Herxheimer (Frances Lincoln, 2006). We loved it! Sally Pomme Clayton is a performance storyteller as well as a writer. Her storyteller voice makes these tales a joy to read aloud and she unobtrusively inserts cultural details, which deepen understanding, as well as some of her own experiences while gathering the stories on her travels through Central Asia, most notably in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. We learned the legend of how felt was invented; added to our growing collection of beautiful creation stories; marvelled at magic; revelled in riddles; and sought out the mythical storyteller whose presence wove itself through the different stories. Herxheimer’s beautiful illustrations help to convey the magic and even after we had listened to the story we had to go over each one again with attention fixed on the pictures.
Older Brother, 10 1/2, read Ice Trap! Shackleton’s Incredible Expedition by Meredith Hooper, illustrated by M. P. Robertson (Frances Lincoln, 2000) (and I think it’s published in the US as The Endurance: Shackleton’s Perilous Expedition in Antartica by Abbeville Kids, 2001). Here’s what he says about it:
I enjoyed this book a lot because of the excitement. In 1914 Shackleton set sail to Antarctica as he wanted to be the first person to walk all the way across the Antarctic Peninsula but his ship was caught in pack ice. Then their ship was crushed by the ice. They sailed in lifeboats to Elephant Island, which was uninhabited, then Shackleton took five men in a lifeboat. They wanted to sail to South Georgia but in sight of the cliffs they got caught in a hurricane, which blew them to the wrong side of the island, so they had to climb over mountains to reach the town. Then eventually everyone was rescued by a steam boat.
It was very exciting because a lot of unexpected things happened and also it’s true, which makes it even more exciting because it’s about Man against Earth and people belong to Earth. And Earth/Nature is stronger than Man and actually, they couldn’t control the ice.
I think they were brave. It was nearly the first time anyone had tried to get there. And there was a stowaway on board, which made it harder for them to survive because there wasn’t enough food. Not a single person died in two years. I’ve read this book three times - once my Grandad read it to us. That was special because he spent a year in Antarctica a long time ago.
Little Brother, 8, read Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter (new edition, Knopf Books, 2008):
Peg Leg Joe is a sailor with a missing leg and he sings a song which will help lead slaves to freedom. It’s called “Follow the Drinking Gourd” - the Drinking Gourd is a constellation which we call the Plough and in America it’s called the Big Dipper and it’s part of the Great Bear. It points to the Pole Star so it always points North. There’s a slave who is about to be sold the next day away from his wife and children who are in slavery as well. That night they all follow the Drinking Gourd. It’s not an easy journey and in the pictures there are some Wanted! posters of them. Then they meet Peg Leg Joe at a river in a boat. He rows them across the river in his boat and then he goes back to collect some more slaves who have also followed the Drinking Gourd, leaving the family at a trail he calls the Underground Railway. It’s a trail of houses with safe places to hide. They hide and rest in the day and move at night so they can follow the constellation and also so they can’t be found so easily. They make it to safety and freedom.
This really happened. I knew that there were people who used to be slaves but I never knew they tore families apart. I’m glad that some people escaped to freedom but slavery is wrong and everyone should have the right to be free.
