Some children’s bookstores are legendary–and one of them is Saint Paul, Minnesota’s Red Balloon Book Shop which recently began an instore book group (called Chapter and Verse) that would be worth moving to Minnesota for!
Perhaps the only thing more fun than reading a good book is reading a good book that transcends all age categories–and then talking about it. It has always seemed peculiar that more book groups have not been formed for adults who love children’s literature–we at PaperTigers hosted an online bookgroup, The Tiger’s Choice, during 2008 for just that purpose, but the intimacy of a book group does not translate quite so effectively to cyberspace.
On the other hand, bookstores are the perfect venue for book groups. You know, when you go to a book group at your favorite bookstore, that you will have something in common with the other participants–you all love to read and you all love the same bookstore!
When I was pregnant with my first son in Fairbanks, Alaska, I began to rediscover the delights of a well-written children’s book, and was sure that I was the only adult who still frequented the young readers’ bookshelves of my local library. One evening a friend and I were chatting about what we’d read when Georgianna lowered her voice and confessed, “I read children’s books.” Suddenly we were a two-person book group, happily discussing A Wrinkle in Time and Harriet the Spy.
It’s so wonderful to know that children’s literature readers no longer feel clandestine and have places as congenial as the Red Balloon Bookshop to host their discussions! If you’ve been lucky enough to be a member of this group, please tell us about it–if you have another favorite bookshop that provides this opportunity, do let us know. And to Chapter and Verse at the Red Balloon–we’re on our way!
We have just broken up from school for the holidays and our thoughts are turned towards Christmas next week. As well as reading Dickens’ A Christmas Carol together for the first time, which we all greatly enjoyed, we have been reading other stories with a Christmas setting, including two multicultural versions of the Nativity story, the birth of Jesus.
The first is The Road to Bethlehem: A Nativity Story from Ethiopia told by Elizabeth Laird (Collins, 1987). Elizabeth Laird has spent a lot of time in Ethiopia gathering stories from the oral tradition and her writing here certainly asks to be read aloud - not only is the story told simply with plenty of direct speech to bring it alive, but for those children who are familiar with the story from their own traditions, there is likely to be a good deal of intrigued discussion in which the differences are explored, including new characters and miracles.
The illustrations too are full of extra fascinating details - their vibrancy and appeal to young listeners/readers make it hard to take on board that they are taken from 200-year-old Ethiopian manuscripts in the British Library! Laird has added fascinating notes to each picture, which can be dipped into alongside reading the text - one Older Brother was particulary struck by was an episode on the Flight into Egypt showing arrowheads sticking out of the road to stop them: “but Mary took the hand of her Child, and walked through unharmed.”
The second book is one I blogged about last year but didn’t actually manage to share with my boys - however, we have now read together Ian Wallace’s beautifully illustrated version of The Huron Carol (Groundwood, 2006), based on an English translation of the Christmas carol written by a French Jesuit missionary, Father Jean de Brébeuf, for the Huron people in the 1600s. After reading through the first verse together line by line with its double-page-spread illustration, showing the people, landscapes and fauna of its Canadian roots, we have really enjoyed singing the whole carol from the music and words given at the end - in the original Huron, in French and in English. As we have pored over the familiar characters of the story in an unfamilar setting, and the baby Jesus wrapped in fur, surrounded by wolves and beavers, we have explored the reasons that the carol came into being.
We have all enjoyed sharing these books together - and any misgivings I might have had about confusing them with the different versions of what is to them a familiar story have been allayed - on the contrary, I believe their experience of the Christmas story has been enriched by them.
We don’t often think of picture books when we think of book group titles, but this month the Tiger’s Choice offers a picture book. It’s one that is an ideal selection for adults and children to read and discuss together–created by two men, Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee, who have provided a new defintion of what picture books can be.
Heroes follows their stunning debut, Baseball Saved Us, with a story as powerful and as provocative as that examination of the Japanese internment in the United States during World War Two. This time the story looks at peacetime America, and the difficulty of overcoming the vicious stereotyping that is the collateral damage of war.
One of the most moving and heroic stories from World War Two is the history of the Japanese American men who enlisted in the U.S. Army and formed the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, fighting in Europe and becoming “one of the most highly decorated units in U.S. Army history”–even though many of them had family members confined behind barbed wire fences in desolate internment camps. The strength of these soldiers’ patriotism and the bravery of their military exploits makes my hair stand on end when I read about them–and so does this book.
When Donnie plays war with the other kids, he’s always the enemy because, he’s told, “there wasn’t anybody looking like you on our side.” He knows that isn’t true. He’s heard his father and uncle talk about their time in the Army ; he’s seen their war medals. Yet he’s told, “Real heroes don’t brag” and “You kids should be playing something else besides war.”
But the war games don’t stop–they become more real and more frightening–and Donnie needs help.
Please read this book and add your comments to our final Tiger’s Choice discussion.
The October Carnival of Children’s Literature is in full swing with the theme of Snuggle Up with a Children’s Book (great advice for any month of the year!) at The Well-Read Child, where Amy from Kids Love Learning tells How to Create a “Book Addict”, Heather at Age 30+…A Lifetime of Books reports on her Mom and Son Book Club, and Megan reviews Hip Hop Speaks to Children by Nikki Giovanni at Read, Read, Read. Our PaperTigers blog has joined in the fun with Marjorie’s Books at Bedtime discussion of Fiesta Femenina.
Be sure to go to the Carnival, which next month will feature The Gift of Reading and will be hosted by Mommy’s Favorite Children’s Books.
