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.
It seems to have taken a while to get this year’s PaperTigers Round the World Reading Challenge off the ground in our house – but we’re flying now! We’re following a similar pattern to last year: a readaloud and the boys each reading their own choices…
The book we all read together was Planting the Trees of Kenya, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago…
Older Brother, 10½, has read The Cat who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth and illustrated by Raoul Vitale (Aladdin Paperbacks, 2008). First published in 1930, this is a short, beautifully written fable which centres around the Buddhist legend that the Buddha blessed all animals except the cat because a certain cat “was not overcome with awe”. It was a Newberry winner and was discussed recently, as it happens, in a fascinating post on The Newberry Project blog, which is where my quotation above comes from. The story certainly worked its charm on Older Brother:
It’s about an artist in Japan and his housekeeper bought a cat instead of their food with their money. They were very poor so the artist was not happy with her at first but then after a while he was able to start selling paintings. Then a priest came to his house and ordered a picture of the Buddha’s tomb and all the animals he blessed. He blessed every animal except the cat so the artist did not draw the cat at first – but his cat always looked upset that there wasn’t a cat in the painting so the last thing he did was paint a cat in it… and I’m not going to tell you what happened but there was a miracle.
It is actually a beautiful story. You know, there was a shelf in the artist’s room and the cat sat and looked at a special statue of the Buddha belonging to the artist and they both prayed in front of it. I like art and I thought that I was actually standing there watching it happening (that happens to me quite a lot in books, by the way – sometimes I think I’m the main character, sometimes I’m up in a tree watching).
And Little Brother, just turned 8, read Grandpa’s Indian Summer, the second of Jamila Gavin’s three Grandpa Chatterji books (Egmont, 2006 – and you can read PaperTigers’ full review here):
I loved this book. Especially the bit where Sanjay eats all the cakes and then he gets scared because all the ants come and he jumps onto the metal chest with all the cakes in. Everyone’s looking for him. And he’s got two cakes in his hands and he eventually gets found. Then Grandpa Chatterji gets into trouble because he’d been eating cakes and Sanjay found him and wanted to have some too, so it’s all Grandpa Chatterji’s fault!
I really liked the last page. The last sentence was the best!
It made me want to go to India because it’s a wonderful, colourful place. And I also like peacocks, although there aren’t any in the book. I also want to play cricket – and that is in the book!
Do let us know how you are getting on with our Reading the World Challenge – or if you haven’t started yet, here’s what it’s all about - there’s still plenty of time…
January is moving on apace so there’s no time to lose! It’s time for this year’s PaperTigers Reading Challenge! Last year, we set about reading five books from/about/by someone from each of the five geographical areas on the PaperTigers map - but this year, as we have spread our wings all the way around the world, our Reading Challenge is going to do the same.
So, without further ado, here it is:
Choose one book from/about/by or illustrated by someone from each of the seven continents - that’s:
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America
Have the books read aloud to you or read them yourself; share them as part of a book-group or in class.
The books can be picture-books, poetry, fiction, non-fiction… the choice is yours.
Tell us what you have chosen/read, as and when, by leaving comments on our monthly updates - and complete the Challenge by the end of July 2009!
There are plenty of ideas for books in the PaperTigers Reviews and Reading Lists sections - and if you have any ideas you’d like to suggest to people joining in from different continents, please do!
It would also be great to join this to the Diversity Rocks! Challenge - this is a wonderfully adaptable challenge: it includes levels for The Overlapper, or even the Non-Joiner, which asks you to read one book by an author of color by the end of February 2009… Or if you’re a “Challenge Addict”:
Commit to reading 6 books, 12 books, or 24 books by authors of color in 2009. If you already read a lot of authors in one group, branch out.
Pick one or more of your challenges and commit to read four different authors of color: perhaps a black author, a Latino author, an Asian author, and a Native American author.
Well, I think at that point you could be an Overlapper AND an Addict, both while taking the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge!
We’ll be following a similar programme to last year - each month, we’ll have one read-aloud and each of my boys will also choose their own. We’ll keep you posted - and I hope you will too!
