Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites. Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
This book came out in 2014 and Greg Hickey asked me to take a look. Wow, now six years old, a sci-fi plot backed at the end by a lengthy summary of what has happened on earth, what has pushed humans to find a way to colonize a new planet. It's all science, parallels some of the realities that have happened in these recent years, but we are far from this future, I hope, when we must send some of the earth's population off into space because of simply no room left.
Greg invites us readers into a small colony on the planet Pearl where citizens are taken care of with dormitories for sleeping, meal halls for receiving meal cakes three times a day, and lovely outdoor spaces in which to relax and play. The citizens are so relaxed they seem in a stupor when speaking in phrases like "hellohoweryou?" and "Goodthankshoweryou?" At times, unable to reply, they stare, finally turning to leave. Bells carry them to the sleeping quarters and to eat, a whirring sound delivering those cakes, until one day it stopped after giving only a few!
The story deepens as colonists wail, unable to understand, leaving hungry. Another time, the sleeping halls are locked, forcing everyone to sleep outside. The picture laid out from this new way of living is stark, and my questioning started with "Why?" and "How?" A focus begins on one of the citizens, a young man named Samuel who shows us what he is seeing as well as what he might do about it. He begins the thinking that shows a problem-solving mind, adrift and isolated from the others. There are parts of drawings left at random that he finds, and tries hard to decipher them, frustrated by their elusive meaning. Bit by bit, those pictures help Samuel solve the problems that come to the colonists, who ignore his work and only whimper and whine, resigned to every disaster. It is a relief that Samuel had one helper who steps forward, a young woman named Penny, at first shy and brief of speech, yet she also grows bolder in her manner, a strength, and help to Samuel. The story moves from one disaster and discovery to another until a final revelation and the end. I rooted for Samuel and Penny, also for all those sad inhabitants. And I hope there may be more to this story!
It's good sci-fi, like others perhaps predicting a future we can only imagine, sometimes with the horror of what can be for our great-grandchildren and beyond. That summary mentioned above shows some connections to problems humans have created already.
I won't give any scenes away, but Liz Garton Scanlon and Audrey Vernick's words give the opportunity for Olivier Tallec to create page after page of fall-off-the-sofa laughs when viewing. Use "It'll only be five minutes" as a line where you might want to imagine your own scene, with kids! That's what it's like! It was much fun to read aloud with my younger granddaughter, who's eight.
This is one of the final books edited by the late Lee Bennett Hopkins and it is a treasure he and many poets and artists have given us. In his intro, Lee writes "Heritage makes us who we are." And by collecting these pieces, he has shown that. You might see yourselves in this book, art or words, or some may connect another personal memory. Sean Qualls' cover art gives a glimpse of what's inside. It will make a beautiful pairing with George Ella Lyons' "Where I'm From" poem if you and students are doing some exploration of heritage.
