Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow! Happy April, everyone!
It's a marvelous thing to be invited into a story by Tara Dairman who takes us readers to the magical world of The Gardenia Isles, first specifically the island of Earth's End. There we meet twelve-year-old Henna and her two papas, Niall and Joaquim. Within all the special life they live is a secret unlocked. Henna's beloved Papa Niall is very ill. After her years of gardening, she knows that there is one plant that might save his life. She finds a way, sad though it is for her, to leave to be a scholarship student at St. Basil’s Conservatory, a botanical boarding school rumored to house seeds of every plant ever grown.
Although she thinks she only has to complete her search, she finds herself with, yes, friends, ones chosen to be her roommates. There is genderfluid P whom she has met on the Orange Boat, a boat that comes to all the islands with deliveries, and also wealthy student Lara who wants only to do things for herself, even from her wheelchair. Henna's task creates several dilemmas of right and wrong yet finding out that friends can make all the difference is a learning she never thought she needed. The world-building is wonderful to learn about as this adventure takes twists and turns with dear Henna. The love underlying all the story gives warm feelings for the way people can be. I enjoyed Tara Dairman's author's note about her own journey of writing this book, too.
Thanks to Candlewick Press for this copy!
If you want to be inspired by someone who made it his life's work to use what is available in our world, read the story of El Anatsui, an artist from Ghana. His art has included many things, but this book by Alison Goldberg focuses on his work with bottle tops, those metal or plastic tops that seal, not the screw tops. Goldberg writes: "What other people saw as scrap, El saw as materials with a history–materials with the potential to become art." Elizabeth Zunon's illustrations fill the pages with paint and cut paper about El's journey, first in love with letters before he could even read! Early in life, he wanted to tell his own stories, which are shown by Zunon in brilliant color. The book will be wonderful to share with students, then find ways to be inspired in making art. There is an author's note and one activity added at the back.
