Monday Reading - Praise for Being Outside

  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 Reading! 

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. 

It's interesting how things work out. Each of these books have an outdoorsy vibe, in varying ways of course, yet nature plays a part in each.

       I reviewed Kat Apel's Bully on the Bus, a verse novel for younger readers, so good for kids, teachers and parents! last Friday for Poetry Friday. You can read the review here!

Thanks, Candlewick Press,
for this copy.

           This published last month, a long awaited sequel to Ghetto Cowboy, which I'm sorry to say I have not read. There were references to that story in this book, yet it felt as if it would not be confusing. Those who have read the earlier one will love learning more about Cole's new choice, to stay in Philly with his father and the horse he saved earlier, Boo. His mother lives in Detroit. This feels like a good story for middle-grade readers.Its numerous layers include learning to get along with his dad, Harper, after years of being apart. He must get a job if he's really going to live there and the one his dad gives him is one where Dad owes a debt. Cole ends up working as a stable hand in a wealthy military school, one where those cadets treat him as a servant and unworthy of any kindness. 

         However, one of them happens to be a girl, yes, a black girl, Ruthie, who is as good with horses as Cole. Only, she plays polo! The story is surrounded by polo in various ways, and I also learned that not only at the wealthy academy, but there are city horses and woods in Philadelphia with riding paths, the ones Cole and horse Boo know so well. Conflicts mount as Cole's cousin, an 'underneath' nice guy mixes things up as he tries to keep in touch and give Cole money because he's 'dealer. Deep conversations among them all, an interesting sub-story about the ghetto cowboys, a sadness of the needs in the neighborhood and the principal of Cole's high school who keeps improving it makes, as written earlier, a complex story of Cole and the choices he is led to. And, of course, there are lots of polo descriptions, too!

        As this was an ARC, I didn't see Jesse Joshua Watson's final illustrations, but the black and white ones were great, enough to give a glimpse of these kids.

 

        Kids will love the whimsey in the sixteen steps Laura Purdie Salas describes in her new wonderful book. That little girl on the cover will show you the way. She's stopped at the farmer's market to pick up some apples with her dad, and there's a sheep for sale! Have you ever brought a sheep home with your child? Probably not, but it seems they do have a barn and there happens to be a pig and a chicken in there, too, as they wait through the winter until. . . It's shearing time! In brief text with brightly colored illustrations by Angela Matteson, readers learn all the steps from wool to using a natural dye, this time marigolds, to knitting, YES!, some beautiful mittens, as Laura writes, "Hold the golden sun in your hands." (I bought this for my young granddaughter, now ten, who has been knitting for a few years and loves the book.) It's lots of fun, will be an inspiration, too, to dig deeper into the 'how-to' of each step, from sheep to knitting!