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I read a few older ones this week, but most of these are books published in 2016. What a wonderful group of books published so far this year!
verse novel
Booked - Kwame
Alexander
I taught middle school students for a
long while--last year, one more class. That time I had the joy of putting Crossover
into students’ hands. Now, I don’t have a student to share this new story by
Kwame Alexander with and I am sad. BUT, I will share it online as many places
as I can, and I will find someone to pass it to who can make sure a young
adolescent will get to read it. I love the voice of this boy, Mark, a twelve
year old lover of soccer, and oh so smart, but he doesn’t like showing that to
his teachers. His challenges are big: parents are splitting up, two bullies are
upset about his choice of girlfriend, and he hates having to read a particular
book by his father, a dictionary. There’s also trouble with being kept from
soccer, devastating punishment which comes from his parents and because of an
illness. Words and literature play a big part in Mark’s life, yet he ignores
it, until a turning point when the love of his life, a young girl named April,
asks him to join the library book club. The librarian, The Mac, a former
rapper, plays to Mark’s best side, and as they trade wordy jokes throughout the
book, Mark finally comes to some idea about the kind of person he wants to be.
How Kwame Alexander manages to include all this, and more, in Mark’s story but
in beautiful poetry is extraordinary, but he does. He left me at the end
wanting more and more.
picture books
A boy and his father have a cart
of wheels of cheese and one, alas, rolls off, down a hill. This interesting story begins in the opening
endpapers. The boy runs afer the cheese, but cannot catch it before it flies
off into a ravine, and becomes stuck in a tree. The tree happens to belong to a
squirrel, and the real problem begins, because the squirrel fears being put in
prison because he’s stolen the moon. There are several stark prison cell scenes
too, with a prisoner. And there’s also a hedgehog and a billy goat, lots of
funny action and gorgeous, muted drawings, except for that yellow moon and a
beautiful red squirrel. I saw others who know this illustrator and praised him
for his work. Now, I’ll look for him!