Monday Reading - Lovely Books

          Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

          I have held onto this second book, The Remember Balloons for a while. My husband passed away from Parkinson's with its own kind of dementia, and it wasn't a book I was really wanting to read, though I know it is good to have a picture book to help open the topic for children, to help them understand. Then, Candlewick sent me this first book, Dad's Camera, and I didn't know that it, too, was about Alzheimer's Disease. Both are good reminders that dementia can take different forms and be explained sweetly to children who may need to understand a family member.

           Each person with a disease that attacks the memory is different, as is this father in this moving picture book, an emotional look at a family touched by Alzheimer’s. Dad keeps taking photos with an old camera he has found. The snapshots are meant to celebrate his memories and his life, so his family has something to remember him by. However, they don't understand why he is taking photos of strange things, like his keys, his coffee cup, the objects scattered on his desk. He starts doing a lot of things that are hard to understand, like putting items that belong in the fridge in the cupboard and ones that belong in the cupboard in the fridge. At the end, they do realize that he loved them very much. First published in Australia.

        Jessie Oliveros does a terrific job of telling about Alzheimer's Disease in an easy-to-understand way for young readers. She uses the analogy of balloons as memories and at first the boy telling the story shares he has way more "balloons" than his little brother. His favorite is the one filled with his last birthday party. His mom and dad have more than he does, but his grandpa has more than all of them together, with marvelous stories. As the story moves along, Grandpa sometimes tells about one balloon twice, and then he begins to forget those stories. They simply float away. The boy is shattered, but his parents help him realize that now Grandpa's balloons belong to him that he can share. Dana Wulfekotte illustrates the story with a limited palette except for those beautiful memory balloons.  

       It's a week after the full moon, a delightful time to read this beautiful story, a folktale, of a mother making huge mooncakes, making sure her daughter knows that she is not to take any bites of it. That daughter's name is Little Star. However, in the night, Little Star wakes to look up and see how tasty that cake looks. Perhaps she can have just a nibble? With black sky background, Little Star dressed in pajamas covered with stars, and that beautiful, glowing, delicious-looking Mooncake filling up the pages, bit by bite the reader sees the moon's monthly journey across the sky. I adore the little details, like the crumbs on Little Star's face after her first bite. And the endpapers include the cooking scene with a boxed mix titled Leo and a small splash of spilled milk turns into spiral one sees in outer space. It's a magical book.

Poetry Friday - Those Goodbyes

Kay McGriff at A Journey Through The Pages hosts this final Poetry Friday in October with a view of her own sunrise inspiration. Thanks, Kay!

I'm visiting Irene Latham at Live Your Poem today with an "Octopoem" for Agnes, her favorite octopus, celebrating #Octopusmonth.

My days filled with leaves this week, alongside the challenging news, daily things like checking for a roof leak (no answer to the ceiling crack yet-yikes), and fun, too, with the grandgirls and at the bookstore. 
        I raked them. I filled paper bags from Ace Hardware and delivered them to our "Leaf Drop" program for future mulch. I gathered some beautiful ones to lay on the dining table and show Ingrid and Imogene how to identify them. And, sharing below, I took a walk. Actually, I took more than one, but. . .  I am fortunate to live where there are many trees, a forest city! So, a poem, too.

I Went Out For A Walk

Some trees spread their prints.

Leafy remains lie like tablecloths,
picnic ready.

Crispy crimson clings for show,

ignoring translucent evidence

of goodbyes.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

NF Picture Books - Amazing Nature

art by Sarah S. Brannen

Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  From her post and others, you will discover and want to celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books! 

           Thirteen animals are explored in this wonderful book first published in Spain about how animals build their homes and the interesting, and needed, approach each chooses in that construction. With marvelous mixed-media illustrations by Julio Antonio Blasco, Daniel Nassar shares much information about each, like where and why the home type, how it's built, and special characteristics of the animals that aid the construction. Each page has a unique fold-out that mimics a "plan" with materials listed and the actual project drawn on graph paper. (see example below).

An example of a full double-page spread.

What is seen when you lift the flap on the right in the page shown above.

          From insects like termites to birds like the bower bird and including mammals like chimpanzees, it's a wide array of architectural masterpieces explained. I loved the way the home site of each animal is cleverly added to the pages, like those above with the African tree frog's home nestled high in a tree to protect against predators, but over water so when the eggs hatch, those little tadpoles fall into the water. 

         This book will be a great beginning to a classroom study of "homes" or part of a study of "animals". It's terrific. And it will make a great pairing with A House In The Sky: And Other Uncommon Animal Homes by Steve Jenkins and Robin Gourley. See Alyson's post above for its new honor.

Monday Reading - Books Loved

          Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

          The last time I posted, I shared this book by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin. Now I want to congratulate them for being chosen for as a finalist for the National Book Award! See that new shiny sticker!

            I've been visiting my son and family out of town, so read very little while there, but have tried to catch up this past weekend and want to share a variety of books!

             Yes, finally I understand why all the raving about this story. It is a beautiful read, one I had to put down for my trip away, and raced through last Thursday. There are alternating time settings, a lot of puzzles, especially brilliant that while Candice and Brandon are working out the biggest puzzle, we readers are also tested in solving Varian Johnson's puzzle challenge to us. I enjoyed adding each piece, trying a shape in one place or in another, right along with those two young kids whose friendship grows through some ups and downs, and ends with an honest partnership. There are pieces that might surprise, but ones that will show other kids how life can work out just fine through some honest talk between friends, between kids and parents, and between other kids and other adults (if only they would listen to each other). Don't miss this if you have put it off a while as I did!

             Hey, Kiddo is the graphic memoir of author-illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka. You may know his Ted talk in which he shares this story, but now, in a limited palette that fits his life, it becomes something to love despite the darkness, to admire because of the goodness that he also showed. Unsparing love from all his family, including his heroin-addicted mother whom he only wishes he could be with, and finally just be with a little bit more because full-time was never possible. They didn't count on raising another child, but his grandparents took him, ensured he was as safe as they could make him. Even in the lowest points, they supported and encouraged him. From his beginnings, I felt the underlying sadness throughout but the celebrations happened, too. Jarrett showed in examples throughout that his art passion truly became his "saving grace". Perhaps there are others who have not been touched by drug abuse and sorrow because of it, but my family has. This memoir feels like a kind of hand-holding, something young adults can hold onto with hope in Jarrett's story as inspiration.
      You can hear Terry Gross interview Jarrett on NPR here! Just by chance, I was listening while out on errands this week. It was nice to hear his voice again.

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           I've also had the joy of receiving some special books from Candlewick, some that may be the right gift for a special person or class in your life.

         Recently published in the U.S., Ingela P Arrhenius (remember her giant animal book!) has created another over-sized book all about cities. In City, she highlights all the wonders one can find, perhaps not in every city, like subways, but most pages are filled with familiar sights. There are things, like newsstands and airports and construction sites, filled with all kinds of people enjoying those places. She also included people in their own pages, like mail carriers and skateboarders! Graphic images make these city parts come alive and the endpapers also are full of smaller "city" discoveries: people like construction workers, soccer players, and vendors; things like clocks, cranes, and onions! I know that classrooms often have a yearlong theme, like Cities, to study. This is the perfect book to underpin discovering all that a city can be.

Poetry Friday - One Answer

          Brenda Harsham at Friendly Fairy Tales hosts Poetry Friday today with a sweet gathering haiku to lift our spirits.

            I missed Michelle Barnes' post last week with Today's Little Ditty's latest challenge, this time from Calef Brown. Briefly, he asked poets to "Write a poem or a story about two anthropomorphized objects. They can be an odd couple, close friends, mortal enemies, or meet each other for the first time. The poem or story can be about an adventure they have together, a conflict, a game they play, anything."

            I have been intrigued by this, enjoying the poems on the padlet so far, and wrote one and posted it. But I have had a question in the back of my mind for months that I read somewhere: "Can afraid and brave learn to get along?" I've written more than one poem this year about perspective, something that appears so challenging this politically-charged year. Thus I began a second approach to this challenge. Can I find an answer by writing? What do you think? Did I?

Sometimes It Takes Two

Afraid sees shadows lurking here,

lolling there, most everywhere!

Afraid wants others to recall

they too heard scratching in the wall.

It often queries, “Whence that smell?

What’s the strange sound of a bell?”

When it goes to sleep at night,

Afraid does not turn out the light.

Brave loves shadows as they seem

like artist’s drawings in a dream.

When its ears hear something crunch,

Brave imagines tasty lunch.

It loves all sounds - the wind in trees,

the bells that ring, a person’s sneeze.

And when it’s night, and time for bed,

Brave’s lamp turned off, it rests instead.

Perhaps Afraid can grasp Brave’s hand

to help them both to understand

another way to fill a need,

a simple act that plants a seed.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

photo credit: maekke Trio via photopin (license)