Monday Reading - Reading Books Help Us Learn

              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!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR


           I hope all of you are doing well and doing the best you can during this time. I'm glad that I've had some books that help me learn and grow during this heartbreaking time of unrest. Because I've always read books by diverse authors, it has been helpful to know those books and authors. Now, I'm reading some of those same authors and books, and learning about others, too.

       From "The Story of the World's First Racist" in Chapter One to "A Miracle and Still a Maybe" in Chapter Twenty-Eight, I re-learned some policies and laws I thought were good, and some of them were good, but they were turned around and interpreted in ways that harmed black people anyway. I learned that the presidents I thought did well, didn't help black people at all, but made their lives worse. I learned that there are many things I need to un-learn and other things I'll need to research further. I learned that it is all of our work to make changes for the better for people of color. The book did not go as far as President Obama's and now President Trump's administrations, but the explanations of laws and policies through our history in this book will help me to see more clearly what has happened (or sadly not happened) has led to the recent protests. Thanks to Ibram X. Kendi for the base and then to Jason Reynolds for the re-mix. I don't teach anymore, but I have friends and family, grandchildren, to share my learning with and I will! 

       

        As I read Nikki Grimes' memoir, Ordinary Hazards, I kept imagining I had read it before. I knew I hadn't, yet it seemed so familiar. Then I realized that I had read its essence, in Nikki's past books, when I read Meet Danitra Brown, Words With Wings, Bronx Masquerade and so many others. Her story is in them, too. In this memoir, Nikki traces her life beginning with a fraught childhood, a mother with schizophrenia that causes a move to a foster home, then back to her mother with a new husband that makes life even more frightening. Throughout the years, Nikki discovers that writing helps her forget the tough days and because at a later time her mother throws all her notebooks away, in this book she recreates what she remembers in new writing, sometimes titled "Notebook". The work to remember as she admits that trauma has often denied the memories is a powerful tribute to her honest search for how she grew up into the person she is now, a survivor and magician with words, telling a real story of her, reflecting all those books we've read and loved from her before. We all know there are "ordinary hazards" to face in life, but when you discover Nikki's meaning, she is to be admired for the telling of a life of danger and heartbreak and her determination to find goodness in the arts that she loves and the beauty brought to all of us readers.  

#PoetryFriday - Nothing Nicer Than Celebrating Nikki Grimes

       It's Poetry Friday, and on this very special day with Irene Latham at Live Your Poem hosting, we've been invited by Irene to a celebration.  Janet Fagal joins me today for this post, both of us shouting out a HOORAY for the life and work of talented and awesome Nikki Grimes. Thanks for hosting the party, Irene!

       You can find Nikki in a myriad of places these days, HERE on her web page and HERE at The Poetry Foundation are two. She's on twitter, @nikkigrimes9, and in these times of unrest and protests, she's been writing heartfelt poems there, along with all the other projects happening in her life.  Of course, the best places you can find Nikki Grimes lie in her books! 

        I could return to old memories of books I've loved by Nikki. I could sing her praises for the most recent picture books like Southwest Sunrise illustrated by Wendell Minor, or show my gratitude for a new picture book biography coming later this year about Kamala Harris. I have just finished Nikki's memoir, Ordinary Hazards, out last year. I haven't shared a review yet, but what struck me, what Nikki gives to me, the reader, from this book along with all her other books is a heart-full of words that tell about life. 

      Thus, I'm celebrating, honoring her with a few more. Thank you, Nikki and congratulations for the many honors you've been given!

from a line from “Journey”, p. 61, Ordinary Hazards
             Celebrating Nikki's Words

Whenever I search for The

poem I know will touch me Daily

I often March

to find another book of

perfect words

by – bet you can guess – Nikki Grimes, parading

quietly but readily pulled from

the poetry shelf, to search for my

way into Nikki’s poems to inspire the pen

keenly kept

waiting for me

to write like Nikki (I hoped) moving

into new territories of words, moving forward.

                                              Linda Baie (c)

           Janet celebrates with a few special memories of being with Nikki and from her book, Words With Wings.

Knowing Nikki Grimes

          Despite problems, there are very good things about social media and FB. It was there that I began to connect with Nikki Grimes. Now I consider her a friend. At first, I was an admirer of her huge and important body of work, the photos of her glorious roses, and her openness about sharing her faith and ideas. In 2018 Nikki came to my community to visit two schools. One in my town and one in a neighboring city.  I was her host and we spent quite a bit of time together. We went to the Harriet Tubman Home and Park and also to Harriet’s graveside. We met Harriet’s nieces. It is hard to find the words I need to speak about that time together. Later at lunch when the cover of Ordinary Hazards came to her email she shared it with me and the librarian who was with us. I felt honored. Special. Happy. That cover is extraordinary as is her memoir. Nikki uses her voice to teach, and show us so much about life. Again and again. Her list of awards speaks volumes for her incredible talent and hard work. Her words pull me in every time. But to honor Nikki I want to talk about a favorite book.

Monday Reading - Good to Step Inside People's Lives

              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!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR

 
           I hope all of you are doing well and doing the best you can during this time.  




    Out in May, thanks to Candlewick Press for this copy!

          First published in England. You probably know David Almond is British, thus this story, set during World War I, is about John, a British boy, whose father is fighting in the trenches in France, and his mother works the long, twelve-hour shifts with hundreds of other women in a munitions factory in their town. 

       John's teacher Mr. McTavish (not a friendly soul at all) is taking the class for a tour to the munitions factory, continues to lecture the children that they're all at war, too, fighting the enemy children. On the way, they encounter John's friend Dorothy's Uncle Gordon, evidently deemed a traitor, against the war. He has pictures of children in Germany, says they are good children, not an enemy. You can begin to guess the dilemma. Some, like a boy named Alec, is enthusiastic about the war and the killing, but John questions. He is just a child. How can he be at war? He picks up a picture of a German boy named Jan and later has a dream-like encounter with that boy where they scatter seeds of peace. It's a story made sad by all the elements of war and childhood mixed poignantly by Almond and illustrated in somber black and white illustrations by David Litchfield. Almond's stories are deeply thoughtful. I believe this will resonate with middle schoolers and up.  

        You may have already heard some of this story of Mohammed Alaa Aljaleel. Now, Irene Latham and Karim Shamsi-Basho have told it with beautifully vibrant illustrations by Yuko Shimizu in a new picture book. It is a celebration of this story of kindness and filling a need that eventually touched people everywhere. A special note by Alaa himself begins the story, written in Arabic as well as English. 

        War in Syria caused many people to leave the city of Aleppo, but not Alaa. He stayed but misses his family and friends, stays to serve as an ambulance driver to help the wounded get medical help. He begins to notice the cats, strays now, but once pets that had been left behind. He begins to feed them as well as he can. More cats come and somehow his story is told and aid comes from the locals, then from all over the world. They find one building that serves as a shelter, then another. Alaa does not stop giving and loving, and the story tells of more that he does, like building a playground for the children still there and helping to dig a well for clean water. When I read this to my granddaughters, they asked about the destruction shown which lead to talk about what it must be like to live in a war-torn city, finding safe places when possible, etc. The book shows the good that can happen when someone, like Alaa, just begins, then another offers help, then another. 

Poetry Friday - To Remember

         It's Poetry Friday, it's June, the month when summer arrives, at least officially! Welcoming us is  Margaret Simon at Reflections on The Teche.  Margaret writes alongside a line from Naomi Shihab Nye in a poignant letter of goodbye to her students. Thanks, Margaret!

Argument Gone Bad - full credit below

           Sometimes I wish this week weren't so, returning to the 'before' of George Floyd's death, for him. But I have hope that it will turn into good, that we can make change. I hope each of you continues to be well in light of the continuing virus threat, too. 

Do Not Forget This Week

Seeing bridge building

among people

can be as beautiful

as capturing a chasm

with strongest of steel, which we 

have managed, do manage,

will manage. 

Let us not stop!

Respecting those who are

determined-doers 

soul-solvers,

persistent-players

goal-getters

caring-completers

enduring-empathizers

and 

never-quitters.

Realizing my glass

cannot remain half-full, 

when others' stay half-empty.

Linda Baie ©

        I have been reading Richard Blanco's How To Love A Country: Poems for a while now. Several poems are favorites, but one feels right for this Friday. It is a persona poem written from a river's viewpoint speaking to us humans, humbling.

Complaint of El Río Grande 

     for Aylin Barbieri

I was meant for all things to meet:
to make the clouds pause in the mirror
of my waters, to be home to fallen rain
that finds its way to me, to turn eons
of loveless rock into lovesick pebbles
and carry them as humble gifts back
to the sea which brings life back to me.

I felt the sun flare, praised each star
flocked about the moon long before
you did. I’ve breathed air you’ll never
breathe, listened to songbirds before
you could speak their names, before
you dug your oars in me, before you
created the gods that created you.

the rest is here at Poets.Org


photo credit: natasia.causse Day 83/365 - Argument gone bad via photopin (license)

It's Monday! Books That Help Us Live Stories

              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!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR

   
           I hope all of you are doing well and doing the best you can during this time. 

         I've read one other book by Monica Hesse, Girl in The Blue Coat, set during World War II Holland in the secret underground. In this new book, she has written the "after" of a story, the "after" concentration camps are liberated and the lives at least some of those who survived lived "after". Hesse, in her afterword, shares that most books set at this time usually finish the story at the end of the war. Few take the story further. I've read many books about the Holocaust, too, and she's right. While the books fill the stories with people of great courage, some who make it and some who do not, usually the ending is hopeful, but not detailed. 

         This story is of Zofia, a young woman recently liberated from a camp. She knows her family is gone, except for a young brother, nine, Abeck. She first travels to her old home with the help of a Russian soldier, only to find an empty ransacked place. She reunites with one old family friend, then moves on to a displaced persons' camp. Hesse lets us into the story by letting Zofia tell it. A first-person voice is powerful, and this time, particularly so because we are taken into her thoughts as she anguishes over decisions, analyzes what response is expected of her along with the response she could also give. Her mind twirls in choices, wondering what is right, what is not, how to protect herself. It's both a story to agonize over this life as a reader and one that made me wonder how the survivors managed? How did they create lives "after"? There are small bits of writing that show Hesse keeps the sad tone expertly. This is not a happy story. Once, upon waking, Zofia shares she must have slept longer than she thought, says, "It's still dark outside, but the sky is a dark bruise instead of an inky black." There are some moments of happiness of those who choose it with courage instead of sinking into the past. I kept hoping for Zofia while reading every page! Monica Hesse has given what must be only a glimpse of one person, but it opens new learning about the time in these lives I hadn't considered before. Her author's notes at the back are also wonderful to read.

Thanks to Candlewick Press for the copy!

         Khalil lives upstairs with his family ad Mr. Hagerty lives downstairs. They are old and young, love having cake and cold milk together to help cool off, and share a few secrets that make them smile. The story is about their days, told by Tricia Springstubb in a story of genuine empathy for others, made all the more wonderful by Elaheh Taherian's full-color illustrations.