It's Monday - Books You Need to Know

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

            WINNERS chosen by Rafflecopter of the Shakespeare Pop-Up Book are Jama Rattigan & Jane Heitman Healy. 
            Congratulations! I'll be contacting you also by email!

Learning about others' lives, who they are and how they live is an important beginning learning. This week, I seem to have read several books that help people (kids and adults) who read them think about others, then about who they are, too.

          March 12th seems to be an important day in publishing. These next three books' publishing birthday is that day!

       Yes, I've read most of the wonderful picture books about Ada Byron Lovelace, then received this amazing new short chapter book, thanks to Candlewick Press. Some have called her the Bride of Science, some a science poet, thus the title Dreaming in Code feels quite appropriate and you will understand when you read this longer biography. Child of the famous/infamous Lord Byron,  whose parents were so estranged that her mother, Lady Byron, didn't even tell Ada about him until she had to, until he had already died. The intermingling relationships among Ada's mother, Ada's husband, and Charles Babbage show Ada's life and temperament in a rather constant upheaval. She appears a genius but beleaguered so by ill health, it is a challenge to see how she managed her mathematical accomplishments at all.
       Lady Byron, though she didn't admit it, carried her grudge against Lord Byron's betrayals all her life, appeared determined that Ada's mind and work would be 'managed', sometimes with tutors who gave her huge intellectual challenges, ones that inspired although also exasperated. Her collaborator Charles Babbage plays a big part in Ada's life and that relationship was described in detail about his inventions, the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine designs. Ada was able to see far beyond his visions, dreaming of the potential of modern computers and predicting such programming techniques like loops. She could have done more but was hampered by the mores for women at the time and her bad health. Appendices summarize Lovelace’s notes on the Analytical Engine and present the British Association for the Advancement of Science’s rationale for refusing to support its construction. This seems to be her finest time for recognition then. She has since been much praised.

         It's a dense and interesting portrayal of both Ada's life and the way people of wealth lived at this time as the industrial revolution flourished, those who followed the rules, at least on the outside, but did other things that surprised me, too. The portrayal of Lady Byron, Ada's mother, was most challenging to find sympathy for. There are source notes, a glossary, a bibliography and a page for an index not shown in this advanced copy.

  

Thanks to Penny Candy Books for the following book. 

           When there is a loss, everyone seems to have one thing that means something very special, and when one realizes that thing cannot continue the way it was, it's hard. Young Asha has traveled a long way to her grandma's house in India. She has carried her yellow suitcase, usually bringing gifts from California, but this time she did not. This time, her grandma is not waiting on the porch when they arrived. She is gone. Meera Sriram gently leads the reader through Asha's feelings, her stages of grief from denial to acceptance. Asha kicks that suitcase under her bed, angry that it won't hold gifts to take back home with her either. Meera Sethi fills the pages with those beautiful colors of India that surround Asha as she remembers the "aroma of cardamom-spiced chai and of sweet ghee that filled the house when Grandma was around. And she missed the soft cotton saris Grandma wore." Both author and illustrator have managed to show a sweet and sad story that ends as it begins, a yellow suitcase with something good in it, something that will help Asha remember her grandma. It is a story that will be nice to share with children who are missing someone dear to them. 

           

Welcome Poets, Welcome Spring!

          Welcome Poets, Welcome March, holding spring! 

When I signed up for March 1st, I thought I would simply share a breezy, flowery poem, readying us for what's coming, at least for those of us still held up in winter. I know some of you are already posting buds and blooms!

"Spring is nature's way of saying 'Let's Party!" Robin Williams

"Spring adds new life and beauty to all that is." Jessica Harrelson

and this: “In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.” Mark Twain

        However, I have become interested recently in anagrams, began searching for lists, and discovered more than I could have imagined were there. Within my own discoveries, I found spring and grew a poem. Perhaps you'd like to try a couplet or two if you discover some anagrams that inspire?

A Gander to Garden

In the heart of the earth

sap warms in a spa.

Trees ready for a reset

though the wake may be weak,

miles to go before they smile.

Snow sometimes owns

the tales, can steal

into a forest in softer

tone, keeping a winter's note.

Finally, a nester brings extras –

palest, pastel petals of

lemons and melons,

pear blooms we'll reap,

rosiest of stories,

the Charm of March.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

Inlinkz Link Party

Picture Book Wednesday - Things Not Always What Is Seen

Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  Thanks to her hosting and sharing and those who add their posts discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books!  I always learn from these books, am happy that they are more and more available today for children, for everyone!

Monday, I posted a giveaway HERE for a Shakespeare pop-up book!

        It's an intriguing thing to read of a gorgeous movie star who regretted her looks because she was also an inventor, also smart, though it wasn't easy to prove it. "People seem to think because I have a pretty face I'm stupid...  I have to work twice as hard as anyone else to convince people I have something resembling a brain."
        In this new book, Laurie Wallmark, with Katy Wu, (the team that also gave us Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code) show Hedy's life as a contradiction, a young girl who loves to take things apart to see how they work and one who also loves acting, who sets up a stage beneath her father's desk in order to put on plays with her dolls. In her native Austria, her acting was noticed when she had the lead in a play, thus she left for America under contract with Louis B. Mayer. Laurie Wallmark shows her public life filled with glamour and beauty, romance and intrigue, yet the true intrigue was behind the scenes as she set up her parlor into an inventor's workshop. Underneath the lines she learned and the designer clothes she wore, she looked for problems that needed solutions! Among those shared, she solved the problem to help people out of the bathtub, a 'flavor-cube' for thirsty travelers, and a glow-in-the-dark dog collar to help people find their lost dogs. 

        While Hedy was inventing and becoming a beloved movie star, World War II arrived where guidance systems "couldn't prevent the enemy from jamming the weapon's radio signals." She, with George Antheil, a composer and former weapons inspector, devised a 'secure' torpedo guidance system. Here is Hedy's exciting (secret?) story, their persistence to make their idea workable and to obtain a patent. Wallmark's text celebrates their idea and the patience taken. And that is the interesting, but frustrating, part. They did obtain the patent, but sadly, according to the text, the Navy has neither the time nor the money to use the idea. However, this idea, one called "frequency-hopping spread spectrum" is the invention that keeps our cell phone calls and texts private. Fifty years later, Hedy and George were "finally" recognized for their work. Hedy said, "It's about time."

Monday Reading - Books Loved

Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who post their favorites. 
        It was quite an amazing reading week, time to read three fantastic chapter cooks & fall in love with more picture books. Winter weather helped!  
        And I have a second post today HERE with a giveaway of a Shakespeare pop-up book for two winners!

        Mapping The Bones is another story of that terrible time of World War II, focusing on two children caught in the nightmare of Hitler's plan to rid the country of Jews and other undesirables. Yolen weaves the Hansel and Gretel tale into this story of Chaim and Gittel, twins who are taken to the labor camps in 1942 and the horrific abuse they endured especially being young twins at the hands of an evil doctor. I've read that an alternate title was "The Candy House".

        First, forced from their beautiful home and made to live in the Lodz Ghetto, those awful circumstances become too dangerous, and their parents decide to flee to the nearby Lagiewniki Forest, where partisan fighters help spirit the children away. Earlier in the ghetto, the family first is made to share their small apartment with another family and in that time, those children's parents die in separate tragedies. The two left, Bruno and Sophie, also travel with Chaim and Gittel. Sadly, all four are captured by German soldiers, their partisan saviors killed. The story does not stop leaving one wanting both to stop reading and keep reading. It feels like an underlying drumbeat of danger as chapter by chapter, the days and nights terrify. 

        The relief of the story is the loving connection between the twins, Chaim, a boy of few words, but writing poetry, and Gittel, reflecting between chapters as if she's telling their story from afar. It felt comforting because one read and thought that because she was reflecting, she must have survived. Yet because of the utter loss of trust in this time, I found that hard to trust too. I didn't know until the end who was finally free and able to continue their lives and who was not. 

         Jane Yolen has written a story that seems all too real, a fiction based on tragic truth. And through Chaim, Yolen has also shown her poetic expertise. The poems in such a sad story offer relief, though often sad. Yolen also gives Gittel another strong voice. She writes the words and lets Gittel tell them: "Our hearts were minefields in those days. Befriend someone, get to know someone, even dislike someone, it didn't matter, for they might well be gone forever in an hour, a day, overnight." It's a terrific and tragic, heroic and loving story.

          A verse non-fiction book, written by one of the students who lived this "first" in 1956, first school in the American south to integrate after the landmark Brown vs Education of 1954 case that decreed that separate schools for black and white children are "inherently unequal". Jo Ann Allen Boyce partnered with Debbie Levy to write this story, Jo Ann's story! It is about that year, from end-of-summer prep, some family and neighbors' introduction, then those months that actually began fairly well, but worsened day by day, until Jo Ann's family moved to LA. At this beginning are her words "If school were weather, I would say it's serious/with a chance of friendly." Still later, more protests brought in the troops who had to escort the students "down the hill" to school. FYI - African-Americans mostly lived on a hill above the town. 

          " P lease, let the troops bring Clinton back from the

            E dge of the cliff

            A ll we want is to go to our school without the

            C yclone of ugliness without fear without hate with

            E ase "

            There is nothing easy about this story, nothing easy to read about those who spit, hit, shoved, wrote hate notes to these twelve students. It's well done with an underpinning of loss that made me sad for the kids and for the families. And you know some is still happening in our world today, sixty-three years later. 

            There is a wealth of backmatter, notes from both authors, a timeline, a bit about the kinds of poetry, a bibliography and further sources. I can imagine a classroom could use this as a beginning study of desegregation history. 

It's A Giveaway, It's a Pop-Up, It's Shakespeare!

No problem here, just a taste of this fabulous giveaway/Shakespeare/pop-up!

             Thanks to Candlewick Press, I've have the pleasure of a giveaway, offering this pop-up book created by veteran pop-up artist, Mennie Maizell to TWO lucky winners. 

Written by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, two members of The Reduced Shakespeare Company,  (a troupe that specializes in first condensing and then performing works of literature and film), it's a pop-up that includes an enticing overview of Shakespeare’s work and times. There are five double-page spreads illustrated by veteran pop-up book designer Jennie Maizels and including numerous lift the flaps. The first spread introduces the world of Shakespeare. It is thought that he may have been an apprentice to his father, a glove-maker and written rhymes to be put into the gloves. One small rhyme was discovered in a pair for a man named Aspinall. "The gift is small./The will is all./Alexander Aspinall." Small facts like this are spread among the flaps and art, along with the pages for the plays and poetry described below.

The bulk of the work is contained in the next four spreads which present summaries and comments about all of Shakespeare’s plays, divided into four categories: comedies, histories, romances, and tragedies. It is humorous, even on the tragedy pages, and accurate. To include all the information, one must turn these pages around. You can see an example below. I'm sure it will be terrific for upper elementary and middle school classrooms for a beginning study of Shakespeare. 

the front

the back

Jaques:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143

        Fill out the rafflecopter entry form below and be sure to leave a comment sharing your favorite play by Shakespeare.


a Rafflecopter giveaway