Award-winning author Pam Muñoz Ryan has another hit with Our California, a wonderful introduction to this state—its regions and history.  Opening with a two-page map, illustrator Rafael López highlights the “villages, deserts, mountains, and coast” to which Ryan welcomes her reader with the challenging question, “Which region do you think you will like the most?”

Helping to answer this question, Muñoz Ryan begins in the south with San Diego’s beach for surfing and swimming and a visit to its magnificent zoo.  She continues through the mission district to San Juan Capistrano where the swallows return each year and then to Hollywood—land of movie stars.  San Francisco with its cable cars and famous Chinatown leads us to the state capital, Sacramento, where the Pony Express once delivered the mail.

Along our journey we learn many interesting facts about California.  Sonoma is the site where settlers made the first California flag of one stripe, one star, and a bear, and the northwestern town of Eureka is named in remembrance of the cry uttered by gold diggers who had struck it rich.  California’s Central Valley provides food for dinner tables throughout our nation.  Yosemite Park, with its ancient Sequoias, has more waterfalls than anywhere in the world, while Death Valley measures daytime temperatures reaching 120 degrees and an average rainfall of only 1 ½ inches each year.  We end our journey relaxing by a pool in Palm Springs where we think about everywhere we have been.

Our California is a delightful book written in rhyming couplets and filled with wonderful illustrations.  In an afterword, Muñoz Ryan provides additional information about California and the sites visited.  While younger children aged five to seven will enjoy listening to this book, readers aged eight through twelve can be challenged to write their own books about other states.  Muñoz Ryan has written the perfect informational book—avoiding the boredom or didacticism often encountered in non-fiction works for children, and López has provided delightful illustrations that bring it all to life.
Pam Muñoz Ryan.  Illus. Rafael López.  Our California.  Watertown, MA:  Charlesbridge, 2008.

Discussion Questions for Our California

The Pout-Pout Fish written by Michigan author Deborah Diesen and illustrated by Dan Hanna is a darling little story about a fish whose lips are in a permanent pout.  The curve of his lips pulls down and his lower lip protrudes and dips under as if he is in a very unhappy mood.  His facial expression disturbs all of his underwater friends including clam, jellyfish, squid and octopus.  They all give him advice to change his face, get happy and smile!  But all Mr. Fish can say, and he repeats it many times throughout the text:
                  “I’m a pout-pout fish
                  With a pout-pout face
                  So I spread the dreary-wearies
                  All over the place.”

The illustrations in this picture book are as charming as the rhyming text.  They are drawn with imaginative details including sea creatures of all sizes and shapes with great big eyes and marvelous habitats.  The colors will also attract the young child including the hot pink jellyfish, purple sea urchins, the orange squid, green seahorses, yellow blow fish and a blue sword fish.  They all can be seen swimming together on the first double page.  This underwater community is enchanting.  Especially delightful are the pictures of kiss-kiss fish smooching with everyone including a grand “smooooooooch” on the last page with his lady love.  Children can play word games and download free Pout-Pout activity sheets at www.deborahdiesen.com.

The Pout-Pout Fish written by Deborah Diesen and illustrated by Dan Hanna will please children 3 to 7 years of age (published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 18, 2008).

This is Sue Ann Martin for Children’s Books. . .The Dean’s List

Discussion Questions for The Pout-Pout Fish

Martina the Beautiful Cockroach:  A Cuban Folktale, recently retold by Carmen Agra Deedy, is the entertaining story of Martina Josefina Catalina Cucaracha, a cockroach in old Havana.  Now that she is 21 days old, she is “ready to give her leg in marriage.”  Her household is “crawling with excitement,” and all have advice to offer, but it is her Cuban grandmother, her Abuela, who offers some “shocking” advice that ultimately turns out to be the best of all.  She suggests that Martina spill coffee on the shoes of each of her potential suitors to assist in the selection process.

But what is the actual purpose of this “Coffee Test,” and will it work?  Her grandmother explains that this action will make her suitor angry so that she will know “how he will speak” to her when they are married and he loses his temper.”  Confidently, her Grandmother asserts that this test “never fails.”  Deedy’s story is attention-grabbing and filled with delightful descriptions of Martina on her balcony to greet her suitors, as she “daintily . . . sat down and crossed her legs, and crossed her legs, and crossed her legs.”  Each suitor comes with the same plea, “Martina Josefina Catalina Cucaracha.  Beautiful muchacha, Won’t you be my wife?”  But, using the trusty coffee test, she finds problems first with the strutting rooster who proves “too cocky,” then with Don Cerdo the pig who proves too much of a “ham,” and finally with the “cold-blooded” lizard who sneaks up on her and, after she spills two cups of coffee on him, lets slip in an angry hiss his original plan to “eat—er—MARRY” her.  Only the shy little mouse comes with a different approach to woo Martina, surprisingly placing the coffee “on the other foot.”  To understand his secret, you will have to read this clever tale.

Spanish words are sprinkled throughout, and Michael Austin’s large, colorful illustrations support the text perfectly.  Young audiences aged four to nine will delight in the cleverness of the story and the humorous wordplay throughout.  They may even invent their own additional suitors for Martina.

Martina the Beautiful Cockroach:  A Cuban Folktale.  Retold by Carmen Agra Deedy.  Illus. Michael Austin.  Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 2007.

Discussion Questions for Martina the Beautiful Cockroach:  A Cuban Folktale

Michael Rosen, a life-long fan of Shakespeare, and Jane Ray, an internationally acclaimed illustrator, have produced a gorgeous volume as a way of introduction to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

The text is liberally adapted with key lines from Shakespeare embedded in the narration of each page and identified by bold print.  This is a combination of paraphrased lines and the “real stuff”.  Side bars announce the Act and the Scene and house the meaning of certain words used by Shakespeare, such as star-cross’d (destined to have bad luck), atomi (a tiny creature), inconstant (changing), woes (troubles), shroud (burial sheet) and unstain’d (innocent).

Defining Feature: Students ages 9-12 will appreciate the engaging picture of Romeo and Juliet on the first double page.  They will also find useful the portraits and full length drawings of all of the other 13 characters in the play on the second double spread.  All the pages have a handsome border in which to cradle the story and the pictures.

The paintings are bold in composition and delicate in detail with images of lutes, swans, stars and flowers.  The period costumes, true to the time, are wrapped in a realistic style.  The watercolors are rendered in both delicate light pastels as well as vivid burgundies and cobalt blue.  The book is a feast for the eye.  The wedding of Romeo and Juliet is a perfect tableau with Friar Lawrence standing in the center and Romeo and Juliet kneeling before him.  Illustrator Jane Ray captures the full range of human emotions on the faces of the characters.  Particularly striking is the pensive look on Juliet’s face as she is about to take the poison and the horror on the faces of Lord and Lady Capulet and the nurse after they discover her body.  As Lord Capulet says, “Death lies on her like an untimely frost/Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.” 

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Jane Ray is ideal for children 9 to 12 years of age (published by Candlewick Press,  December 1, 2003).

Discussion Questions for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!  Voices from a Medieval Village, authored by Laura Amy Schlitz and lavishly illustrated by Robert Byrd, has been awarded this year’s coveted Newbery Medal for “the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for Children.”  Schlitz, a librarian, created this collection of seventeen short plays for an enthusiastic group of students studying the Middle Ages.  While each was eager to take part in a performance growing out of this study, no one wanted a small part.  Thus, her short plays, mostly monologues, allowed everyone to be a star “for three minutes at least.”

Schlitz’s effort to counterbalance the sometimes dull facts of history with the drama of fiction has succeeded exquisitely.  Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! is a page-turner that begs to be read in one sitting.  The use of sidebars to explain medieval religious beliefs and customs, the rigid class system, and words not known to modern readers as well as to provide stage directions for the actors are not distracting in the least but bring the story to life.  Brief background narratives explaining the practice of religious pilgrimages, the Crusades, and treatment of Jews are equally fascinating.

Robert Byrd’s detailed and colorful illustrations, including his two-page spread of the Medieval Manor setting in which all the characters can be spotted, help the reader better understand each one.  Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! is a marvelous introduction to Medieval England for readers aged ten and up.  Teachers will find it a wonderful classroom tool as an introduction to history and drama, and adults who just enjoy a good piece of historical fiction will not be disappointed. 

Laura Amy Schlitz.  Illus. by Robert Byrd.  Cambridge, Mass:  Candlewick Press, 2007.

Discussion Questions for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!  Voices from a Medieval Village

Lady Liberty:  A Biography written by Doreen Rappaport and illustrated by Matt Tavares is a narrative look at the history of the Statue of Liberty.  A gift from the people of France, it was first conceived in 1865 as a monument to celebrate America at 100 years of age.   The book looks at Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s first work on the statue right through to the raising of funds for the 89 foot granite pedestal and the erection of the 151 foot, 225 ton Lady on October 28, 1886.  Everyone had a role to play including sculptor Bartholdi, his assistant Marie Simon, structural engineer Gustave Eiffel, publisher Joseph Pulitzer and poet Emma Lazarus, whose sonnet, “The New Colossus,” appears on a bronze plaque within the pedestal of the statue.  It includes those famous words, “Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

Defining Feature: The illustrations rendered in pencil, ink and watercolor are expansive, colorful and interestingly detailed.  There is a fold out which opens perpendicularly to show a gorgeous image of the Statue of Liberty reaching steadfastly into the clouds.  One very charming illustration shows a young farm girl chasing a rooster.  She will sell the rooster and contribute the money to Mr. Pulitzer as part of his campaign to raise funds from the people to cover the cost of the pedestal.  The artist, Matt Tavares, presents his images from very interesting vantage points such as the one from construction supervisor, Charles Stone, who is at the bottom of a large hole digging down to provide the proper foundation for the statue on  Bedloe’s Island, now called Liberty Island.  The reader also gets a bird’s eye view of the workers suspended high off the ground who are fitting the beautiful copper skin to the skeleton of the statue.  A page of facts regarding the statue’s dimensions and a page of timelines are located at the back of this beautiful, oversized book.

Discussion Questions for Lady Liberty: A Biography

Tomás and the Library Lady by Pat Mora, available in both English and Spanish language versions, describes a young boy’s first experiences in a public library during his family’s time in Iowa as farm workers.  It is based loosely on the life of Tomás Rivera, born in Texas in 1935 to a family of migrant workers, who as a boy loved reading and was encouraged by a librarian.  He ultimately became chancellor of the University of California at Riverside, and on his death, the campus library was named in his honor.

Tomás, the boy in this fictionalized story, is encouraged by his grandfather to visit the local library where he is welcomed by the Library Lady who offers him a cool drink of water and two books to check out in her name—books that fit his expressed interests perfectly.  He spends all of his free time reading at the library—finding imaginary adventures in lands populated by tigers, dinosaurs, and cowboys.  And at home he reads aloud to his family, introducing them to these same new worlds.  As Tomás and the Library Lady become friends, he also teaches her some Spanish phrases, the saddest of which is adios, or good-bye, when his family must return to their home in Texas.

Tomás and the Library Lady is a very simple story about the wonder of books and the many worlds into which they can lead us.  Raul Colón’s softly colored scratchboard illustrations fit the story perfectly.  This can be a great introduction to a first library visit for young preschoolers and kindergarteners as well as an opportunity to learn the Spanish words sprinkled throughout.  

Pat Mora.  Illus. by Raul Colón.  Tomás and the Library Lady.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Discussion Questions for Tomás and the Library Lady

The Tree Farmer written by Chuck Leavell and Nicholas Cravotta and illustrated by Rebecca Bleau is a celebration of one of nature’s most beautiful and essential gifts, the tree.  Winner of the 2006 Arbor Day Foundation Award, The Tree Farmer chronicles a day in the life of a grandfather and his small grandson as they take a walking tour through the family tree farm.  They pass elegant pine trees, comfortable old oaks and brilliantly colored maples on their stroll.  The older generation introduces the special work of respecting and caring and planting and pruning trees to the next generation.  The text takes the time to say that trees are not just beautiful, but they also play a role in cleaning the air and water and in providing homes for animals and human beings.  Grandfather is careful to explain just how important it is to know when to cut down a tree.  Quoting from the book:
         Grandfather reaches out for the nearest tree.  “This tree,” he says
         as he runs his old fingers over its rough bark.  “I planted it 37
         years ago.  It touches my soul to stand in its shadow.  After today,
         it will touch souls in a completely different way.  Part of this tree
         will be made into a crib to protect a baby and gently carry her as she dreams.”

Defining Feature: Rebecca Bleau’s brilliant silk paintings were created from photographs taken on Chuck and Rose Leavell’s 2200 acre tree farm in Georgia.  The illustrations are alive with nature’s rhythms and the reader can almost see the kinetic stream of energy moving throughout the forest.  Both the illustrations and text pay tribute to the many products and possibilities given to us all by trees.  This is a story of stewardship and sustainability.  On the back cover Chuck Leavell quotes an old Haida Indian expression, “We don’t inherit the land from our parents, we borrow it from our children.”

The Tree Farmer written by authors Chuck Leavell and Nicholas Cravotta and illustrated by Rebecca Bleau is ideal for children 5 to 8 years of age (published by VSP Books, October 17, 2005).

This is Sue Ann Martin for Children’s Books. . .The Dean’s List

Discussion questions for The Tree Farmer

Kate DiCamillo, best known as the author of Because of Winn Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, has presented her devoted fans with another wonderful novel, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  Supported by nostalgic charcoal gray and full color illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline, DiCamillo tells the story of Edward Tulane, a large china rabbit who lives on Egypt Street with ten-year-old Abilene and her family.

Thrown overboard, he is eventually caught in the net of a fisherman who takes him home.  But he later ends on a garbage heap where he is taken up by a wandering hobo and ultimately by a young boy who uses him to comfort his dying sister.  He even spends time as a scarecrow and later as a marionette puppet on the streets of Memphis, his beautiful china head ultimately shattered.  But during this long, long journey, Edward indeed learns to love.  At the book’s conclusion, he is miraculously reunited with the now grown-up Abilene who wears Edward’s fancy pocket watch as a locket in memory of her lost childhood friend. 

With The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, DiCamillo has created a book in the genre of The Velveteen Rabbit to be read, reread, and treasured by those in the upper elementary grades who believe in the transforming power of love to help us truly find our way home.           

Discussion questions for The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

The Lemonade Club by Patricia Polacco is a beautiful story, a kind story, a courageous and true story.

It all starts in the wonderful fifth-grade classroom of Miss Wichelman.  It is a place where much learning goes on in an atmosphere of love.  It is a place where hugs are available and stuffed animals reside along with a hamster, a rocking chair and student creative work posted everywhere.  A basket of lemons sets on Miss Wichelman’s desk and at the end of each day she asks, if you get a lemon handed to you by life and you add water and sugar, what do you get?  And of course the students shout, “Lemonade!”

The Lemonade Club is a story of friendship between Marilyn, her classmate Traci, Miss Wichelman and the whole class.  As the story proceeds and Marilyn is about to return to school, the teacher warns the class that she will be wearing a head scarf as she has lost all her hair due to chemotherapy.  The class plans a big surprise for Marilyn when she returns, which I will not totally reveal in this review.  However, I can say this, on the day of Marilyn’s return, every member of the class is wearing a hat.

Defining Feature: The illustrations are beautifully drawn and colored with markers, acrylic paint and pencil.  Polacco’s illustrations enrich the text and validate the feelings cradled in this true story---a story which actually happened to Polacco’s daughter Traci and her friend Marilyn.

The Lemonade Club written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco is ideal for children 4-8 years of age (published by Philomel, September 20, 2007).

Discussion questions for The Lemonade Club

The Bossy Gallito—El Gallo de Bodas:  A Traditional Cuban Folktale has been given a Pura Belpré Medal for both the rich, narrative retelling by Lucía González and beautiful illustrations by Lulu Delacre that celebrate the Latino cultural experience.  Written in the cumulative style of The House that Jack Built, the story revolves around a bossy little gallito or rooster who is frustrated at his inability to command either the water, fire, stick, goat, or grass to wash off his beak so that he can continue on his journey to the wedding of his Tío, or uncle, Perico.  It is only the sun who is willing to assist him, and this is because the gallito sings every morning to wake him up.  Interestingly, the sun’s help comes in a polite and mannerly way, not dependent on the bossiness that had failed the rooster in his earlier requests.  Young listeners from preschool through second grade will find much to consider in determining the real moral or lesson to be learned from this story.

The illustrations in The Bossy Gallito are enchanting, and Lulu Delacre explains her selection of particular settings and characters included based on her knowledge of the Cuban area in Miami, Florida.  Lucía González also explains the background of this traditional folktale and provides a Glossary to define Spanish words used in the story.  These additional pieces of information can assist teachers and other adults to better explain the story to young listeners and can also be helpful to young English- or Spanish-speaking readers in second through fourth grade who decide to read The Bossy Gallito for themselves.

The Bossy Gallito—El Gallo de Bodas:  A Traditional Cuban Folktale.  Retold by Lucía M. González.  Illus. Lulu Delacre.  New York:  Scholastic, 1994.

Discussion questions for The Bossy Gallito-El Gallo de Bodas: A Traditional Cuban Folktale

Ladybug Girl written by Jacky Davis and illustrated by David Soman is full of imagination and “let’s pretend”.  Lulu, Ladybug girl, goes into a temporary state of gloom when she is told she is “too little” to tag after her older brother.  She sits in her bedroom complaining, “There’s nothing to do,” amidst incredible possibilities scattered all over her room including a dollhouse, trucks, blocks, a microscope, hula hoops, balloons, easels, art supplies, a drum, a sailboat, stuffed animals, puzzles, a guitar, books and a pair of binoculars. 
Ladybug girl, decked out in red and black polka dot boots with matching wings, a red tutu and bug-like antennae attached to a red headband, decides to take charge of her boredom.  With her dog Bingo by her side she goes outside to explore the terrain.  After a while her imagination kicks in as she rescues ants, restores a crumbling stone wall, skips down a fallen tree trunk where snakes probably are hiding, crosses a dangerous puddle where sharks could live and climbs a tree on a spying mission.  She can do anything.

David Soman’s illustrations capture the very essence of Lulu’s spirit.  She is fun-loving and very determined.  With her hands on her hips, hair blowing in the wind and faithful Bingo by her side, she realizes she has power.  She doesn’t need her older brother to play with and she “definitely isn’t too little.”
The artist transfers Lulu’s feelings and facial expressions onto Bingo’s face and posture quite charmingly.  The low to the ground basset hound can look angry, gloomy, sad, determined, warm and fuzzy and happy with just a few pen strokes by the artist.  The design, layout and details are colored in red, black and white.  The eye popping front cover shows Lulu and Bingo confidently making a stand and the matching back cover is strikingly done up in red with black polka dots.

Discussion questions for Ladybug Girl

A recipient of the American Library Association’s prestigious Caldecott Award as the best illustrated children’s book of the year, David Wiesner’s Tuesday is a flawlessly illustrated, intriguing, and almost-wordless picture book.  Events begin on a Tuesday evening, around eight when all seems at peace in the local pond.  A very alert turtle is the first to notice the evening’s strange phenomenon—large bull frogs flying overhead on lily pads.  Illustrations vary from narrow vertical strips to long horizontal details overlapping full-page spreads.  As the frogs first descend on the town, we watch their obvious delight as they chase birds resting on telephone wires, sail past a window where they spook a young man eating a late-night snack, and fly down a chimney to discover the pleasure of channel surfing as they handle a sleeping woman’s TV remote control with their long, flexible tongues.  One of the most fascinating sights is of frogs cloaked with dish towels around their necks after an encounter with a clothes line.  Nowhere seems off limits as they give chase even to a watchful neighborhood dog.

With sunrise, the frogs return to their lily pad-covered home, sitting quietly, one frog even drumming his fingers in apparent boredom.  Back in town, however, police investigate the proliferation of lily pads lying in the streets while news reporters interview the young late-night snacker describing his vision of flying frogs.

The book’s final pages place us on the following Tuesday evening at 7.58 pm., looking at a large, peach-colored barn.  Is that really the shadow of a pig leaving the ground in a great surge?  Yes, our last glimpse is of delighted pink and white pigs soaring over the barn’s roof as the moon rises over the trees.

Tuesday is a genuine delight to share with children.  Besides the sheer creativeness of this story, they will be intrigued by Wiesner’s many details of the bug-eyed frogs’ adventures.  And the prospect of flying pigs opens endless opportunities for speculation about the impact of their adventures in town as well as suggestions for other animal adventures in flight on subsequent Tuesdays.  This is a book to be savored by children aged four to eight, although older readers will find themselves engaged by the creativity of this story of the unexpected.

Tuesday.  David Wiesner.  New York:  Clarion Books, 1991.

Discussion questions for Tuesday

First the Egg written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a concept book about change.  Children have always been fascinated with the process by which one thing becomes another thing.  It has a mystery to it that is most compelling.  It is almost like magic.  This is well documented by the great popularity of Eric Carle’s classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The book is well constructed with sturdy pages for young hands.  The pages have a glossy finish allowing them to be wiped clean of any crumbs left by cookie fingers.  The idea that words can transform into stories and paints can transform into pictures is more an application of the creative process than the biological process --- a difference that will not bother the child.  And the culminating picture is fully satisfying as it contains all the book’s major players---the chicken, the butterfly, the frog, the flower, word and paint.


Discussion questions for First the Egg

Max’s Words, written by Kate Banks and illustrated by Boris Kulikov, delightfully describes the efforts of young Max to find something special to collect—something that will establish his identity.  He watches longingly as family and friends admire his older brother Benjamin’s stamps with pictures of famous people and places and his other brother Karl’s coins that come in all shapes and sizes, some smooth, others shiny and copper or silver colored.  Neither brother will even share a stamp or coin with their younger brother.

Max thinks and thinks and finally decides to collect words—an idea initially ridiculed by his brothers.  His collection grows from very small words he cuts out of magazines and newspapers—a, the, its, who, on, out—to much longer and more interesting ones—alligator, crocodile, hungry, hissed.  He organizes his massive collection as it outgrows his desk, and soon he has enough interesting words to construct sentences, such as, “A blue crocodile ate the green iguana.”  He even places his letters into the shape of the words they spell.  Instead of mere collections to admire, Max finds that his words form thoughts—enough to tell a story.  His brothers now want some of Max’s words and are even willing to trade their precious coins and stamps for a few words.

Max’s Words is a wonderful book to encourage young readers to value words and the stories they can tell.  Kate Banks has told her story simply, and Boris Kulikov has provided bright, playful, and expressive illustrations that will engage and fascinate young readers aged five to eight.

Discussion questions for Max's Words