Mary Engelbreit’s Nursery Tales: A Treasury of Children’s Classics illustrated by Mary Engelbreit is an attractive volume of twelve popular fairytales by such children’s literature greats as Charles Perrault, the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson.  The stories are told in a simple and brief style just right for reading to young children 3-6 years of age.  The volume includes “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, “The Three Little Pigs”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Puss ‘n Boots”, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”  and “The Ugly Duckling” to name eight of the twelve.

Defining Feature: Young children will be charmed by Engelbreit’s pictures wherein every detail is a delight.  The artist’s signature patterns, flowers and old-fashioned details are arranged in perfect symmetry.  Engelbreit starts with pen and ink outlines, then colors the images in with markers, and finally uses colored pencils to completely cover the markers.  This gives the illusion that the pictures are created in paint but, in reality, colored pencils are used to capture the engaging characters.  Little Red Riding Hood is as cute as a button as she sashays through the forest to Grandmother’s house.  The wolf who huffs and puffs in “The Three Little Pigs” is an animal to beware of, but not too menacing.  And the Giant that Jack needs to deal with when he reaches the top of the beanstalk is awesome.  The Gingerbread Boy illustration runs across the entire width of two pages as the run-a-way cookie chants “Run, run as fast as you can!  You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!” 
The bright yellow cover features Goldilocks jumping rope with a few of her friends from the nursery neighborhood such as Puss ‘n Boots, the Little Red Hen, the Gingerbread Boy, one of the Three Little Pigs and one of the Three Bears.  Goldilocks is in mid air with her eyes closed tightly in anticipation.  She is having a good time.  They are all having a good time.  This is a happy volume of beloved tales. 

Mary Engelbreit’s Nursery Tales: A Treasury of Children’s Classics is ideal for children 3 to 6 years of age (published by HarperCollins, October 14, 2008).

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

Discussion Questions for Mary Engelbreit's Nursery Tales: A Treasury of Children's Classics

Santa goes Green written by Anne Margaret Lewis and illustrated by Elisa Chavarri is a delightful book with a serious message about the environment.  A seven year-old boy named Finn writes a letter to Santa saying he doesn’t want any toys but he does want Santa’s help to find his adopted polar bear, Leopold.  Leopold’s home is shrinking, he writes, and he is worried about him.  He places a polar bear sticker on the envelope and puts it in the mail.

When Santa looks through his big bag of mail a few days later the letter with the sticker catches his attention.  Santa reads Finn’s letter and decides to find Finn and fly to the North Pole to help Finn find Leopold.  At the North Pole they ask a walrus about the polar bear’s where-a-bouts but he says he hasn’t seen any polar bears in a very long time.  Next they hear the voice of a beluga whale coming forth from a crack in the ice.  Quoting from the text:
         There are no polar bear’s around here.  There’s not enough
         sea ice.  The glaciers are melting don’t you know?

Swift, Santa’s elf with an attitude, wants to quit the search and return to the North Pole to prepare for Christmas but Santa presses on until they are successful. They finally see Leopold balancing his big beautiful polar bear body on a teeny tiny ice floe.  The illustration connected with this event is charming as Finn and Leopold reach out to each other and touch, nose to nose, in an Eskimo kiss.

Defining Feature: Throughout the book the illustrations are clear, crisp and full of the beauty of the world.  Artist Elisa Chavarri’s work contains delightful details, beautiful color schemes and eye-popping page layouts such as when Santa and his reindeer first take flight in search of Finn and when Finn first posts his letter to Santa.  An added dimension to the story is found toward the end of the book when Santa reorganizes his toy shop to promote sustainability. 

Santa goes Green written by Anne Margaret Lewis and illustrated by Elisa Chavarri is recommended by Polar Bear International and ideal for children 4 to 8 years of age (published by Mackinac Island Press, November 7, 2008).

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

Discussion Questions for Santa goes Green

A children’s book set in Iceland?  Now that’s a rarity!  But Bruce McMillan’s The Problem with Chickens is indeed set in “a small village on the far end of Iceland.”  Revolving around the village women and their dire need for eggs, the story introduces the solutions they take to address this problem.

Initially they purchase chickens who lay eggs as expected, so that the ladies can bake delicious cakes.  But, alas, soon the chickens forget they are chickens and begin acting like ladies—eventually even forgetting to lay eggs.  Again, the ladies have a solution—this one mysteriously tied to exercise, steep cliffs, and ropes.  Ultimately, “the strong chickens in the far end of Iceland acted like birds.  And the strong Iceland ladies had no problems gathering the eggs.”  To solve the mystery of this clever story you will have to read the book.

The illustrations by Gunnella, an Icelandic native, are vibrant, colorful, and expressive,  proving why The Problem with Chickens  received a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award.  This is a wonderful book to share with children aged four through eight.

This is Karen Adams for Children’s Books… The Dean’s List

Discussion Questions for The Problem With Chickens

Yatandou written by Gloria Whelan and illustrated by Peter Sylvada is a story of an African village, the pivotal role of women in the community, hard work and the dawning of a new day.  Eight year old Yatandou must join her Mother, Grandmother and Aunts each day to force the millet into meal with their heavy pounding sticks.  It takes, as the story reveals, three hours of pounding by the women to produce one day’s supply of food.  Thus, Yatandou cannot go to school or play with her pet goat as much as she would like.  Her childhood is full of work.

The story recounts the tasks of the women, such as getting water every morning and evening at the water hole, pounding the kernels and specifically going to market to sell onion balls and water jugs in order, over time, to accumulate enough money to buy a grinding machine.  In fact, Yatandou plays an important economic role in the acquiring of this machine, known officially in the land as a multifunctional platform, by selling her pet goat at market.

Defining Feature: Artist Peter Sylvada’s illustrations evoke the hot, dry, sandy environment of Mali.  Using fiery orange, yellow and brown oil paints on wood, he produces strikingly beautiful pictures.  He focuses the reader’s attention by flooding light across the active part of the story’s images.  The picture of Yatandou writing her name on her pounding stick is a picture full of intention, beauty and hope.

As award-winning author Gloria Whelan beautifully accounts, the women do finally have enough money to buy a grinding machine---and their lives are transformed.  An informal school is even established where Yatandou and others can learn to write.  The final page of the book is especially moving.  Quoting from the text, “I have learned to write my name.  I take my pencil and spell out YATANDOU on my pounding stick.  When I have a little girl I will show the stick to her.”   And as Whelan says, “She will show the pounding stick to her daughter, who will never have to use it.”

Yatandou written by Gloria Whelan and illustrated by Peter Sylvada is ideal for children ages 5 to 8 (published by Sleeping Bear Press September, 2007).

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

Discussion Questions for the Yatandou

Author Laurie Friedman’s Angel Girl, a retelling of the true story of Herman and Roma Rosenblatt,  is touching not for its “incredibly sad beginning” but for its “unbelievably happy ending,” thereby making it an excellent introduction to the Holocaust, appropriate for younger readers aged seven through ten.  Ofra Amit’s stylized illustrations match the story’s starkness.

Angel Girl opens with the words, “Women, children to the right.  Men to the left.”  Herman’s mother prods him forward with his older brothers—the last time he is ever to see her.  Remembering happier times at home, Herman is reminded by his brothers that the labor camp is now home.  He misses little things—a pillow, a toothbrush, but always his Mama.  One night she appears in a dream, promising, “An angel will save you.”  Two days later a little girl approaches the labor camp fence surreptitiously and throws an apple to Herman.  Throughout his months in the camp, her apples save him from the starvation that claims so many. 

After liberation, Herman moves to New York City with his brothers and through happy circumstances is actually reunited with his “angel girl” from the camp.  They marry, and now Herman and Roma have recently celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, still very much in love.
Amit’s illustrations perhaps best express the inhumanity of the Nazi war machine in that she portrays the inmates in detail as they grow thinner and thinner, lining up in the unprotected cold mornings, but no Nazi faces are ever shown—just the heavy images of their rifles, helmets, and uniforms—are they really human?  Friedman has handled her subject sensitively but realistically in this wonderful new book, Angel Girl.

Laurie Friedman. Angel Girl.  Illus. Ofra Amit.  Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books, 2008. Unpaged. ISBN: 978-0-8225-8739-2. $16.95

Discussion Questions for Angel Girl

Frog and Toad Are Friends written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel is a reprinting in a large, hard book format of this classic 1970 Caldecott Honor Book.  This was the first of Lobel’s “I Can Read” picture book series and has 64 pages of delightful text and pictures.  All five stories are there to delight, including “Spring”, “The Story”, “A Lost Button”, “A Swim” and “The Letter”.  Each story finds one of the amphibians coming to the aid of the other.  When they are sick, they tell each other stories.  When Toad loses a button off his jacket, Frog tries to find it.  When Toad gets depressed because he has not received any mail, Frog writes him a letter.  The stories are full of the celebration of friendship.

The stories also contains a gentle humor.  For instance, in “A Lost Button”, the child will enjoy the series of buttons that Frog and friends find as they hunt all over the countryside but that Toad, who has lost the button, refutes.  Frog finds a black button, but Toad’s button was white.  Sparrow finds a button with two holes, but Toad’s button had four holes.  Frog finds a small button, but Toad’s button was big.  Raccoon finds a square button, but Toad’s button was round and so on and so on.  Reading from the book:

He was very angry.  He jumped up and down and screamed, “The
whole world is covered with buttons, and not one of them is mine!”
Toad ran home and slammed the door.  There, on the floor, he saw
his white, four-holed, big, round, thick button.

Defining Feature: One of the cutest award-winning illustrations, in ink and watercolor, is of Frog standing unhappily in his striped bathing suit all embarrassed about the way he looks with Turtle, Lizard, Snake, Field Mouse and Frog chuckling.  One of the dearest illustrations is found in “The Story” where we see a sick Frog all bundled up in bed, and helpful Toad who has come calling with a cup of hot tea. 

Frog and Toad Are Friends written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel is ideal for children ages 3 to 8 (published originally by HarperCollins Publisher August 26, 1970 and reprinted by Barnes & Nobel in 2008).

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

Award-winning author Jim Murphy’s The Great Fire is a masterful recounting of the 1871 Chicago fire.  Filled with maps, photographs, newspaper illustrations, and original drawings, the reader feels transported to the very place and time.

From the beginning Murphy describes Chicago as “a city ready to burn,” because of its largely wooden buildings and sidewalks.  Of course, the famous Mrs. O’Leary and her cow appear, but they are not the sole cause.  As an O’Leary neighbor attempts to turn in a fire alarm, the arrogance and inefficiency of those refusing to believe in the seriousness and location of the fire eventually doom the city to destruction—ironically a city with one of the nation’s best fire alarm systems.

Murphy brings this piece of history alive for fourth through seventh graders through the inclusion of survivor’s personal memories of the events.  One described the panic of fleeing, “I felt as a leaf . . . in a great rushing river.”  And as the fire subsided, another looked back at the city across the river, once a “populous city” and now “a mass of smoking ruins.”

Relief poured in from other cities, and people begin to hope, especially as they locate family.  Perhaps one summed it up best, “When I learned I had my [family] safe I felt so rich—I have never in my life felt so rich!”

Murphy closes The Great Fire with a discussion of myths and realities about this event, serving as a wonderful summary and a look forward to Chicago as the major city it is today.  The Great Fire will not only hold the reader’s attention but may well spur middle graders to read more such works of non-fiction.  This is a book not to be missed.

This is Karen Adams for Children’s Books… The Dean’s List

Discussion Questions for the Great Fire

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers written by Gloria Whelan and illustrated by Yan Nascimbene is an elegantly told and illustrated story of a little girl’s 300 mile journey with her family and dog Kita from Kyoto to Edo.  Yuki is the daughter of a provincial governor who is summoned to the imperial city for a six-month stay by the emperor.  Although Yuki and her mother ride in a wooden box which is carried by six men, it is the fact that 1,000 carriers accompany them in order to transport the household goods that is so epic-like.

The pageantry of the journey can be seen in the pictures which are both simple and complex.  The stunning watercolors of Yan Nascimbene, for which he received the 2008 Gold Medal from the New York Society of Illustrators, move the procession across the land, along the rivers, over the mountains, down into valleys and across the Nihonbashi Bridge before arriving at the castle of the shogun.  It takes 54 days to complete the journey during which time Yuki sees the beauty and expansiveness of the land.

Defining Feature: Gloria Whelan, award winning author including the National Book Award for Homeless Bird, masterly tells this story set in 17th and 18th Century Japanese traditions.  She chronicles Yuki’s travels, what she sees, where she sleeps and what she eats.  She catches the small girl’s feelings in 19 haiku which Yuki has been charged to write by her teacher back in Kyoto.  Many of the haiku are colored with a hint of Yuki’s grief about leaving her home.  Reading from the text as Yuki describes the wooden box she is riding in as she starts her journey:

There are wooden shutters so we can see out, but no one can gaze in at us.
Six carriers lift the palanquin on their shoulders and we set out.
When we come to the gate, the guards open it, bow low, and let us pass.
I write my first haiku:                  Once outside the gate
                                                    how will I find my way back?
                                                           Will home disappear?

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers written by Gloria Whelan and illustrated by Yan Nascimbene is ideal for children ages 4 to 8 (published by Sleeping Bear Press April 5, 2008).

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

Discussion Questions for Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers

If You’re not From the Prairie is a delightful celebration by David Bouchard of life on the prairie filled with farms, wheat fields, cows, blowing wind, serious snow in the winter, and wonderful clouds and beautifully colored skies at sunset.  Written in rhyming pattern, the young narrator tells the reader that if you don’t know the prairie then you definitely can’t know him—can’t “know” his “soul.”  The kinship that this young boy feels with his surroundings, as “a child of the prairie” who “is part of the sun” is clear.  The grasses and grains even whisper their secrets to him.  Prairie children will play outside regardless of strong winds and snow—they even relish the brightness of the “great seas of white” reflected by the snow.  Refrains throughout impress unique aspects of the prairie, at times unknowable to outsiders, making this a wonderful world to imagine.  Especially so is the plea, “If you’re not from the prairie, you don’t know the cold, you’ve never been cold!”

All of these distinctives of prairie life make up the identity of the narrator who is trying to tell about himself by describing his setting—proudly and enthusiastically but never by saying that it is better than other places.  It is simply that, as he says, “My home is the prairie, and I cry out loud!”  By learning about his world, the reader can join in oneness with him, and this is really the invitation of If You’re not From the Prairie, a wonderfully engaging book that can be enjoyed by children aged five through ten.  Henry Ripplinger’s landscape paintings fully display all the beauty of the prairie as described in Bouchard’s text.  Older readers aged eight through eleven can be encouraged to identify geographical distinctives of their own settings and helped to celebrate those through written text and illustrations.
If You’re not From the Prairie . . . .  David Bouchard.  Illus. Henry Ripplinger.  Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 1993.

Discussion Questions for If You're not From the Prairie

Frida written by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Ana Juan is a picture book biography of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.  She was born in 1907 in Mexico, one of six sisters.  The text tells how her father, an artist and photographer, taught young Frida how to use paintbrushes.  Frida received much pleasure out of solitary, imaginative play.  When she contracted polio at the age of seven, she was confined to bed for many months and it was at this time that she taught herself to draw.  Then entered the lively characters from Mexican folk art and folklore---skeleton, cow, jaguar, leopard and a very expressive sun.  The illustrations show the young artist drawing pudgy little skeletons with pink gloves and turquoise shoes, busy little red devils, two-toned leopards, a mermaid playing a guitar, jaguars, cows and lots of birds.

Over the years Frida continued her interest in art and developed her very own style.  After she was in a near fatal bus and trolley accident at age 18, injuries from which she never fully recovered, her art was the primary way she coped with her constant pain.  Throughout the book, illustrator Ana Juan skillfully reflects Frida’s emotion and physical distress on the faces of the icons themselves.  The colorful and detailed illustrations rendered in acrylics and wax on paper capture Frida’s magnificent Mexican heritage, courage, determination and artistic gifts.  Frida used herself as the subject of many of her paintings.  In fact she painted more self portraits than any other artist.  These portraits made a visible statement about her health.  Instead of actually crying, as the text reveals, Frida would draw a picture of herself crying.

Defining Feature: The paper front cover of the book is particularly attention-getting with a 5-year old Frida perched upon the back of a giant red bird, flying through the light blue sky with her color palette and brush in hand. 

Frida written by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Ana Juan and winner of the 2002 Parent’s Choice Gold Award is ideal for children 6 to 10 years of age (published by Arthur A. Levine Books February 1, 2002).

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

Discussion Questions for Frida

Based on a true story, Anne Broyles’ recently published Priscilla and the Hollyhocks follows young Priscilla who was born into slavery in the South and later sold to a Cherokee family with whom she set out on the infamous Trail of Tears.  While still a young child, Priscilla watched her mother sold off the plantation, but she is comforted by the beauty of the pink hollyhocks her mother had planted.  She is helped to make hollyhocks dolls to float in the cow pond.

A chance encounter for Priscilla with Mr. Silkwood, a visitor to the plantation who talks to her about his displeasure with slavery and his desire to see her in school, will one day bring about Priscilla’s freedom.  For as she later marches west with her Cherokee family, forced to abandon their lands, she once again sees Mr. Silkwood who recognizes her and comes to their camp to purchase her and set her free.  He offers her a place in his home with his fifteen other adopted children which she eagerly accepts, settling quickly into this life of safety and security.  Planting her hollyhock seeds, she encourages them to bloom because, like her, they are “safe” and “home".

In the Author’s Note to Priscilla and the Hollyhocks, Broyles details all the facts that are known about the real Priscilla and also provides specific directions for the reader to make a hollyhock doll.  Children aged 7 to 10 will enjoy this story of challenge and hope.  Anne Alter’s illustrations are colorful and simple, emphasizing Priscilla’s inner feelings as she responds to so many changes in her life.
Priscilla and the Hollyhocks.

Discussion Questions for Priscilla and the Hollyhocks

Based on a true story, Anne Broyles’ recently published Priscilla and the Hollyhocks follows young Priscilla who was born into slavery in the South and later sold to a Cherokee family with whom she set out on the infamous Trail of Tears.  While still a young child, Priscilla watched her mother sold off the plantation, but she is comforted by the beauty of the pink hollyhocks her mother had planted.  She is helped to make hollyhocks dolls to float in the cow pond.

A chance encounter for Priscilla with Mr. Silkwood, a visitor to the plantation who talks to her about his displeasure with slavery and his desire to see her in school, will one day bring about Priscilla’s freedom.  For as she later marches west with her Cherokee family, forced to abandon their lands, she once again sees Mr. Silkwood who recognizes her and comes to their camp to purchase her and set her free.  He offers her a place in his home with his fifteen other adopted children which she eagerly accepts, settling quickly into this life of safety and security.  Planting her hollyhock seeds, she
encourages them to bloom because, like her, they are “safe” and “home".

In the Author’s Note to Priscilla and the Hollyhocks, Broyles details all the facts that are known about the real Priscilla and also provides specific directions for the reader to make a hollyhock doll.  Children aged 7 to 10 will enjoy this story of challenge and hope.  Anne Alter’s illustrations are colorful and simple, emphasizing Priscilla’s inner feelings as she responds to so many changes in her life.
Priscilla and the Hollyhocks.

Discussion Questions for Priscilla and the Hollyhocks

Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression is Kate Lied’s family reflection on her grandparent’s hardships, and it comes appropriately packaged for contemporary children in a shiny burlap-like cover with potato-grain pages.

As the Depression begins, Kate’s grandparents and her young aunt Dorothy do not find life easy on their Iowa farm. Her grandfather loses two jobs, and the bank forecloses on their home. Hearing tales of potatoes to pick in Idaho, they borrow a car and some gas money, and the family strikes out. They do, indeed, find work. They live in a tent and pick potatoes for a farmer all day long, and then are allowed to go back into the fields at night to pick potatoes which they can keep for themselves to sell. They return to Iowa, laden down with potatoes which they trade for groceries, for clothes, and even for a pig. They work hard and save. Later Kate’s grandparents move to Washington, D. C. and then to Hawaii, where two more children are born. To both of them young Dorothy tells stories about her adventures picking potatoes “by the light of the moon.”

Kate concludes her family Tale from the Great Depression with the lighthearted suggestion that perhaps “all this could be how I have come to like potatoes.”  Kate Lied has told her story simply, introducing young readers to the Depression of the 1930’s, a time in history that some family members may still be able to remember and discuss.  The straightforward lines of Lisa Campbell Ernst’s colorful illustrations with the bright, hopeful, and expressive faces of characters and changing scenery match the text well and will hold the attention of young audiences aged five to eight.

Kate Lied.  Illus. by Lisa Campbell Ernst.  Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression.  Washington, D. C.: National Geographic, 1997.

Discussion Questions for Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression