Book Review: Beginning Chapter Book, Advanced Friendship

Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go by Annie Barrows

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Neither the character development nor the illustrations were quite as compelling as in the first book, but it remains head and shoulders better than those beginning-chapter book standbys, Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones. Volume 2 does benefit from having a boy character appearing periodically, but the series probably remains too feminine with the partially pink cover to convince many boys to try it, which will certainly be their loss. Ivy and Bean remain two wonderful kids who overflow with imagination and friendship and errors in judgment, a winning combination for any reader.



View all my reviews

Book Review: High Seas & Big Top Chicken Adventures

Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If anyone could imbue a chicken with a personality worthy of an epic journey it would be Kate DiCamillo, but even she may not quite be up to such a challenge.  However, although Louise may not have the personality of Gollie, Mercy, or Despereaux, her tale is just as charming.  And really, should we expect any author to truly see into the soul of a chicken?

Louise yearns for the adventures that we all regularly encounter our dreams.  Since she is actually living out those dreams, when she returns home she is able to sleep "the deep and dreamless and peaceful sleep of true adventurers."  The excitement of each chapter ends with that rhythmically written image of peaceful sleep, including the epilogue-like final chapter, making this a good bedtime story read in pieces or in its entirety.

As a picture book, there is plenty of visual context to support an ELL in understanding the words.  This is particularly important when the story has several severe breaks from the normal A to B to C progression of a simple tale.  A chicken on a farm - no, on a ship under attack by pirates - no, auditioning for a circus.  It would be reasonable for an English language learner to doubt their own understanding with a tale like this. (The unusual use of chapters will also help readers come to terms with the shifts in narrative.)

View all my reviews

Book Review: Who is the Audience?

13 Words by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let's be clear right now, because I don't want you confused by the charming blue bird on the cover into thinking that this is a beginning vocabulary book.  No, this is a Lemony Snicket book.  That means that after "teaching" us the word bird, we are confronted with the second word: Despondent.  The bird is despondent.  Too much, too soon?  Okay, Snicket backs off and gives us cake and dog.  However, the reader would be wise to listen to the little voice telling them that words like haberdashery and panache are lurking around the corner.

Maira Kalman's brightly surreal art is a perfect match for Snicket's prose.  There is something in-jokey about the illustrations and I found myself searching in vain for figures from American Gothic or the Boy in Blue.  The bizarre characters leaving you feeling like anything is possible in this world, and isn't that great?

Would the art be quite so appealing to a young reader?  That is my fear with primitive styles where perspective and proportion are shifted in a way that appears to be an imitations of a child's painting.  It is the right choice for this world where a bird must paint eleven ladders ten colors, but it leaves me wondering if this is one of those books that adults will appreciate more than children do.  Snicket's writing always has humor designed to particularly appeal to adult readers, but I simply don't know if this one has the kid-appeal to match.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Wordless Magic

Chalk by Bill Thomson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another wordless gem blending childhood with magic, Bill Thomson's Chalk has photo-realistic art and a mundane opening to lull you into a false sense of normalcy.  But the chalk discovered on a rainy playground by three children is anything but normal.  A quickly sketched sun dries up the real rain and monarchs crawl out of the pavement to flutter past the astonished friends.

Of course, when drawings are coming to life, there are certain things you shouldn't draw, and the last friend sketches out a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Here Thomson's extreme and forced perspectives are put to best use, as the kids scramble around the climbing gym looking for safety.  Troublemaker becomes problem solver with a cleverly simple idea.

The interest of this book lies in what the magic chalk can do, and the story is able to follow a clear, linear narrative without twists and turns to keep readers hooked.  That makes this an excellent wordless book to share with an ELL student for the exercises described in the BPPG review of David Wiesner's similarly charming and useful Sector 7.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Interactive Book, No Electricity Required

Press Here by Hervé Tullet

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If all goes well, this book will be destroyed. A tablet in book form, the author encourages readers to blow, tilt, shake, and press a series of dots.  Yes, you read that correctly: readers really do simply "press here."  They do so with an enthusiasm previously reserved for yelling at Mo Willems' pigeon, and we're not just talking about kid readers here.  And lest a reader be careful when shaking a book, the next page tells them to do it again, harder?  Have both tape and a relaxed smile close at hand.
As an ELL teacher, this is a fun way to get a sense of a students' understanding of basic command sentences.  The casual language ("Hmmmm.  Interesting." "That's funny!") provides an opportunity to witness a reader's prosidy, too.  This is a boon for those early meetings where the need to assess competes with the need to set students at ease.  It also provides insight into new students' personalities: who enthusiastically throws themself into the task, who is disappointed to realize that their actions don't actually affect the outcome, who is self-conscious about seeming silly?
Then when the day is done and you are alone in the room, you, too, can Press Here.


View all my reviews

Weekend Fun: Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year was on January 23 this year, but the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, has saved the best for last.  From 10:30 to 4 on Saturday, February 4, the PEM will have a series of performances, story times, and an art activity for all ages (the film The Fate of Old Beijing is listed for adults and teens only).

Visit the PEM Calendar for details of all the New Year fun that waits for your family this Saturday and visit their Family Visit page for the many other things to see at this wonderful museum.

Happy year of the dragon, everyone!

Book Review: Can't Dystopia at Least Have Gender Equality?

Among the Betrayed by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The third novel in Haddix's Shadow Children series leaves Luke/Lee to focus on a new protagonist.  

Nina was a minor character in the second book, a girl at a neighboring school who apparently betrayed Luke and other illegal third children.  This book quickly establishes the mistake in that perspective, a device which helps draw the reader in towards sympathy faster than usual.  Haddix has the difficult task of showing Nina's reactions to a world which the reader actually understands better than she does.  We know from the first two books, for example, that one character's public persona as a member of the third-child hunting police force is actually s double agent working to protect the kids, but Nina does not. Haddix handles it well enough so that the suspense of worrying whether she will trust the right person at the right time is not flattened by our prior knowledge.

Having a female narrator highlighted one glaring imbalance which, once I realized it, colored my reading experience through the rest of the seven-book series: there are no women in traditionally powerful, male roles.  The population police are all men; the politicians are men; the families get their identities from the men.  It is nothing so blatant as written here in black and white, but it does give the impression of men's work and women's work, and it falls uncomfortably along traditional gender roles.

ELLs will find this book no harder than the previous two.  Grammar and vocabulary are not gratuitously difficult, but Haddix is trying to communicate some pretty difficult ideas about ethics, governance, trust, and more, and simpler language wouldn't have been sufficient.


View all my reviews

Book Review: Big Issues in a Mid-Level Book

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This first in the Shadow Children series would have been better if it had not intended to stand alone, unlike the satisfying "the story is just beginning" conclusion to Lois Lowry's The Giver, so it may be fortunate that Haddix has since written six further novels in this dystopic world. Reviewing it now, without having read the rest of the series, feels like reviewing just the first third of a book.

The suspense is bit heavy-handed, which may forgivable since little action can happen in a novel establishing the premise of Shadow Children. Luke is an illegal third child and must stay hidden at all times; most of the book is about the tension between frustration at his confinement and fear for his survival. Within that limitation, Haddix manages to keep the story moving and this reader interested, but the climax lacks the emotional reward of a stand-alone novel.

Like many dystopic novels, Among the Hidden assumes knowledge of current culture and politics which will challenge some ELL readers more, but the vocabulary and grammar are otherwise appropriate for advanced ELLs. In fact, the characters themselves struggle with new words and concepts in a way that some may greet with relieved sympathy.



View all my reviews