Habibi

The Bibliography
Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. Habibi. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 9780689825231

The Characters
The main characters of Habibi are Liyana Abboud, her brother, Rafik, her father Kamal and her mother Susan. Other characters include Liyana's very large extended family.

The Plot
Liyana's family moves from St. Louis to Jerusalem, the land of her father. Liyana and her brother were born and raised in the United States and she definitely doesn't want to move, especially since she just got her first kiss from a cute boy named Jackson. After the family moves to Palestine, Liyana must get used to her huge family and the difficulties of the hatred between Arabs and Jews.

The Setting
Palestine

The Theme
finding and making peace

The Style
Habibi is written in short vignettes, mostly from Liyana's point of view, but sometimes in the form of essays written by her brother or some short sequences about her father and mother.

The Analysis
I really couldn't get into Habibi. It was very political and I try to avoid political things at all cost. And I also don't like very short chapters that don't necessarily flow together. Sure all the chapters come together to create this novel, but moving from an essay by Rafik to all the things Liyana did on her 29th day of school to what you can buy in Jerusalem to brushing your hair on the porch is just way too much for me.

The Cultural Markers
This book is all cultural markers, far too many to list individually. There are entire chapters dedicated things you can buy at a store in Jerusalem "You can buy gray Arabic notebooks .... You can buy miniature Christmas cards .... You can buy glass vases handblown in Hebron and olive-wood rosaries and creamy white mother-of-pearl star pins and shiny brocade from big bolts of cloth.... You can buy painted Palestine plates and roasted chickpeas and olive oil soap made in Nablus with a red camel on the package and saffron, that spice that costs a lot of money in American grocery stores, very cheaply .... You can buy sweets and treats, gooey, sticky, honey-dipped, date-stuffed fabulous Arabic desserts on giant round silver trays..." (120-122), descriptions of life in the West Bank for Liyana's distant family and how and where they live and many cultural traditions in the chapter To the Village. "When the cars climbed the steep hill into the village, children popped out of front doors to look at them, as if cars didn't drive up there very often." "Every house was made of golden or white chunky stone." "What Liyana would discover was this was positively everyone's favorite thing to do here - sit in a circle and talk talk talk." "A muezzin gave the last call to prayer of the day over a loudspeaker from the nearby mosque and all the relatives rose up in unison and turned their backs on Liyana's family. They unrolled small blue prayer rugs from a shelf, then knelt, stood, and knelt again, touching foreheads to the ground, saying their prayers in low voices." (50-56)

The Review
Marcia Mann (VOYA, February 1998 (Vol. 20, No. 6))
Liyanna Abboud is fourteen when her parents announce that the family is moving from St. Louis, the only home Liyanna has ever known, to Jerusalem, her father's birthplace. The Abbouds are welcomed by her father's sprawling extended Arab family in their West Bank village. New family, country, languages, and customs do not seem to faze Liyana nor her brother, Rafik, much. It is the lack of peace and the lack of empathy between the Jews and Arabs that are the main sources of angst for Liyanna and her family and friends. This story is told mainly from sensitive, introspective Liyanna's point of view, with a few disrupting shifts to those of her parents, Rafik, and her grandmother. This shifting viewpoint is a sign of the obtrusiveness of the author's agenda, as the question of just who has the "right" god is pondered. Although this heavy-handed approach might not be obvious to younger teens, a less didactic tone and more well-rounded characters would improve both the quality of the book and the reader's ability to enjoy it. However, glimpses of everyday life in a holy city and of how Arabs live in present-day Israel provide an interesting backdrop, and Liyana's vaguely mystical Arab grandmother is simply charming. Habibi is an Arabic word meaning "darling" and the oft-used term of endearment Liyanna and Rafik's parents use for their children.

The Connection
The only thing I really enjoyed from Habibi were the first lines of each chapter. Liyana kept a list of first lines of stories or movies she made up and would read over them to try to think of the rest of the story for them. I think a fun activity would be to have a group of kids write down a first line like Liyana, then pass them around and see if they could come up with the rest of the story for each line.

My Pal, Victor / Mi Amigo, Víctor

The Bibliography
Bertrand, Diane Gonzales. 2004. My Pal, Victor/Mi Amigo, Víctor. Ill. by Robert L. Sweetland. Green Bay: Raven tree Press LLC. 0972019294

The Characters
Dominic and Víctor

The Plot
Two boys have fun just being boys despite the fact that one boy is confined to a wheelchair.

The Setting
the imaginations and memories of two young boys

The Theme
taken from the summary: "Fun and friendship overpower physical limitations."

The Style
My Pal, Victor / Mi Amigo, Víctor is written in both English and Spanish and describes how great friends these boys are despite their problems.

The Analysis
I liked this book. I like most books that are bilingual, in fact. Since I knew from reading the book jacket and the summary that one of the boys had a disability, I looked for it on every page and in every illustration, but I didn't see it. Then I showed the book to a coworker and asked her to find how one boy was handicapped and I spotted it on the very last page. Víctor is in a wheelchair!

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The watercolor-looking illustrations show the actions of the story in rich colors. The boys are Latino and have dark, shiny hair and tan skin. The illustrations are careful not to show Víctor's legs on any page, but it's done in a very clever way.

Text: There are not many cultural markers in the text, other than the fact that it's also written in Spanish.

The Review
Michelle Negron Bueno (Children's Literature)
My Pal, Victor/Mi amigo, Víctor is a beautiful and insightful portrait of true friendship. The book is about two boys, Victor and Dominic, who enjoy a variety of typical activities including storytelling, baseball, riddles, swimming, roller coasters, coloring, fishing, and playing in the park. Victor tells the funniest jokes, swims better than a fish, loves the wildest amusement park rides, claps the loudest for his friend at baseball games, and above all accepts Dominic just as he is. The typicality of their relationship becomes something more profound when we learn that Victor is disabled and lives his open-hearted, fully active life from a wheelchair. The writing is unique and full of movement. For example, the author describes scary ghost tales as “heart-booming stories” in which even “goose bumps get scared.” The Spanish text is paralleled throughout and is just as exciting. A bilingual vocabulary list is included. The illustrations are bright, colorful and active, underscoring the author’s message. All the elements of this book work together to provide children and adults with a story that is both heartwarming and thought provoking.

The Connection
I'd share this tale along with another story of a best friend in a wheelchair, Best Friend on Wheels by Debra Shirley, even though I find the title a little offensive. Maybe, if the kids are old enough, we could discuss the differences in each book, how one doesn't even mention the fact that the child uses a wheelchair and how the other draws attention to it.

The Popularity Papers

The Bibliography
Ignatow, Amy. 2010. The Popularity Papers. New York: Amulet Books. ISBN 9780810984219

The Characters
The main characters in The Popularity Papers are Julie Graham-Chang and Lydia Goldblatt. Other characters include Lydia's mom and sister, Julie's dads and various schoolmates.

The Plot
The Popularity Papers is about Julie's and Lydia's quest to be popular by the time they make it to junior high. Through several tests and experiments, lots of spying, and an occasional mishap, the girls find out that being popular is not the most important thing in the world, and that "your friends should be the coolest people you know" (205).

The Setting
an unknown elementary school

The Theme
learning that popularity is not the only thing that makes you a good person

The Style
The Popularity Papers is a journal/scrapbook style book. The text is all handdwritten and there are lots of silly drawings and doodles. Both main characters write the book, so it's from both of their points of view and both handwritings. All their plans on how to be popular by the time they reach junior high (and all the problems this causes) are sketched in the book.

The Analysis
I really liked this book. The drawings were very funny and the main characters are sarcastic and goofy, like me! The characters act just like two best friends that are beginning to make other friends, getting angry over silly things, so it seemed very realistic. The drawings are definitely the best part of the book.

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The illustrations show Julie Graham-Chang as a honey-skinned girl, probably Chinese or Japanese, and showed her two dads, Daddy (also of some sort of Asian descent) and Papa Dad, who has red curly hair and a matching beard. Lydia has blonde, curly hair, and so does her mom. Her sister, Melody, used to, before she dyed her hair black and became "goth." There are various other races and colors of people in the book, but everyone has their own shade and look. One of the girls' friends, Roland, and his family are from Norway, so there are several references to Norway and drawings about Norwegians. (Roland's dad's name is Thor, so he's drawn with Mjolnir, his hammer, and lightning, and a hat with wings (68)). The book is very well illustrated.

Text: Like with the illustrations of Roland and his family, there are some references to Norwegians and how they speak differently and eat differently. They ate hamburgers, but to Roland, they are called "Karbonader" (69) Even though everyone knows that Julie has two dads, there are also some hidden references to the fact that some people think that's a bad thing "But she made it soundn like having two fathers and no mom was bad" "She started to say tha tshe felt sorry for you because your family isn't normal, and Sukie told her to shut up!!!" (163).

The Review
Andrew Medlar (Booklist, Mar. 1, 2010 (Vol. 106, No. 13))
Before they leave elementary school behind, two fifth-grade best friends are determined to uncover the secrets of popularity by observing, recording, discussing, and replicating the behaviors of the cool girls, because when you’re popular, “You are just better.” In a notebook format, this heavily illustrated title shows their research in dramatic, alternating, handwritten entries and colorful, hilarious drawings. Lydia lives with her single mom and pseudo-goth older sister; Julie lives with her two dads. All the girls' family members play big roles in the process, which lasts the whole school year and realistically includes instances in which the girls misjudge and misunderstand themselves and others. Their experiences may be typically tween (boys, cell phones, camping trips, and school musicals), but their reactions to them are laugh-out-loud funny and definitely on par with, though much more feminine than, Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Ignatow offers a quick, fun, well-developed story that invites repeated readings.

The Connection
I think it would be a fun program to begin a scrapbook journal like Lydia and Julie in The Popularity Papers. The program could be based on scrapbooking and could include sharing books like Classic Scrapbooking by Vera Rosenbluth, Cut Loose!: Break the Rules of Scrapbooking by Crystal Jeffrey Rieger and, perhaps the best one, Imperfect Lives: Scrapbooking the Reality of Your Everyday edited by Tara Governo.

Grandfather's Journey

The Bibliography
Say, Allen. 1993. Grandfather's Journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395570352

The Characters
The narrator's Grandfather is the main character in this story. Other characters are the narrator's Grandmother, Mother, Father and the narrator himself.

The Plot
As a young man, Grandfather leaves his home in Japan to travel to the New World. He experiences many things - traveling by train and riverboat, seeing large deserts, walking through huge cities and gazing at towering mountains. He meets new people, "He shook hands with black men and white men, with yellow men and red men" (12). He decides to travel back to Japan to get married, then he and his wife move back to the US and have a daughter, but then, after his daughter is grown, he decides he wants her to see his home in Japan. They travel back and forth between Japan and the United States, calling both countries home.

The Setting
a small village in Japan and the United States

The Theme
home is where the heart is

The Style
Grandfather's Journey reminds me of looking at a photo album with my grandparents or parents and listening to them tell the story behind the photographs.

The Analysis
The soft, watercolor illustrations in this book show Grandfather on his journey from Japan to the United States. The paintings look like photographs in an album that has been passed through many hands from generation to generation. The story is sweet and makes me long to visit faraway places.

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The illustrations are rich in culture in Grandfather's Journey. The characters are painted in ranges of white, tan, yellow and gold with shadows and rosy hues, not simply one plain color. The clothes the characters wear show their Japanese-American heritage, sometimes wearing silk robes and wooden sandals, other times, wearing hats and bowties, shiny shoes and carrying parasols.

Text: There are not many cultural markers in the text. There are few mentions of Japan and a mention of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on pages 26 and 27, "But a war began. Bombs fell from the sky and scattered our lives like leaves in a storm. When the war ended, there was nothing left of the city and of the house where my grandparents had lived."

The Review
Roger Sutton (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 1993 (Vol. 47, No. 1))
In this companion to Tree of Cranes (BCCB 9/91), Say evokes the bittersweet dilemma of the immigrant who, happy in his new country, still longs to return to the old-and once returned, wants once again to travel. The narrator's grandfather leaves Japan for America as a young man, and marvels at the magnificent fields and cities and landscapes. He returns home to marry his sweetheart, brings her to settle in California, and later, in middle-age, makes a last journey back with his wife and teenaged daughter. War puts to an end his dream to see America one last time, but many years later, the narrator himself moves to California and has a daughter of his own. Both the joy in new vistas and the ache of remembrance are captured in Say's large watercolor paintings, fresh perspectives on purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain. (Japan looks pretty good, too.) As in Tree of Cranes, which is about the narrator's California-born mother, the paintings are precise, cool portraits and views that fix recollections into images, and the book as a whole is an album where both a picture of a family standing amidst war's devastation and a romantic pastorale of courting lovers find their place in memory.

The Connection
This would be a good story for a Grandparents' day at the library. We could share this story and others like Grandparents Song by Sheila Hamanaka and photos of our grandparents and hear the stories of their lives, learn where they grew up and what they loved as children.

The Year of the Dog

The Bibliography
Lin, Grace. 2006. The Year of the Dog. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316060003

The Characters
The main characters in The Year of the Dog are Grace/Pacy, her sisters, Lissy and Ki-Ki, her parents, and her friend Melody. Other characters are other friends, family and schoolmates.

The Plot
The year of the dog is the year of good luck. Pacy, also known by her American name, Grace, knows that this is her year! She's going to discover what she's going to be when she grows up, she's going to make a best friend and she's going to find out who she really is.

The Setting
New Hampton, New York

The Theme
discovering oneself

The Style
The Year of the Dog is written from Grace's point of view. She thinks, acts and speaks like a little girl in elementary school - silly, kind of boy crazy and curious.

The Analysis
I enjoyed The Year of the Dog. The little drawings throughout the text are cute and remind me of little doodles that I would draw. Grace is a bright little girl trying to discover just who she is and she does a good job. She decided that she wanted to be an author and illustrator when she was little and, sure enough, she is! Since this is pretty much an autobiography of the author, we know just what she grew up to be!

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The book cover is red and gold, traditional Chinese New Year colors. The little doodles throughout show Grace and her family having black hair and eyes. There are also several little doodles of different types of Chinese/Taiwanese food, like fried dumplings on page 6, rice porridge on page 14, egg foo young on page 29, cooked duck on page 38 and many others. There are also little drawings that show Chinese writing and other traditional Chinese things, like rice cookers, vegetable seeds and even Chinese grandmothers!

Text: There are many cultural markers in this book. One little girl describes Grace as a Twinkie because she is a Taiwanese-American... "yellow on the outside but white on the inside" (101). There are lots of descriptions of Chinese New Year traditions, new baby traditions and what Taiwanese-Americans do on Thanksgiving and Christmas when they live in the United States. Grace's parents like to tell stories from when they were little, and these stories take place in Taiwan. Grace's mother told about having to have hair shorter than her ears (130) and clothes pressed flat like cardboard in school (15-16) and about the time she was embarrassed that her grandmother who bound her feet walked her to school one day (78-79).

The Review
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 24))
Being Taiwanese-American is confusing, and being the only Asian kid in your elementary school-except for your older sister-is not always comfortable. Pacy has high hopes for the Year of the Dog, which, she learns, is a year for finding friends and finding yourself. The friend comes first: a new girl, Melody, whose family is also Taiwanese-American. Over the course of the year, Pacy eats at Melody's house, where the food is familiar but also very different, celebrates her cousin's Red Egg day, writes a story for a national contest, visits Chinatown in New York City and wins a prize. Not only does she feel rich, she knows what she wants to do with her life. The Year of the Dog turns out exactly as advertised. Elementary school readers will enjoy the familiar details of school life and the less familiar but deliciously described Chinese holiday meals. Interspersed with the happenings of daily life are her mother's stories of Pacy's grandparents' lives and her own struggles as a new immigrant. Occasional black-and-white drawings by the author enliven the text. This comfortable first-person story will be a treat for Asian-American girls looking to see themselves in their reading, but also for any reader who enjoys stories of friendship and family life.

The Connection
I quite enjoy Chinese New Year. It would be fun to share this story during Chinese New Year and help kids figure out which animal represents the year they were born and see if the descriptions of those animals represent them accurately. I was born in the year of the rat. According to the Chinese Culture Center (c-c-c.org) "People born in the Year of the Rat are noted for their charm and attraction for the opposite sex. They work hard to achieve their goals, acquire possessions, and are likely to be perfectionists. They are basically thrifty with money. Rat people are easily angered and love to gossip. Their ambitions are big, and they are usually very successful. They are most compatible with people born in the years of the Dragon, Monkey, and Ox." That's me, pretty much dead on, and my husband was born in the year of the ox!

Night Garden

The Bibliography
Wong, Janet S. 2000. Night Garden Poems from the World of Dreams. Ill. by Julie Paschkis. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. 0689826176

The Poetry
poetry about dreams ... eerie, beautiful, strange, creepy dreams

The Plot
This book is a collection of poems about dreams. Some dreams are peaceful, some are scary, but they're all beautiful in their own way.

The Theme
dreams

The Style
Night Garden is a book of dream poetry. The poems are written in free verse, some rhyme, some don't, but they follow the rules of dreams... There are no rules!

The Analysis
This book of poetry is illustrated in gouache on paper. The illustrations are dreamy with pictures swirling all around the poems. Each poem has a fully colored illustration to accompany it as well, but the pages are completely filled with illustrations of a single color. The poems are dreams, not about dreams. My favorite poem from the book is Nightmare. "You're afraid / that the things / you see / on TV, / those scary things, / super scary when true, / will sneak into the back of your mind, / will follow you, / will follow you, / down the hall to your cold dark room, / down the hall to your cold dark room, / and in the quiet of the night / those things will spring into your dreams, / giving you a frightful scare-- / a news-at-seven true nightmare." Something about the repeating lines really struck me as creepy. The illustration accompanying that poem is also scary - someone crawling out of a flaming TV holding an ax with long, scary fingernails... Eeek!

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The only poem's illustration that really has any cultural markers is the poem Turnip Cake. The background illustrations show many paper lanterns and dragons and animals eating with chopsticks. The main illustration accompanying the poem shows a person with black hair and pale skin and what appears to be a silk dressing gown floating around a steaming dish. There also appears to be a rice steamer in the main illustration as well.

Text: As with the illustrations, the only poem that really has any Asian cultural markers in it is Turnip Cake. Nearly the entire poem is made up of descriptions of delicious food that you might find at your favorite Chinese or other Asian style restaurant. "...orange shrimp / and red sausage," "this lo bak go like no other, / this dim sum of my dreams".

The Review
Fern Kory (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, January 2000 (Vol. 53, No. 5))
These fifteen poems explore the psychic deeps where “a tangle of roots/ sends up/ green shoots/ and dreams grow/ wild.” The unselfconsciously multicultural cast of dreamers depicted in the striking gouache on paper illustrations provide diverse voices for poems about the terrible reality of a “news-at-seven true nightmare,” the fluid fantasy of “swimming free,/ water washing/ over me,/ seeing clear/ through eyes like glass,” and the more down-to-earth dreams of the child who doesn’t want to fly but instead likes “to go to sleep at nine/ curled up round/ in my safe bed,/ dreaming soft and fuzzy/ things.” The combination of the impressionistic and the prosaic in these vivid poems invites rereading just as the fabulous images of the illustrations and the dreamy monochromatic backgrounds invite re-viewing. Even wide-awake readers will find something they can relate to in this collection.

The Connection
Since this book of poetry is about dreams, an interesting program would be to share these poems with kids, then have them interpret their dreams using a dream dictionary like Dream Dictionary: an A to Z Guide to Understanding Your Unconscious Mind by Tony Crisp. We could then write poems and illustrate them, just like in the book.

The Arrow Over the Door

The Bibliography
Bruchac, Joseph. 1998. The Arrow Over the Door. Ill. by James Watling. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0803720785

The Characters
The main characters in The Arrow Over the Door are Samuel Russell, a Quaker teenager, and Stands Straight, an Abenaki Indian. Other characters include Samuel's family, members of the group of Friends (Quakers) and members of the Abenaki tribe.

The Plot
Based on an actual meeting between the Quakers and Indians during the Revolutionary War, The Arrow Over the Door alternates being told by Samuel and Stands Straight. Samuel is a Quaker, but feels like a coward in the troublng times of war. The Friends choose to live a life of peace and do not see anyone as enemies. Stands Straight, on the other hand, sees all Americans as enemies because they killed his mother and brother. When his scouting party comes across a group of Friends during a Quaker Meeting, they find something that they never expected from a group of Americans... friends.

The Setting
Saratoga, New York in the year 1777

The Theme
"the way of peace ... can be walked by all human beings"

The Style
The Arrow Over the Door alternates between the viewpoints of two boys. Samuel, a Quaker, doesn't quite feel like a Quaker (and, in my opinion, he probably won't be a Quaker when he grows up... he just doesn't seem to like the whole peace thing...), and Stands Straight, an Abenaki Indian whose mother and brother were murdered by Americans. The language is appropriate for each characters' narration and the time period; Samuel's language is plain, and Stands Straight's language varies between Abanaki and French, the languages that he and his fellow tribe members speak.

The Analysis
I didn't feel moved by this story. Yes, it's lovely that there was no slaughter and that everyone found peace because of each other, but I just found it boring. Samuel often thinks things that oppose the viewpoints of the Friends, but never acts on them. Stands Straight and his fellow tribe members just walk around through the forest throughout their part of the story. There was no action. When the Abenaki arrive at the meeting of the Quakers, they just walk in and sit down. No excitement. Then they mark the door with a broken arrow, signifying that no harm should come to the Friends and then the story is over. The illustrations on the cover are the only in color, the rest are in black and white. They don't really add any excitement to the story, either, unfortunately.

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The black and white drawings show the Abenaki as tall and slender people with arrows and leather and feathers living in nature. They show the Friends as living within their means in plain and simple clothing. There is not much else to say about the illustrations.

Text: There is some interlingual text in the book. The Abenaki speak both French and their own language, which are both italicized. In Stands Straight's chapters, there are several descriptive, color words used to describe the Americans, like "white people" and "brown-haired man" (72). The Friends/Quakers, use words like "hath" and "thou" and, since their way of life is very plain, they speak plainly as well, even describing the Abenaki simply as "tall" and "big" (69).

The Review
Karen Hutt (Booklist, February 15, 1998 (Vol. 94, No. 12))
Fourteen-year-old Samuel Russell hates being called a coward because he is a Quaker, and he vows to defend his family if Loyalists or Indians try to harm them. Stands Straight, an Abenaki boy whose mother and brother were murdered by white men, has joined his uncle's scouting party, though he questions why Indians should fight in the white man's war. In alternating narratives, the two boys tell this quietly compelling story, which is based on an actual incident that took place in 1777, just before the Battle of Saratoga. As Samuel's family sits in the meeting with the rest of the Quaker congregation, the Indian scouting party to which Stands Straight belongs surrounds the cabin. Stands Straight follows his uncle Sees-the-Wind inside, and after being assured that there are no weapons in the cabin, the Abenakis leave their bows and arrows outside and sit with the Quakers in silence. At the end of the meeting, the Quakers and the Indians share the handshake of peace, and Sees-the-Wind places an arrow over the cabin's door to show the Abenakis that the Quakers are people of peace. Simple black-and-white drawings reflect the dignified tone of the story, which explores the complexities of the Indian-white relationship, focusing on two lesser-known groups who were involved in the conflict. An author's note provides thorough historical background about the incident, as well as a brief history of the Quakers and the Abenakis. A truly excellent example of historical fiction for the middle-grade/junior-high audience.

The Connection
It could be interesting to do a reenactment of this story, having half of a group act as Quakers and half act as Abenaki. Much research should be done beforehand and could include reading books such as Abenaki by Marla Felkins Ryan and Linda Schmittroth and Captive Histories by Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney for the study of Abenaki and The Quakers in America by Thomas Hamm and An Introduction to Quakerism by Pink Dandelion for the study of Quakers.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Bibliography
Alexie, Sherman. 2007. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Ill. by Ellen Forney. New York: Little Brown, and Company. ISBN 0316013684

The Characters
Spokane Indian, Arnold "Junior" Spirit, is the main character of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Other characters include his parents and sister, his best/ex-best friend Rowdy, the love interest, Penelope, and various other minor characters here and there.

The Plot
After breaking his geometry teacher's nose with an old, old textbook, cartoonist Arnold "Junior" Spirit leaves his small, poor reservation high school to attend the big, rich white high school in Reardan. Other than the school's mascot, Junior is the only Indian there, so he becomes an outcast and traitor on his reservation and a loner at the new school. Through basketball games, more challenging classes, dating and dances, Junior begins to come into his own, accepting his life and background and growing because of it.

The Setting
the Spokane Indian Reservation and Reardan, a city 22 miles away from it

The Theme



...............................................isolation




The Style
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is written sort of like a diary with doodles drawn in the margins. Junior tells his story in short chapters, much like if he were writing things down as they happened, then illustrating a part of it because he got bored or wanted to show something rather than tell it. It's about a fourteen year old boy, so it reads like a fourteen year old boy thinks, with sarcasm, wit, humor, anger and masturbation (not necessarily in that order).

The Analysis
This book is hilarious and moving at the same time, which is rare. I think teens could really relate to Junior because he's not afraid to tell it like it is, whether it's about basketball, boobs or books or more important things like friendship, love, life or death. The illustrations are great and funny, but sometimes serious. It's a great tale of growing up, regardless of who you are or where you live.

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The illustrations drawn by Junior in the book are what he sees in and around himself on the reservation and in his new all-white school. Some are of his family and friends on the rez, which are Indian with dark hair and strong facial structures, others are of his new friends and teachers at his new school, which are white with light eyes and light hair. Some of the illustrations are of random things, like butts and volcanoes and birds and basketball, all of which pertain to the importance of the story.

Text: There are lots of cultural markers in the text of this novel. The majority of the time, the reservation is called the rez, there are many times that Junior is called by negative Indian names, like Chief, Sitting Bull, Tonto, Red-Skin and Squaw Boy (63). There are many references to the white people that live in and around the rez being sad just like the Indians on the rez, but white people who don't live on the reservation are wonderful and full of hope. There are a few times that Indians are described as being red. There are also other stereotypical Indian notions mentioned in the book, such as alcoholism and gambling addiction.

The Review
Ian Chipman (Booklist, Aug. 1, 2007 (Vol. 103, No. 22))
Arnold Spirit, a goofy-looking dork with a decent jumpshot, spends his time lamenting life on the “poor-ass” Spokane Indian reservation, drawing cartoons (which accompany, and often provide more insight than, the narrative), and, along with his aptly named pal Rowdy, laughing those laughs over anything and nothing that affix best friends so intricately together. When a teacher pleads with Arnold to want more, to escape the hopelessness of the rez, Arnold switches to a rich white school and immediately becomes as much an outcast in his own community as he is a curiosity in his new one. He weathers the typical teenage indignations and triumphs like a champ but soon faces far more trying ordeals as his home life begins to crumble and decay amidst the suffocating mire of alcoholism on the reservation. Alexie’s humor and prose are easygoing and well suited to his young audience, and he doesn’t pull many punches as he levels his eye at stereotypes both warranted and inapt. A few of the plotlines fade to gray by the end, but this ultimately affirms the incredible power of best friends to hurt and heal in equal measure. Younger teens looking for the strength to lift themselves out of rough situations would do well to start here.

The Connection
Since The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an illustrated diary, I think it would be a fun experiment to share this story with teens, then have them write and illustrate their own diaries.

The Legend of the Windigo

The Bibliography
Ross, Gayle. 1996. The Legend of the Windigo. Ill. by Murv Jacob. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0803718977

The Characters
Various American Indian legends and tribes were considered when writing The Legend of the Windigo. This retelling of the story includes several village elders, a smart young boy and of course, the dreaded Windigo.

The Plot
The man-eating Windigo is lurking around in the North Woodlands and begins to eat villagers one by one. The villagers love their land and do not want to abandon it, so the elders pray to the spirit protectors for advice. With the help of a smart boy and a broken rock, they devise a plan to rid themselves of the Windigo. Just when they think their problems with the Windigo have burned along with him, his ashes turn into a swarm of mosquitoes. The Windigo still lives on in those mosquitoes, eating people one tiny, tiny bite at a time.

The Setting
a village in the North Woodlands

The Theme
never let fear (or man-eating monsters) stop you

The Style
The Legend of the Windigo is retelling of the folkloric tale of the Windigo, passed down through many American Indian tribes and generations, that is perfect for a night full of spine-tingling tales around the campfire.

The Analysis
I love all sorts of folktales and fairy tales. 398.2s are the best books in the world! They're great for memorizing and retelling, creating reader's theatre, and (as in The Legend of the Windigo) learning the traditions of another culture. The story is eerie, but not so scary that it couldn't be told to story-lovers of all ages. The illustrations are rich acrylic on watercolor paper and are bold without too much detail. It's kind of reminiscent of the tale, actually. Mysterious with lots of background, like the story passed down from generation to generation and tribe to tribe, but there aren't enough details to pin anything down exactly.

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The acrylic illustrations in The Legend of the Windigo are bright and colorful. The illustrations are focused more on the nature of the area rather than the people in the story, since the story is from multiple backgrounds. The people in the story are painted in what is assumed to be typical for American Indians... leather-esq clothing, dark reddish hued skin, long dark hair, with bows and arrows, feathers and spears.

Text: There are not many cultural markers in the text other than language patterns and some forms of address. The elders are sometimes referred to as wise ones ("Finally it was decided that the elders, the wise ones, would seek the help and guidance of the spirit protectors of their land."), but then they are called Grandparents by the young boy. There is a ceremony described in the text ("Through prayer, fasting, and ceremony the elders would surely be shown the right thing to do."), but the author's note in the back discusses these sweat lodge ceremonies, saying "As with everything else, sweat ceremonies vary from tribe to tribe.... For that reason, and because many traditional peoples are very protective of their own rituals, the ceremony depicted here does not represent the specific spiritual tradition of any one tribe.")

The Review
Gisela Jernigan, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
The Native Peoples of a Northwoods village are content living in the sheltering, deer-filled forest, next to the bright blue, fish-filled lake, but that changes when the dreaded Windigo, a giant, hypnotizing, shape-changing, man-eating creature made of stone, starts preying on the helpless villagers. How the elders, with the help of a clever boy, manage to destroy the monster, makes for an exciting tale that manages to combine both horror and humor. The Windigo gets his revenge, by becoming the infamous northern mosquitoes. Brooding, mostly dark colored acrylic paintings match the scariness of the tale, while also portraying some of the beauty of the forest. An author's note explains how this retelling is influenced by several Native American cultures of the Northern United States.

The Connection
I'd share this tale along with The Windigo's Return by Douglas Wood and compare the two stories. Then, maybe as a sort of silly craft to accompany these tales, paint rocks to look like monsters, since the Windigo is a monster made of rock!

The Skirt

The Bibliography
Soto, Gary. 1992. The Skirt. Ill. by Eric Velasquez. New York: Delacourt Press. ISBN 9780385306652

The Characters
Fourth grader Miata Ramirez and her best friend, Ana Madrigal, are the main characters of The Skirt. Other characters include Miata's parents and younger brother and a friend named Rodolfo.

The Plot
Miata accidentally leaves her skirt on the school bus one Friday afternoon. She's lost lots of other things before - books, sweaters, lunch money, even her shoes! - but this time, she lost something very important. She lost her folklórico skirt. Well, not her skirt, it actually belonged to her mother when she was little, living in Mexico. Miata is supposed to wear her skirt to perform a traditional dance after church on Sunday, but will she be able to? She and Ana must find her skirt before Sunday, without anybody else finding out about it!

The Setting
San Joaquin Valley, Sanger, California

The Theme
keeping family traditions alive

The Style
The Skirt is written in a very simple style, almost too simple for fourth graders, I think. The action of the story is fun, but the text seems to easy to read to me. Since the characters are fourth graders, I would think that fourth-grade kids would read it. Sometimes the sentences are complex, but more often than not, they are just simple. "It was a beautiful May.... This made him happy" (23).

The Analysis
This book seems dated to me. It was written in 1992 and it reads like it was written then. It's by no means a classic, but it doesn't have a timeless feel to it like a contemporary fiction book should. It also bothers me that the Spanish words are in italics. It breaks up the flow of the story and makes the family feel like outsiders to me instead of Mexican-Americans. I also don't like the term Mexican-American because Mexico is a part of America, too. The United States isn't the only place that is American... Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Chile... all those places are American, too, just North, Central and South.

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The rich colors on the cover are mostly shades of green, red and white, the colors of the Mexican flag. Since that is the only illustration in color, it shows Miata as having warm, honey colored skin and dark brown hair, which is to be expected of a young Mexican girl. The rest of the illustrations are pencil and show Miata and Ana looking for the skirt, but the drawing on page 24 shows the dining area of Miata's house, complete with the entire family sitting around the table and artwork on the wall. The artwork is what I would image I would see in a traditional Mexican household. It looks to be Aztec or maybe Pueblo, or maybe it's just a drawing that's supposed to look traditional. The dining room illustration also shows plates on a china cabinet-type thing, which seems more Americanized. The illustrations show just what the book is about, a contemporary Mexican-American family.

Text: Miata describes Ana's appearance on page 14, "Little Ana had curly hair and a galaxy of freckles on her face. Miata had known one other Mexican girl who had freckles." This describes an atypical Mexican trait and identifies Miata, Ana and the other characters as Mexican. The characters also speak in Spanish on several occasions, throwing in a word here or there (¡Ay! ¡Qué bueno!) or speaking in complete sentences ("Todavía no está aquí" (17).)

Another cultural marker that shows the traditional Mexican-American family is the food that they eat. They eat carne del viernes, a meal made up of steak, frijoles, papas fritas, tortillas and salad. A mix of Mexican food and food from the United States. They also enjoy hamburgers and fries and, for breakfast, chorizo con huevos.

The folklórico dance and skirt are also cultural markers, but the style of dance and even the reason for the dance are not mentioned in the text.

The Review
Carolyn Phelan (Booklist, Oct. 15, 1992 (Vol. 89, No. 4))
Frequently scolded for losing things, fourth-grader Miata Ramires can't bear to tell her parents that she's left her treasured folklorico skirt on the Friday afternoon school bus. Mom wore the skirt as a child in Mexico and now looks forward to watching Miata wear it when her dance troupe performs in the church courtyard on Sunday. With help from an old friend and an old enemy, Miata breaks into the bus yard, retrieves the skirt, and wears it in her performance. A good beginning chapter book, this uses simple words without sounding too simplistic. Velasquez's eight drawings break up the text, heighten the drama, and provide sympathetic portrayals of the characters.

The Connection
I'd like to share this book and others by Gary Soto (Taking Sides, Jesse) then maybe prepare la comida that was mentioned in this story. Papas fritas, frijoles, tortillas, chorizo con huevos... Delicioso!

Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico!

The Bibliography
Mora, Pat. 2007. Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! Ill. by Rafael López. New York: Lee and Low Books. 9781584302711

The Poetry
haiku

The Plot
This is a book of short and deliciously sweet haiku poems about food grown in North, Central and South America.

The Theme
foods from the Americas

The Style
Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! is a book of food haiku. In addition to a short poem about each food item, there is also a brief bit of information about where each food comes from.

The Analysis
This book is beautifully illustrated in acrylic on wood panels. The bright colors are reminiscent of Mexico and South America, bright oranges, yellows, greens and reds. The poems are cute and the information provided about each type of food is very interesting! Just as an example, I didn't know that papayas could grow to weigh 20 pounds!

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The illustrations in the book show the poems in vivid detail. The poem about the chile has a Mexican man breathing fire in the desert because chiles are hot! The poem about the potato shows what appears to be a South American girl and a girl from the United States sprinkling salt and pepper on a mound of mashed potatoes. Since potatoes come from South America but are now a staple in the United States as well, it seems only necessary that there are these types of girls illustrated for this poem. Each poem is illustrated like that, showing vividly about the origin of each food.

Text: Each food item discussed in Yum ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! is from a different country, mostly from Central and South America. Each description tells where the food is from and a little bit of unique information about the countries or cultures of origin. In most cases, there is an interesting tidbit about the food, too, such as the following: "Today the starch from corn kernels is used as a binder to help crayons and chalk hold together." Did you know that?

The Review
Julie Cummins (Booklist, Dec. 1, 2007 (Vol. 104, No. 7))
Starred Review* This inventive stew of food haiku celebrates the indigenous foods of the Americas. Each of the 13 poems appears on a gloriously colorful double-page spread, accompanied by a sidebar that presents information about the origin of the food. From blueberries to prickly pears to corn, the acrylic-on-wood-panel illustrations burst with vivid colors and stylized Mexican flair. The poems capture the flavor of the item in a way children can easily understand—Chocolate: Fudge, cake, pie, cookies. / Brown magic melts on your tongue. / Happy, your eyes dance; Pineapple: A stiff, spiky hat / on thick prickly skin, inside / hide syrupy rings. The print of the text in the sidebars is too small, but otherwise this will provide lots and lots of lip-smacking fun that teachers can use to supplement social studies and language arts units; they can also share one poem at a time, between other subjects. An author’s note, which addresses lingering scientific debate about the geographical origins of some of the featured foods, also includes a warm celebration of diversity: We do know that all these plants were grown and enjoyed . . . long before Christopher Columbus or any other Europeans had ever tasted such wonderful foods. The world’s variety is amazing—and delicious.

The Connection
This book is full of yummy foods - blueberries, chiles, chocolate, corn, cranberries, papayas, peanuts, pecans, pineapples, potatoes, prickly pears, pumpkins, tomatoes and vanilla. It would be fun to share these foods with kids as we read the poems. Also, there is a website called The Dairy Lama (dairylama.com) where people can share and have shared haiku poems about cheese! This would be fitting since all the poems in this book are about food.

The Firefly Letters

The Bibliography
Engle, Margarita. 2010. The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9780805090826

The Characters
The three main characters of The Firefly Letters are Fredrika, Elena and Cecilia. While Fredrika Bremer is a real person, a women's rights pioneer from the 1800s, and Cecilia, the her translator who happens to be a slave is also real and documented in Fredrika's letters, Elena is fictional.

The Plot
Swedish writer Fredrika Bremer asks the Swedish Consulate to send her to Cuba so she can write about the lives of women there. She finds herself living in a mansion with Elena and her family's slaves. Cecilia, one of the slaves, is pregnant and works as a translator for Elena's family, but dreams of returning to her mother in Africa. Although she's wealthy, Elena's life is also like a slave's, she can not leave her house and also longs for freedom. Elena, with the help of Fredricka, figures out a plan to help Cecilia buy her baby's freedom.

The Setting
Matanzas, Cuba in the 1850s

The Theme
searching for freedom

The Style
The Firefly Letters is a novel written in verse from the perspectives of the main characters, Fredrika, Elena and Cecilia, and also Cecilia's husband, Beni. The rich poetry in English with some Spanish here and there makes the theme of the search for freedom seem, as quoted from one of the poems, "...such a rare / and fragile gift" (109).

The Analysis
I enjoyed reading The Firefly Letters. The poetry didn't seem forced and told a delicate story of the importance of freedom. Subtly comparing freedom with catching fireflies, this story was beautiful. Each girl seeks her freedom in a different way. Fredrika wants to write and travel, not be trapped inside her family's castle dancing ballet and playing piano. Elena wants to leave her house and do as she pleases, instead of being kept in her room, only to watch as the world moves without her. Cecilia longs for freedom from slavery and to move back to Africa with her husband and unborn child.

The Cultural Markers
Although this book takes place in Cuba, the story is not only about Cubans, but blacks and Swedish people as well. One particular passage on page 109 from a poem by Cecilia really describes the view she has of people and the color of their skin:

They tell me they do not believe
that people are either
black or white -
if that were so, then mixed-race children
would all be gray
instead of a myriad
lovely warm shades
of natural brown.

There are multiple references to the languages spoken by the characters in the book. Elena speaks Spanish and some English, Cecilia speaks both well, and Fredrika speaks and writes in Swedish and English.

The tropical landscape of Cuba is also described in several poems ("The quality of light in tropical air / is more intense and on hot days / a sea breeze feels like the breath of heaven" (71)).

The Review
Hazel Rochman (Booklist, Dec. 15, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 8))
As in The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006) and The Surrender Tree (2008), Engle draws on little-known Cuban history to tell a stirring, immediate story in poetry. Based on the diaries and letters of Swedish suffragist Fredrika Bremer, who spent three months in Cuba in 1851, this title focuses on oppressed women, the privileged as well as the enslaved, in three alternating free-verse narratives. Fredrika remembers that back home in Sweden, she was kept hungry so that she would grow up to be thin and graceful. Her savvy translator is Cecilia, a teenage slave who remembers being captured in the Congo when she was eight years old and sold to a trader by her own father. Elena is a fictional character, a privileged girl in a slave-owning family who is forced into a life filled with “frilly dresses and ornate dance steps” that allows her little freedom. Through this moving combination of historical viewpoints, Engle creates dramatic tension among the characters, especially in the story of Elena, who makes a surprising sacrifice.

The Connection
I think it would be nice to share this book in verse about Cuba and slavery with other similar books written by Margarita Engle, such as The Poet Slave of Cuba, The Surrender Tree, Tropical Secrets and Hurricane Dancers. Her poetry is so moving that it would be nice to read it aloud.

Heaven

The Bibliography
Johnson, Angela. 1998. Heaven. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780689822292

The Plot
Marley and her family live in Heaven... Heaven, Ohio. Their lives are basically perfect. Marley has good friends, she loves her parents and her brother, that is, until she finds out that they are not her parents and brother, but her aunt, uncle and cousin instead. Her true father is her Uncle Jack, who travels around with his dog, Boy. Uncle Jack gave Marley to his brother to raise because his wife, Marley's real mother, passed away and Jack didn't think he could take care of her on his own. Marley struggles to return to her feeling of Heaven after her life is flipped upside down.

The Analysis
Heaven is a short, quick read. I enjoyed the story and actually read it in one sitting. Reading about Marley and her perfectly beautiful friend Shoogy and her sweet, single-father friend Bobby and his little girl Feather, show what Marley's life could have been like. It could have been perfect, but Shoogy doesn't like her perfect life, so much so that she cuts herself to not be perfect. Bobby is a single-father and cares for his little one and works hard to succeed in that life. That's what could have been. But it's not what happened because life isn't always perfect.

The cultural markers in Heaven are there, but are subtle. I think there were only one or two mentions of skin color and hair. The fact that Marley was named after Bob Marley is also a sign, but I actually have two cousins that named their baby girls Marley after Bob Marley and they're white. There was a mention of taking Kool-Aid to the lake, but almost all kids drinks Kool-Aid. Shoogy and Feather are pretty peculiar names, but that doesn't mean anything either. These markers are slight, but if they were not included, the story wouldn't be quite what it is.

The Review
Claire Rosser (KLIATT Review, November 1998 (Vol. 32, No. 6))
Each one of Johnson's books seems to me to be a polished gem, and Heaven is among the most brilliant. She has a unique style that is difficult to describe, but not difficult to read and react to. Heaven is a small town in Ohio, a town that seems to attract people from all over the country: "We live in Heaven 'cause about twelve years ago Momma found a postcard on a park bench postmarked HEAVEN, OH. On the front of the postcard were clouds and a group of people floating around and waving. It said, HI FROM HEAVEN. Momma said she'd been looking for Heaven her whole life -- so we moved: Momma, Pops, Butchy, and me." In some ways, they are in heaven, working and living with friendly people. In the summer of this story of revelation, Marley (named after Bob) babysits for a toddler named Feather, who is lovingly tended by her single dad, Bobby, an image of what could have been Marley's life, as we discover. She hangs out with her best friend Shoogy whose seemingly perfect family serves as a image of Marley's seemingly perfect family. Then Marley finds out that her parents have lived with a lie: that she is their adopted daughter, and her father is actually her beloved Uncle Jack who sends letters to her from all over the country where he is aimlessly traveling along with his dog. She is stunned by this news, filled with conflicting emotions that she finds difficult to express. Mostly, she is furious that she has been told a basic lie about her identity, and that her world, her heaven, has been turned upside down. Over the weeks, as she comes to terms with this new reality, she is helped by her friends and family, all of whom love her dearly. Again, Johnson writes of African American families and communities, mentioning here and there the shade of brown skin, perhaps the dreadlocks, that identify her characters' racial identity. This is a part of them, but certainly not the whole of these incredibly whole folks Johnson has created.

The Connection
Since this story is about Marley and her life after being given up for adoption from her widower father, it could be interesting to read another story by Angela Johnson that also features a single father, this time, one that takes care of his baby, The First Part Last.