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[CCBC-Net] Favorites of the Year
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From: Monica Edinger <monicaedinger>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 08:34:17 -0500
If I listed (and, even worse, discussed:) all my favorites, this email would be (if possible) even longer than it is now. So here, off the top of my head, are just a few.
I second Steven Engelfried's recommendation of Philip Pullman's THE SCARECROW AND HIS SERVANT, a charmer with echoes of Cervantes, Collidi, and other literary fairy tale creators of the past. My 4th graders are clamouring for me to read it, but first I need to finish I WAS A RAT!, another wonderful literary fairy tale of Pullman's that happens to fit right now as we are studying Cinderella.
Another book that I admire greatly is Mordicai Gerstein's THE OLD COUNTRY. It almost defies classification --- sort of a fairy tale, sort of a folk tale, sort of a this, sort of a that. There are, for me, echoes of I.B. Singer, Maurice Sendak, and even the filmmaker Fellini. Last spring all of us in the 4th grade read and liked it so much that we read it to our classes where it was very well received. I love the onion effect of the book --- stories within stories within stories. A truly unique and mesmerizing book.
And since we've just been discussing series, how about Kate DeCamillo's MERCY WATSON TO THE RESCUE? It is witty, elegant, and delightful to read. For fun I read it to my 4th graders and then, since we'd just been discussing CHARLOTTE'S WEB, asked them to compare Mercy and Wilbur in their journals. Well, they really got the idea of selfishness, let me tell you!
A book that seems to generate strong feelings pro and con is Lynn Rae Perkin's CRISS CROSS. A book of daydreams, yearnings, wonderings, small moments, and lovely oddities. To my mind, a stylistic gem.
I too admire greatly Louise Erdich's THE GAME OF SILENCE. There is an ominous undercurrent just beneath those small episodes of life going on. And that title! I wondered about it until the end when it became all too heartrendingly clear.
I've liked a bunch of fantasies this year including Ric Riordan's THE LIGHTNING THIEF, an engaging adventure involving creatures and gods of Greek mythology; Julie Hearn's THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER, an atmospheric and engrossing work of both history and fairy; Sally Gardner's I, CORIANDER, also a work of history and fairy; and Rafe Martin's BIRDWING, a very imaginative and engrossing original sequel to the Grimms' story, "The Six Swans."
A visual learner, I'm drawn to works of nonfiction where text and image are intertwined in new ways. Three from this year that I found particularly inventive, fascinating, and moving are Candace Fleming's OUR ELEANOR, Isaac Millman's HIDDEN CHILD, and Louise Borden's THE JOURNEY THAT SAVED CURIOUS GEORGE. (I'd love to see some nonfiction that goes even farther than these. Something, say, along the design lines of EGYPTOLOGY which my students return to again and again, but with its lack of backmatter is problematic in terms of learning ancient history.)
Two poetry books I love are the already-mentioned and completely magnificent A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL by Marilyn Nelson and the elegant JAZZ ABZ by Wynton Marsalis with portraits by Paul Rogers. The latter, to mind, captures the sound of jazz in a book for children as few others (say Chris Rashka) have. It isn't so much the various poetic forms or even the abecedarian structure as much as it is the sound, the tempo, and the music of it all.
There are so many terrific picture books, but this email is way too long already. Some of the many I like are Jon Agee's TERRIFIC, Woodson and Talbot's aforementioned SHOW WAY, John Muth's ZEN SHORTS, and Ed Young's BEYOND THE FAR MOUNTAINS. Oh, my class and I also really like Nick Bruel's BAD KITTY. Bad, bad, bad kitty. Thanks for leaving poor Uncle Murray alone.
Whew.
Monica
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 08:34:17 -0500
If I listed (and, even worse, discussed:) all my favorites, this email would be (if possible) even longer than it is now. So here, off the top of my head, are just a few.
I second Steven Engelfried's recommendation of Philip Pullman's THE SCARECROW AND HIS SERVANT, a charmer with echoes of Cervantes, Collidi, and other literary fairy tale creators of the past. My 4th graders are clamouring for me to read it, but first I need to finish I WAS A RAT!, another wonderful literary fairy tale of Pullman's that happens to fit right now as we are studying Cinderella.
Another book that I admire greatly is Mordicai Gerstein's THE OLD COUNTRY. It almost defies classification --- sort of a fairy tale, sort of a folk tale, sort of a this, sort of a that. There are, for me, echoes of I.B. Singer, Maurice Sendak, and even the filmmaker Fellini. Last spring all of us in the 4th grade read and liked it so much that we read it to our classes where it was very well received. I love the onion effect of the book --- stories within stories within stories. A truly unique and mesmerizing book.
And since we've just been discussing series, how about Kate DeCamillo's MERCY WATSON TO THE RESCUE? It is witty, elegant, and delightful to read. For fun I read it to my 4th graders and then, since we'd just been discussing CHARLOTTE'S WEB, asked them to compare Mercy and Wilbur in their journals. Well, they really got the idea of selfishness, let me tell you!
A book that seems to generate strong feelings pro and con is Lynn Rae Perkin's CRISS CROSS. A book of daydreams, yearnings, wonderings, small moments, and lovely oddities. To my mind, a stylistic gem.
I too admire greatly Louise Erdich's THE GAME OF SILENCE. There is an ominous undercurrent just beneath those small episodes of life going on. And that title! I wondered about it until the end when it became all too heartrendingly clear.
I've liked a bunch of fantasies this year including Ric Riordan's THE LIGHTNING THIEF, an engaging adventure involving creatures and gods of Greek mythology; Julie Hearn's THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER, an atmospheric and engrossing work of both history and fairy; Sally Gardner's I, CORIANDER, also a work of history and fairy; and Rafe Martin's BIRDWING, a very imaginative and engrossing original sequel to the Grimms' story, "The Six Swans."
A visual learner, I'm drawn to works of nonfiction where text and image are intertwined in new ways. Three from this year that I found particularly inventive, fascinating, and moving are Candace Fleming's OUR ELEANOR, Isaac Millman's HIDDEN CHILD, and Louise Borden's THE JOURNEY THAT SAVED CURIOUS GEORGE. (I'd love to see some nonfiction that goes even farther than these. Something, say, along the design lines of EGYPTOLOGY which my students return to again and again, but with its lack of backmatter is problematic in terms of learning ancient history.)
Two poetry books I love are the already-mentioned and completely magnificent A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL by Marilyn Nelson and the elegant JAZZ ABZ by Wynton Marsalis with portraits by Paul Rogers. The latter, to mind, captures the sound of jazz in a book for children as few others (say Chris Rashka) have. It isn't so much the various poetic forms or even the abecedarian structure as much as it is the sound, the tempo, and the music of it all.
There are so many terrific picture books, but this email is way too long already. Some of the many I like are Jon Agee's TERRIFIC, Woodson and Talbot's aforementioned SHOW WAY, John Muth's ZEN SHORTS, and Ed Young's BEYOND THE FAR MOUNTAINS. Oh, my class and I also really like Nick Bruel's BAD KITTY. Bad, bad, bad kitty. Thanks for leaving poor Uncle Murray alone.
Whew.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at gmail.comReceived on Sat 10 Dec 2005 07:34:17 AM CST
