I love this book! The text is simple and poetical. A single sentence per two-page spread uses a repeated structure to express some big, complex, sometimes intangible ideas. The real star of this book are the illustrations: for every big idea there are many individual illustrations, offering different ways those words could be interpreted. They invite the reader into really pondering those big ideas. The use of color is very deliberate and effective. I listed this book as intended for elementary, but I certainly think it would have uses and appeal for all ages.
Author Archives: Courtney Morgan
Our Day of the Dead Celebration
The illustrations are bright and cheerful, suiting the intended tone of the day it is describing. The text is straightforward and enthusiastic. Because it is written in the first person plural, it avoids trying to cover all the ways different people/families/communities celebrate; it simply shares one small girl’s descriptions of how her family celebrates. Though I do think most of the common themes of the day are included. Students who celebrate the day withing their own families are likely to find much to relate to, and those who don’t will still likely find much to relate to, while also gaining a clear understand of what may be an unfamiliar holiday.
Palace of Books
The only thing I’m not sure I like about this book is the title. Though the title edifice does play a significant role in the story, it’s really a much more expansive story than just that piece of it. Drawing on personal memories, as so many of Polacco’s books do, this one tells of year of her life when she was in transition. It’s about going through changes, and saying goodbye to familiar places and venturing into to ones. it’s about meeting new people and finding your niche, discovering what you have to offer. It’s about people who help us discover our passions and talents. It’s about using our passions and talents to make an impact on the world around us, even if we’re not in one place very long. Great book. My one reservation about giving it a highly recommended rating, is that the lengths of Ms. Polacco’s books often make them hard sells to the picture book crowd. Are they really targeting children? Or adult readers who love children’s books?
This Book Is My Best Friend
It’s cute, and it’s got some good points to make as two kids very politely “argue” over the same book at the library, which each claims as their own best friend, and try to convince the other that they are really the one who needs it most. I liked that they had different reasons for liking it, and they had different reasons for needing it, and that each did their best to try to find alternative options for the other. I liked that the illustrations add to the text, expanding on the unstated details of the story. I also like that they seem to have made friends in the end, just as their respective favorite characters do in the book. I didn’t like that it was sometimes difficult to tell which character was saying what, and in the end, though it showed both leaving the library together, with books in hand, they never actually explained how they resolved the issue of who was going to get to take home that favorite book.
Angelina, Star of the Show
For fans of the other Angelina Ballerina books, this will be a hit, with the same cute, sweet, tutu-wearing mouse, and lots of floweriness. The story is straight-forward enough, and relatable to kids, who may not have ever been on a river voyage with their grandparents to a mouse jamboree, but can probably connect with the idea of being asked by grown-ups to do things they’d rather not, and perhaps causing problems because they’re too distracted by their own interests to pay proper attention to tasks at hand. Reading as a grown-up, I have to confess to being irritated by Angelina’s repeatedly causing problems for others without ever being concerned by the problems she caused, and only being moved to tears when her antics created problems for herself. I found her rather selfish. In the end, grandma is understanding, and helps Angelina work around the problem she landed herself in, and everything is hunky dory at the triumphant finale.
Bitsy Bat, School Star
When Bitsy Bat is facing her first night at a new school, she is sent off by a loving family full of encouragement. But in a classroom full of assorted other nocturnal creatures, she’s the only one used to hanging upside down, and at the painting table she’s the only one who tries to paint with her toes. Lunch and recess provide more pitfalls leading her to feel she’ll never fit in, which results in a five-star meltdown. Reluctant to return the next day, her family and teacher help her enact a plan to help everyone in class celebrate that which makes them unique, that which makes them shine. Written by an autistic author illustrator, it’s got an author’s note in the back explaining a bit about autism, including some definitions of relative terms. Autism doesn’t overtly come through within the story itself, except in Bitsy’s aversion to too-bright light and too-loud noises.
What Does Brown Mean to You?
Given that the narrator and his family have brown skin, this book serves as a celebration of his skin color, with rhyming text going through his day listing so many good things that are brown. But that message is subtle and is not directly stated. On another level, it could simply be read as color study, leading to conversations of other colors and where we see them in daily life.
Good Morning, Good Night: a book of opposites in the city
I’m sorry to be rude, but I’m just not a fan. As a book of opposites, it’s got too much clutter burying the less-than-clear opposites, but as a story it lacks much in the way of compelling plot or characterization.
Retazos
This is the Spanish Language version of Patchwork. It is one of those picture books I think has a place in the libraries serving adolescents as well, as it will be read differently by people at different places in their lives. It’s a poem celebrating the way we all grow, and reminding us all that the talents and interests we exhibit as children may evolve into all sorts of different possibilities as we grow. As the poem tells us, we each have a symphony within us — we are not a single note played again and again. It’s a rather philosophical book that I think would speak well to the youth who struggle to define themselves and decide on futures to pursue.
Patchwork
This is one of those picture books I think has a place in the libraries serving adolescents as well, as it will be read differently by people at different places in their lives. It’s a poem celebrating the way we all grow, and reminding us all that the talents and interests we exhibit as children may evolve into all sorts of different possibilities as we grow. As the poem tells us, we each have a symphony within us — we are not a single note played again and again. It’s a rather philosophical book that I think would speak well to the youth who struggle to define themselves and decide on futures to pursue.