Eye of the Storm: A Book About Hurricanes by Rick Thomas and illustrated by Denise Shea

Eye of the Storm is an engaging picturebook that provides some basic information about the formation of and devastation by hurricanes. The illustrations are colorful and bright. No photographs are included-- all illustrations are digital drawings. The text provided a good amount of detail but was written in kid-friendly language. Clarification of new terminology is provided such as "Once a hurricane makes landfall, or arrives on solid ground, it slows down." (p. 14)

The book also provided important non-fiction text elements that could be helpful in teaching research skills. A Table of Contents, headings, a short index, and additional web and print resources are included. One element I thought was missing were labels or keys for some of the illustrations. As the text described the formation and movement of hurricanes, weather symbols such as red and blue arrows were used as well as a psuedo-map of the areas near the Equator. As an adult somewhat familiar with weather symbols and knowledgeable about a world map, I was able to interpret what I saw in the illustration. However, I am none too convinced that a young reader would understand the illustration. A "Content Advisor" is listed on the title page, but otherwise no citations or references are included.

Eye of the Storm is an engaging and informative non-fiction book that I will recommend to second grade teachers at my school.

Mistakes that Worked by Charlotte Foltz Jones

In the non-fiction book, Mistakes that Worked, Foltz explains how different inventions were created by accident. In short excerpts, the reader learns about lots of household items, foods, clothes, medicines, etc. Some of the stories seem based on documented fact and others on folklore or stories. I thought the author did a good job of letting the reader what was fact and what was conjecture.

Some of the interesting things I learned were that Coca-Cola is named because of some of the ingredients from the original formula, ice-cream cones became popular during the St Louis World's Fair, the chocolate chip cookie wasn't invented until the 1930s, and piggy banks in the shape of pigs were a result of the linguistically similar word "pygg" (a clay material) that was used during the middle ages. This book also states that Perrault, the writer of the Cinderella story most of us are familiar with, made a mistake when he gave her a glass slipper. The author writes that earlier versions the slippers were fur. However, the french word for fur and glass are similar. Perrault apparently confused the two and gave her a glass slipper.

I appreciated several aspects of the book. With each section, quotes by famous inventors were included to underscore the idea that mistakes can end up making for great discoveries. Mark Twain wrote, in his notebook, "Name the greatest of all the inventors. Accident." (introduction) I also appreciated that historical information was given where appropriate to set the invention into the timeperiod. For instance, Jones introduces Coca-Cola with: "The date was May 8, 1886. The Civil War had been over for twenty-one years. Grover Cleveland was the President of the United States. And, in Atlanta, Georgia, a pharmacist..." Information about world records, additional interesting facts, museums, and even some recipes are included to accompany different mistakes.

I'm not convinced that the author cited well enough for today's standards. In the front matter, acknowledgements are including listing many people and groups that, presumably, provided information and a "Selected Bibliography" is included as well. However, the author does not provide any citations within the text to indicate where specific information came from. So, I have to take all I read with a grain of salt.

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Because of Winn-Dixie ... Opal makes friends in her new home of Naomi, Florida. Winn-Dixie is a special dog with an uncanny knack for making friends. The combination of his dog smile, wagging tail, and sneezing fits are lovable to almost everyone he meets.

When Opal and her father move to Naomi for ministry at her father's new church, Opal is lonely. It's summer so she doesn't have the opportunity to make friends at school. In addition, she becomes increasingly curious about her mother, who left when Opal was very young.

With Winn-Dixie's help, Opal befriends the lonely librarian, the local witch, a clerk at the pet store, some boys who tease her, a friendly younger girl, and a "pinch-faced" girl. In addition, Opal's relationship with her father improves because Winn-Dixie makes her brave enough to ask her father more and her father is brought out of his shell by lovable Winn-Dixie. Along the way, Opal learns to understand others more and is thus able to make what some might consider to be an unusual set of friends.

Each of her friends was able to help her grow in some small way. The witch helped her to understand personal demons (not in those words though) and mistakes, so that she could understand her mother a little more. Her father helped her to look beyond the front the "pinch-faced girl" put on and open herself up to boys who had a strange way of making friends.

By the end of summer, I'm sure Opal was not lonely anymore. I think children could relate to Opal's feelings of isolation and could also gain tolerance for others by seeing her befriend unlikely individuals.

The Land I Lost by Huynh Quang Nhuong

The Land I Lost is a biography about the hamlet where Huynh Quang Nhuong grew up before and during the Vietnam War. It seems strange to say it is a biography of a place, but in fact the "land" is the most important thing discussed in the book.

In each chapter, the reader discovers the dangers, joys, and stories of the jungle, river, and homes in and near the hamlet where Huynh grew up. I learned about the most dangerous animals in the areas and read stories of what happened to people who had run-ins with them. I got to know the water buffalo, Tank, that loyally served Huhnh's family. Tank not only helped in the field, but also helped catch fish, eels, otters and protect the people from wild hogs and tigers.

While not explicitely stated in the text, I inferred that the people learned to live with nature. They seemed to respect it as something to understand, use and protect themselves against as necessary, but not something to overtake or ruin.

At the beginning of the text, the author provides a note giving some background as to how secluded the hamlet was and the background of his family. At the end of the note, he writes: "I always planned to return to my hamlet to live the rest of my life there. But war disrupted my dreams. The land I love was lost to me forever." (p. xi) However, the war is not mentioned again until the last few chapters. He writes: "Once, during the endless years of fighting in Vietnam, a rocket blew up the bamboo bush." (p.124) and "One day when I was in the field with the herd, fierce fighting between the French forces and the Resistance led by Ho Chi Mihn erupted in our hamlet." (p.125)

I appreciated that the author chose to remind the reader of what the war cost him and what it ruined, but was mentioned briefly enough that I was able to enjoy the stories of his youth. I also appreciate that the author mentioned it at the beginning and ending only. It set the stage for my reading; I read knowing that things must not be the same anymore. And, it finished my reading; I read about how the war destroyed one of the most precious things in Huynh's childhood.

As a self-absorbed American (aren't we all?) I know little about Vietnam except how America was involved in the war. Now I understand a little more about the culture, people and land there--at least prior to the war.

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game is a mystery involving a group of possible heirs to Sam Westing's fortune. Through a strange game set up by Westing before he was murdered, the characters must determine the murderer in order to inherit his money. As the reader, you are privy to the clues each heir receives. There are other inconsistencies, details, and clues in the text so that you can solve the mystery.

As a reader, I enjoyed the story and getting to know the characters but I didn't feel the need to try and solve the case before it was revealed to me in the story. I noticed some of the details that would have helped me figure it all out, but I was content to keep reading and let the characters do the work.

The plot is full of twists and turns and pulls you in successfully. At the end of the first, 4 page chapter, the text reads: "Who were these people, these specially selected tenants? They were mothers and fathers and children. A dressmaker, a secretary, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake. Barney Northrup had rented one of the apartments to the wrong person." (p.5) At this point, I was eager to figure out who the bookie, burglar, bomber, and mistake were.

For a light-hearted read that engages, this book does the trick. I remember reading it in school and really enjoying it. In fact, it is one of only a handful of things I even remember reading as a school assignment prior to AP English. I think it has the potential to engage even reluctant readers with the plot twists and clues.

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

I think this was the perfect time for me to have read this book. As someone who can write a paper but has never felt the urge to write for pleasure, I’ve been thinking a lot about why writers write this week. Between reading Rylant’s autobiographical But I’ll Be Back Again and Waiting to Waltz to thinking about Beth’s post about VA Tech, to our discussion in class, I’ve been thinking. Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson is written from the perspective of a boy, nicknamed Locomotion, who learns to deal with the loss of his parents and sister through poetry. In fact, the book is written as poetry. So, many of the poems discuss how poetry is giving him a voice for his pain.

As an avid reader, it never occurred to me to actually try writing myself. But, after this I think the seed has been planted. Maybe I can use writing to help me in times of great emotion. I think Locomotion would be a perfect way to introduce kids to the idea that writing can be just for you and doesn’t have to be for school.

In some ways, Locomotion reminded me of another book I read this semester—Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. Both are written about loss in a poetic form. However, Locomotion is a contemporary kid living in a city. While the girl in Out of the Dust lives during the dustbowl in the rural Midwest.

At first a lot of the poems explain poetry. One named “Line Break Poem” tells how Lonnie’s teacher explained the purpose of line breaks. The early poems revolve around the memories of his family. But, as the book progresses, I was able to see how he was healing. Many poems still involve memories of his family, but his friends at school and new memories with his sister take on a more important role. I enjoyed witnessing his progression in the subtle form of poetry. There was more for me to figure out than with prose.

I do wonder, though, why is this one classified as poetry and Out of the Dust as fiction?

In But I’ll Be Back Again, Cynthia Rylant tells us of the experiences that shaped her as a writer—her childhood including her family, first loves, and The Beatles. I see now that in some ways she is Summer from Missing May, the boy wanting a doctor’s kit in Silver Packages, and the teenager whose father “went away on business” in I Had Seen Castles. While she did not profess that all of these details from her stories resulted from her own life, I think perhaps they did, at least in part.

Most interesting of all, was the difference between how she got many of her stories and how Richard Peck professes to have gotten his. I guess I was thinking about this since we just watched Peck’s webcast from last year’s Bookfest in DC. In the webcast, Peck says he is a listener, a collector of other people’s stories. He says he gets his ideas from the lives of other people. From Rylant’s But I’ll Be Back Again, it seems that she pulls a lot from her own childhood for inspiration.

As we’ve studied Rylant, we’ve talked over and over about how she writes about family and home. She explains that the loss of her father was “all the loss I needed to become a writer.” (p.7) I guess that she writes about family and home because she felt as though something of family and home were missing for her as a child. In reading, Waiting to Waltz and now But, I’ll Be Back Again, I feel as though I can understand her motivations and subject matter more. I think I will look for more autobiographical information about authors I enjoy. It’s a bit like seeing the “picture” in one of those trick drawings—an extra bit of information or help makes all the difference in whether you can figure out what the picture is. Much like understanding a good book.

As I finished this book, I was overwhelmed by the thought that “Wow, this lady totally identifies herself as ‘writer.’” In thinking of my own self-identity, I can’t imagine summing up myself with one thing, like ‘teacher’ or ‘reader’ or ‘learner’ or ‘wife.’ But, then it occurred to me that maybe her focus on herself as ‘writer’ made it easier to tell the story of her childhood or limited the scope of her topic. Maybe she can’t really sum herself up as ‘writer,’ she chose to do so for this book. Now I’m curious to know what another book like this one would be like if she wrote it as ‘mother’ or ‘daughter’ or ‘librarian.’

Waiting to Waltz by Cynthia Rylant

In Waiting to Waltz, I followed a girl's journey growing from a child to a young lady with a backdrop of people and places entwined with her youth. Through the sparse words of peotry recounting memorable events, I was able to picture the town of Beaver and the girl. As one who generally avoids poetry, I was pleasantly surprised.

In the first part of the collection, the girl enjoys childhood joys like wax lips and remembers events like misspelling woke at the spelling bee or when her mother ran over a dog. But, in the second part of the collection, the girl begins to reflect on her fatherlessness, her freedom during the summers, and boys. At times she still feels like a child but realizes she is no longer. During the thunderstorm she acts brave "but inside, [she is] a little girl crying." (p. 19).

The girl's experiences with religion were unexpected to me. The people of Beaver seem religious but the girl's family does not seem to be. In Holiness, she was frightened at the Pentecostal service. When she took her mother to church in Saved, her mother was embarrassed by the girl's behavior. She even wishes she were Catholic because of the "slick-haired boys" (p. 37).

Without reading all of the poems in the collection, I would have an incomplete understanding of the story. They all work together to tell of this girl's journey toward adulthood.

Joyful Noise by Paul Fleischman

By about the third poem, it hit me. Paul Fleischman crafts his stories so that we hear multiple points of view. While this may not hold true for each of his books, it is true of the three most recent ones we have read-- Seedfolks, Bull Run, and Joyful Noise. In the first poem, Grasshoppers, the readers are speaking the poem from a third person point of view. But, in the next one, Water Striders, two water striders are talking to us in the first person. I started each new poem eager to figure out what the voice would be. Would each reader be a different character? Would they work together for one point of view? Would it be third person like the first poem?

I have a love-hate relationship with insects. As a former Biology major, I find their anatomy fascinating and enjoyed learning about the complexity of all living things, but on a personal level I hate bugs! I can't even kill one, but I certainly won't have one near me. So, I enjoyed the illustrations in Joyful Noise because of the detail drawn for each of the beautiful insects. And, I gained a different perspective on the insects I usually just find bothersome and gross.

Fleischman did an excellent job of varying the poems to keep me engaged in the story. Some of the poems like Water Striders, Grasshoppers, and Mayflies, provided factual information but in a fanciful way. The reader learns about water striders distributing their weight on "the thin film of the surface" (p. 7) and that mayflies only live for a day. In other poems, the insects are personified. The digger wasp is an industrious mother and the moth struggles to resist what he knows he should avoid-- the porch light.

I never would have thought I would enjoy a collection of poems about bugs!

Fables by Arnold Lobel

Arnold Lobel uses animal characters to tell his Fables. Each fable is about a page in length and ends with an italicized “lesson” sentence at the bottom. Each one is an unusual story that goes with the “lesson,” but it is not obvious what the message will be. In The Elephant and His Son, the father elephant tells his son that he must be quiet so that he can read the newspaper. He says he can only focus on one thing at a time. Then his slipper catches on fire and the son has to bring it to his attention. The lesson is: “Knowledge will not always take the place of simple observation.” While I see the lesson, it was not the obvious ending to the story.

Fables is the winner of the Caldecott Medal. Each fable has an accompanying picture showing the characters from that fable. The illustrations are triple framed giving the reader distance from the story’s action. I think the animal characters, formal language, coupled with the framed illustrations allows the reader to more objectively read each fable for its intended message.

While many people would expect the book to be geared toward young children as a read aloud because of the short stories, illustrations, and animals, I think the collection would be lost on young children. As I mentioned above, the lesson is not clear from each story and each lesson is a complex idea. For instance, one lesson sentence states: “Advice from friends is like the weather. Some of it is good; some of it is bad.” I don’t think young children could fathom that idea. The formal language makes the book inaccessible to young children as well. In The Lobster and the Crab, Crab states: “Lobster…it is foolhardy to venture out on a day like this.” To which Lobster replies, “Perhaps so… but I love a squall at sea.” I found the exchange amusing because it is formally written, but I don’t think young children could understand it. I think Fables would be more suited for upper elementary school children.

My favorite story is The Lobster and the Crab. Its lesson states: “Even the taking of small risks will add excitement to life.” How true! How true! I also had a good chuckle in The Bad Kangaroo. A young kangaroo throws spit balls and puts tacks on the teacher’s chair. When the principal visits home, the parents do the same thing. The lesson reads: “A child’s conduct will reflect the ways of his parents.” Hehe :)

Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott

Anansi the Spider tells how the moon came to be in the sky. When Anansi’s sons save him from a fish and falcon, Anansi has a hard time deciding who to reward with a “glowing orb.” He gives it to Nyame, The God of All Things, to keep it until he can decide. Nyame puts it in the sky, and thus it is the moon.

This version of the story is obviously written for children unfamiliar with Ashanti folklore. I think McDermott did a good job of including information necessary for the unfamiliar reader while telling the story simply and concisely. For instance, at the beginning he writes, “Anansi. He is “spider” to the Ashanti people.” And later after introducing Nyame, he writes: “For Ashanti people, Nyame is The God of All Things.”

Geometric shapes abound in the illustrations. Each of the six sons has a different attribute and it is represented by a unique shape. River drinker has waves on his body, while Game Skinner has two pointy triangles like the ends of knives. I imagine that Ashanti people may have used the same shapes when telling the story.

This book was a Caldecott Honor book and I can see why. Without the illustrations, the story would be incomplete. For instance, the text says: “He [Anansi] fell into trouble” while the illustration shows him falling off the land and in the next illustration you see Anansi in the river being eaten by a fish. Nowhere in the text, though, does it tell you that he was eaten by the fish.

Long Night Moon by Cynthia Rylant illustrated by Mark Siegal

I found this picturebook to be relaxing, lyrical (of course) and simple. The reader sees a scene for each of the moons that occur during the year. I enjoyed learning about the Native American names for each moon and was able to appreciate why each name was fitting for that moon. The names for the moons seem to relate to the seasonal events of the time-- "Sprouting Grass Moon" for April and "Thunder Moon" for July. It added to my appreciation and understanding of Native American respect for nature.

The illustrations of the picturebook added depth to my understanding of the poem. I often have difficulty understanding poetry at the level I usually understand prose. The illustrations helped me to visualize and follow the poem's meaning more closely. This book would definitely be great to use with kids. So often, teachers choose not to use poetry and as a result children never learn to understand it. (like my own experience!) Having the illustrations to enhance understanding and reduce the comprehension load was helpful for me and I'm sure it would be for students as well.

At the end of my copy of the book, the illustrator included a note to tell the reader how he came to choose charcoal as the medium for the illustrations. It indicates that he tried other mediums but felt that they weren't right. I think the charcoal was perfect. At night, edges are softened and colors are muted. With the charcoal, I felt like I was standing in the night too.

Bull Run by Paul Fleischman

Unfortunately, my hopes for enjoying a war novel were not met. More than anything, I think I failed to have sufficient background knowledge to fully understand the story. While I have heard of all the locations listed and have a vague idea of where they are (Northern Virginia), I don't have a good enough understanding of where they are in relation to one another. Additionally, my knowledge of the Battle of Bull Run is almost non-existent. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but it's true! Because my background was limited, I had a difficult time following the events of the battle.

I also found the changing voices difficult in Bull Run. At first, I was excited that I would get to hear from characters more than once. At first, I was able to keep track of them all. But, later in the book, I started confusing characters and had to stop numerous times to look back and remind myself about the character's story and whether they were Northern or Southern. These difficulties really diminished my enjoyment of the story.

I did appreciate having many different perspectives on the first battle of the Civil War. I was able to glean that individuals had many motivations for entering the war. Fleischman also explored that many Northerners were not accepting of African Americans even though they were fighting, in part, for the freedom of slaves. Gideon Adams experienced racism as a free Northern African American, and Charlotta King discovered that Northerners would not give her free passage if she escaped. As a child, I had the misconception that only Southerners were prejudiced against African Americans during the time of the Civil War. Many of today's children probably also have the same misconception. This book could help to clear up their understanding. The characters who only incidentally experienced the battle were interesting as well. It is not often that one hears about the illustrators, entrepreneurs, or spectators who are involved in historical events.

Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

In this simple story of a girl growing up within her community, I gained a different perspective on native americans than that usually represented in the American consciousness and textbooks. Morning Girl and Star Boy are two very different siblings who are adolescents in their community. Morning Girl learns to appreciate her brother and learns about herself over the course of the story.

In Morning Girl's culture, nature is greatly valued. At one point, Morning Girl wishes to know how she appears. As she explores her face by touch, she relates what she feels to nature. Her chin is pointy like a starfish, her cheeks are two hills. Even after a major storm, that I assume was a hurricane, the community views the destruction as a time of renewal and enjoys the gifts they have received from the storm-- new fronds already on the ground for use as roofing, coconuts easy to collect. Even the loss of cherished items is viewed as "what the storm had borrowed." (p. 68)

While the native american culture valued reverance for nature, a value quite different from the
exlorers, Dorris gave us the opportunity to see how these people were very much like everyone else. Children must learn the rules of adult behavior for their society. Families argue but love one another. Some marriages don't work.

I thought Morning Girl gave me a well rounded viewpoint of what one native american culture could have been like before Columbus and his men landed in "the New World."

I Had Seen Castles by Cynthia Rylant

What a heartbreaking story. A young man, just learning who he was, enters WWII. He is changed forever becoming almost an entirely different person.

I generally feel rather indifferent to many Cynthia Rylant picture books, but this is her second chapter book that I have enjoyed. I wonder if she has any light-hearted chapter books? Ones that are not so saddening. As I noted with Missing May, more complete characterization seems to make a difference in my enjoyment of her books. As a first person narrative, I learned a lot about pre-war John and post-war John. Ginny was also fleshed-out, inasmuch as John knew and understood her.

While John's character described little about his life after the war, I still felt like I knew his post-war character. Through his description of himself as a teenager, I learned of his character before he went to war. However, the tone of his description led me to understand that he was very different after the war. He was lonely, scarred, and introspective. He clearly does not identify with himself before the war. In the first chapter, he describes his childhood home in third person, as if he doesn't know the occupants of his own house. In the second chapter, he describes longing for the innocence and simplicity of childhood. Clearly, he is not the same person he was as a teenager.

In one interpretation of I Had Seen Castles, it seems to be about the emotional toil and scarring that results from living through such a terrible war. But, in another interpretation, the book seems to be exploring the morality and justness of war in general. John and many of the other incidental characters are unswervingly pro WWII. Conscientious objectors are looked down upon and John doesn't question why or if he should enlist. He just feels that he should. However, by introducing the character of Ginny, who does not support the war, post-war John and the reader are led to consider whether it was just and right. While Rylant does not answer this question, I was led to consider the complex issue myself. She set the stage for the reader to consider it but chose to leave it up to us to come to our own conclusions. I'm glad she didn't steer my thinking with her own.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham-- 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 is the story of a family told from the middle child's point of view. When the family is in Birmingham, everyone but especially Kenny is affected when they think that Joetta, the youngest Watson, was inside when the church was bombed.

This book was very humorous. Byron provides a lot of comic relief. He gets his lips stuck to a mirror during a winter storm, and straightens his hair then subsequently has it shaved off by Dad.

I expected that the book would primarily be about the Civil Rights Movement and have a heavy historical fiction slant. However, more than anything, it was about family. Through the majority of the book, I learned about the family's interworkings and came to know the characters well. From Kenny's perspective, I came to know Momma as an easily embarrassed, serious, strong woman; Dad as a fun-loving, kind, but strict father; Joetta as a religious kindergartner who tried to protect her brother; and Byron as a trouble-making, but soft-hearted bully.

Throughout, I was waiting for the family to encounter prejudice or witness racial inequality, but there was nothing until the church was bombed. In retrospect, I think that the story was stronger and more powerful as a result. Because I had not been primed to read about hatred for the first 180 pages, the church bombing shocked me as it must have shocked the people who actually experienced it. Since I knew the characters as people, it made it more painful to know the pain the bombing had caused.

I appreciated the epilogue at the end of the story. While the text provided closure as to how the family dealt with the tragedy of the church bombing, the epilogue gave closure and more information about the motivations of those who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and a historical context for the bombing. Without the epilogue, I think I would have felt that the story was unfinished.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

Edward Tulane is a china rabbit living a pampered life. But, when he is accidentally thrown into the sea, a series of misadventures ensue that teach him to love and love again.

I am now a huge Kate DiCamillo fan! I have read Despereaux and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. With both, I found it hard to put the book down. I'm going to have to read each of her other books!

Just as with Despereaux, the book itself is beautiful. Edward is drawn walking up to a house on the cover and the endpages match the inside of his special traveling trunk. It's as though I was put inside the trunk to experience the journey with him. Each chapter has a page to begin it showing the chapter number and a small illustration. Then, there are color illustrations throughout the book on glossy paper with captions from the text underneath. All of the elements worked together to give me a sense of the story.

At first, Edward fails to appreciate the love he receives from his owner, Abilene. He is bored by all people and cares only about his appearance. When he loses Abilene and ends up at the bottom of the ocean, he begins to appreciate what he had. Eventually, over many years, Edward is loved by several different individuals who treat him differently, call him different names but all love him. With each love and loss, Edward becomes a more complete being. As his heart swelled with love, I felt my heart swell too. As his heart ached with each lost love, mine did also. What a gift to make me empathize with an inanimate china rabbit!

In the front matter, a quote from "The Testing-Tree" by Stanley Kunitz is provided. It says:
The heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.
It was not until Edward loved and had heartbreak that he began to live. The quote fit perfectly with the storyline and set the stage for my reading. I was also reminded of Despereaux here with the reference to dark as a part of life. The trials of life and growth that comes as a result of hardship and with love seem to be recurring themes with DiCamillo. I will have to see if the same trend continues with her other work.

I'm not sure how I would label the book. Initially, it struck me as fantasy because Edward, an inanimate object, has the capacity to think and feel. But, as I think more about it, it seems like another literary folktale. Edward learned an important lesson about opening his heart to love and appreciating the love he receives. It also has the happily ever after ending so typical of folktales.

I searched for info about the book and discovered it has its own website! www.edwardtulane.com
Included is a video clip with Kate DiCamillo and the illustrator, Bagram Ibatoulline, discussing the process of working on the project and what it meant to each of them. Lesson plans, a readers' theater script among other things is included.

One review (Publisher's weekly) actually compared this story to The Velveteen Rabbit and seemed to think that Edward Tulane was the superior story. I have only a vague memory of the Velveteen Rabbit from my childhood. I will have to check it out and see how I think they compare.

For those that loved Despereaux, you have got to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Hatchet is so named because that is the only thing a young boy, Brian, has when he is stranded, alone, in the Canadian Wilderness after a plane crash. While he fights to survive in the new environment, so different from the city where he usually lives, Brian changes and learns from the experience.

As an adventure story, I was surprised by the psychological aspect of the book. Hatchet explores man vs. nature as Brian fights for survival but also explores man vs. himself as Brian grows and changes as a result of his experiences. The man vs. himself was the more interesting storyline, to me.

At first, Brian is consumed with memories about his parents divorce and mother's infidelity while waiting impatiently for rescue. However, he is soon faced with devastation when he's attacked by a skunk, and he hits rock bottom. Then, Brian views himself reborn and hones his skills at surviving in the wilderness. His senses become more acute and his priorities are changed. No longer is he concerned about rescue but looks for food first and foremost.

Brian comes to understand that all the animals he encounters are part of nature and realizes that none of them care much for him, they were all just trying to survive. I think he also realized that self-pity was useless and that action was his only hope.

An epilogue is included which briefly chronicles what happens after Brian is rescued. A few details about his changes are included such as his wonder at the choice of food in the supermarket and how he always thought before speaking after the rescue. I think that would be a really interesting story-- how living in the wilderness changed Brian's character. I definitely finished Hatchet feeling that the story was complete but wanted another story to tell me about his life post-rescue.

This was not a book I would normally choose for myself, but I enjoyed stretching my interest limits.

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

Charlotte's Web is truly a story of friendship-- friendship that stays with you forever, friendship for a season, or friendship for a lifetime. In this well-known story by EB White, Charlotte, the spider, helps to save Wilbur, the pig, by writing messages in her web. Just as Wilbur's future is assured, Charlotte's life comes to an end.

While I knew that friendship was the theme of the story, I was surprised by the depth and different types of friendship that were depicted in the book. Charlotte is a true, loyal friend to Wilbur but most notably, to me, she seeks no attention or recognition for herself. She is self-less in helping Wilbur. Isn't that a noble quality to find in a friend? Several times, White mentions that no one noticed Charlotte. Dr. Dorian even said, the web was really the thing of wonder not the words written in it.

Fern represented a different kind of friendship. While she loved Wilbur, she grew and changed, and her friendship with Wilbur lasted only a short time. I imagine that she still visits him from time to time, but she is not the same kind of friend as Charlotte. Through the months of Wilbur's youth, she spent a lot of time with him. However, just as he was about to be awarded the prize, Fern grew beyond her friendship with Wilbur. She became more interested in her new friend, Henry. Their friendship represents the more fleeting friendships that happen, a friendship that lasts a while but then dissolves over time.

While I know the story of Charlotte's Web so well as a result of reading it as a child and watching the old video of it many times, I enjoyed rereading it because little things made me chuckle. At one point, Charlotte says that "People believe almost anything they see in print" (p. 89) in response to Wilbur's protest at not actually being terrific. Wilbur waxes philosophic over the meaning of nothingness and the impossibility of less than nothing, saying: " If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something--even though it's just a very little bit of something" (p. 28). I imagined myself reading that as a child and saying, huh? There were other points in the story where White made observations about human nature. For instance, he wrote: "It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people" (p. 160). These are all things that I think children would miss, even though they could get lots of good out of reading the story.

Charlotte's Web seems to be one of the most well-known children's books and one that has stood the test of time. However, it did not win the Newbery. It was a Newbery Honor book but The Secret of the Andes won the award that year. I've never heard of it, has anyone else? There must be something quite special about a book that has stood the test of over 50 years and still enchants children today.