[K] Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

(This was first written for my History of Youth Literature class, but I posted them at almost the same time. ^^;)

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (2004) is a book that first caught my eye because of the Japanese in the title. It’s an onomatopoetic word that means glittering, or sparkling, and can be used to refer to all sorts of different things (stars, eyes, a clean kitchen counter…). In the book, it’s how the narrator’s older sister, Lynn, sees the world. Katie, the main character and narrator, worships her sister and her ability to transform ordinary objects into kira-kira­ by the way she thinks about them.

The book is about how the main character and her family deals with her sister’s lymphoma and subsequent death. It goes through Katie’s feelings of denial, helplessness, despair, anger, and guilt, but most of all, it shows the love she felt for her sister and her family. It is definitely not the kind of book I would pick up on my own, and probably not one I would read again, but it was a good story that packed an emotional punch at the end.

I put off reading this book for a long time because I had heard how sad it was (they were right). I probably would not have even read the book if I hadn’t been looking for a “K” book for my blog, and the book happened to be available at my local library. I knew that it was a Newbery winner (that was where it caught my eye in the first place), and it also won that APALA Youth Literature Award for 2005-2006.

Aside from being a powerful story, the book also deals with racism in the Deep South in the 1950s. In the book, when Katie and her family move to Georgia, there are only 31 other Japanese people in their town. People are not really sure how to treat them, and white people lump them with the “colored” people. Kids at school don’t hang out with them because they’re Japanese, and their uncle can’t become a land surveyor because of his race.

Growing up in L.A., I never really felt like I was different because of my race, but while I was in college, I actually visited Georgia on tour with our school gospel choir (I was one of 3 Asians, and there were maybe 5 or 6 non-blacks total in the choir…), and it was the first time in my life that I felt really different. I loved being in gospel choir and had a great time, but it was also very strange. Thinking back on that experience now, it makes me think that Georgia, and maybe even the U.S. is not so different now from what it was 50 or so years before.

But, as Codell (2009) writes, “the world has changed, however slowly and incompletely” (para. 4). The fact that there are books like Kira-Kira now is evidence of this. This book is great for anyone who wants to know more about the Asian American experience during a time in the U.S. when overt discrimination and racism were still part of the norm. But more than that, this is a touching story about a family dealing with a terminal illness and all the emotions and issues that go along with it.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter K.

[E] The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

(#66 on School Library Journal‘s Top 100 Chapter Book Poll Results from 2012)

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (2009) is set in 1899 and is about a girl who would rather observe the world around her than act like the lady that she is expected to become. It was a Newbery Honor Book for 2010.

The first time I read this book, I thought that it had a catchy name that sounded familiar, but I suppose that was because the author was trying to evoke the historical fiction of the time. Ever since then, I’ve had a hard time figuring out if I’d read the book before or not. I checked it out this semester because it was on the Top 100 list of books we could choose from for our final project. After re-reading the first few chapters, I realized that I had in fact read it before, but that I’d read it on my iPhone when I was checking out tons of books from OverDrive. Although I’m pretty sure enjoyed it, I guess it wasn’t particularly memorable for me. ^^;

Nonetheless, it is an Honor Book for a reason, and it would be a fun read for girls who want to read about smart girls who go against the norm and/or for those who enjoy historical fiction.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter E.

[W] The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

This is another Newbery winner, and one of my favorite books of all time. Most of the kids I recommend this book to love it, and I’ve had a few call it one of their favorite books. I even had one girl tell me that she was mad at me for making her stop reading at such a crucial moment in the story (they were reading a few chapters a week).

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin is a mystery that has lots of surprising revelations, and I love how all the pieces fit together in the end. I also liked how Raskin gave us a glimpse of what happened to all the characters after the main story ends (kind of like the oft-maligned ending to the Harry Potter series, which I didn’t dislike as much as some readers, I think). I enjoy reading about my favorite characters even after they move on with their lives, which is even better if it includes a new story about them (both Tamora Pierce and Patricia C. Wrede do this wonderfully).

This book will leave readers guessing until the end, and they will probably want to re-read the book from the beginning immediately after finishing it the first time to see how the clues all lead to the answer. I’ve read it many, many times (although I’ve lost my beloved copy in the garage somewhere and have had to borrow it from the library recently to teach it), and I’ve taught it twice now with great results. The kids have fun keeping track of the clues as they find them and trying to figure out pieces of the puzzle themselves (I make them put them up on the classroom walls), but I don’t think I’ve had anyone who was able to predict the ending yet.

There is a fairly large case, but the main character is probably Turtle, a 13-year-old girl, since all the other characters are four to forty plus years older. The book is actually pretty diverse, with an African American female judge and a Chinese family as part of the sixteen heirs who take part in the Westing game. While the depiction of them is a little stereotypical, the son of the Chinese family is not the typical “smart Asian,” which was refreshing. I didn’t find anything particularly offensive about them, and the fact that they were even there was nice. I think I was more focused on Turtle, who made me want to be a lawyer when I grew up (until I realized I would have to go to law school for that…).

I would recommend this book for boys and girls, around fourth grade and up. Even if they don’t generally like mysteries, they will probably like this one. And I have a bonus recommendation for any adults out there who loved the game or the movie “Clue” and haven’t read this book–you should definitely read it!

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter W. 

[V] The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg

This is my second book on this blog by E. L. Konigsburg, and the second Newbery Medal winner I’m reviewing by her. (Here’s the link for my review of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.)

This was the only book I could think of for the letter V, although when I went to the library to check it out, I also found The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket. But I had been wanting to read this book since teaching Mixed-Up Files to my fourth graders and learning about the double Newbery that Konigsburg earned with this book.

I loved how she interweaved all the stories together into a larger story without making it feel disconnected. All the stories, and all the lives they touched, feel like they were connected even before the story she set out to tell begins.

The story is about four bright and mature sixth graders who are the underdogs at the Academic Bowl (like Academic Decathlon, but for middle school). But their experiences (and the way they reflect on their experiences) make them wise beyond their years. They are called The Souls, which I thought was a little cheesy, and maybe the only wrong note in this whole book, but I thought of them as The Old Souls. They were able to find an acceptance of themselves that helped give them self-confidence and the ability to rise above typical sixth grade drama, like bullying and playing tricks on the teacher.

This book still has a couple jokes that will go over the heads of the intended readers like Mixed-Up Files, but I think she made the vocabulary a little easier this time around by explaining most of the more difficult words she uses in context.

There’s a great line on the second page:

To her four sixth graders puberty was something they could spell and define but had yet to experience.

Which is basically the tone of the book (though not the subject matter). It talks about everything so matter-of-factly, but it doesn’t lose a sense of warmth.

The book does contain some pre-adolescent themes that parents and teachers may want to watch out for with younger (less mature) readers, but this is a great book for bright and precocious readers of any age.

I’ll leave you with a funny conversation on diversity that comes up after the first vignette:

“In the interest of diversity,” she said, “I chose a brunette, a redhead, a blond, and a kid with hair as black as print on paper.”

Dr. Rohmer was not amused. He gave Mrs. Olinski a capsule lecture on what multiculturalism really means.

“Oh,” she said, “then we’re still safe, Dr. Rohmer. You can tell the taxpayers that the Epiphany Middle School team has one Jew, one half-Jew, a WASP, and an Indian.”

The teacher is told off again for calling the Indian boy an Indian by Dr. Rohmer, who informs her that they are called Native Americans now, not realizing that the boy is an actual Indian whose parents are from India. I love the tongue-in-cheek answers Mrs. Olinski gives Dr. Rohmer, who had just been to diversity training (but ended up being an example of why diversity training doesn’t work).

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter V. 

[U] Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech

I had never browsed through a books section on a quest to find books that started with certain letters before, and it was certainly an interesting experience. However, I was dissatisfied with the backup books I had in mind for some of the last letters of the alphabet, so one sunny Saturday afternoon, I spent half an hour going through the middle grade and YA section looking for books that started with U, V, and Z. I actually had a book in mind for V already, but I had never read it, so I needed to borrow it anyway (although I had an idea of what to write if I didn’t have time to borrow or read the book).

I found two books for the letter U, Ugly by Donna Jo Napoli, and Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech. I almost wrote about Ugly because I loved reading about the ugly duckling’s journey through Australia meeting and learning about lots of interesting animals–including humans–and about himself. But in the end, the charming angel with the Italian-ish accent won my heart with this line near the beginning of the book:

An angel does not need a bed, but sometimes I think the bed needs an angel.

And also because of the mention of “those marshmallow candies that look like animals” reminded me of Easter. lol…

(So it has only a little to do with the fact that I already mentioned Spinners, another of Donna Jo Napoli’s books, in my post for the letter B before I went on this strange hunt for books by letter.)

The book takes place in a Switzerland filled with Italians with smatterings of other peoples, and the angel learns English from them somehow. It’s a strange mix of squashed together words and made up words, with wonderfully delicious onomatopoeia like flishing and flooshing.

I am always wary of giving my students books written outside of a typical narrative style like Unfinished Angel is. At the same time, I want to expose them to different ways of storytelling and stretch their imaginations. Besides, it’s just a nice story with a hopeful ending. It also teaches about kids and poverty and family in a very real and sensitive way (this is where the hope comes in, too).

The non-traditional narrative may be hard for younger readers to fully comprehend, but I have seen reviews compare it to a child learning how to talk, so they may understand it better than we adults. It would be great read aloud (in an Italian-ish accent, if you dare!) to middle graders.

I know I knew who Sharon Chreech was growing up , but I guess the only thing she really had out when I was in elementary school that I’d heard of was her Newbery Award-winning book, Walk Two Moons. I don’t really remember what that was about anymore, but I remember my sister loved Bloomability when she was little. I’ve been having fun discovering her books as an adult, and read Granny Torelli Makes Soup and The Castle Corona last year, and now Unfinished Angel. All were quick reads that told very real stories in different but refreshing ways.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter U. 

[Q] The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whelan Turner

I can’t believe I didn’t discover Megan Whelan Turner until last year! I mean, she was even in Disney Adventure! And I had a subscription to that for years, although I was already in high school by the time her story came out in it and had stopped subscribing.

The Queen of Attolia is the second book in her The Queen’s Thief series (which, according to Wiki, is a fan-coined name). I try to introduce the first book of a series as much as possible, but I’m making an exception since I need a book for “Q” (I suppose I could have used the name of the series like I did for The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce, but I’m trying to keep it to book titles as much as possible this month). I loved this series so much that I bought all four books after reading the ebooks from the library.

The world Turner writes has elements of Greek myths, but it is really about political maneuverings with a little intervention by the gods. It does remind me a bit of Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books, which have some of the same feel to them. Turner and Pierce both do a great job with characterization, and Gen reminds me of George Cooper from the Tortall books. The politics is as engaging as Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games, and there’s a bit of Percy Jackson thrown in with the mythologies. And there are more unexpected twists than any of those series, I think. (Just writing this makes me want to go back and re-read them!)

Some profanity in The Queen of Attolia makes me not want to use it with my fifth graders, who can still be somewhat immature when it comes to things like that. I would definitely use the first book, The Thief, though. It’s a great book, written in first person, even though the rest of the series is written in third person. It has the added bonus of being a Newberry Honor book in 1997, which is always nice to tell the parents.

This series has strong male and female characters with enough action for the boys and a little romance for the girls. Great for fans of any of the series I mentioned above, although the series does get a little darker after the first book.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter Q.

[O] Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

There is a strange phenomenon in our house where the first book of a series always goes missing. This is because someone will decide they want to re-read the series and pull out the first book, and then never get around to it, separating the first book from its companions forever.

Over Sea, Under Stone is one of those books. It is the first book of The Dark is Rising sequence, but honestly, I don’t remember much other than that the books were set in Cornwall.  I tried to re-read the whole sequence last year and found this:

We were missing the first two books.

Strangely, this seems to happen more to my sister’s books than to mine, as I’m much more possessive and obsessive about my books…

This is a great series to read if you haven’t yet, and I would recommend it for boys and girls ages 10 and up, especially those who like fantasy or King Arthur.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter O. 

[J] Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson was the first story to ever make me cry. I think I have leakier tear ducts now, but growing up, I don’t think I suffered enough hardships for me to feel that emotional about books or movies.

What got me in this story was the plight of the older sibling. In my family, both my parents were the youngest children in their families (of three and six siblings), and my little sister was obviously younger than me. So, growing up, there was a period of time when I felt like no one understood what it was like to be the older sister. But Louise did. And she had it worse, too, because her sister was the same age, so she didn’t have the advantages of being bigger and smarter like I did.

The hardest part for me to understand was why God said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” I knew the story of Jacob and Esau from Sunday School, but it didn’t seem to fit with the God that they were teaching us. I accepted it like I accepted everything else I didn’t understand at the time (with immigrant parents, that was a lot…). Now I have a better understanding of the theology behind it, but it still trips me up a little when I read the story of Jacob and Esau now.

From Wikipedia:

The book traces Louise’s attempts to free herself from Caroline’s shadow, even as she grows into adulthood.

I’m not sure about being in my sister’s shadow, but I think with a five-years-younger sister, it was easy to feel like my parents were always on her side, and that I always had to make sacrifices because of her. She was also a super cute toddler to primary schooler, which didn’t help.

We are really close now, and I’m way more spoiled than she is. She’s grown into a mature, responsible (and still cute!) young woman, and I love hanging out with her. I’m actually curious to see what she thought about this book now, although I’m pretty sure she just liked how Louise could pole a skiff and catch soft-shell crabs. (I know she’s reading, but she’s probably too shy to comment…)

Anyway, this is a great book for big sisters to relate to! It’s not as happy or fluffy as the books I usually like, but I think it is an empowering book for girls, especially those who’ve compared themselves to the popular, pretty girls (which is probably all of them). It would also be appropriate for any kid who feels jealous of their siblings or other kids to help them work through their emotions. I think I read it when I was about nine, but Amazon has it listed as 13 and up. I would say it’s good for middle school (or students at middle school level) and up.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter J. 

[G] The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver by Lois Lowry is yet another Newbery Award winner on my list. I’m usually surprised by how many books I own and remember from my childhood were Newbery Award and honor books, but I guess teachers and librarians have been finding and recommending books through that list for a long time.

This book was the first book I did for book club for my current job, and it was an accident. I thought my boss wanted me to do a book from the students’ summer reading list, and one of my students had already gone and borrowed a bunch of books from the list. The only one I had heard of at the time was The Giver, so I told my boss we could do that book. I did borrow The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd (a great book dealing with autism) from the student to read after she was done with it, but I thought I was supposed to do the “classic” book for the book club.

Turns out I didn’t really need to do The Giver (which was nearly impossible to get through for my ESL student who was supposed to be in the class), but the kids seemed to enjoy it more than I did. I remember not liking the book much when I had to read it for school (see the part about how I like fluffy books in previous posts), but it wasn’t too bad reading it as an adult. I got it a lot more, for one thing, and it was an interesting challenge discussing it with my students.

The funny thing is that this book kind of turned into the “legendary book club book” because I never did it again, even though the high-achieving kids all wanted to read it because it looked hard. I had done it with rising middle schoolers, but  all of my classes after that were younger (and I’d found other books I wanted to do with them). So even though they kept asking me about the book, I kept doing different books, which only makes them want to read it more. Now that we have students who weren’t around during the Summer of The Giver, the kids who were around talk about the book in almost hushed tones. It’s pretty cute to watch, actually.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter G. 

[F] First Light by Rebecca Stead

First Light by Rebecca Stead is one of my favorite recent finds. It reminds me of The Giver (by Lois Lowry) intertwined with a modern-day story that ends with more hope. (I liked it better than The Giver, if you couldn’t tell from that short summary.)

I’m not usually a fan of dystopian literature, although I read it because my students do (or have to). I like to read fluffy, fun books with lots of action and humor, and dystopian fiction usually doesn’t fit that description, even if it’s for kids.

But what I liked about this book was that it had a satisfying ending (a mystery with a proper solution that had good hints but didn’t give too much away), mainly thanks to the intricate interweaving of the two main story lines. I also liked the details about the glaciers and the dogs a lot. The beginning was a little confusing, but there’s enough realistic fiction in it for readers to relate to and anchor themselves with.

I don’t usually quote from other people in my reviews, but as I was refreshing my memory for this one (I don’t have a copy of the book yet, although one is in my Amazon cart to buy later), I found this great quote about how Stead started this book from her website for the book:

Rebecca plunged into First Light, stopping now and then to research. She decided that her story took place in Greenland, where dog sledding is part of everyday life, and suddenly she had a cast of dogs. She discovered that a glacier can conceal a freshwater lake, and that firefly light is triggered by oxygen. A glaciologist told her how to scare a polar bear with a flare gun, and why he loves his bread maker.

First Light also hints at other things she’s learned, such as the fact that children don’t need to be shielded from truth. They are often much braver than the rest of us.

This book is a great introduction to dystopian literature for upper elementary to middle school students, but it’s engaging enough for adults to enjoy as well. I liked this book better than When You Reach Me, the book Stead won the Newbery Award for. When You Reach Me was more confusing even though it only had one story line (which is about time travel and has references to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle).

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter F.