The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle - 1923

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Illustrated by Sonja Lumat
Doctor Dolittle, Book 2

Pages: 276
First Published: 1922
Genre: children's animal fantasy, adventure
Awards: Newbery Medal 1923
Rating: 5/5



First sentence:

All that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him -- indeed a great deal of it took place
before I was born.

Comments: In this second book of the series we meet Tommy Stubbins, the boy who becomes Dolittle's assistant. Once again Dolittle sets off on a voyage this time to meet the great botanist Long Arrow, son of Golden Arrow and along the way they meet many side adventures. Dolittle becomes set on learning the shellfish language, meeting the Great Glass Sea Snail, ends up on Spidermonkey Island, saves the island from floating into the Antarctic and helps the natives build a thriving city and society.

Both the 8yo and I thoroughly enjoyed every word of this book. Everything a child could want in a book is here: adventure, fantasy, science and animals all rolled into one. The action starts in the first chapter and is non-stop right to the very end which comes to a heart warming ending that leaves the reader with the feeling that there most certainly must be a sequel.

The edition I have is unaltered from the original text. At least I can find no indication that it has been altered, though the spelling has been Americanized. This edition is part of the Grosset & Dunlap Illustrated junior Library which has been in publication since the 1950s so I am fairly confident the text has not been edited. Since these books are often cited as being racist by PC fanatics I will note that I found absolutely nothing offensive in the book at all. The original illustrations have been omitted and replaced by a handful of full-colour plates illustrated in a cute fashion which I am not fond of. I will look for an original edition with Lofting's illustrations to replace this one someday.

Having read the first two together I can say for certain we will continue on with the series. The 8yo thought it was one of the best books we've read together and we both agree it is even better than the first book. Having read this as a child myself it is great to see that it lived up to my expectations and then some. Recommended!

Rabbit Hill

Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson is another classic children's book that I never read as a child. And I thought I was well-read!

I think I would have really enjoyed Rabbit Hill, since one of my favorite children's books was another talking animal one - the original Bambi, by Felix Salten. And a few years after that, I also loved Watership Down. I wonder if Richard Adams read Rabbit Hill as well as The Tale of Peter Rabbit as a child or young man?

Anyway, Rabbit Hill is definitely an old-fashioned story, and rather slow-paced, as Alicia noted. As an adult, I didn't mind the wordiness and lack of action so much (especially since the story is only 128 pages long). But the things that I really enjoyed in this book as an adult are probably things that a lot of kids would not be interested in or wouldn't even notice.

I loved the comparisons between the different people that lived on Rabbit Hill (which was also the name of Lawson's country home in Connecticut, I gathered), especially the difference between "planting folks" (gardeners) and others:

Then evil days had fallen upon the Hill. The good Folks had moved away and their successors had been mean, shiftless, inconsiderate. Sumac, baybery, and poison ivy had taken over the fields, the lawns had gone to crab grass and weeds, and there was no garden (p. 14).

I spent a little time wondering if the animals were really better off with people living on the hill and actively managing the land. I know that many of the animals in the story (like rabbits, groundhogs, moles, and fieldmice) do benefit from human agriculture, and especially like to eat some of the species in lawns and gardens, but is there really that much of a gain? What if the new folks didn't plant a vegetable garden? And what about today's suburban enclaves of asphalt, golf-course grass, and gravel with a few yew bushes or yuccas and day lilies? These landscapes must produce a huge net loss when it comes to biodiversity and small creature population. Though I have heard that vegetable gardening is getting more popular again.

I really enjoyed all of the descriptions of ecological succession, with wars and economic changes and people and farms, factories, and gardens coming and going, and the rabbits continuing on, adapting to the Black Roads and various folks' dogs and cats.

Although Father Rabbit's verbosity did occasionally get on my nerves, in general I really liked the language and the tone of the story. The "free garbidge" that the skunk loved was a nice touch, and I squealed when Phewie the skunk goes on to mention that Deer was "not above a mess of garden sass* now and then" (p. 24). The discussion of "Reading rots the mind" was fun, and I thought it was cute that the woodchuck (i.e., groundhog) was named Porkey. I did think the story got more exciting as it concluded.

I wonder if Rabbit Hill won the Newbery in 1945 because Americans really needed comforting stories of home at that point in time. It is a comfortable book, with its vision of little creatures living in harmony with (at least a couple of well-read) humans on a picture-perfect farm. I want to go spend a quiet weekend there, eating garden sass and watching the animals come out at dusk.

______________

*garden sass = garden sauce, an old-fashioned term for vegetables that I blogged about a few years ago. A little more research on the term shows that "garden sass" (instead of sauce) was already being used by 1856, as in this Lea & Perrins ad for Worcestershire sauce:

Lexicographers tell us there are various kinds of sauce, some of which are exceedingly appetizing, while others are difficult of digestion. The old Colonists, and even modern Yankees and Virginians, speak in their quaint rustical way of “garden sass,” under which term they include all culinary vegetables.

In 1947, in the Secrets of New England Cooking, Ella Shannon Bowles and Dorothy Siemering Towle noted that:

Garden sauce and green sauce were old English terms dating from the time of Beaumont and Fletcher and perhaps before. Corrupted in New England to garden sass, it included all the vegetables raised in the garden. At one time some of the vegetables were classified as short sauce, others as long sauce, but these finer distinctions have been lost, and in northern New Hampshire and Maine, even today, garden sass is the accepted term for all garden vegetables.

I think this sentence in Lawson (and Bowles and Towle a few years later) are around the last print references I've found to "garden sass," except for the recent works that refer to it as an antiquated or no-longer-used term.

1980 - A Gathering of Days

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32 by Joan W. Blos won the Newbery Medal in 1980. As you might guess, the book is written in the form of a diary which was kept by thirteen year old Catherine Hall who tells about her life in rural New Hampshire in the early 19th century.

I liked the opening of the book which was a letter from Catherine to her great-granddaughter who was turning fourteen. She writes, "Once I might have wished for that: never to grow old. But now I know that to stay young always is also not to change. And that is what life's all about - changes going on every minute, and you never know when something begins where it's going to take you. So one thing I want to say about life is don't be scared and don't hang back, and most of all, don't waste it."

The beauty of this small book is in the descriptions, both of the physical places and the emotions of the young girl who loses her mother and her best friend to fevers. Until her father remarries, she must take care of her younger sister. Young children (we have it with a recommended reading level of grades 4-8) might appreciate Catherine's emotions as her new "mother" moves in with them and brings many changes to their home!

In addition to winning the Newbery Medal, this book also won the American Book Award (Children's Fiction) in 1980.

TITLE: A Gathering of Days
AUTHOR: Joan W. Blos
COPYRIGHT: 1979
PAGES: 144
TYPE: Fiction
RECOMMEND: I really liked this book and would recommend it to children who are interested in New England history or how young people lived in the past.

LibrarysCat

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

7 of 12 for the 2008 Young Adult Challenge
2 of 3 for the tl;dr challenge
1 of 6 for the Classics Challenge
5 of 11 for the Summer Reading Challenge

This is a breathtaking book. It takes us to Puritan New England, in the colony of Connecticut. Sixteen year old Katherine (Kit) arrives in America after having been brought up by her grandfather in Barbados. Her liberal Shakespeare-reading, ocean-swimming, silk-dress wearing upbringing did nothing to prepare her for the inflexibility and piousness of her aunt’s family that takes her in. In fact, Kit’s free thinking and outspoken ways create suspicion and irrational fear.

Speare’s characters are fleshed out and conflicted and it is a pleasure to watch them learn and grow throughout the book. Kit’s constant impulsive decision making and the inadvertent consequences never felt contrived. The time period and its rigid culture played a huge part in the plot of this novel – where seemingly harmless gestures and friendships can somehow make a person seem like a Satan-worshipper and be put on trial for witchcraft. It was a tremulous and frightening time, where politics were a constant topic of conversation as the colonists were just beginning to decide that they no longer wanted a king.

Kit’s indecision about what and who she loves, and where she belongs, rang so true to me. The descriptions of New England itself and of the traditions and chores of the time were expertly woven into the prose. The sprinkling of romance throughout the story fit just right and I loved the ending. If you are a lover of young adult historical fiction, this Newberry Award winner is a must-read.

Lincoln: A Photobiography

The 1988 Newbery winner Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman is an excellent and informative book about the life of our 16th president. What makes this book amazing is not only the pictures, but the writings of Lincoln which are provided and the small details of his life which perhaps are not as well known.

One amusing detail of his writing is from his home-made arithmetic book. In his own writing, Lincoln says:

"Abraham Lincoln

his hand and pen

he will be good but

god knows when" (p. 13)

Freedman provides many stories about Lincoln's childhood and family. The details of the day Lincoln was killed are very touching. The war was over and Lincoln and his wife, Mary, were trying to come to terms with the death of their second child. During a carriage ride early in the day, Lincoln told Mary, "We must both be more cheerful in the future. Between the war and the loss of our darling Willie, we have been very miserable." (p. 121)

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in one of our most honored presidents.

FlusiCat

Author Comments upon Winning the Medal

This is a nice collection of author responses following the phone call informing them that they'd won the prestigious Newbery award (from 1996, so don't expect more recent authors' comments): Newbery Authors

I found the site Googling "getting your kids to read Newbery", wondering if there was a trick to convincing my son to read something that I recommend. His friends, even the school librarian, random advertisements - they all carry more weight than my opinion. :(

We still do a little "read aloud" to wind up the day, so I've been picking Newbery winners that I want to read for that. He does admit that some of these are pretty good. But except for The Twenty-One Balloons, I've only been doing books that I've already read that I really know he'll like. I'm good at picking out books that people will enjoy, why won't he believe me when I say it's something he'll like? It must be a tween thing.

On a related topic, I have a whole stack of "girl books" that I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to read. It's interesting dividing the Newbery winners up into "girl vs. boy vs. either gender will enjoy" categories.

Rabbit Hill

This story was a slow starter for me as an adult; I wonder if my kids would have any patience for it. That would be too bad because the ending is really very sweet.

The illustrations are a delightful compliment, as is the map on the inside cover. That the author was also the illustrator is a nice touch. I noticed (with more interest than I had in the book itself) that Robert Lawson was also the illustrator of a favorite story of mine, Ferdinand. Last week I discovered that Lawson is also the author/illustrator of Ben and Me, which I unsuccessfully tried reading to my son when he was seven or eight. The stuffy prose, well represented in Rabbit Hill by father rabbit's dialogue, turned him off.

For the short read, I didn't mind Rabbit Hill. However, I wouldn't expect my kids to like it and am surprised it merited a Newbery Medal.

The Twenty-One Balloons

I was surprised by how much I liked The Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pène du Bois - an older Newbery winner (1948 winner) - especially since I'd never even heard of it before this project.

I'm pretty sure I would have liked this as a child, too - I loved Jules Verne (especially Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), and this reminded me a lot of that, though The Twenty-One Balloons was a lot more light-hearted. Also, my eleven year old son enjoyed The Twenty-One Balloons as much as I did, and our tastes don't overlap that much. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this book should appeal to a pretty broad audience. In fact, I think it is definitely an under-appreciated, underrated classic.

William Pène du Bois' quirky, rambling writing style appealed to me as much as the story did. Who wouldn't like "a balloon in which I could float around out of everybody's reach....to be where no one would bother me for perhaps one full year" (p. 40), at least on some days?

This story of 66-year-old retired mathematics teacher Professor William Waterman Sherman, who stumbles on a secret society on the supposedly uninhabited Pacific island of Krakatoa just before its 1883 explosion, is definitely one of the most whimsical Newbery winners I've read. There's a lot about balloons; their construction and their lifting power and the mechanics of rigging a basket, a couch, a house, and a huge platform up to them. There's economy, government, and exotic restaurants, and kids who get to invent incredible things. It's a great mix of science and fantasy, appropriate for all ages. Why isn't this book better known?

Funnily enough, my family just watched a Mythbusters episode (Larry's Lawn-Chair Balloon- myth confirmed) about a guy who attached a lawn chair to a bunch of weather balloons. And tonight we're going to check out Heliosphere, an "enchanting outdoor spectacle of aerialist performers suspended from a larger-than-life helium balloon" at Ann Arbor's Top of the Park festival, just to continue the theme.

The Story of Mankind Online

No, I'm not talking about a history of the internet. Here are a couple of links to online editions of the first Newbery winner - The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, which won the medal in 1922 - at this Prize-Winning Books Online page produced by a University of Pennsylvania librarian. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting (1923 winner) and several early Newbery Honors books can also be found through this link, along with lots of early Pulitzer and Nobel prize winners.

Carry on, Mr. Bowditch

My initial impression of this -- that is, the impression as I read it -- was not favorable. Its main character was one-dimensional. The plot turns could be seen coming pages in advance. It had improbable coincidences (happening to be at Harvard the day he was awarded his degree). It seemed odd that it addressed much of the adult life of Nat Bowditch rather than just his youth (after all, Harry Potter's adult life is summarized in a few-page epilogue).

Yet after I read it, it grew on me. It was a classic by-the-bootstraps tale. It had adventure, history and, pleasantly, science. In hindsight, I was glad to have read it.

Then, THEN, (only today!) I learned that Nat Bowditch was not a fictional character. This was a fictionalization of a real person. Mr. Bowditch really did get indentured, develop a new way of calculating lunars and create a sailing manual that is still a classic.

I wish I had known this going in. The book's sense of inevitability would have been much easier to understand.

I don't expect either of my sons would enjoy this book, now or ever. But I am glad to have read it.

The Door in the Wall

The Door in the Wall, by Marguerite de Angeli, was the fifth Newbery winner set in 13th or 14th century England that I've read this year (see here for a discussion of the medieval settings of the different winners). De Angeli doesn't ever say exactly what year this story takes place, but since it is during the reign of Edward III, during and after outbreaks of the plague, and at the end of the Scottish wars, I think it has to be between 1350-1365.

Unlike the other reviewers - so far, anyway - I didn't like this book a great deal. I couldn't help comparing it (unfavorably) to the other medieval Newbery winners - Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, Crispin, The Midwife's Apprentice, and even Adam of the Road (which won the award in 1943, just seven years before The Door in the Wall won).

The Door in the Wall was a just little too heavy-handed for me. The idea that God always provides "a door in the wall" when bad things happen doesn't appeal to me much. I've always really hated it when people tell me that "when God closes a door, he always opens a window." Part of this can undoubtedly be chalked up to my lack of faith. I do think that many Christians might find this story meaningful, and de Angeli did an excellent job of describing medieval church rituals (including many feast days and daily bells and prayers, like Nones and Vespers), and of showing how the Church was such an integral part of everyday life in the 14th century.

Perseverance and courage are definitely important qualities, but I'd rather see them demonstrated, and not have characters preaching about this to Robin (the ten year old crippled protagonist) and the reader. The story bored me until I was near the end, when the castle where Robin is being fostered comes under siege. I did really like the details about the castle (boiling oil to pour on invaders' heads! a keep, a Great Hall!), and de Angeli's pencil illustrations are quite charming, and added a lot to the story. I wanted a few maps, too, though (how far was it from the castle at Lindsay on the Welsh border to London?). Here's a photo I took of the illustration of the Great Hall, since I couldn't find any of her illustrations from the book online:


I just read The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry a few weeks ago (reading The Giver started me on all of her works, and I grow ever more impressed with her versatility and skill). Anyway, The Door in the Wall fits so very perfectly in Lowry's bibliography of "old-fashioned children's books" in the back of The Willoughbys (I wish Lowry had included all the older Newbery books in there!), which include stories of "piteous but appealing orphans....magnanimous benefactors, and transformations wrought by winsome children." Granted, Robin isn't an orphan, but his parents are absent for most of the story. And the book is definitely quite old-fashioned (and I think quite unlikely to interest my son or many of his soon-to-be-entering 6th grade friends).

Finally, it's a very minor, nit-picky point, but I thought it was a little weird that there was a horse named Bayard in The Door in the Wall, when there was also a horse named Bayard in Adam of the Road (would de Angeli have read Adam of the Road? How widely known were Newbery winners of the 1940's?). Was every other horse called Bayard in the Middle Ages?

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

My Newbery Challenge is an audio experience. I listen to the books as I drive from place to place this is a unique way to enjoy books. The Witch of Blackbird Pond was a tale of discovery. The main character Kit bravely sets off to meet her Aunt Rachel in America. She is a proud, spoiled girl who had spent her whole life in Barbados with her grandfather. Upon meeting her relatives and seeing their way of life, she begins to question the decision to come to this new land. Their strict religion and hard work made her long for the freedom and lavish life she once had. Finally, Kit does befriend the local "witch". This leads her down a dangerous path that endangers her life.

I liked the suspense of the many relationship in the book. People had to act a certain proper way. Often times they could not be honest and forthright with feelings and thoughts. Although Kit struggled with this concept, as I would have. I wished the author had included more from the character Mercy. As the lame cousin, she is everyone's comfort. She was stuck in the home alone many times. She probably had a unique perspective on many of the character conflicts.
"'The answer is in thy heart,' she said softly. 'Thee can always hear it if thee listens for it.'" This is great advice for most situations. Listening to your heart can be a difficult thing to do. Hannah, the Quaker, who the townspeople label as a witch seems to be the wisest character. She guides Kit throughout her struggles in the new harsh town. Hannah has suffered a hard life of prison, branding, the death of her husband and isolation, yet as seen in this quote she i still remarkably optimistic.
The ending was predictable, but I wanted it to end as it did. This added warm to the character relationships that seemed so cold throughout the book. I enjoyed this audiobook.

Quick Link, Lots of Reading

Peter at Collecting Children's Books writes about Newbery sequels, lots of sequels and related books.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

My first thoughts upon closing the cover of this prize-winning young adult novel: what a wonderful, powerful story and what a horrible, confusing and disappointing ending! I'm not opposed to ambiguity, but be warned if you haven't read it that the ending is beyond ambiguous. I'm not sure how I would have wanted the novel to end, but I'm not the author, only the reader. I immediately looked to see if there was a sequel, and there are not sequels, but rather "companion books." So perhaps my questions will be answered and my angst over the fate of certain key characters resolved.

The Giver is a great novel, worthy of the Newbery Award it received. It brings up the issues of freedom vs. order and security, emotion vs. intellect, and the utility and purpose of memory and history. At first, Jonas, the narrator of the story, seems to live in a utopian community. No hunger, no sickness, very little pain, a society of stability, order and contentment. However, as the story progresses, the reader begins to see hints that Jonas's world might not be as perfect as it looks. His mother, who holds a prominent position at the "Ministry of Justice", is disturbed about a repeat offender who has broken the rules for a second time. The third offense means release from the community. Jonas's father is a bit concerned about a baby at the Nurturing Center where he works who is not thriving and cries at night. Jonas himself is apprehensive about his Twelve Year ceremony, coming up in about a week, in which he will receive his apprenticeship assignment, the job assigned to him for his life's contribution to his community. Then, there's the airplane that flew over the community in direct contradiction to The Rules. All in all, it's an unsettling time for Jonas and for the community.

The Giver goes from unsettling to chilling in a little under 200 pages. Short but memorable. However, I'm not the only one who found the ending less than satisfying.

Bud, Not Buddy

I read Bud Not Buddy after reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham with my 6th grade class. I loved this story. It took the reader on a journey along with a young foster boy, Bud, in Michigan. He leaves the home where he has many friends and is sent to an abusive foster home. After he escapes the horrible back shed in which he is locked over night, and attacked by door guarding fish heads and vampire bats, he sets out to find his father. 
Along the way Bud makes many friends. The struggle of common people during the Depression is shown along with compassion people seem to naturally show towards children in tough situations.  
The defining part of this audiobook for me was the epilogue. Curtis explains that many of these characters were inspired by his own family members. He encourages us all to learn our family history from our elders while they are alive. It is so exciting...I can't wait to have my students read this.

Crispin: The Cross of Lead

I'm going to give you two reviews for the price of one here: mine, and my 11 year old son's. He loved this book - he liked the action, the characters appealed to him, and the whole idea of being a "wolf's head" (a medieval outlaw) was fascinating to him.

I was a little more critical. I thought Crispin was certainly worth reading, but I found it a little dark. I kept expecting someone to get killed horribly (and it didn't help that I already knew a little medieval history and had heard of John Ball and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381). The medieval history in Crispin was very interesting, and well-presented, and intertwined nicely into the story of Asta's son - but again, it was all a little depressing for me, starting right off the bat with Asta's death.

I couldn't help comparing Crispin with the other medieval Newbery winners I've read recently (The Midwife's Apprentice, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, and Adam of the Road) - and quite frankly, I enjoyed all them a lot more than Crispin: The Cross of Lead. Crispin did make a very nice boys' counterpart to The Midwife's Apprentice, I grant you, but I didn't find the ending quite as inspiring or satisfying. In fact, I didn't like the ending of Crispin at all. I felt like it left too many questions unanswered. And both Adam of the Road and Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! had a certain story-telling charm and joy that I just didn't find nestled in Crispin alongside all of the drama and the history.

However, I know my son would disagree. He hasn't read the other Newbery winners set in medieval England, and given his taste in books right now, I think it is unlikely I could convince him to read them anytime soon. I should also note that although I didn't really love Crispin: The Cross of Lead, I did get well enough hooked that I'm going to read Crispin: At the Edge of the World as soon as my son is done with it.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz
Illustrated by Robert Byrd

Pages: 81
Finished: May 14, 2008
First Published: 2007
Genre: historical fiction, non-fiction, play, children
Rating: 2/5

First sentence:

The Feast of All Souls, I ran from my tutor -
Latin and grammar - no wonder!

Comments: A collection of monologues/soliloquies written to be performed by middle grade students. Each monologue tells the tale of an individual child from the middle ages. Footnotes are presented in sidebars and a few non-fiction factual pieces explain various medieval customs and history. The book is gorgeously illustrated with medieval-type illustrations in ink and watercolour. The design of the book is also very visually pleasing with coloured ribbon sidebars on every page.

While I found this book very pretty, the text did nothing for me. The majority of the monologues are written in verse (some even rhyming) which was very tedious to read and frankly, boring. I can't imagine watching a play that consists of a bunch of monologues to be very entertaining either. I enjoy both historical fiction and books that take place in the middle ages but this book was just not my thing.

Kira-Kira

I didn't think I was going to like Kira-Kira, the 2005 Newbery winner. Part of it was the cover - lots of people seem to love it, but it seemed a little stark to me, and on top of this, I knew that a main character dies in the story. I just didn't feel like reading one of those Reader's Digest type child death tearjerkers.

The writing on the very first page changed my reluctance to read it, though I still had some reservations about the death later in the story. The cover, I actually like now (after reading the book) - go figure. Though I still think it could use a little more color.

My sister, Lynn, taught me my first word: kira-kira....Kira-kira means "glittering" in Japanese. Lynn told me that when I was a baby, she used to take me onto our empty road at night, where we would lie on our backs and look at the stars while she said over and over, "Katie say 'kira-kira, kira-kira.' " I loved that word! When I grew older, I used kira-kira to describe everything I liked: the beautiful blue sky, puppies, kittens, butterflies, colored Kleenex (pg. 1).

Kira-Kira is the story of a Japanese-American family in the U.S. heartland in the 50's and 60's. The Takeshima family lives in rural Iowa, but moves to small town Georgia, where Katie and Lynn's father gets a job as a chicken-sexer (identifying the sex of newly hatched chicks), and her mother works in a chicken-processing plant. As you might expect, racism, the experience of second generation immigrant kids, and brutally hard work play important roles in the story. All of this really takes second stage to the characters and Kadohata's writing, though. Her descriptions never failed to surprise me. Take this description of the girls' strange Uncle Katsuhisa, who attempts to distract his nieces from crying about moving to Georgia (and not being able to find their favorite things in storage during the ride), by teaching them to spit like he does:

Lynn and I tried to rumble our throats like him.

"Hocka-hocka-hocka!" he said.

Lynn and I copied him: "Hocka-hocka-hocka!"

"Geh-geh-geh!"

"Geh-geh-geh!"

He turned to his open window, and an amazing wad of brown juice flew from his mouth. The brown juice was like a bat bursting out of a cave. We turned around to watch it speed away. A part of me hoped it would hit the car behind us, but it didn't. I leaned over Lynn and out the passenger window. "Hyaaahhhh!" I said, and a little trickle of saliva fell down my chin (p. 22).

The intimate, often funny portrayals of the Takeshima family reminded me (very favorably!) of The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis (the 1996 Newbery Honors book), which also deals with the banality and ubiquity of racism in a totally matter-of-fact manner.

And it turns out that Kadohata's account of Lynn's death was sad, but it was not trite or Reader's Digest-like at all. The ending was beautiful, in fact, and very satisfying:

Now and then I thought I heard Lynn's lively voice. The cricket sang "Chirp! Chirp!" but I heard "Kira-kira!" ....My sister had taught me to look at the world that way, as a place that glitters, as a place where the calls of the crickets and the crows and the wind are everyday occurrences that also happen to be magic (p. 243-4).

There are a lot of rather adult references in Kira-Kira, and the lack of action and a meandering storyline in much of the book will not endear it to younger readers, anyway. But I think it's a wonderful choice for teens, especially girls. Adult readers who like this may also want to check out Bento Box in the Heartland, by Linda Furiya - a memoir (with recipes!) set a few years later than Kira-Kira, by the daughter of another chicken-sexer.

I Know It's Not as Pretty

but the site will be a lot more navigable using the latest version of Blogger. I hope to add some of the prettiness back soon, as well as a sidebar list that automatically takes you to all the reviews of a given title.

Still No Reviews at All

for Smoky, the Cowhorse (by Will James) and Waterless Mountain (by Laura Adams Armer).

And many, many other books have very short reviews, or reviews from just one person - wouldn't you like to add your input? We could all learn something from your perspective on these classics.