Reading Resource Highlight

I have had lots of requests for book suggestions for children, and other resources on inspiring your children to read more.  This month I would like to highlight Reading Rockets.  This great website is offered by PBS and provides a great variety of suggested books to read, information about authors for children, helping struggling readers, and links to more great information.  Visit them today!

For more links to great reading resources, see the side bar on the right side of this blog!

Orphan Train: A Novel

I finally had a chance to read the latest book from Christina Kline, Orphan Train (author of Bird in Hand). This is the story of an unusual friendship between a teenager, Molly, in the foster care system and Vivian, an older woman, who was an orphan herself.  A large portion of the book is told in flash back form, as Vivian shares her experiences as a child when she loses her family and is forced onto an orphan train.   While the narrative sometimes feels a little forced to me, it doesn't decrease the overall emotional impact of the story.  It certainly inspired me to learn more about the orphan trains, and what happened to some of the children during this time period.  Take time to read this great book!

From Booklist:
A long journey from home and the struggle to find it again form the heart of the intertwined stories that make up this moving novel. Foster teen Molly is performing community-service work for elderly widow Vivian, and as they go through Vivian’s cluttered attic, they discover that their lives have much in common. When Vivian was a girl, she was taken to a new life on an orphan train. These trains carried children to adoptive families for 75 years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the start of the Great Depression. Novelist Kline (Bird in Hand, 2009) brings Vivian’s hardscrabble existence in ­Depression-era Minnesota to stunning life. Molly’s present-day story in Maine seems to pale in comparison, but as we listen to the two characters talk, we find grace and power in both of these seemingly disparate lives. Although the girls are vulnerable, left to the whims of strangers, they show courage and resourcefulness. Kline illuminates a largely hidden chapter of American history, while portraying the coming-of-age of two resilient young women. --Bridget Thoreson  

And the winner is...

It is awards season!  As Hollywood celebrates its biggest starts, the American Library Association is highlighting the best books of the year.  If your children are looking for the next "great book" to read check out the winners below!

The Newbery Medal Winner (children's literature)

It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry — and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting new format — a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by up-and-coming artist K. G. Campbell. (from the publisher)

The Caldecott Winner (illustrations)

It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America's brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean.

Come hear the hiss of the steam, feel the heat of the engine, watch the landscape race by. Come ride the rails, come cross the young country! (from the publisher)

The Printz Award (Young adult)

Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined—this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice.
An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the bounds of love.
 
 
 

Language of Flowers

This book was passed along to me this summer by my mom, who thought I would like it.  I had a lot of reading to do at the time, and set it aside until this December when I picked it up over the break to read.  I am sorry that it took me so long!  Vanessa Diffenbaugh has written a wonderful debut novel.  The story opens with Victoria turning 18, and "graduating" out of the foster care system.  Her childhood has been filled with failed foster homes, and she is left to live on the streets.  However, she did have one positive foster care experience that left her with a deep knowledge of the Victorian meaning behind each type of flower.  She is given a chance by a local florist, and a second chance at making a life for herself.  Diffenbaugh does a great job of treading the waters between heartbreak and hope, and it leaves you rooting for Victoria.  Enjoy!

From the publisher:

A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel,The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.

Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But a mysterious vendor at the flower market has her questioning what’s been missing in her life, and when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.

Ocean at the End of the Lane and Frozen in Time

November and December seemed to fly by, and I realized that I did not post my book reviews for those months!  I have decided to copy and paste them into this post, and I will continue with a new review in February.  Enjoy!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I should say up front that I LOVE Neil Gaiman.  To me he is a master storyteller.  There are not many authors that can write for children (Chu's Day a picture book, and he is a Newberry award winner for The Graveyard Book), and adults (Anansi Boys).  The Ocean at the End of the Lane continues his legacy of great writing.  It is part fairy tale, part fantasy, part mystery, and all entertaining.  Neil Gaiman's work always contains an element of "creepy" and there are several places where you will find your skin crawl a little, but the storytelling is nothing short of amazing.  Enjoy this wonderful little novel.
From the Publisher:
A major new work from "a writer to make readers rejoice" (Minneapolis Star Tribune)—a moving story of memory, magic, and survival
Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

Frozen in time: an epic story of survival and a modern quest for lost heroes of World War II
I read a lot of nonfiction.  I find it interesting, but not often as "gripping" as fiction work.  This is an exception to that.  This book I would consider to be a masterful work of narrative nonfiction.  If you are a history buff, and love a great adventure story, this is the book for you.  I had never heard of these plane crashes until I read this book, and I had a great time looking up more information about it as I went along.  Mitchell Zuckoff also wrote Lost in Shangra-La and I am hoping we will hear more World War II stories from him soon!

From the Publisher:
On November 5, 1942, a U.S. cargo plane on a routine flight slammed into the Greenland ice cap. Four days later, a B-17 on the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on the B-17 survived. The U.S. military launched a second daring rescue operation, but the Grumman Duck amphibious plane sent to find the men flew into a severe storm and vanished.
In this thrilling adventure, Mitchell Zuckoff offers a spellbinding account of these harrowing disasters and the fate of the survivors and their would-be saviors. Frozen in Time places us at the center of a group of valiant airmen fighting to stay alive through 148 days of a brutal Arctic winter by sheltering from subzero temperatures and vicious blizzards in the tail section of the broken B-17 until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen attempts to bring them to safety.
But that is only part of the story that unfolds in Frozen in Time. In present-day Greenland, Zuckoff joins the U.S. Coast Guard and North South Polar—a company led by the indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza, who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck's last flight—on a dangerous expedition to recover the remains of the lost plane's crew.
Drawing on intensive research and Zuckoff 's firsthand account of the dramatic 2012 expedition, Frozen in Time is a breathtaking blend of mystery, adventure, heroism, and survival. It is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and their families—and a tribute to the important, perilous, and often-overlooked work of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Reading Resources for Parents

As promised, each month in addition to a review of any new and great adult books I have read, I am also going to highlight some great online reading resources for parents.  Most of us struggle with how to get our children to read more, or are looking for additional books for our children to read.  I often get the question "What should my child be reading?" My most honest answer is "What ever they enjoy!"  Don't worry if your children are choosing to read books that don't seem like great works of literature.  Foster the love of reading first and they will come around to reading the classics before you know it.  Let your children see you read.  We all know we should model good behavior for our children, and this includes reading.  If you set aside time to read everyday, your children will see this, and come to develop the reading habit too!

So with this in mind, it seems best to start with Scholastic for Parents.  Scholastic is one of the top publishers for children's books in the United States, with a long history of providing great educational and recreational reading materials for kids.  Their website has extensive resources for parents on reading, as well as activities and printables.  One of the best features of this site is the "age-by-age quick finder."  Enter  your child's age, and the type of book you are looking for, and a list of suggested reading material is provided for you!  This is a well organized site, and it is very easy to use.  Take a few minutes to explore it, and let me know what you think!

http://www.scholastic.com/parents/

I was so excited to read the first book from Khaled Hosseini in six years.  After his huge success with two of my favorite books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, this book was eagerly awaited.  Oh how I wanted to love it, but I didn't even like it very much.  I think my problem was with the time shifting for each character.  Often that particular devise can be used effectively to tell a story that spans decades and multiple characters, but I felt like we were lurching from one story to the next, rather then making smooth transitions.  Hosseini is a genus at bringing the world of the Afghan diaspora to life, but this work is not quite as good as the others.  Read it for yourself however, and let me know what you think.  See a complete plot summary below!

Library Journal (April 1, 2013)

This bittersweet family saga spans six decades and transports readers from Afghanistan to France, Greece, and the United States. Hosseini (The Kite Runner; A Thousand Splendid Suns) weaves a gorgeous tapestry of disparate characters joined by threads of blood and fate. Siblings Pari and Abdullah are cruelly separated at childhood. A disfigured young woman, Thalia is abandoned by her mother and learns to love herself under the tutelage of a surrogate. Markos, a doctor who travels the world healing strangers, avoids his sick mother back home. A feminist poet, Nila Wahdatire, reinvents herself through an artful magazine interview, and Nabi, who is burdened by a past deed, leaves a letter of explanation. Each character tells his or her version of the same story of selfishness and selflessness, acceptance and forgiveness, but most important, of love in all its complex iterations.