Flotsam; The Three Pigs---A couple of books by David Wiesner:

Flotsam by David Wiesner
2007 Medal Winner

The Three Pigs by David Wiesner
2002 Caldecott Medal

Let's just start with the fact that David Wiesner has won THREE Caldecott medals and TWO Caldecott Honors. He's good! I haven't gotten my hands on the other medal and honor books he's written yet, but I look forward to doing exactly that!

FLOTSAM is a wordless picture book of a sophisticated nature. Many wordless picture books are designed for people too young to read. Not this one. Older children and adults will also enjoy Flotsam. The illustrations,  depicting a boys exploration on the beach, are detailed and fine, and there are lots of them--- some pages have more than a dozen frames.

If you love exploring on the beach and finding little animals and trash and treasures, you will resonate with the boy in this book. He's taking a close examination of a crab when a wave knocks him over. When he sits up again, he sees an ancient underwater camera that the wave washed up. And here the adventure begins. I'm not giving any of the rest of it away. It's cool. It's magical. This book is worth chasing down.

One of the things I love about the book is the way the illustrations, and really the whole story,  show the process of LOOKING. For example you see the hermit crab, huge, in sharp focus, looking startled. . . with the boys eye in the background. Then you see the boy stretched out on a blanket in the sand, a magnifying glass held up to his face (and making his eye enormous) and the hermit crab in his hand. If you are someone who loves this kind of LOOKING (and I do!) there is a lot of happiness seeing that process shown from various perspectives. You are pulled into the boys LOOKING and actually experience the story.

Highly recommended. All ages.

THE THREE PIGS is also totally clever and cool (though I'd have to say Flotsam would easily be my personal favorite.) This story begins with the usual "Once upon a time there were three pigs who went out into the world to seek their fortune. The first pig decided to build a house, and he built it out of straw."

I was thinking, "huh, I'm surprised that David Wiesner would want to do this story. . . " but then when the world huffed and puffed and blew the house in the little pig says "Hey He blew me right out the story!" and the pig actually sails OFF the page, and the wolf is supposed to be eating him up. . . but he's gone!

The rest of the book features pigs scrambling around doing their own thing IN BETWEEN the PAGES of the book. . . and then OTHER books!  This is so clever it's hard to explain! Which would be a good reason to give this man a medal! Heck the pigs even fold a paper airplane out of one of the pages in the book and fly away on it for a few pages. Ingenious and fun. In both books, for different reasons,  the sheer intelligence of this author-illustrator's  artistry impress me!

Here is a you-tube video of the artist talking about his most recent book. Seems like a very interesting man who likes to challenge himself! Art and Max by David Wiesner - YouTube

And here's an interview with the artist talking about getting the news of winning the Caldecott for the Flotsam and talking about his creating process: David Wiesner interview - YouTube

Love, Louise

One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

2011 Coretta Scott King Award Winner

2011 Newbery Honor Book

2011 Scott O’Dell Prize for Historical Fiction

2010 National Book Award Finalist

Delphine is the oldest of three sisters at eleven years old. Dephine, and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern travel from Brooklyn, where they live with their Pa and "Big Ma" (his mother) to Oakland CA during the summer of 1968. The girls have been sent to meet their mother, Cecile, who left them immediately after Ferns birth, and isn't exactly "motherly." Cecile has changed her name to Nzilla, is a poet with a small printing press in her kitchen, and is involved with the Black Power movement. The girls spend their summer going to Black Panther summer camp where they get a free breakfast, learn the meaning of revolution, make friends with the children of freedom fighters who's parents gave their lives in the struggle or are imprisoned. It's a long way from Brooklyn and Pa and Big Ma. Cecile seems distinctly NOT glad to see them, and Delphine steps up to look out for her sisters the best she can. 

You will love these three girls. Several other characters are also memorable. The window into that time and place and movement is very satisfying. The intensity of Cecile/Nzilla and the mother she isn't is very compelling. Near the end of the book the girls take place in a rally that leaves them empowered. But the real culmination of the story happens the night before they leave when Cecile and Delphine have a heated discussion where Delphine finally learns her mothers life, and in the last moment before they step on the plane, to go home. 

I like this book! I could totally recommend it. Middle school and up. There are complex issues and scenes of arrests, stories about black panthers who were killed in episodes of police brutality, etc. So, I'd consider it ideal for adults and young people to read together as it would be a rich jumping off place for lots of worthy discussion! 

I feel the quote on the back of the book by Linda Sue Park (Newbery Medal author for her book The Single Shard) summed it up well: "One Crazy Summer is a genuine rarity: a book that is both important in it's contents and utterly engaging in its characters. . . with the tremendous bonus of being beautifully written."

Dear Mr. Henshaw

Originally posted 2003

Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary

1984 Newbery Medal

I thought this one was a bit “light weight” for a Newbery Medal. It’s told by a boy in his correspondance with an Author he likes and then in a journal he keeps. Tells of his parents breaking up and deals with family issues with his mom and dad. I didn’t love it. It was OK.

Related Blog-----Newbery Project Blog

I found this blog today that invites people to join and review Newbery Medal books.

The Newbery Project

It was fun to read other peoples impressions of some of the books I have read and if you want a second opinion, there are plenty of them here.

Love, Louise

The Wanderer

Originally posted 2003

The Wanderer by Sharon Creech

2001 Newbery Honor book

I liked Walk Two Moons so much that I made a project of reading everything Sharon Creech wrote! I like the Wanderer the best! A transatlantic sailing voyage sets the scene. An adopted girl is the central character and adoption issues figure into the story in a central way. There are great dipictions of family relationships especially with fathers and sons. Everyone is transformed by the voyage and the difficulties of a particular storm in a positive way. There are the characteristic Sharon Chreech wonderful people, including a wonderful boy character on the voyage.

The Higher Power of Lucky

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

2007 Newbery Medal

The town of Hard Pan population 43 is located in the Mojave Desert. Ten year old Lucky is one of those 43 residents and has one of the few jobs in town. She cleans up after the 12 step meetings that take place in the Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Center. "All the anonymous people left lots of litter, and each group could not bear to see the butts or the cans or the candy wrappers of the group that met before it. . . . The recovering alcoholics hated to see or smell beer cans left by the recovering smokers and gamblers, the recovering smokers could not stand cigarette butts left by the recovering drinkers, and the recovering overeaters hated to see candy wrappers left by the recovering drinkers, smokers and gamblers. Which means Lucky has a job."

She also has a spot behind the building where she eavesdrops on all the rock bottom stories the anonymous people tell. And listens carefully for any clues about finding your higher power, since she would like to find her own.

Lucky's mom died a few years ago and she has a guardian, Bridgette, who is from France. The main thread in the story follows Lucky's recovery from that loss. It has a happy ending.

I liked the book.There are a bunch of quirky characters who live in Hard Pan who are fun to read about. The book was funny and did a good job viewing the world through Lucky's eyes and in her language. But, it wasn't JUST funny, it also dealt with good themes of loss, love, recovery and community.

Although I think younger readers would enjoy the character of Lucky, and there's nothing horribly scary in the book, various things make me recommend it to middle school and up. A younger child reading WITH a parent might be OK. The whole context of the anonymous meetings, the opening rock bottom story has a snake biting a dog on the scrotum, stuff like that, makes me think of an older reader.

Love, Louise

A Year Down Yonder; A Long Way From Chicago

Originally posted October 24, 2003

Both of these are by Richard Peck. A Year Down Yonder was the Newbery Medal Winner in 2001 and A Long Way From Chicago was a Newbery Honor book in 1999. I read A Long Way from Chicago first because it is the "prequel" to A Year Down Yonder and I wanted to do it in order.

These stories have a storytellerish style, a kind of tall tale, yarn spinning quality. In A Long Way from Chicago each chapter tells a story about a gun toting, don't care what anybody thinks, tough as nails/heart of gold Grandmother that two kids from Chicago go visit each summer.

A Year Down Yonder follows the younger child through an entire year with her grandmother, during the depression when her parents are in a hard way in Chicago and decide it's best for the girl to live with her Grandmother for the year.

The chapters of each book stand on their own as stories. I bet it would be a fun one to read aloud.

I found that the each chapter a story format didn't suck me in quite a thoroughly as a regular novel does. The stories are funny, the Grandmother character outrageous and with good moral fortitude despite (or maybe because of?) her out law mentality. I think a lot of kids would love these books. Even though there's some gritty events, they are all placed in such an amusing, ridicules light that I don't think any of it is scary. I'd say it's aimed more at a middle school, high school audience, but I bet a much younger reader would enjoy them as well, especially if read with a parent.