Into the Forest

Browne, Anthony. 2004. INTO THE FOREST. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press. ISBN 0763625446 [Suggested Grade Levels 3 and up]

REVIEW
This story is unlike any routine fairy tale. An unnamed boy wakes up in bed and finds out that his dad has disappeared. The sparse but minutely drawn illustrations show a mother who has told her son Dad will come back but she looks so depressed and so powerless her words are not easily believable. Meanwhile the mother asks the child to visit a sick Grandma in order to take her a bit of cake. Mom of course expects him to go the long way but the child decides to take a short cut. The forest is straight out of a Dadaesque dream. It is populated with large, vaguely projectile looking tree trunks. They have protuberances on them that look monstrous. Along the way the lad meets a creepy quartet of children also drawn in black and white who seem vaguely connected to folktales of their own. There is a menacing quality about them. The first child he meets claims to be sick but the possibility of a ruse to entrap this naive youth into something dangerous. Even the last two children met seem to have stepped out of a contemporary Hansel and Gretel story. These two children have been abandoned by their parents and like the anonymous boy at the beginning are told complacently that they will return soon.

The further along the boy travels the more foreboding this nearly deserted forest appears. While he is drawn in color virtually nothing he encounters save a coat that mysteriously appears in the forest is in color. There is an underbelly of anxiety and a sense of hidden agendas in this bizarre tale. While the format is a picture book, the psychological underpinnings that hover along the edges of the story make this a good example of picture books not for little ones.

CONNECTIONS
Use Browne’s illustrated children’s books for older readers with a focus on literary devices. Such literary concepts as poetic justice, satire, foreshadowing, inference, point of view, connotation, and stereotypes are demonstrated in his works.

RELATED BOOKS
Selected titles that reflect a postmodern style in text and illustrative perspective.
Goldin, Barbara. A MOUNTAIN OF BLINTZES. ISBN 0152019022
Lindenbaum, Pija. BOODIL, MY DOG. ISBN 0805039406

By Andrea L. Williams

Mama Loves Me From Away

Brisson, Pat. 2004. MAMA LOVES ME FROM AWAY. Ill. By Laurie Caple. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press. ISBN 1563979667 [Suggested Grade Levels Pre-K – 3]

REVIEW
Sometimes children experience heartbreakingly difficult circumstances in their lives and few children's authors have the courage and the understanding to approach those subjects. Pat Brisson has constructed a beautiful and moving tale about a young girl and her mother who share the same birthday, but not the same house as her mother serves a prison sentence. We often decide that people in prison are just lowlifes, forgetting that everyone makes mistakes, even big ones. MAMA LOVES ME FROM AWAY is a poignant reminder that these are real people who often have families at home that they love and miss. Brisson wisely focuses less on the circumstances and more on what the girl and her mother do to try to maintain a sense of connectedness while they are apart. The book deals honestly with feelings of loneliness and separation, while maintaining a positive outlook, focusing on good memories and the hope that this difficult time will be over soon. Laurie Caple’s decidedly realistic illustrations are warm, beautiful and emotive, capturing private moments of sadness and joy with a gentle hand and loving attention to detail. While most people might view this book as something intended only to console children in similar situations, it can be a good tool for helping children understand the hardships that others face and serves as a beautiful picture of the love shared by mothers and daughters, no matter their circumstances.

CONNECTIONS
An adult can discuss with children how people feel inside the prisons.

Children can draw and write their favorite stories that they share with their mommies.
They then can put those drawings and stories in a card and wrap it up in homemade wrapping paper for a nice Mother’s Day gift.

Children can also write their favorite stories as well as cards and letters and then the adult can mail them to the local women’s prison.

RELATED BOOKS
Other books by Pat Brisson that could be compared to this one:
SKY MEMORIES. ISBN 0385326068
WANDA’S ROSES. ISBN 156397925X

By Melissa Neece

The Crow-Girl

Bredsdorff, Bodil. 2004. THE CROW GIRL. Farrar. Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0374312478 [Suggested Grade Levels 4-7]

REVIEW
This Danish novel has a timeless appeal. Set in the distant past, this is a moving story of a young girl who lives with her grandmother in a small, isolated weathered house on the coast of Denmark. The two survive by their various collections of driftwood and treasures of the sea. Knowing that the grandmother is dying, she offers her wisdom to the nameless girl, sharing her aspiring thoughts on hope and dreams—for they will come true if one holds true to them. After her grandmother's death, faced with being wholly alone in the world, the girl begins her many struggles while attempting to make sense of her new life. Through her despair she packs up a few treasured pieces and her little personal belongings and sets off on her journey to create a new life for herself. Lost in her search for a new life, she follows a pair of crows as they fly along the shore. She quickly struggles to make sense of her lonely life and meets up with an old woman who tries to befriend her and gives her the name of Crow Girl, but she quickly learns of the old woman’s greed and wicked ways. By the end of the novel, the Crow Girl has returned home with a new name and family. The symbolic story will take readers to a place of long ago, with life lessons that will stay with the reader throughout their lives.

CONNECTIONS
Read stories about crows. Discuss how the crows were symbolic to the story.

Display sea treasures you could find along the seashore, (e.g., sea shells, weathered sea rocks, branches, pictures of starfish, sea crows).

Invite children to talk about other treasures you could find along the seashore.

RELATED BOOKS
Other books about personal journeys:
Snicket, Lemony. THE SLIPPERY SLOPE. ISBN 0064410137
Weeks, Sarah. SO B. IT. ISBN 0066236223
Creech, Sharon. HEARTBEAT. ISBN 0060540222

By Kim Southwell

The Greatest Skating Race: A WWII Story from the Netherlands

Borden, Louise. 2004. THE GREATEST SKATING RACE. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. ISBN 0689845022 [Suggested Grade Levels 3-6]

REVIEW
In the snowy winter of 1941 in Holland, young Piet dreams of one day skating in the famous Elfstedentocht race. His dreams of skating are put aside when his grandfather has a most important task for him. Piet’s father is off in England, serving with the Allied armies, and Holland is occupied by German soldiers. When a schoolmate’s father is arrested by the Germans for sending messages to England, Piet is called upon to lead the girl and her brother across the border to safety with an aunt in Belgium. The plan is for the three children to skate along the canals to Brugge under the guise of visiting relatives. When they are stopped by the German border guards and questioned, Piet remembers his mother’s words, “This is what it means to be Dutch. I knew that I must show no fear. And that I must be brave in my heart.”

Piet’s narrative of their tense journey is written verse style and has the reader skating along with them with the rich detail. “We glided under the bridge and heard the echo of our skates in the dusk of this old, historic town.” Piet’s concern for Johanna and young Joop is apparent as he overcomes his own fear and skates them to safety. Niki Daly’s somber illustrations are done in darker, muted reds and browns that convey the feeling that World War II is ever present in the story. An excellent picture book for older elementary ages to introduce the concept of WWII and what it meant to children like themselves.

CONNECTIONS
Have children pick a long distance race, like the Iditirod in Alaska, or one from another country, and make a map showing the race route, and discuss what their strategy would be if they were in the race.

RELATED BOOKS
Other books by Louise Borden:
THE LITTLE SHIPS: THE HEOIC RESCUE AT DUNKIRK IN WORLD WAR II. ISBN 0689808275
SLEDS ON BOSTON COMMON: ISBN 0689828128

Other books set in the Netherlands during World War II:
Fleming, Candace. BOXES FOR KATJE. ISBN 037430922
Polacco, Patricia. THE BUTTERFLY. ISBN 0399231706

By Tammy Korns

Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists

Bolden, Tonya. 2004. WAKE UP OUR SOULS: A CELEBRATION OF BLACK AMERICAN ARTISTS. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810945274 [Suggested Grade Levels 6 and above]

REVIEW
This work is a visually stunning survey of the history of African American artists in the United States. It covers from the late 18th century to the late 20 the century. Most painters are covered, but some attention to sculptor, photographers and other visual artists is included as well. Three main chapters include color reproductions of 45 works with photographs of artists. Detailed captions provide biographical information. While older readers may get more out of the text, the wonderful reproductions are so great they may stimulate the imagination of old and young alike. The end information includes a glossary, a selected bibliography, a reading list and an index. Artists include the very prominent such as Gordon Parks, Romare Bearden and lesser known public figures.

Highlights of this book include eclectic artists as varied as quilt makers, photographers, and outsider artists all get at least some billing in this book. The result may be this work creates curiosity and encouragement to would be artists who assume artistic merit must fit a certain hide bound template.

CONNECTIONS
Students could create a photo essay book by taking or finding photographs associated with life in their school, their community, or some personal setting. They in turn write poems, or stories associated with what is taking place in the photographs.

RELATED BOOKS
Other books about art appreciation and the connection between art and literature:
Butler, Jerry. A DRAWING IN THE SAND: A STORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ART. ISBN 1559332166
Finley, Carol. THE ART OF AFRICAN MASKS: EXPLORING CULTURAL TRADITIONS. ISBN 082250788
Greenberg, Jan, ed. HEART TO HEART: NEW POEMS INSPIRED BY TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN ART. ISBN 08010943867
Janson, Dinah. ALL AROUND TOWN: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF RICHARD SAMUEL ROBERS. ISBN 08055054561

By Andrea L. Williams

I Like Myself

Beaumont, Karen. 2004. I LIKE MYSELF. Ill. David Catrow. New York: Harcourt. ISBN 0152020136 [Suggested Grade Levels K-2]

REVIEW
This fun, silly ode to self-esteem follows a young African American protagonist as she dances across the pages proclaiming the many qualities that she likes about herself, and simultaneously convincing the reader to feel the same. Rhyming text with lines such as “I may be called a silly nut / or crazy cuckoo bird - so what? / I’m having too much fun, you see, / for anything to bother me!” maintains silliness at the forefront and keeps the professions of positive self-esteem from becoming trite or overly sentimental.

The zaniness of the text is equaled by Caltrow’s brightly hued watercolor illustrations which jump off of the page and inspire thoughts of Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Frequent alterations in the characters’ proportions, changes in the use of space on the page, and vividly changing background colors give the illustrations a sense of action and movement while also making each picture unique and original, just like the protagonist. It is a wild and crazy romp that is sure to resonate with readers as it entertains and amuses them.

CONNECTIONS
Children can share what they like about themselves and follow that up by drawing a picture of their favorite thing about themselves. Use the illustrations on the page with the text “I like my eyes, my ears, my nose. / I like my fingers and my toes,” to serve as a model for their own drawings.

Beaumont’s text is so amusing and fresh, share some of the passages again after you’ve finished the book. Then, invite children to make up short rhyming poems about themselves - the sillier the better! They can also illustrate their work or have fun reading and performing their compositions for their friends.

RELATED BOOKS
Other stories about self-esteem:
Appelt, Kathi. INCREDIBLE ME! ISBN 0060286229
Carlson, Nancy. I LIKE ME! ISBN 0140508198
Curtis, Jamie Lee. I’M GONNA LIKE ME: LETTING OFF A LITTLE SELF-ESTEEM. ISBN 0060287616

By Erin Miklauz