The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell, ill. by Leonie
Lord
Tod-PreK 32
pages Dial, 2009
A little boy and his dog are playing in the backyard when
a super hungry giant dinosaur arrives and announces he’s
going to eat up the boy. The ensuing simple tale details
how the lad and his dog outwit and tame the dinosaur. Unlike
Where the Wild things Are by Maurice Sendak, in this tale
you are never sure how much is imagined and how much is
real. After all, the boy’s mother and father meet
the dinosaur as well. And any damage done by the dinosaur’s
rampage is fixed by the exasperated creature before he
can have lunch, cooked by Mom. Martin Waddell uses the
same simple storytelling here that made his earlier book
Owl Babies so successful and illustrator Leonie Lord turns
what could have been a threatening story into an exciting
but nonthreatening adventure. Together they have created
the perfect toddler-preschool book.
January's
Sparrow by
Patricia Polacco
Gr. 2 and up 95
pages Philomel 2009
In the powerful tradition of Pink
and Say and The Butterfly, Patricia Polacco
gives us here an even more powerful saga—the
Crosswhites of Marshall, Michigan, out of Hunter’s
Bottom, Kentucky. Set in 1847, more than a decade before
the Civil War, this over-size picture book’s central
character is young Sadie Crosswhite, the youngest of the
enslaved Crosswhites’ four children. Together they
live through the terrible degradations of slavery in its
fiercest hours, including the heartless near-fatal whippings
of Sadie’s dearest friend, January. That night they
begin their long and frightening journey into Indiana and
then Michigan via the Underground Railroad, all the while
pursued by slave hunters.
Settling in Marshall, regarded as a safe-haven
for runaway slaves in the free-state of Michigan, the
family begins a new life, including the pivotal friendship
between Sadie and Polly Hobart, the local judge’s
daughter. Even so, Mrs. Crosswhite continues to caution
her children they must never tell anyone they are runaway
slaves. Stolen property must be returned to its rightful
owner and, under the law, runaways were considered “stolen.” Nonetheless,
Sadie cannot help herself and one day shares her story
with Polly who promises to keep the secret.
Four years after their arrival
in Michigan, the Crosswhites’ former
owners arrive in town to recapture their former
slaves and a fierce confrontation ensues between the citizenry
of Marshall and the slavers. There are two grand surprises
packed into the night’s events, too good to spoil
by revealing them here. Suffice it to say, the Crosswhites
make one more escape, this time to Canada, where they reside
throughout the Civil War.
After the war, they return and
take up residence once more in Marshall, where more than
a century later their story is still told in reverent tones—though
never better than here in Polacco’s words and searing
images. Indeed, Polacco’s home today, 12 miles
from Marshall, is a former safe haven on the Underground
Railroad.
It's hard to imagine the Caldecott committee
ignoring Polacco after this volume. It's more than time
to honor this woman's magnificent work, in whole or part.
Related books and other media:
Mildred
Taylor’s series on the
Logan family’s
southern experiences before the Civil Rights movement: Roll
of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Let the Circle Be Unbroken; The
Road to Memphis; The Land; and four short novels, The
Friendship; Mississippi Bridge; Song of the Trees; and The
Well. Other related titles on slavery: Nightjohn by
Gary Paulsen. Related nonfiction picture books: Christmas
in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters by Patricia
and Fredrick McKissack; Mary Barney by Chris K.
Soentpiet and Alice McGill; More Than Anything
Else (Booker T. Washington
learns to read) by Marie Bradby.
Classroom MUST's:
• The
March 31, 1999, issue of Education Week carried
the story of a Colorado fourth-grade class studying slavery,
and how their highly publicized subsequent investigation
revealed frightening modern-day slavery in "Sudan:
Liberating Lesson," by Linda Jacobson, pp. 22-24. www.edweek.com/ew/1999/29sudan.h18.
• Two years before the famed bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., black citizens
in Baton Rouge, La., staged what's believed to be the first-ever organized
protest of Jim Crow laws in the South: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1304163.
• Congressman John Lewis looks back on a lifetime in the Civil Rights
movement and talks about his early and later encounters with officials who
persecuted him and others in the movement. (NPR, June 25, 2005, 6 min.; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4718548)
Film recommendations:
• "4
Little Girls," Spike Lee's acclaimed 1997 documentary of
the turning point in the civil rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street
Baptist Church; and "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Tull," Keith
A. Beauchamp's documentary film about one of the most horrific
murders in the civil rights era (for grades 7 and up).
OTIS by
Loren Long
PreK—Gr. 1 36 pages Philomel
2009
Literally and figuratively,
Otis is a “throwback.”
A small but diligent, spirited
farm tractor, Otis is the life of the barnyard and the
best friend of a lonely calf residing in the barn's adjoining
stall. When his day’s
labors are done, he and she sat in the shade of the apple
tree to contemplate their happy lives. But their happiness
is suddenly interrupted when the farmer purchases a brand-new
yellow tractor that quickly relegates Otis to the scrap
heap-weed patch outside the barn. He is now outdated,
unemployed, and too sad to play with his friend. The
calf, in turn, wanders down to the pond for a good soak,
only to get stuck in the mud. Either unable or unwilling
to work herself out of the mire, she soon becomes the
focus of a community-wide rescue effort. But neither
the farmhands, the new tractor, nor the fire department
can extricate her from the mud. Suddenly Otis is seen
making his way down the hillside and soon a “happy
ending” is in sight.
This anthropomorphic creation
falls in the grand tradition of children’s literature,
from Lewis Carroll’s
Alice in Wonderland to Margery Williams’ The
Velveteen Rabbit. If you add modernization and technology
to the mix of ingredients, you’re sure to end up
including picture books like Virginia Lee Burton’s The
Little House and Mike Mulligan
and His Steam Shovel, and Bill
Peet’s Smokey, all of which featured objects
or machines that happily escaped obsolescence by way of
diligence or patience. The lasting success of such books
perhaps is due to humans’ basic
need to hold on to their past, to never completely escape
the innocent joy of childhood. And those who do lose that
innocence completely are doomed to a joyless adulthood.
At least that’s my theory.
Despite
following this long tradition, author-illustrator Loren
Long remains entirely
original and never imitative with this book, although
there appears to be a subtle tribute to Munro Leaf’s Ferdinand on
one page (insert right). Long’s earlier books
include Drummer
Boy (one
of my favorite Christmas books) and Toy
Boat (written by
Randall de Sèv). If there is true justice in children's
publishing, Otis and his friend the calf deserve
a long life in children's lives. They speak volumes about
lasting friendships and the outcasts around us.
 |
| Loren Long's OTIS follows
in one of the grand traditions of children's literature
— anthropomorphic survivors of the junk heap of life. |
| More
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