Patricia Hruby Powell Reviews and Book News

“Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature” by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Mark Hearld (Candlewick 2012) is a stunning work.

The 110 page picture book progresses through the seasons, starting with spring. The poems are simple and straightforward for the most part. Which makes the author’s occasional metaphors and similes light up her poems.

The spectacular art, which we’re told is mixed media, draws you into the author’s observations of each poem. By the look, I’d say the artwork is a collage of watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper.

In “Bulbs” Davies writes, “something tells the bulb it’s time to grow./Inside its brown coat and layers like an onion,/ a tiny pulse beats…” The author has watched nature and passes her acute observations to us through a child-like eye, making us experience nature afresh.

In “Nesting” artist Hearld uses actual strands of straw in the bird’s beak and in the nest she’s building. It makes you feel like you’re helping to construct the nest.

In “Flowers,” Davies writes, “Without a sound the flowers call out./ They shout to insects with their colors—” What we normally see, the author has made us hear. Let’s listen to our gardens.

In “Tide Pooling,” Hearld uses mono-printed fish or crayfish in the larger spread. That is, he’s made a woodcut or linoleum cut or maybe a potato cut of one fish, and printed it in various colors across his larger composition. The artwork makes you want to try some of his child-friendly techniques.

In “Starlings,” she says of the flying starlings, “hundreds, thousands maybe…They look like smoke, or a curtain rippling in the breeze…as if their flying is a dance that they all know by heart.” Nice image, but the clincher is the heartfelt dance.

Perhaps my favorite of the poems is “Snow Song” in which Davies speaks of falling snow. “Listen, and you can hear the quiet,/ as if every sound had been wrapped up and put away.” And “snow kept a diary” of animal and bird footprints.

Read this book and look outside your window. Go outside and see nature. Observe her acutely. This is a great book for studying and writing poetry in the classroom. The free verse poems invite you to make your own observations.

Patricia Hruby Powell is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, occasional librarian, and children’s book author.

“No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs ” by biologist Rob Laidlaw (2012) is not your average dog book. It is more an inspiration to help dogs that need you, by becoming what Laidlaw aptly calls a “dog champion.”

Dogs have super senses, starting with their amazing sense of smell, from which dogs attain so much information. Who passed this corner? When? Our various dogs sniff their way along the sidewalk to the park, totally engrossed in their research.

Laidlaw tells us, dogs are highly social and should not be kept alone for any length of time. They’re wonderful companions and family members. They need playtime and a comfortable home. They should not live chained outside. They need good food and fresh water.

It’s best to get your dog from a shelter or from a rescue operation because when you adopt a dog you’re saving a life. If you buy your dog from a pet store, the chances are the dog came from a puppy mill.

Puppy mills are money-making ventures that produce as many puppies as cheaply as possible at the expense of the animals’ comfort. Dogs live isolated, in crates, might not be fed the best food, or kept clean or get proper medical attention. They don’t get loving attention.

Even if you can’t have a dog, you can still hang out with them.

Mobile Mutts is a fantastic locally based dog rescue operation. That’s where I got one of our two rescue dogs. Volunteers transport dogs from southern states where there tends to be less municipal money and more high-kill shelters to the far north where there are no-kill shelters. Our Tree Walker Hound, Lil, was found in a field in Kentucky, put in a shelter and scheduled for euthanasia when she was put on the Underdog Railroad. I mean, Mobile Mutts. And, yep, we got her.

Many dogs need adopting—dogs who live on the streets, retired greyhound racers, beagles used in science experiments, dogs in shelters.

As a “dog champion” you might inform classmates about puppy mill conditions, write letters to congressmen about the plight of puppy mill dogs, volunteer at the Humane Society, overnight dogs for Mobile Mutts, make a documentary film.

As Laidlaw says, “Anyone can be a dog champion. Just make a commitment to help and then get going.” Dogs everywhere are counting on you.

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Here’s the link to Mobile Mutts–a great starting place to become a “dog champion.”

http://mobile-mutts.org/Upcoming_Transports.html

So here’s Lil, who came up on Mobile Mutt’s transport, June 2, 2012. I over-nighted her and fell totally head-over-heels in love. She looked like a xylophone, all ribs showing, weighing in at 40 pounds. She was meek, glued to my side, not in need of a leash when outside. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Besides her dog food, I fed her while I was cutting veggies for dinner. She ate cauliflower, broccoli,  tomatoes, carrot, everything I offered her.

So it was about then that I called my traveling husband, Morgan, to say I’d fallen in love, and had–HAD–to adopt this Tree Walker Hound. What could he say?

I asked Marion Stevens who is the fantastic base camp operator for Mobile Mutts in Champaign, if I could adopt my xylophone girl. She said I’d have to put my girl back on the transport, that is send her up  to Redemption Rescue in Minnesota. They OWNED her, and she might already be spoken for. Clearly

Day 1 - See how meek she is.

this was the Underdog Railroad. Follow the northern star and all that.

So, I sent my girl off to the next leg of her journey, to Kankakee, weeping. But that’s not unusual. We “over-nighters” all seem to fall for our overnight charges. Marion said she was working on my plea, trying to get in touch with the people at Redemption Rescue in Minnesota. I went back to bed, still crying, with my phone tucked under my pillow.

And in about an hour or so, Marion called to say, the Tree Walker Hound was mine, and to meet her at the drop off point (St. Thomas Moore H.S. parking lot)  in about another two hours. So Marion brought her back to me from Kankakee. My xylophone doggy and I lay in the grass together, just loving each other.

Day 1 - Shanti & Morgan

It so happened that my husband Morgan was on his way home from Texas with Shanti, who had been part of a family of three adults and three dogs and now everyone was dispersing. A week prior, we’d agreed to take Shanti. So now we had two rescued dogs–an unplanned Parenthood– life was about to change.

That first night we were all together, we named xylophone girl, Lil–after Lil Hardin Armstrong–Louis Armstrong’s wife and jazz pianist. The second day, Lil gained some confidence, the third day, more. And not on a leash, she chased the ducks through and around the lake. Next day, she bolted again, so now we use a leash.

The first three weeks were a bit stressful, but also magnificent. And now it’s all magnificent. We’re a family of four. We go to the dog park twice each day–sometimes three times–and take walks in the neighborhood at night. Lil has gained 6 pounds, looks terrific. Shanti has lost 4 pounds, which has improved her health and svelte beauty. And as a matter of fact, we’ve lost weight, too. All those walks.

No way will Lil eat cauliflower or broccoli now. Clearly she’d been eating anything and everything when she was on her own and I realized that on that first night together, if I thought carrots were worth eating, then so did she. But Lil has a mind of her own now. Both Lil and Shanti are the most affectionate girls I know.

Let me recommend that you become a “dog champion.”

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author. Her book, Joséphine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker (Chronicle Books) will come out January 2014. Her book about Lil Hardin Armstrong, Struttin’ With Some Barbecue, is still seeking a publisher.

In “Kindred Souls” by Patricia MacLachlan (Harper Collins-Katherine Tegen 2011) 10 year old Jake lives on the prairie with his family, including his beloved 88 year old grandfather, Billy. When his grandfather longs for the sod house in which he grew up, Jake resists Billy’s idea of building such a house.

A sweet dog appears whom old Billy names Lucy. When Billy is rushed to the hospital Lucy is bereft. Jake, at first, reluctantly, helps his older siblings cut squares of sod, to build the house in hopes that Billy might recover.

MacLachlan (Newbery Medalist for “Sarah, Plain and Tall”) is a master of the seemingly simple and understated. This small book of large print, barely more than 100 pages, runs deep. What a great accomplishment it could be for a new reader to read this serious, at times joyful, profound book.

For a more advanced reader, try the novel, “The Friendship Doll” by Kirby Larson (Delacorte 2010) at 200 pages. Miss Kanagawa was one of 57 dolls sent from Japan to the children of the U.S. in 1927 as a diplomatic offering. That part is fact.

Miss Kanagawa begins the story in a haughty voice, but as she changes the lives of four American girls that span the time of the Great Depression, so, too, does her heart change. Each character comes alive on the page, starting with Bunny from New York City, a privileged child jealous of her friend. Miss Kanagawa helps avert an act of revenge. A few years later Lois Brown of Downer’s Grove, Illinois, encounters the doll at Chicago’s Century of Progress World’s Fair of 1933. The doll is the catalyst for Lois’ epiphany of generosity.

In 1937, the doll shows up at a rich, spoiled woman’s home in Kentucky and comforts the loveable back woods Willie Mae, who has come to read for the old woman. Next Lucy travels the rough road from dust bowl Oklahoma, 1939, with her father to California where she encounters Miss Kanagawa. Finally, Mason encounters the somewhat frayed doll in his attic in present day Washington, at which point the reader discovers Lucy’s fate. It’s a satisfying twist to the story.

In the end matter we’re told that of the 57 original dolls, 13 are missing today. The author challenges her readers to help find those missing friendship dolls. Check out the attic for starters.

It’s difficult not to compare the book to “Hitty Her First Hundred Years” by Rachel Field (1929), winner of a Newbery Medal. Hitty is a wooden doll carved early in the 19^th century, who lives with her various owners in far flung parts of the world and for awhile is lost under the sea.

All three books are well worth reading.

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author. Her book in verse, “Joséphine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker” (Chronicle) will come out January 2014.

Franny, eleven, is enduring, not fire drills, but duck-and-cover drills at school, in the event of an atomic bomb attack. I remember no such drills from my childhood, but Franny lives outside Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC, which would be a prime target and we’re in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962, when the U.S.S.R. is threatening to strike the U.S.A.

The novel “Countdown” by Deborah Wiles (Scholastic 2010) begins with “documentary footage” of 1962 America. Handsome charismatic John F. Kennedy is quoted as saying, “We have enough missiles to blow you up thirty times over.” Nikita Khrushchev, Head of the U.S.S.R., on the facing page says, “We have enough to blow you up only once, but that will be enough for us.” The world is in the midst of cold war. Who remembers Khrushchev with a witty comeback?

Franny’s big sister is attending college in DC and involved in mysterious endeavors to “change the world.” What she’s actually doing remains mysterious. Interspersed throughout the book are more “documentary” pages that give the reader the context of the times. And so much was happening. The Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, for instance.

Franny’s little brother Drew is a “saintly” child, but Franny manages to get him to tell a lie, to the extreme grief of her strict, cigarette-smoking, smart mother. I’m delighted to find a formidable mother in a middle grade novel. Franny’s father is a major in the Air Force with the task to “keep America safe.”

Crazy Uncle Otts tries to build a fallout shelter in the front yard. The nation is frozen in the grips of fear while Franny’s fears are those of a fifth grader—her best friend has chosen another, her adored sister is absent, an odd embarrassing uncle, plus the realization of her world in great change.

The documentary pages include advertisements for fallout shelters, lyrics to songs, young Bob Dylan, TV celebrities, the glorious first lady Jackie Kennedy, maps, political cartoons headlines, Havana. This is a very cool format that both kids and adults will appreciate. It gives the context of the times, deepening our understanding of the story. We’re getting the top internet hits delivered just as we need them.

This semi-autobiographical documentary novel is the first in Wiles’ trilogy of the 60’s.

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author.

Have you ever wondered about the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings? Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s book of historic fiction, “Jefferson’s Sons: A Founding Father’s Secret Children” (Dial 2011) is the most insightful account of slavery and life at “Master” Jefferson’s estate, Monticello, that I’ve yet to encounter.

The story is told in the voice of the first son, Beverly, changes to the second son Madison and then moves to another slave, Peter. It tells the story of Master Jefferson living in the big house and Mama (Sally Hemings) and their children who live in the choice slave quarter, Mulberry Row.

Sally Hemings gets the best for her children and she assures them (and us, the reader) that this is not altogether slavery. Slavery is a runaway slave being whipped once he’s caught. Mama makes her young children watch such a whipping so they understand the privilege under which they live.

Are the children recognized as the Master’s children? In ways. Jefferson gives the oldest son, Beverly, a violin to play and each of the boys learns to play it. Two of them are good players, and in time there will be another violin. But for the most part, the children are an embarrassing secret—a secret that everyone on the plantation knows, yet it is unspoken. These are Jefferson’s invisible children.

Mama is promised freedom for her children when they each turn 21. Three are so fair-skinned, they plan to “pass” or enter into white society. What does one have to do in order to pass? Give up one’s past entirely. Keep the secret of who they are and absolutely never tell a soul, never look back, and never visit their people who are black slaves.

Mama pushes her children who can “pass” to observe, learn, and enact the manners of white society. It’s essential for their future lives and for keeping their secret.

What does it mean that Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal.” Yet he keeps slaves. Every night Mama beds with the master, yet she is his slave.

If the 360-page book is daunting, listen to Adenrele Ojo’s exquisite reading [Listening Library]. http://www.randomhouse.com/book/213798/jeffersons-sons-by-kimberly-brubaker-bradley

Find out more at http://www.monticello.org/ where the author did a good deal of her research. At the end she describes how she used this resource, what is fact, what is her speculation.

Patricia Hruby Powell (www.talesforallages.com) is a nationally touring speaker, dancer, storyteller, librarian and children’s book author.