Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood

Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt

Rating: 5 stars

Chronicle Books

Earlier this year I forced (yes, forced!) my kids to watched the movie "Cinderella." We were heading to Disneyworld for the first time, and I felt they needed to know the story before arriving at the Magical Kingdom. I argued that it was a classic, and they'd have to know the story to appreciate some parts of Disneyworld and also dozens of books they'd read in their lives. When an author compared their character to Cinderella, I wanted them to know what s/he was writing about.

I was priming them for stories like the one Deborah Underwood has written.

Interstellar Cinderella turns the classic Cinderella tale on its head in some fantastic ways. Cinderella lives with her unkind stepsisters and nasty stepmother--on a different plant, and she's the family mechanic this time, not maid. When her stepsisters get invited to a royal space parade, Cinderella is told she can't attend. Her stepsisters grab her ever-handy toolbox to make sure she doesn't fix her way into going.

"But wait!" the price called after her
"Please tell me how to find--"
The girl was gone--but she had left
Her socket wrench behind.

But her stepsisters didn't count on Cinderella's godrobot, who hooked her up with a new space suit, complete with some handy tools. Cinderella zooms through the galaxy in time to see the parade. She's gets to see the ship of her dreams fly past...and watches it shoot up a cloud of grit and smoke!

The driver and owner of that ship, the prince, is helpless; his chief mechanic has just quit. Interstellar Cinderella comes to his rescue and fixes his ship in a jiffy. He's impressed and smitten! They "talk for hours of rocket ships," but suddenly it's midnight and she has to go home--as she flies away, her wrench falls out of her space suit. He grabs it. You see where this is going...

The next day he goes out looking for her. Girls from all over the galaxy try to fix the ship he's in with the wrench he's got, but they all fail...until Interstellar Cinderella gives it a try and makes it run smoothly.

Then he proposes marriage. Yikes!

(And this is the best part.)

She thought this over carefully.
Her family watched in panic.
"I'm far too young for marriage,
But I'll be your chief mechanic!"

Hip, hip hooray for Deborah Underwood's go-girl spin off of Cinderella! (And hooray for common sense prevailing for child brides!)

Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood

Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Jonathan Bean
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Rating: 4 stars

My kids' school has assemblies on most Friday mornings. The kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade classes take a turn presenting to the rest of the school about some topic of interest. There's a wide variety, of course; over the years I've watched speeches about important African American, the concept of Venn diagrams (with two kids holding hula hoops--it was so cool), and plays about impact versus intent. I'm amazed at how often these little skits stay alive through conversations with my kids.

One of the most memorable was a presentation about inferring. The Infer Song encourages kids to be "book detectives" and look for clues in the pictures and text. Click HERE for a video and for the words. 

And, even if you don't click THERE, you know what inferring is and how important it is while reading. After this class's presentation, all the kids did, too. Well...at least the ones paying attention. And I'm guessing you do this at home (or in your class) with your kids already.

This is one of the steps of reading: looking at the pictures and inferring what's going on. Kids can guess what the words are by using their eyes and brains as a team to figure it out. This process can and should start really young. And it continues with little and big chapter books.

I bring this up with Bad Bye, Good Bye because it is a picture book with a lot going on: it has a heavy story line but very few words. I counted: only 80 words! Deborah Underwood has created a sparsely-worded story about a family moving, and the emotions that come with moving.

The rest is left to Jonathan Bean, one of my favorite illustrators. He fills in the gaps with rich pictures jam-packed with action and emotion. The words don't take long to read, but my kids and I lingered for minutes on each two-page spread to talk about and figure out what was going on. We needed to infer the action from the pictures. There were some clues in the text, but the bigger clues lay waiting in the illustrations.

As someone who moved every two to three years as a kid with my Army family, this book definitely struck a chord with me. My parents (who read each and every blogpost--aren't they great?) can correct me if my memory is wrong, but I don't remember ever sobbing or throwing a tantrum when the movers came like the boy and girl do in this book. I do remember being sad--the hardest move for me (you'll laugh) was when we moved from Georgia to Hawaii. The decision came early, and my sister and I were fully entrenched in a barn in Savannah, so paradise didn't look so great to us.

Like the boy and girl in the book, though, our perspective gradually changed. I love how the kids in this book show how upset they are--they cry and look so sad! But, once the tears stop, they manage to enjoy themselves on the drive to their new home. And they arrive with an explosion of emotions: fear, curiosity, excitement, and finally...contentment.

This is an unusual book, but an important one to remember if your family is moving, or if you just want to sing the infer song and practice it a little!

The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood

The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska

Rating: 3 stars

We've been reading a lot of David Shannon books (more on him soon) so when I finally tracked down The Quiet Book at the bookstore today I chuckled throughout it.

Let me describe the book first, and then I'll get to the chuckling.

It's a beautifully illustrated book that explains all the different "quiets" that exist.  For example:  "Quiet can be delicate. / Quiet can be thundering! / Quiet can be sweet, and cozy, / and can most definitely help you fall asleep."  The text is sparse and the animals in the images are really cute.

It is--don't laugh--a quiet book, and one that might relax a fidgety child as they fall asleep at naptime or bedtime.  I was actually a little surprised at how many rave reviews it got on Amazon from parents who say that their children request it again and again.  Many of them said that they liked how the book engaged their kids enough so that they did settle down and become quiet.  Others said that they liked how the book urges kids to think about the different types of quiet throughout the day and week.  More than a few said that they liked how this book talks about the emotions behind quiet.  Hmm. 

Ok, back to the David Shannon.  Has anyone read Oh, David?  Or Alice the Fairy?  If you put one of these books next to The Quiet Book you'll have complete, polar opposites.  Most of David Shannon's books are written so much for children that I wonder if he actually scribbled down the text a few decades ago while he should have been paying attention to his fifth grade math teacher.  And his drawings are wonderful bursts of childhood--really messy and magical. 

This is an example of how some books are just right for your child, and others are just right for mine.  Or, probably more accurate, this book isn't for my children right now.  Maybe next week!  When it gets to the library, we'll check it out and try it out at home.