Journey by Aaron Becker

Journey by Aaron Becker

Rating: 5 stars

Lorelei is now in first grade.  When I started this blog, she was not yet three (click here for the first time she appeared in a blog post).  Back then, we shared books that we found together in the library.  I'd order a bunch that I'd found on some list somewhere, and she'd just look around the library and grab ones that looked pretty neat.

These days, we share books in a different sort of way.  She often tells me about books and, since she knows I have a children's book blog, she suggests books for me to write about.  She searches on her own, in her own school library.  She brings them home for me or points them out at our local library when we go together.

Journey is one of the books she recommended to me.  She told me, in a gushing, girly sort of way: "Oh MOM!  You've just GOT to read this book!  Well, not read.  There aren't any words.  But the pictures are just AMAZING!  You've just GOT to put it on your blog."

Well, okay then.  I will!

I understand why Journey captured her imagination.  It makes me want to gush and use annoying all-caps to explain what a MASTERPIECE it is!  The book was recently awarded as a Caldecott Honor book...and it is so, SO worthy of the award.  It is one of the most magical books I've ever had on my lap.  It is an invitation to jump in and dream of what could be possible if you turned on the light switch to your imagination.

Take a minute (actually only 52 seconds) to watch this:

The girl seems frustrated that no one will play with her, so she creates and enters a magical world.  That you probably already know.  But let me tell you what the best part of the book is so that you parents who want to use books to teach will make sure to put this one on your list.

The girl enters a magical world in which she finds a purple bird that is in a cage, seemingly as lonely as the girl was in the first few pages of the book.  She takes a risk and rescues, then releases the bird, only to be imprisoned in the same cage herself.  And, to make things worse, she's dropped the magical red marker that she's used to create this world.  It is a low moment for her.

(I love that the low moment appears in the book--what a lesson for our kids to realize that life has these, too!  And that the challenge becomes: well, what now?  I like books where the characters rescue themselves and get themselves out of the low point, but...Journey has a neat resolution, too.)

And then, the bird appears.  With the red marker held gently in its beak.  The girl helped the bird escape, and now the bird has turned around to help her.  The bird then leads the girl through its magical world, and back to its creator: a boy, with a magical purple marker.  A friend.  Who also believes in magic.

Like the recent book Oliver, this book is about finding a friend that gets you.  And it's a story with sprinklings of self-determination and kindness and karma-filled goodness.  Definitely one to buy for the shelf, definitely award-worthy, definitely a great recommendation from my fellow bookworm and daughter, Lorelei.

The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

 The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish: Based on a True Story by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Beth Krommes

Rating: 5 stars

If I had an extra few hours this morning, I would research why it is exactly that boys need adventure stories.  I remember in my semesters as an English major discussing the pull towards adventure and self-testing dramas while discussing Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces.  (Click here if you're curious.) But suffice it to say that boys like and need these types of stories.  Girls, too, sure, but boys even more.

Therefore, when my sister-in-law said that her son/my nephew is into explorers and exploration, I took it as my auntish duty to find some good books for him for the holidays.  He's 7.  This is one of those books that I found, purchased, and then read (because that's what I do) with Ben over the course of a few days.  It is fantastic.

When they arrived home,
they told their grandmother their story
of the boat that sank, the long walk over the ice,
the hungry summer.

It is, as the subtitle suggests, based on the true story of the Karluk and its passengers.  After the Karluk lost its job as a whaling boat, Canadian anthropologist Steffenson chartered it to the coast of Alaska, where he  planned to study the people and the plants of the region.  Before he even got to start on that mission, the boat became trapped in the ice 80 miles from land; then, it sank.  Two parties of eight men were sent out towards the island, but never returned.  Finally, a group from the Karluk did reach land, and found two different vessels that both attempted rescue, and the survivors of the Karluk were saved.  (Here is Wikipedia's version of the story.)

How did Martin make this into a children's book, you might wonder?  Steffenson arranged for an Inupiak family to go with him on his expedition.  Wisely, he knew that they would know the area better than he; they would know how to survive...how to hunt and fish, sew clothes and cook.  Within this family were two small girls: Pagnasuk, 8, and Makpii, 2.

You can imagine Ben's surprise at having a Kiefer-aged explorer!

A picture of the survivors, including the two young girls.

Martin does a commendable job of focusing on the exploration but adding in details of the girls, what they might have been doing, or how they probably helped, or what she thinks they would have seen.  It is guesswork...no, I would call it educated conjecture.  And it falls right alongside the true parts of the story very nicely.

This book definitely has all the parts of a really good adventure story: preparations and packing, danger and death, courage and risk, a total crisis and resolution in the form of sympathetic walrus hunters-turned-rescuers.

In addition to the fantastic, well-written story, the illustrations are amazing.  Beth Krommes won the Caldecott for The House in the Night, and she's illustrated a few other children's books.  Her latest book is Swirl by Swirl, written by Joyce Sidman.

It is a very good book, especially for the tricky transition age between picture books and chapter books.


P.S.  The other book I got for my nephew is So You Want to be a World Explorer.

Hopper and Wilson by Maria Van Lieshout

Hopper and Wilson by Maria Van Lieshout

Rating: 4 stars

Ever listen in to a funny little conversation between two small children?  I love listening to Lorelei and Ben chat about something they know little about--there is something ridiculously charming their exchange, filled with questions and answers which are both innocent and curious.  This book begins with one such conversation.

Hopper: "What do you think it's like at the end of the world?"

Wilson:  "Not sure...but I bet there's lots of lemonade!  I love lemonade."

Hopper:  "And a staircase to the moon!  So I can touch it."

Wilson:  "Well, there's only one way to find out."

(I love the sense of adventure!  The confidence that little Wilson portrays.)

Hopper couldn't hear a thing except the roar of the crashing waves.

So they make a newspaper boat, wave good-bye to their cactus, hop on, and off they sail on their adventure.  They bob on the waves and dream about what they'll find.  Soon, though, a storm hits, and they cling desperately to their boat.  When the sea calms down, Hopper is gone.

For anyone who has suddenly and sadly lost someone they love, this is a sad page.  Possibly, for some sensitive kids, it's too sad.

Wilson sails on, searching.  He doesn't care about the destination anymore; he just wants to find his friend.  (Oh what a lesson!  Who cares where you're going if you don't have someone you love beside you?!)  He quizzes every animal he comes across until he finds his friend, who is funnily floating on a balloon.

A reunion!

"I missed you, Wilson."

"I missed you, Hopper."

(Sniff, sniff.)

Away We Go! by Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Away We Go! by Rebecca Kai Dotlich, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

Rating: 5 stars!

A friend of mine suggested we read more Dan Yaccarino books, so we checked out eight of them at the library.  Overkill?  Nah!  This one isn't written by him; like our first book with his name on the cover (Trashy Town), he illustrated this one.

I LOVE IT!  I am going to buy it for a few Christmas gifts.  Wait, after some Googling I just realized that I can't find it new anywhere except here, used (and a new one that would put me back $140!  It's good, but not that good).  That's a bummer. 

But it should be available at your local library, and it's really worth checking out for your little one.  Lorelei likes it, but it is really better for Ben's age (2) or even younger.  It has wonderfully bright, unambiguous pictures that we've looked at a dozen times already.  It's just your basic transportation book, with a little guide on the back on how to use it to teach your child a few things in addition to the idea that you can go places by bike, horse, hot air balloon, etc.

I'm Mighty! by Kate & Jim McMullan

I'm Mighty! by Kate & Jim McMullan

Rating: 4.5 stars

Lots of people who know lots more than I do agree that some books are and should be written just to get kids interested in books.  You know, they don't teach very much but they are cute and funny and...well, they are sort of like a welcome mat to the wonderful world of books.

This is one of them.  This cute--well, he'd want me to say tough--little tugboat has more personality than I ever realized tugboats could have!  The text is bold and energetic, jumps around the pages, and invites the parent/caregiver/reader to use get in touch with their inner tugboat and half grunt, half shout the words as their little one/s check out the adorable illustrations.

Luckily, I am a total ham, which definitely helps Lorelei and Ben pay attention to books that I'm reading.  Let's just say that my inner tugboat (and, when I'm reading I'm Dirty!, my inner bull-dozer...we've not read I Stink! or I'm Bad! yet, but we I look forward to getting in touch with my inner garbage truck and inner dinosaur, respectively) is alive and well, and frequently cracks up everyone in the room. 

Including me.