Sweet Home Alaska by Carole Estby Dagg

Sweet Home Alaska by Carole Estby Dagg
Rating: 5 stars

Nancy Paulsen Books

We're moving West this summer--nearly as West as one can move when you live in Virginia. We're moving to Washington State. As a Seattle University alum and a fan of the great Pacific Northwest, I'm pretty excited. To prepare or just get excited for the move, I'm reading books about or by authors from the "other" side of the country.

And that goal led me straight to Sweet Home Alaska.

Carole Estby Dagg writes out of Everett, Washington, a town an hour or so north of Seattle, and the city in which my husband will work. When our family was out in Washington to visit schools and the area in general, Mrs. Dagg was speaking at a local bookstore to promote Sweet Home Alaska, her just-released second book. I didn't go, but the book piqued my interest and I requested it from our local library.

The book is about a girl who does the same thing my kids will do this summer: she moves about as far away as possible.

Terpsichore's family start the story in Wisconsin during the Great Depression. Like many families during that era, times were tough. Her father loses his job at the mill. Her mother sells her beloved piano for money. Terpsichore makes a million things out of pumpkin because pumpkin is what they've got to eat.

But they have one big chance: a move for a better life. Thanks to a New Deal Pioneer program set up by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Terpsichore's family has the opportunity to move to faraway Alaska and receive land from the government. Better yet, they get a new start on life.

With a little finagling, their family is selected to go. There's a string attached to the adventure: Mother is not happy about it, and she insists that after one year she gets to decide if they remain in Alaska or return to Wisconsin to live with her (straight-laced, well-off) mother.

With that tension set in the story, the family sets off. First, they take a train across the country to Seattle, then head north on a boat. They reach Palmer, Alaska, and receive their plot of land. The challenges they meet are realistic and eye-opening--the bugs and living conditions smack them in the face, but they all prove to have the necessary pluck to keep going.

Terpsichore is determined to remain optimistic about Alaska and about changing her mother's mind, but she jumps right in to make Palmer what she wants, too. She misses her library from home, and decides to start her own. She writes letters to people and organizations back in the lower 48 with a plea to "help start the pioneer library" and she gets boxes of books--the first from her wealthy grandmother, including one book that sets another mystery in motion. She's the first librarian in the "pioneer library."

The book is very well done--I love how it was inspired by the author's son's move to Palmer, Alaska. A little digging into the town's history and Dagg knew there was a story (or two! or more!) that could be made from the plucky people who dared to move so far away all they knew. Terpsichore is a great little hero--she jumps right into her community and aims to make it a better place. She misses home and has her own friendship woes, but she is exactly the kind of character you want your child to read about and love.

Fingers crossed that my own children remain optimistic about their first big move in life and that they have some of Terpsichore's moxie, cheerfulness, and interest in a world new to them!

Brimsby's Hats by Andrew Prahin

Brimsby's Hats by Andrew Prahin
Simon & Schuster

Rating: 5 stars

For years, Brimsby's best friend visited every day. His best friend made wonderful tea, and Brimsby made wonderful hats as they filled the hours with chatter about everything and anything. Then one morning his best friend said he was leaving to travel far away so he could realize his dream of becoming a sea captain. Brimsby sent him on his way with a sad, little wave and a brand-new hat.

As you can imagine, Brimsby got pretty lonely. His house was way too quiet without the lively conversations with his best friend.

So he went out looking for some new friends. Despite a heavy blanket of snow and more continuing to fall, he found some, perched up in a tree, trying to stay warm. The birds were trying to stay warm with bird-sized wood-burning stoves. Brimsby watched these busy birds, and knew he could help.

The hats kept the snow out of their nests and
stopped the cold wind from blowing out their fires.

He went back to his hat-making shop and made some modifications on his hats. Some days later, he returned to the tree, climbed up with a ladder, and handed the busy birds hats that each had a door, a window, and a hole for the stove pipe. The grateful birds now had time to return to Brimsby's home, drink some tea, and talk about anything and everything.

Brimsby wasn't lonely anymore.

(And from time to time, Brimsby and his new bird friends trekked a far distance to visit his best friend in a seaside town full of ships, and talk about how wonderful it was that they had all been lucky enough to meet one another.)

I think I'm especially primed to love this story because some dear people in my kids' lives just moved away. I love that this story, unlike Bad Bye, Good Bye and some other picture books, focuses on the one who was left behind--in this case, Brimsby. In real life, me and my kids. I love how Brimsby supports his friend but also has the gumption to do something about his loneliness--and he makes new friends by changing what he normally does and giving something of himself to help others.

This giving of yourself is risky! In a big way! But for Brimsby it works out, and I hope kids all over--those who have dear ones move away and those whose best friends still sit beside them--realize that giving of yourself is often worth the risk. And what a gem of a book this is.

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 Place by Sarah Stewart

 The Quiet Place by Sarah Stewart, illustrated by David Small

Rating: 4.5 stars

Some of the best books help launch kids (of all sizes) into a different creative space.  They teach!  They show!  They inspire!  And, thanks to the great words of Sarah Stewart and the incredible drawings of David Small, The Quiet Place does all of that.

The story: Isabel moves with her mother and older brother from Mexico to America--to some unnamed northern state where it randomly snows in April.  Her mother bakes cakes for little girls' birthday parties, and Isabel gets to tag along.  Sometimes she is offered a piece of cake or goody bag, but she politely declines those and asks for boxes.  She collects boxes--the bigger,the better--and creates her "quiet place" from which she can write letters back home, read books, and just think, dream, be.  By the end, all the little girls in the neighborhood are invited to her birthday party, and they are wowed by the quiet place she's created.

"My quiet place was not quiet, but it didn't matter"

(Check it out in the picture--aren't you wowed, too?)

This book resonates with me for three reasons:

1. Lorelei has two little brothers who are like two puppies from the same litter.  While she can be loud and crazy, too, Ben and Kiefer are almost always loud and crazy.  So she often looks for a quiet place to read and finish an art project.  Her cardboard box house might need a padlock. Or two.
   
2. As an Army brat, my family moved around every 2 or 3 years.  My parents would set aside one room for boxes--for my sister and I to play with.  Just like Isabel, we would create elaborate tunnels that led to higher boxes, with windows and doors, all decorated with our favorite Crayola colors.  I particularly remember the one we created in the bright sunroom in our big brick rental at 25 East 52nd Street in Savannah.  (How I remember the address but not the words to my favorite songs is beyond me.)
   
3. The book is written through letters, from Isabel to her favorite Auntie Lupita back home in Mexico.  Letters are by far my favorite thing to write.  And I don't mean the electronic kind!  I spent a few years in Asia and while email was around then, letters were clearly superior.  I was lucky to have parents who wrote frequently and well, and there are boxes of letters in our houses from each other.  I love that this book shows kids another great reason to read--letters are out there to be written and read, shared and enjoyed.  Pen pals and grandparents, cousins and aunties...hopefully millions of letters will be penned by my trio over their hopefully long and happy lifespan (but soon not delivered on Saturday).