This past weekend, the Fifth Annual Horace Mann Upstanders Book Award was given to G. (Greg) Neri for his middle grade novel Ghetto Cowboy. The ceremony took place at the Wildwood Elementary School in Los Angeles, and along with Neri…
Category: Environment
King & King
This book is a bit old, but I’m revisiting it since it’s June, which is both Pride month and the month of my anniversary. (Our friend and professional storyteller Christie Keegan told a version of the story at my wedding…
Looking at Genocide from a boy soldier’s perspective
Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick Balzer & Bray, $17.99 What does it take to survive when you’re only nine years old and you’re separated from the rest of your family by a violent regime? In the abstract, we can…
Don’t let them school you, or even try to fool you….
….Oh, no! We’ve got a mind of our own, So go to hell if what you‘re thinking is not right…. From “Could You Be Loved” by Bob Marley. Most people recognize Bob Marley as a musical legend, possibly one of…
Ellen Levine: A Tribute
Last summer I reviewed the young adult novel In Trouble by Ellen Levine, about two teenage girls in the 1950s who find themselves pregnant and make different decisions about whether to undergo what was then an illegal and dangerous abortion.…
The House on Dirty Third Street
THE HOUSE ON DIRTY-THIRD STREET by Jo S. Kittinger, illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez, Peachtree, March 2012 A run-down dirty old house is bad enough to have to call your home. When moving in also means “moving away” from everything that…
Celebrating Roots and Blues as only Arnold Adoff can
Roots and Blues: A Celebration by Arnold Adoff. Clarion Books, $17.99 If you’re a follower of Arnold Adoff’s work, you know that his poetry celebrates life and diversity and culture. This celebration of blues is no different in that it captures…
Waiting for the Biblioburro
What a delight this book was. I even found myself obsessed with the heavy feel of the paper it is printed on (good news for those parents whose toddlers will maul a book). The story and illustrations are very basic,…
RIGHT TO PLAY!
EVERY CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO PLAY Text by Jesse Goossens, a Lemniscatt Book The Big Red Ball on the cover is the Right to Play symbol. A ball that is being bounced, thrown, kicked or caught is a universal…
More thoughts on books, bullying and standing up
The last time I posted on this blog, I said I’d gone into a fifth grade and discussed Cynthia Levinson’s book We’ve Got a Job and we all talked about how it takes courage to face…