TACKLING MY TBR WITH A BOOK TASTING

                

I don't know about your, but my TBR (Too Be Read) pile is huge! How best to tackle this behemoth of books? Picture books are easy - I just sneak those in here and there but the chapter books are a bit more challenging. I decided to not reinvent the wheel but to borrow from the First Look Book Club. If you have not heard of this delightful email service - Suzanne Beecher provides a few pages each day from a just published book. There's an excerpt from a new book, waiting in my inbox, each Monday-Friday morning, a different book each week. As the website says, "Get a first look before you commit to a book!" I probably read a dozen books each year that Suzanne has promoted through her emails. 

So I have adapted the process by reading the first twenty-five or so pages of each book in a stack to see what captures my attention - sort of like wine tasting but with books. The books picture above are my current stack. Let's see how I did!

 

You may notice that all but one of these books are middle grade fiction. But the book that snagged me immediately was the one adult book - Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano. It's a delightful romp of a mystery! I loved it and can't wait for #2 which is being published in the spring. 

 

The next book I finished was How to Train Your Dad by the late, great Gary Paulsen. I love his books but my favorite is Harris and Me. This book is somewhat similar - crazy funny exploits of two twelve year old boys.  If you like Paulsen, I highly recommend reading this one. 

 

And then I read Kaleidoscope by Brian Selznick which was -- very different. Imagine a kaleidoscope. You turn it and the little pieces of glass inside shift to give you a pattern. Then you turn it again and the same pieces of glass give you a new pattern. Selznick took two characters - James and someone not named - and wrote a series of very short stories (two to five pages each) about them. Some are fantastical, some are realistic, some are mysterious. There are other recurring themes in the stories - butterflies and trees, for example. Some deal with grief, some with love. It was intriguing but I am not sure it's everyone's cup of tea - especially kids. 

I am about one-third of the way through Loteria which is a fantasy that delves into the question of free will vs. fate. Life and Death play a game of Loteria every year and whoever wins the game determines the fate of a person chosen before the game begins. This year, it's a twelve-year old girl named Clara. The chapters go back and forth between Clara and her life and the game being played by Life and Death. The game, of course, is impacting the events that are happening to Clara. Clara just followed her younger cousin, Esteban, into a magical world supposedly controlled by The Devil (that is one of the Loteria cards). It's all quite fascinating!

 

Two books went back to the library. I liked what Roger Sutton had to say in his November editorial in the HornBook -  "We have all read books 'for children' that were more like 'to children,' filled with firm ideas about just what the young need to know. I hate those books (whatever veneer of diplomacy I may have accrued over the years seems to be wearing off in anticipation of my semi-retirement) and hope you do, too." The two rejected books seemed to fall into that category. 

 

What are you reading? And how do you handle your TBR pile?

DRAWING CLOSE:

A LOOK AT CALDECOTT WINNING ILLUSTRATORS

#1 URI SHULEVITZ

                  

 

"Many people think that a picture book is a little book that provides merely a few minutes of entertainment. What a picture book truly is is a messenger from the outside world, bringing a message of a life of other possibilities. It requires a life affirming attitude. A saccharine or sentimental picture book won’t do. It doesn’t have to be deep, although it doesn’t hurt if it is, but a picture book must be alive, whether it offers pleasure, joy, or sadness."

 Uri Shulevitz, June 11, 2018 https://www.urishulevitz.com/blog.htm

 

I'm starting with Uri (pronounced "oo-ree") Shulevitz because I recently read his most recent book Chance: Escape from the Holocaust which is a memoir of his life during World War 2. He was born in 1935 in Warsaw, Poland. He remembers the Germans invading, bombs dropping, buildings blowing up - and then his family fled and spent most of the war years in different places in Russia. After reading his story, I wanted to take a look at his books. 

Uri won the Caldecott Medal in 1969 for The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship - A Russian Folktale, retold by Arthur Ransome. Since then, he has also earned three Caldecott Honors - for The Treasure in 1979, Snow in 1999, and How I Learned Geography in 2009.

School Library Journal contributor Donna L. Scanlon praised Shulevitz's illustrations - particularly his use of contrast, as well as his "vibrant watercolor paintings, full of blocky angular characters and quirky off-kilter buildings". Uri uses pen, ink, watercolor, colored ink and tempera paint to create his sometimes realistic, sometimes fanciful illustrations. But he is "constantly searching for a new way of illustrating." (see citation below)

Snow and Dusk are my two favorites from the books I read. Dusk is a celebration of winter holidays while Snow is a great book to read in not-very-snowy Texas. Uri takes a drab winter landscape and turns it into a winter wonderland - propelled by one young boy's desire for snow. I also really enjoyed How I Learned Geography which is based on a true story from his childhood. And When I Wore My Sailor Suit features a very creepy pirate!

Do you have a favorite Shulevitz book?

Read more: Uri Shulevitz (1935–) Biography - Personal, Addresses, Career, Member, Honors Awards, Writings, Adaptations, Sidelights - York, Books, Book, and Children - JRank Articles https://biography.jrank.org/pages/1958/Shulevitz-Uri-1935.html#ixzz7CVgztTHC

 IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

Fall? Yep. I like fall. But - this is also book list time. The best of (insert year) lists. Publisher's Weekly has already posted their list. The GoodReads Choice Awards for 2021 should be starting soon. And, of course, the Youth Media Awards. The Caldecott and the Newbery are the most well known. They won't be announced until January but there are all kinds of prediction lists and mock award selections happening right now. One of my favorite bloggers, Travis Jonker, runs a mock Caldecott with his students. I like his method but I don't have a classroom - so I'm going to adapt. You can see what he is doing on his blog at 100 Scope Notes if you are interested. 

So - what is the Caldecott? It's a medal "...awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American Picture Book for Children published in the United States during the preceding year." (check out the Caldecott page for more information). In addition to the winner, there are usually several Honor books named.  The award is named after Randolph Caldecott, a noted English illustrator for children's books in the 19th century. There is some buzz to change the name of the award to honor an American illustrator such as the late Jerry Pinkney. I like that idea but it would be a lot of work to make the change. What do you think? 

The committee has fifteen members including a chair. This year's chair is Dr. Claudette S. McLinn, Executive Director at Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature. The other members are librarians and teachers. Members must devote an incredible amount of time to reading and considering books for the award. They consider technique, artistic interpretation, the way the illustrations tell the story, and that it is created for children.

Rather than comparing individual books that have been awarded in the past, I'm going to look at a few illustrators. And then look at books that are getting Caldecott Buzz! The Horn Book has a blog - Calling Caldecott - that discusses possible winners. And GoodReads has a Mock Caldecott page also if you want to check those out. There is no official list. These are just guesses.

A few of my favorites for this year include the titles below but I'm still reading!

   

 

 

 

Next I discuss my first illustrator - Uri Shulevitz.