For the Love of Venice

For the Love of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli, 1998

Seventeen year old Percy was looking forward to a summer full of sailing and preparing for the big race at the end of the summer. Now he is on his way to Venice, Italy with his family for the summer. His father is part of the engineering team that is designing the floodgates the will protect Venice from floods.

His family settles in immediately. His father is busy with the floodgate, his mom is doing her artist thing, even his little brother, who is enrolled at a day camp for young children, is picking up Italian at an astonishing rate. Percy is a at loose ends until he meets the mysterious Graziella who works in the nearby ice cream shop. Discovering that she also works as an animatori or counselor at his brother's day camp, he signs on as an animatori too.

His friendship with Graziella connects him with other teens in the city. He discovers they care deeply about the quality of life in Venice and are fearful of the effects the Expo world's fair will have on life there. The focus on tourism in Venice is at odds with daily life there for ordinary citizens.

When a huge storm threatens the city with flooding, Percy realizes the group will stop at nothing to keep the Expo out of Venice and his father's project is at risk.

Napoli captures the beauty and special light of Venice. The book is a virtual vacation and a entertaining read.

Hi Fly Guy

Hi Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold, 2005

"Flies can't be pets! Flies are Pests!" is what Buzz thinks while he is searching for a new pet to enter the pet contest. Then, THIS fly says the boy's name, Buzz. Buzz is delighted and names him Fly Guy. When his parents hear Fly Guy call their son's name they also understand just how smart the fly really is. Now, can Buzz and Fly Guy convince the judges at the pet show?

What a terrific early reader this book is. It is a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book and deservedly so. Ted Arnold's comic illustrations punctuate the story and provide plenty of laughs. I was chuckling at every page. An emerging reader will find the large font very easy to read. The book even has chapters. I think guys will especially crack up at this fly comedy.

Author: Lois Lowry

If you a fan of The Giver and Lois Lowry, do not miss reading her post about the ending of her book.

To be honest, I don't think it is the function of a book (or an author) to answer questions, really. I think a book should CREATE questions. It should make the reader think, and wonder, and worry, and discuss, and imagine.

(Lowry is virtually knocking her head against a wall about folks who use the comments section to ask her questions about her writing and books. Folks just don't read the directions.)

Blood on the River: James Town 1607

Blood on the River: James Town 1607 by Elisa Carbone, 2006

The importance and fun of historical fiction is the ability to live in another time and place and understand something about that point in history. I've purchased fiction and nonfiction books about James Town and I've provided educational videos on the topic. I have studied the settlement along with the Entlings through elementary, junior high and high school, blah-blah-blah.

I have just finished Elisa Carbone's superb Blood on the River.

NOW I get it.

Other books have accurately and factually recounted the history of the James Town settlement but Carbone has brought it to life. Using real characters from the colony's registers, she has recreated a story that is an absolute page turner. We smell the stench of the ships and see the frost on the ground. The distrust between the English and the Wampanoag is palpable. The gnawing hunger, the "summer sickness" and the scent of wood fires is so strong, I felt like I was within the palisade walls.

Samuel Collier is bound as a page to Captain John Smith on the eve of his departure for Virginia. Sam's fierce temper and survival sense will be his undoing and his salvation in the new land. The perils of the voyage at sea and the political turmoil that plagued the expedition from the onset are vividly described. The useless "gentlemen" resent the common sense of John Smith and his lack of respect for his “betters.” Before they even arrive on Virginia's shores, the “gentlemen” have clapped Smith in irons and plan to hang him.

Sam clearly sees the issues confronting the colony and his loyalty to Smith serves him well. Smith teaches him to fight with a sword and how to use a musket. He also makes sure Sam is able to stay with a friendly tribe during the second winter so he can learn their language and survival skills instead of going hungry at the settlement. Sam revels in his time with the tribe, realizing their lifestyle is perfectly adapted to the harsh environment. He respects their traditions and their pride as a nation. It is with great reluctance that he returns to James Town when winter is over.

The reader fumes along with Sam at the stupidity of the Virginia Company. Their reliance on old world ideas of "gentlemen" leaders dooms many settlers to death. It is only when John Smith is voted on, by the colonists, to become their president that the colony's fortunes take a turn for the better. The story of Pocahontas is part of the storyline. Carbone chooses a likely version of her rescue of John Smith and depicts her as the child she really was at the time.

Now that I have traveled back to 1607 I can hardly wait to really visit Virginia someday and see the original site. Carbone includes excellent notes and suggestions for additional reading. She describes her research which was fascinating to read on its own.

I asked teachers and librarians for suggestions. "What would you most like to see a new novel about?" I asked. The answer came over and over: Jamestown.

I thought, "That old story? John Smith and Pocahontas AGAIN? Booooooring!"

In Carbone's hands -- boring? Not at all! This is some of the best historical fiction I have read since The Blood Red Horse. Highly recommended.

Cinderella (As If You Didn't Already Know the Story)

Cinderella (As If You Didn't Already Know the Story) by Barbara Ensor, 2006

This retelling of the Cinderella story offers the reader the traditional story, though slightly updated. Cinderella shares her worries and concerns about her life in letters to her deceased mother. Her father has remarried (but does not die) and her new stepmother and stepsisters are just as unpleasant as in the traditional story. Cinderella's letters to her mother are heartfelt with amusing edits so we know what she is really thinking. The silhouette cutout illustrations added a touch of quirkiness to the story that I enjoyed.

The book was a pleasant and fast read. Entling #3 pronounced it "cute." After reading Bookshelves of Doom's review and the comment by Fuse #8, another reason I liked the book occured to me.

Girls who loved the lush K.Y. Craft fairytales when they were in elementary school are now in jr. high and when I see them at the jr. high library, they still are interested in those stories. In many cases they were NOT strong readers which is one reason they gravitated to the illustrated books in the first place.

One of a school librarian's jobs is to protect the dignity of his or her readers -- (which is why it is nutty for school principals and reading specialists to demand that the school library be organized, labeled, and filed by READING LEVEL. Please! Stop this Madness!)

This book offers students the comfort of an enjoyable, familiar and readable story and which they will not be embarrased to pull out during DEAR time in Reading class. I can already think of at least two kids I want to share this book with.

Quilt Pink

Picked up my fabric for the Quilt Pink block. If you are a quilter, check out this great opportunity!

Quilt Pink

Sadness: Jaap Penraat

"He who saves a single human life saves the entire universe."
-- From Jaapp Penraat's medal, The Righteous Among Nations




Jaap Penraat was the subject of Hudson Talbott's moving Forging Freedom. Penraat died this past week. The Chatham Courier has a tribute to him.

His good friend and neighbor, Hudson Talbott, had know him for many years before discovering Penraat's role as rescuer during the Holocaust.

"Jaap started by trying to forge one I.D. card," said Talbott. "Then he did another and another as he tried to get people out of the country (Holland) to safety. He snuck into Paris and asked for work and travel permits. In a year and a half, he got out over 400 people. When he stopped, the British had destroyed all of the railroad tracks and Jaap and the Dutch knew that D-Day was imminent. He had to walk back to Holland from France because there were no more train lines."
As the Nazis dug in for the Allied invasion, they began recruiting Dutch men in droves for slave labor in their munitions factories. Talbott said Mr. Penraat went into hiding for a year in the barn of a country doctor where he survived in part on a diet of sugar beets.

Forging Freedom is a terrific introduction to the Holocaust for kids. The story and illustrations detail the approaching Nazi menace. The first pages show a sky filled with German paratroopers descending over the Dutch landscape. Another page seems to be aflame as book burnings are depicted.

The centerpiece picture, in particular is a great starting place to talk about the subject with kids. Talbott has sketched a map of Europe with tentacles of barbed wire stretching out in all directions. Hitler's head is at the center of the tentacles, in Germany, like a horrific octopus. You can see images from the book here.

Jaap Penraat forged documents for people trying to escape the nightmare.
Thank goodness Hudson Talbott has preserved his story for us all.

Hudson Talbott's website

Summer subbing

Turns out summer school needs librarians sometimes too! Dragon and I are aving great fun with some preschoolers this week. As one of the classes lined up to depart the library yesterday, one of the young lads asked somewhat plaintively, "Will we ever see Dragon again?"

Dragon is a cheeky, and I suspect, disrespectable fellow but he does leave an impression with kids.

It is even more fun for me to dive into the libarian's box of new books. (She said it was ok, honest. I'm cleaning up the marc records.) Very interesting to see what she is buying multiple copies of. * Lots of Book Moot recomendations too!

There is nothing like the smell of new books coming out of their wrappings with beautiful Bound to Stay Bound laminated covers. Heaven!

*Babymouse
ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room
Alex Rider

Author Visit: Don Tate

Do not miss Don Tate's account of this library visit.
His audience was a group of "10-20 young men ages 12 to 17," each a convicted felon.

One painting, in particular drew the most attention and discussion. It was a painting I created many years ago, a poster for the book Scorpions (Walter Dean Myers). It depicted a scene where one gang member held a gun to another kids head, very graphic. I was shocked to learn that almost all of these young men had read that book. With excitement, they recounted the scene from the story (Backs up what I wrote earlier about needing books that speak to black males; They do read!).

Lazy 4th of July weekend

I have been reading/listening to some terrific books but need to do them justice when I write about them and this is not the weekend for it apparently.
I have been working on my entling's quilt. I can recommend listening to a book while sitting at the sewing machine.

This is an interesting article about the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio say they based the character of Jack Sparrow on the folktale tradition of the trickster.

Elliott and Rossio came up with the entire Pirates mythology after writing their 1992 hit "Aladdin" and long before co-creating the 2002 animation feature "Shrek." They based their concept for Jack Sparrow on the ancient "trickster" archetype.

"There's a certain moral ambiguity to the pirate genre which seemed perfect for the kind of trickster character you see in folklore all around the world," Elliott says. "You've got the Jack tales (Appalachian folk stories), the Navajo Indians' coyote legends, the spider god from African mythology."

"Shakespeare's Puck is another one," Rossio adds. "Groucho Marx and Bugs Bunny -- those are the two great American tricksters."

"We wrote Jack as a trickster," Elliott continues, "and whether Johnny got that consciously or not, you couldn't ask for better. Having written the character, it's not a performance I could have imagined, but man, it was perfect. In animation, it's called plus-ing: If something ends up on your desk, it leaves in a better state. That's what you're looking for in a movie, where everyone builds on top of each other's work to create the final work."