Cindy Dobrez & Lynn Rutan – The Booklist Reader https://www.booklistreader.com Opinion, news, and lists from the book people at Booklist, Book Links, and Booklist Online Thu, 25 Apr 2019 20:19:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1 A New Home for Bookends https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/03/08/bookends-childrens-literature/a-new-home-for-bookends/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/03/08/bookends-childrens-literature/a-new-home-for-bookends/#comments Fri, 08 Mar 2019 19:30:33 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62761 Lynn and Cindy: For the past 10 years, our Bookends blog has been affiliated with Booklist as the Booklist Online youth blog. Now, as the Booklist Reader undergoes some changes and reorganization, we have decided it is time to write a new chapter for Bookends. Bookends is going back to its roots as an independent blog and now […]]]>

Lynn and Cindy: For the past 10 years, our Bookends blog has been affiliated with Booklist as the Booklist Online youth blog. Now, as the Booklist Reader undergoes some changes and reorganization, we have decided it is time to write a new chapter for Bookends.

Bookends is going back to its roots as an independent blog and now has a new home! You can find us here. We are appreciative of our time with Booklist but we are very excited about our new adventure.

Readers can still find our reviews of new and upcoming books, library display ideas, book-cover observations, and eccentric awards lists. But we also hope to have fun with lots of new or expanded content such as interviews with book-world people, teaching suggestions, and more book and library-related observations. With decades of school library work and service on many award and selection list committees behind us, we will continue to provide our experience-based perspective on all things book and library related.

We’ve never been short of opinions so expect to even find a rant or two now and then.

Thank you to all the readers who have read Bookends over the years! Archives of our past Bookends posts at on the Booklist Reader will still be available. If you’ve enjoyed Bookends, please leave a comment here and follow us to our new site. Thanks!

 

 

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Are We Alone in the Universe? A Picture-Book Explanation of the Search for Exoplanets https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/20/bookends-childrens-literature/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-a-picture-book-explanation-of-the-search-for-exoplanets/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/20/bookends-childrens-literature/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-a-picture-book-explanation-of-the-search-for-exoplanets/#respond Wed, 20 Feb 2019 15:30:38 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62457 Lynn: Is there other life in the universe? People have been looking up at the night sky and asking this question for thousands of years. Today, scientists are actively engaged in finding answers to this intriguing puzzle and making exciting discoveries at an extraordinary pace. Curtis Manley explores this fascinating subject in Just Right: Searching […]]]>

Lynn: Is there other life in the universe? People have been looking up at the night sky and asking this question for thousands of years. Today, scientists are actively engaged in finding answers to this intriguing puzzle and making exciting discoveries at an extraordinary pace. Curtis Manley explores this fascinating subject in Just Right: Searching for the Goldilocks Planet (2019), a new picture book for curious youngsters who may also be wondering if anyone out there is looking back.

Just Right: Searching for the Goldilocks Planet by Curtis ManleyIn clear, easy-to-understand language, the book introduces the concept of exoplanets and explains the surprising number of factors necessary for life as we know it to exist. Such requirements include a “habitable zone” with a temperature conducive to liquid water, a size allowing a molten core that creates a magnetic field, and a thick layer of atmosphere. Dubbed a “Goldilocks” planet by scientists, such a planet would need all these things to be “just right” for supporting life. The book also does an admirable job of reviewing some of the newest developments in technology and astronomy and a few of the most recent discoveries.

The outstanding clarity of the writing is admirably assisted by Jessica Lanan’s luminous illustrations. These paintings do a brilliant job of extending and expanding the text, as not only do the pictures provide helpful depictions of the various concepts, telescopes, and new technologies under discussion, they also provide a wordless concurrent story chronicling a young girl’s trip to a planetarium with her family. Alternating the use of large two-page spreads with interestingly placed panels and touches of humor, this is an enticing visual treat.

Add in a short history of exoplanet theory and searches, plus well-placed questions to spark thought and discussion, and you have one terrific nonfiction book that is perfectly pitched for young readers AND older ones eager to learn about this question for the (ahem) ages.

 

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Eat This! Marketing Junk Food to Children and Teens https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/14/bookends-childrens-literature/eat-this-marketing-junk-food-to-children-and-teens/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/14/bookends-childrens-literature/eat-this-marketing-junk-food-to-children-and-teens/#respond Thu, 14 Feb 2019 19:30:37 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62357 Cindy: New Year’s healthy eating resolutions usually start to flag by February, so it’s perfect timing for us to share a 2018 title that’s a great fit for Booklist‘s Spotlight on Health & Wellness. Eat This! How Fast Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (and How to Fight Back) by Andrea Curtis offers lessons […]]]>

Cindy: New Year’s healthy eating resolutions usually start to flag by February, so it’s perfect timing for us to share a 2018 title that’s a great fit for Booklist‘s Spotlight on Health & Wellness. Eat This! How Fast Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (and How to Fight Back) by Andrea Curtis offers lessons about healthy diets and marketing, focusing on the ways children and teens are often the unsuspecting targets. Fast food tempts most of us due to our hectic schedules, whether we’re lured by the promise of hot, crispy french fries or worn down by begging from the backseat. It’s an easy meal that’s cheaper than buying fresh vegetables in many areas.

Eat This!: How Fast Food Marketing Gets You to Buy Junk (And How To Fight Back) by Andrea Curtis

Children and even teens aren’t fully aware of the marketing measures directed at their important demographic. Companies spend five BILLION dollars a year in fast-food marketing in the US alone—as if our cravings for sugar, fat, and salt weren’t enough to fend off! Branded filters in Snapchat, wacky commercials on YouTube, and advertisements on Facebook all target young audiences in particular, but so do company-spokesperson cartoon characters, meals with toys included, and prizes in cereal boxes.

Curtis presents information about what is in junk food, what the health risks are, and the resulting environmental costs. She also illuminates marketing tricks such as food photography and ad placement in video games, TV shows, and movies. From its attractive cover (Don’t you just want to bite that doughnut or burger?) to its spacious layout, the contents of this thin book may help reduce the expanding waistlines of our youth.

Lynn: I love how Curtis talks directly to kids while also managing to respect them and relate to them. She never talks down, and she doesn’t pull any punches, either. Early in the book, she introduces nine-year-old Hannah Robertson, who stood up at a McDonald’s annual meeting and called out the head of the fast-food company for the marketing technique of using toys and cartoon mascots. And if anyone had any doubts about the impact of “kidvertising” and processed foods, Curtis provides some sobering information. With an improving economy, Brazil has been the target of a fast-food advertising blitz since 2003; now that Brazilians have embraced fast food, one in three Brazilian children is overweight.

The information Curtis presents is as eye-opening as it is horrifying, but the real strength of this pithy book is that it is also a practical manual on how kids can fight back. Understanding the power of marketing is the first step and Curtis urges kids to ask tough questions about marketing strategies. Are we merely being entertained, or are we being manipulated to buy things that are bad for our bodies and the environment? She urges us to reclaim our food and provides some very easy activities to help kids get involved in “challenging the fast food culture and marketing strategies.” Additional back matter includes a glossary, a list of sources, and a wonderful interview with the author.

As Curtis points out in the chapter titled “Pester Power,” kids have influence over the foods their parents buy, and this book does a great job of helping to educate a much more savvy generation of consumers.

 

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Nature’s Friend: The Gwen Frostic Story https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/11/bookends-childrens-literature/natures-friend-the-gwen-frostic-story-done/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/11/bookends-childrens-literature/natures-friend-the-gwen-frostic-story-done/#respond Mon, 11 Feb 2019 17:30:38 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62335 Cindy: The nature artist Gwen Frostic (1906-2001) is a Michigan treasure, so when Lynn found her new picture-book biography, Nature’s Friend: The Gwen Frostic Story, (2018) at the public library, I was delighted. Frostic was born in the thumb of Michigan’s mitten-shaped lower peninsula but eventually settled on the other side of the state, in the woods of […]]]>

Cindy: The nature artist Gwen Frostic (1906-2001) is a Michigan treasure, so when Lynn found her new picture-book biography, Nature’s Friend: The Gwen Frostic Story, (2018) at the public library, I was delighted. Frostic was born in the thumb of Michigan’s mitten-shaped lower peninsula but eventually settled on the other side of the state, in the woods of Benzonia. There, she opened her stationery print shop (which remains open today). Frostic’s journey wasn’t always easy; she grew up with physical disabilities, and during WWII, her dedication to designing military aircraft disrupted her art. The story is well told; throughout, McDivitt infuses the text with nature metaphors that would’ve pleased outdoors-loving Frostic. When Frostic signs up for mechanical drawing classes, for example, McDivitt writes: “the men squawked like angry blue jays” and ” . . . Gwen gathered up knowledge like a bird builds a nest.”

I have visited the Gwen Frostic Prints shop numerous times. I even drink daily from a cup printed with her friendly raccoon design, often while sending notes on her stationery and cards. Gwen’s Heidelberg printing presses are something to see and the shop itself is both a step back in time and a peek into a fairy-like realm. While her artwork and mission to protect our natural environment are known internationally, there are still those, even in Michigan, who have not heard of her. I’m grateful to this story for helping to spread the word and to encourage young children to notice nature closely; appreciate it and protect it; and perhaps, find a way to make a vocation of that awareness.

Lynn: Lindsay McDivitt opens this biography with a quotation from Frostic that truly exemplifies her life and spirit: “I never knew I couldn’t do something.” Doing something—often while breaking new ground for women—is just how Frostic spent her life. I love how McDivitt captures this quality, recounting Frostic’s unusual achievements as a small business owner, a WWII-era airplane-factory tool designer, and a determined seeker of education and training . . . at a time when women were often forbidden from both.

Eileen Ryan Ewen’s charming watercolor illustrations extend the story, incorporating wonderful small details on each page. Most scenes reflect Frostic’s love of nature, from her early childhood to her later years in her western Michigan workshop. Each page turn reveals a new warm and intricate scene to linger over. This book is a joy to spend time with.

Excellent back matter includes photographs of Frostic and her workshop, additional information about her, and directions for creating your own nature print.

 

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The Butler Did It: Gary D. Schmidt’s New Middle-Grade Novel https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/07/bookends-childrens-literature/the-butler-did-it-gary-d-schmidts-new-middle-grade-novel/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/07/bookends-childrens-literature/the-butler-did-it-gary-d-schmidts-new-middle-grade-novel/#respond Thu, 07 Feb 2019 17:30:22 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62353 Cindy: Doesn’t everyone need a butler to appear on their doorstep to help restore order and routine to their household? He might not have the supernatural talents of Mary Poppins, but the butler in Gary D. Schmidt’s new book, Pay Attention, Carter Jones (2019), works his own kind of magic. The butler, Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick, was […]]]>

Cindy: Doesn’t everyone need a butler to appear on their doorstep to help restore order and routine to their household? He might not have the supernatural talents of Mary Poppins, but the butler in Gary D. Schmidt’s new book, Pay Attention, Carter Jones (2019), works his own kind of magic.

The butler, Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick, was previously in the employ of Carter’s grandfather; now, his services have been bequeathed to the Jones family. Carter’s father is deployed in Germany and his mother is doing her best to hold it together with four children, an easily excitable, vomiting dog, and more challenges. Over the course of the book, readers slowly learn from Carter the full range of issues facing the family, including overwhelming grief after a substantial loss three years earlier. Schmidt knows grief and its consequences (parenting solo), and surely draws on that personal experience as he creates this rich, moving, and at times hilarious look at a family who needs everything the butler can provide.

Carter’s emotional growth and eventual bond with Bowles-Fitzpatrick make me long for both stability and wise-but-strict guidance for many of my own middle-school students. Children need adults who care for them while also providing structure and discipline. Without preaching, this novel demonstrates just that—and it might be just as an important read for parents and teachers as it will be for its intended middle-grade audience. This will be a great classroom read-aloud and provides rich themes to discuss between the laughter, the tears . . . and the healing. It’s going to be hard for me to find a book I both love and admire more this year.

None of these things are in the instruction manual
for how to write a book for this age level!

Lynn: I totally agree with Cindy both about my love for this book AND about Gary Schmidt working a special kind of magic here. For one thing, he features elements I would have been happy to bet would NOT work for American middle-schoolers: cricket, an English butler who insists on precise grammar and impeccable manners, and a purple Bentley. Furthermore, he gives us a narrator who is NOT saying as many things as he IS saying, leaving the reader often wondering about what has happened in the past. Plus, definitions of cricket terms and rules in tiny print start each chapter. None of these things are in the instruction manual for how to write a book for this age level!

It all sounds like a recipe for disaster but the magic of Schmidt’s craftsmanship turns these unlikely parts into a story that is brilliantly told, very funny, and incredibly moving. Schmidt gifts readers with impossible-to-forget characters and a compulsively readable story, filled with moments that make us laugh out loud one moment and weep the next. It is a story about grieving and healing, responsibility and abandonment, loving and letting go. It is about family and keeping the bails up. (It’s a cricket thing!)

And, as bonus, I think I finally have a glimmer of what is going on in the sport of cricket!

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Bookends at #ALAMW19 https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/05/bookends-childrens-literature/bookends-at-alamw19/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/05/bookends-childrens-literature/bookends-at-alamw19/#respond Tue, 05 Feb 2019 15:30:04 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62363 Cindy & Lynn: We’ve been attending ALA Annual Conferences and Midwinter Meetings regularly since 2000, but we’ve each missed at least one. We were awed to learn that Booklist‘s Editor & Publisher Bill Ott achieved his eightieth straight ALA while in Seattle last week—40 years without missing even one. This one was special as it […]]]>

Cindy & Lynn: We’ve been attending ALA Annual Conferences and Midwinter Meetings regularly since 2000, but we’ve each missed at least one. We were awed to learn that Booklist‘s Editor & Publisher Bill Ott achieved his eightieth straight ALA while in Seattle last week—40 years without missing even one. This one was special as it honored his retirement from a long career with ALA and Booklist. We were happy to be in attendance to raise a glass in his honor. We wish you well in retirement, Bill!

If you’ve never been to an ALA exhibit hall, you don’t know what you are missing. Thousands of square feet of library furniture, equipment, software demonstrations, and, our favorites: book and audio publisher booths! Seeing last year’s most loved books on display with starred-review bookmarks is fun, but even more fun is seeing what is coming this year. Even after almost two decades, it’s still thrilling to get our hands on an early copy of a book by a favorite author. This time we scored Nikki Grimes’ verse memoir, Ordinary Hazards, that doesn’t publish until October. The stacks of Laurie Halse Anderson’s verse memoir, Shout, were secured like a crime scene. By the time the giveaway started, the line to get a copy wound through the exhibit hall and out into the lobby.

We also attended special events. We heard Mike Wohnoutka talk about the genesis of his new picture book Croc and Turtle and watched him draw some of his art. Kwame Alexander and Houghton Mifflin launched the new Versify imprint (something you’ll want to keep your eye on) and it was exciting to hear the new imprints’ first authors speak about their work during a panel presentation. We also managed some literary stops, visiting the Seattle Public Library, two King County Library System branches (including the river-spanning Renton Library), and the iconic Left Bank Books.

A highlight of the Midwinter conference for us is always the Youth Media Awards that take place on early Monday morning. It is here, of course, that the winners of the various ALA youth literature awards are announced, from the Michael L. Printz to the Robert Sibert Nonfiction award to the Caldecott and Newbery Medals which conclude the event. The announcements are always held in an enormous room, set up for the hundreds and hundreds of people who attend. There are cameras, lights, and tremendous excitement and suspense as the presidents of ALA, and the youth divisions, and round tables make their award announcements. There is nothing like being there to hear the gasps and the cheers.

Often, the most difficult part of the conference is leaving. Literally. This year, while the Midwest was in the grip of the Polar Vortex and our school district had an unprecedented SIX snow days in a row, we experienced flight delays, flight cancellations, and other complications that developed into a true “planes, trains, and automobiles” multi-day trip home.  At least if you have a six-hour wait in a train station, it’s nice to hang out in one that’s beautiful (Union Station, Chicago). There’s nothing like going to ALA, but there’s really nothing like home, sweet home. Until June, when we’ll have forgotten all about the travel struggles and will be ready to do it all again!

 

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YA Cover Trend Alert: Scratch That https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/01/bookends-childrens-literature/ya-cover-trend-alert-scratch-that/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/02/01/bookends-childrens-literature/ya-cover-trend-alert-scratch-that/#respond Fri, 01 Feb 2019 15:30:41 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62302 Cindy and Lynn: We were fortunate to be in the Seattle audience for the 2019 Youth Media Awards announcements, and as usual, there were surprises. Some of our favorite books won different awards than we predicted, and some were shut out entirely. Other books that hadn’t been on our radar now have us scrambling to place […]]]>

Cindy and Lynn: We were fortunate to be in the Seattle audience for the 2019 Youth Media Awards announcements, and as usual, there were surprises. Some of our favorite books won different awards than we predicted, and some were shut out entirely. Other books that hadn’t been on our radar now have us scrambling to place holds at our libraries or add to our Goodreads lists or Cindy’s school orders. If you were left scratching out titles on your award prediction lists and adding others, you might be up for reading one of these recent YA novels that feature lots of scratching and scribbling, too. Go, ahead, scratch away or scribble big, black, angry balls on your lists. It might make you feel better.

 

All the Things That Could Go Wrong, by Stewart Foster

The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily, by Laura Creedle

Still Life with Tornado, by A. S. King

Things I Should Have Known, by Claire Lazebnik

 

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Cindy & Lynn’s 2018 Book Awards https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/01/24/bookends-childrens-literature/cindy-lynns-2018-book-awards/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/01/24/bookends-childrens-literature/cindy-lynns-2018-book-awards/#respond Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:30:30 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=61648 Cindy and Lynn: We had so much fun giving out last year’s 2017 Bookends Awards, this year we’re announcing a new batch for 2018’s publications! We’re not talking about Newbery, Caldecott, or Printz Awards; we’ll leave those to the official committees. We’re off to Seattle this week for the 2019 ALA Midwinter Meeting, and we can’t wait to learn who […]]]>

Cindy and Lynn: We had so much fun giving out last year’s 2017 Bookends Awards, this year we’re announcing a new batch for 2018’s publications! We’re not talking about Newbery, Caldecott, or Printz Awards; we’ll leave those to the official committees. We’re off to Seattle this week for the 2019 ALA Midwinter Meeting, and we can’t wait to learn who the big winners are, but in the meantime, here are the 2018 Bookends Awards. Envelopes, please!

 

Lynn’s Awards:

The Book I Had to Fight My Grandsons For:

Skyward, by Brandon Sanderson

I usually give first dibs to the twins on books we all want . . . but not this time. It was close, too, but I called in the big guns by pointing to my broken arm and looking pitiful. Underhanded, you say? True, but in my defense, there are two of them and they are much bigger than I am these days!

 

Three Books That Make Me Want to Be on an Award Committee Again for the Fun of Discussing These Books in Depth:

 The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, by M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin

 Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, by Jonathan Auxier

 The Book of Boy, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Oh, to be in a committee room with these three complex, convoluted, and delightful books on the table. I don’t KNOW if these three are being discussed by any committees, but I’m willing to bet a discussion about them would be EPIC!

 

 

Books That Make Me Giggle Just Thinking about Them:

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates, by Ryan T. Higgins

A Couch for Llama, by Leah Gilbert

These two picture books are gloriously silly and giggle inducing. Truly!

 

The Book in Which an Orange Someone Finally Gets His Comeuppance:

The Boggart Fights Back, by Susan Cooper

Cooper’s terrifically awful villain reminds me of someone in the news. Ahem! And his undoing is delightful. If only . . .

 

The Book I Most Wish I’d Had Back in My School Library Days:

 Water Land: Land and Water Forms around the World, by Christy Hale

For years, our sixth graders did a unit on geography forms and this is exactly the book students—and myself—needed. In fact, we needed 30 of them! Don’t miss this one; in addition to being seriously informative, it is great fun, too.

 

The Book That Really Did Make Me Think of Pippi Longstocking:

 Astrid the Unstoppable, by Maria Parr, illustrated by Katie Hartnett, and translated by Guy Puzey

Publisher blurbs often compare a new publication to some beloved classic. (And for the most part, it’s a pretty tenuous connection.) But this absolutely enchanting book and its endearing young heroine, Astrid, really did read like a modern Pippi. I loved it!

 

The Picture Book That Made Me Cry:

 Ocean Meets Sky, by Terry Fan and Eric Fan

I lost my mom in late March and the Fan brothers’ gentle and beautiful take on grief, memory, and healing completely undid me.

 

Cindy’s Awards:

The Book That Makes Me Wonder if Holly Black Isn’t a Child of the Fae Herself:

 The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black

 

The Book That Explains How We Were Nearly Cursed with Having to Say “Back Rub It!”

 Google It: A History of Google, by Anna Crowley Redding

 

The Book That Brought Back the Visceral Experience of Reading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar for the First Time:

I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain, by Will Walton

 

Children of Blood and Bone AUDIO

The Audiobook That Seeped into My Soul with Its Powerful Storytelling and Exquisite Narration:

 Children of Bone and Blood, by Tomi Adeyemi and read by Bahni Turpin

 

The Book That Gave Me Reason to Show My Students Photographs of Galileo’s Middle Finger under Glass in the Florence Museum:

 They Lost Their Heads! What Happened to Washington’s Teeth, Einstein’s Brain, and Other Famous Body Parts, by Carlyn Beccia

 

The Book You Don’t Want to Read While Eating Lunch (or Breakfast, or Dinner . . . ) but Which Is Fascinating!:

Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill, by Heather L. Montgomery and illustrated by Kevin O’Malley

 

The Book That Should Rival Oh, the Places You’ll Go Next Graduation Season:

For Every One, by Jason Reynolds

 

 

 

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Find Adventure at the Art Museum in These Two Picture Books https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/01/23/bookends-childrens-literature/find-adventure-at-the-art-museum-in-these-two-picture-books/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/01/23/bookends-childrens-literature/find-adventure-at-the-art-museum-in-these-two-picture-books/#respond Wed, 23 Jan 2019 15:30:09 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=62018 Lynn: Art museums are magical places! These two picture books from 2018 take that idea and use it to spin imaginative tales. The first is Raúl Colón’s delightful Imagine (2018). In this wordless story, a young boy leaves a drab area of his city to visit the Museum of Modern Art. As he carefully observes three […]]]>

Lynn: Art museums are magical places! These two picture books from 2018 take that idea and use it to spin imaginative tales.

The first is Raúl Colón’s delightful Imagine (2018). In this wordless story, a young boy leaves a drab area of his city to visit the Museum of Modern Art. As he carefully observes three famous paintings, the figures in the paintings come to life, leave their frames, and join the boy on a wondrous adventure. They ride the Cyclone at Coney Island, visit the Statue of Liberty, sing together in the park, and share hot dogs before returning to the museum. The boy heads home, too, but stops to brighten his neighborhood by creating a lovely mural that features his artful companions.

Imagine by Raul ColonColón’s imaginative story is as beautiful as it is fun, encouraging young readers to explore, imagine, and create. In a must-read author’s note, Colón shares his own story of not visiting an art museum until he was grown and wonders what it might have meant for his own artistic development had he done so as a child. He hopes children will put away their gadgets and screens and visit museums in order to “free their minds and explore their thoughts.”

Anna at the Art Museum (2018), by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert, also follows a child’s visit to an art museum. But here, young Anna is a most reluctant visitor. Everything seems “old and boring,” and frustrating rules and a grumpy guard curtail any fun Anna creates for herself. But then the guard surprises Anna and takes her behind the scenes where paintings are being studied, repaired, and cleaned. There on an easel is Mary Cassatt’s Little Girl in a Blue Armchair with the portrait’s subject looking just as cross and bored as Anna. A connection is made and Anna now sees the museum’s collection with new eyes as she feels “color swirl around her.”

Anna at the Art Museum by Hazel Hutchins and Gail HerbertLil Crump’s illustrations are a delight. Each scene is filled with visual jokes that reward careful attention. The digital characters comically mirror the beautifully rendered reproductions of famous artwork from around the world. When Anna sets off the alarm, horrified patrons mimic Edvard Munch’s The Scream; later, a tired Anna and her mother rub their toes in front of two equally footsore figures in Degas’s Two Dancers at Rest. Helpful back matter includes thumbnail sketches and information about each piece of art included in the story.

 

Both of these books tell entertaining stories while offering ideal introductions to the joyous inspiration of art museums.

 

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Indiana High School Basketball: Attucks, Oscar Robertson, and Civil Rights https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/01/16/bookends-childrens-literature/indiana-high-school-basketball-attucks-oscar-robertson-and-civil-rights/ https://www.booklistreader.com/2019/01/16/bookends-childrens-literature/indiana-high-school-basketball-attucks-oscar-robertson-and-civil-rights/#respond Wed, 16 Jan 2019 15:30:28 +0000 http://www.booklistreader.com/?p=61459 Cindy: Basketball fans rejoice—have we got a book for you! I know there’s some Super Bowl hype ratcheting up, but I couldn’t care less (especially since the Bears are out). It’s officially Big 10 college basketball season at my house and my crimson-and-cream, candy-stripe Hoosier warm-up pants are at the ready, while Lynn cheers for her […]]]>

Cindy: Basketball fans rejoice—have we got a book for you! I know there’s some Super Bowl hype ratcheting up, but I couldn’t care less (especially since the Bears are out). It’s officially Big 10 college basketball season at my house and my crimson-and-cream, candy-stripe Hoosier warm-up pants are at the ready, while Lynn cheers for her Purdue Boilermakers. Lynn and I were eager to read Phillip Hoose’s new book, Attucks! Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team That Awakened a City (2018), when we first learned about it—and it did not disappoint.

Combining sports action with civil rights history, Hoose tells the story of the 1950s basketball team from all-black Crispus Attucks High School on the west side of Indianapolis, its legendary coach Ray Crowe, and its superstar Oscar “The Big O” Robertson. Basketball has long been important to Indiana citizens, but for many years, racism restricted access to the sport for people of color. The Ku Klux Klan built Attucks to segregate the black students in Indianapolis and for years, these students, who faced many other inequities, were also not allowed to play basketball against teams from white public schools. But when Crowe took over the team in the ’50s (the times they were a-changin’), he coached a different style of play that would also change the game of basketball.

Hoose grew up in Speedway, Indianapolis, and for a few short weeks attempted to teach English at Crispus Attucks High School. He then spent years researching, interviewing, and writing this powerful book. I made the mistake of showing this book to my airplane seatmates, both teachers, on a recent trip; one of them kept it for the whole flight! They were North Carolina grads and basketball fans. I later told friend and poet Jack Ridl about the book since he grew up with a notable basketball-coach father, Charles “Buzz” Ridl, and has published a collection of basketball poems, Losing Season. Jack bought Attucks! immediately, telling me this:

“Oscar was my idol. Dad gave me a Christmas present of tickets to see him play and go to the locker room after to meet him. I noticed a random thread on the back of his sports coat, took it, and carried it in my wallet everywhere.”

Jack was 15. The Big O was special. Read Attucks! and learn more about his story. You’ll find yourself booktalking it to everyone you see, too, teen and adult.

Lynn: Basketball fans won’t need any convincing but I want to make sure we alert another large segment of readers about the importance of Hoose’s terrific book. Yes, this is a gripping sports story and a really important civil rights story, but it is also so much more. The real heart of this book comes from the people who worked tirelessly to overcome the deeply rooted and long accepted systems of discrimination that existed at every level. From cultural expectations to athletic organizations to city and state governments, bias and segregation ruled the day. Crowe and the remarkable young players who broke the color barrier in the Indiana Boys Basketball State Tournament had many around them who worked for years to achieve that triumph, and their story is an inspiration. This is a book to hand to the young people who have joined a new era of activism—a story of young people who made a difference.

On a personal level, reading Attucks! was like revisiting my teen years, but this time it felt like wearing glasses for the first time and really seeing what was around me! I started high school in a tiny school in Indiana in 1962—just seven short years after Attucks first won that tournament. I am deeply embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about Indiana’s shameful history and I learned much that helps explain Indiana politics today. Many of the places chronicled in the book are places my school’s team played (and lost), including some of the huge “basketball palaces” built during the “gym wars.”

But whatever your interests, Phillip Hoose, as always, writes compelling and fascinating narrative nonfiction. Even knowing the outcome, readers will feel a breathless sense of suspense as these ultimate underdogs triumphed over so much. Don’t miss the back matter, especially the section titled “The Times That Followed,” outlining what happened to the key individuals in the story, and an extremely enticing list of sources.

In a world where athletic prowess is more revered than ever, I think it’s even more important to reflect on Coach Ray Crowe’s philosophy:

“It is not my job to build basketball teams with boys . . . It is my job to build boys with basketball teams.”

 

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