An Early American Christmas

An Early American Christmas by Tomie dePaola (1987, Holiday House). 

This is a charming book about an early American family (originally from Germany) preparing for Christmas. There is an author's note in the beginning explaining how most people in New England back then didn't celebrate Christmas, and that he read a historical source that told of an Irishman being chased out of town because he was "a Christmas Man." This inspired him to think, "what might have happened in the early 1800s if a family who celebrated Christmas moved into a New England town?" 

Let the Children March

Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson, illustrated by Frank Morrison (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018). 

This is a powerful book about the thousands of African American children who marched for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, inspired after hearing Martin Luther King Jr. speak. It's an amazing story. Children and teens took to the streets to protest segregation. They were sprayed with water hoses, hit with batons, and threatened with dogs by the police. Many of them were arrested and jailed. But footage of the violence against these children was seen around the world and there was a public outcry.  Eventually city leaders agreed to desegregate local businesses and free all children who had been jailed. It's an important reminder that we all have a voice, and that sometimes we need to take the risk to speak out against injustice. 

The oil painting illustrations capture the anger, courage, and determination of the protestors. There is also more historical information in the back, like photos, quote sources, and a timeline.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. All opinions are my own.

The St. Patrick's Day Shillelagh

The St. Patrick's Day Shillelagh by Janet Nolan, illustrated by Ben F. Stahl (Albert Whitman & Company, 2002). 

This is a lovely book about a family heirloom that gets passed down from generation to generation.  It starts with Fergus, a boy in Ireland during the potato famine who must immigrate to America with his family. He cuts a branch from a blackthorn tree to bring a piece of his country with him and whittles it into a shillelagh, or walking stick. Every St. Patrick's Day he tells his son his story of leaving Ireland. This tradition gets passed down through the generations until we see young Kayleigh being told the story by her grandfather. This is a great book to use for teaching about family history.

For more St. Patrick's Day children's books, you can check out my Pinterest board here. 

Also, if you need some good Celtic music, I recommend AccuRadio.  They have several different stations, such "Songs of the Sea," "Celtic Legends," "First Fiddle," and "St. Paddy's Party." I swear I'm not being paid, I just really love their options! I think Irish music is so beautiful and whenever I hear it, I feel connected to my Irish roots. (Although only 16% according to AncestryDNA.) 

Hope everyone has a great St. Patrick's Day with some good craic!

Minnie Saves the Day

Minnie Saves the Day by Melodye Benson Rosales (Little, Brown, 2001). 

One day recently when I was walking around my neighborhood, I came across a Little Free Library.  

The rules stated were simple: take a book and either return it or replace it with a different book.  Looking through, an illustrated children's book stood out to me. I knew the author/illustrator from her other books, including the original three Addy books for American Girl. I decided to borrow it and I'm glad I did.

  

Taking place in Chicago during the Great Depression, it's about an African-American girl named Hester who receives a rag doll made by her grandmother.  She's excited because it's the first doll she owns that looks like her. She names her Minnie. We soon learn that all toys come to life when people aren't around.  When Hester's mother thinks her butter pound cake for an upcoming party is ruined, Minnie decides to help save the day. 

The book it set up as part one of a series, "The Adventures of Minnie," although unfortunately it doesn't appear that there were any other stories published. It's formatted similarly to American Girl in that it's historical fiction with a family tree of the characters in the front and some true historical facts in the back, as well as a recipe for the butter pound cake featured in the book. It's a shame there aren't more books in the series.

For more information on black dolls, read this wonderful article titled "Black is Beautiful: Why Black Dolls Matter."

The Pumpkin Heads

The Pumpkin Heads by A.K. Roche (Prentice-Hall, 1968). 

I found this while searching online for books that take place in my state of Connecticut. This story takes place in my city of New Haven so I had to check it out.  It's presented as a story explaining why people in New Haven are calling "pumpkin heads" (which is not a real thing), but there is a note in the back that explains the truth.  The author was inspired by  reading an anecdote in a General History of Connecticut by Revered Samuel Peters, a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War who made up stories exaggerating the conditions in Connecticut to get back at the people who drove him out and back to England. This makes a lot of sense, as the story definitely makes the people of New Haven seem pretty foolish!

In the story, men of New Haven would line up to get their haircut which was cut while wearing a special cap so that they all had the same length hair. When the cap is lost, they try using various bowls and baskets, but nothing is the right size.  That is, until a wise old woman suggests a pumpkin cut in half. 

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day by Anne Rockwell, illustrated by Lizzy Rockwell (Harper Collins, 1999). 

I'm going to be sharing several Thanksgiving books that I found at my local library over the next couple weeks.  I'm starting off with a popular book that, while well meaning, is quite problematic at times.

First of all, the good:  The illustrations are lovely and I like that they show a diverse range of children and multiculturally mixed families.  It's the story of a classroom learning about the first Thanksgiving and putting on a play.  The history that is taught is where it gets problematic.  The author refers to the Native Americans by their tribal name, the Wampanoag, which is great.  However, other than that, she portrays the whole situation as peaceful and caring between friends. Of course we want to promote sharing and kindness among children, but rewriting history to do so is not justifiable. 

One line that jumped out at me was: "Michiko was thankful that she and all the other Pilgrims were greeted kindly by the Wampanoag people, who shared the land with them." Saying that the Wampanoags "shared the land" with the Pilgrims is twisting the true history and making it seem like it's ok to just steal other people's land. I might still read this story to a child just because of the illustrations, but rewording or skipping the problematic passages.

Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature has a good critique of the book here, which also has the author's response.

The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower: John Howland's Good Fortune

The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower: John Howland's Good Fortune by P.J. Lynch (Candlewick, 2015). 

When I found out about this book, I had to get it.  I'm a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley so I was eager to see how a picture book would tell their story.  P.J. Lynch is an award-winning author and illustrator from Ireland.  His illustrations here are beautifully rich and detailed. He also did a good job with writing the story from a teenage Howland's perspective. The title of the story comes when Howland falls of the Mayflower in a storm but of course is saved and pulled back on.  It's a good thing or I, and millions of his other descendants, wouldn't have been born. 

Despite being a picture book, this is definitely a book for older children-- I'd say probably 10 and up.  He lets readers into the mind of Howland which, while not being historically factual, helps kids put themselves in a Mayflower passenger's shoes.  Being an adult, some of these thoughts and dialogues made me question how accurate some of the sentiments would have been at that time.  For instance, there is a scene where Howland is given an order to steal corn from a native's home and he expresses how it weighs on his conscience.  In reality, would he have cared about taking food from a native? I don't know, maybe. I think coming up with excuses for our ancestors' behavior to be problematic. But at least this is a way of conveying to kids that stealing did happen.  There is also a scene where Squanto tells them how his whole village was killed off by a plague brought by the white man.  So the author definitely tries not to gloss over the hard truths while still telling the story from Howland's point of view. 

I also liked how he included "Lizzy" Tilley throughout the story.  She has a pivotal role in the end especially.  When Howland wants to sail back to London to make a fortune and suggests she go too, she tells him that her parents died trying to start a life in America and she won't let their dream and hard work be in vain, that there is still more work to do and neighbors to help. This persuades  Howland to stay, which turns out to be a good thing because the boat that went back was attacked by pirates, and of course a couple years later he and Elizabeth marry. While her speech to Howland to persuade him to stay probably isn't accurate (although I don't know personally if that came from research or just an invention of Lynch), there isn't a reason why it couldn't be, and helps readers to imagine women at the time.  It actually makes me want to read a story from Elizabeth Tilley's perspective now.

Overall, I thought this was a great book and definitely worth reading with older kids.  It could open up a lot of questions and be great for having conversations about our history and its portrayal. 

On The Mayflower

Suffering the first winter

Squanto showing them how to plant their crops and manure the fields

Thanksgiving

Beany and His New Recorder... and a literary agent scandal

Beany and His New Recorder by Carol Panter, illustrated by Imero Gobbato (1972, Four Winds Press).

I stumbled across this book online, I believe through another children's lit blog.  I decided I had to have it because I took recorder lessons from the ages of 8-18.  A lot of people don't realize recorder is a classical instrument, not just a kid's practice instrument in music class. Anyway, I ordered a used copy from Amazon and it's a really nice book.

However, what was intriguing to me was what I found in the book.  There was a note written on stationary from Russell and Volkening Literary Agents, signed by "Harriet."  Well, interestingly enough, the book is dedicated to a Harriet Wasserman.  I wondered if it was the same person and who she might be.

A Google search led me to find quite a lot of information about Harriet Wasserman. I found that she was an assistant at Russell and Volkening before going on to start her own literary agency. One of her most famous clients was Saul Bellow, whom she was in love with. She represented Bellow for 25 years, during which time he called her his "coach, manager, and trainer" and a close friend. So she felt betrayed when he switched agents. In 1997 she actually wrote a memoir about the experience called Handsome Is.

Now this is where things get even MORE interesting... she was involved in a huge scandal when she disappeared in 2007 after allegations of not paying clients their royalties.  You can read a whole article about it here.  Some of the clients who sued her were children's authors Walter Dean Myers and Emily Arnold McCully.  (Myers claimed she owed him $120,000, McCully "only" $60,000.) 

Apparently she had suffered several strokes and it was her declining mental state that led to her not paying back her clients.  She was 69 year old in 2007.  I couldn't find anymore information after that year, so it seems she is still missing.

I never thought I would find all this in a cheap used book from Amazon! 

Now, here is the book... I am assuming she was the agent for it.

12/3/2019 Update: I decided to search for Harriet Wasserman again now five years later, and found an obituary. She died on September 24, 2018 at the age of 81. 

The Iridescence of Birds

The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Hadley Hooper (Roaring Books Press, 2014).

I love this book about the famous modern artist Matisse.  Written by the author of Sarah, Plain and Tall, it tells the story of Matisse when he was a little boy and how is mother influenced his art and the way he viewed the world by bringing color into their dreary grey surroundings in France.  Hooper's illustrations perfectly capture the feeling of Matisse's work without just replicating it and keeps it playful for children. 

You can find some good Matisse art activities for kids at The Crafty Classroom and Deep Space Sparkle.

Squanto's Journey

Squanto's Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by Greg Shed (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2000). 

This is a beautifully illustrated story that tells a slightly different version of the first Thanksgiving than what we usually hear. Joseph Bruchac is an Abenaki Indian who has written many wonderful children's books. I appreciated that he wrote of the atrocities against Native Americans in this book, although the end does maybe feel a little too hopeful.  Then again, it is a children's book, and a Thanksgiving story, so I understand why he would do that.  Although many reviews laud this as a historically accurate story from the POV of a Native American, I did see that was on Oyate's list of Thanksgiving books to avoid, so I wonder why (Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed with honesty and integrity.) 

Always an Olivia

Always an Olivia: A Remarkable Family History by Carolivia Herron, illustrated by Jeremy Tugeau (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2012)

This really is a remarkable true family history of the author's.  Her ancestor Sarah was a Jew who lived in Venice, Italy after her family escaped from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition.  One day in the early 1800s, she is kidnapped by pirates to be ransomed off in North Africa.  However, another captive (who she eventually marries) helps the two of them escape and take a ship to America.  They are dropped off at the Georgia Sea Islands, home of the Geechee (or Gullah) people, free American Americans.  Their family eventually intermarries with the Geechees, but their descendents never forget their Jewish roots, always lighting candles on Sabbath.

There is an interesting article about the author's family history here.