Author: Loree Burns

Ack! I have so many books I want to post about this week … but I’ve had some work to tend to, and some reading to finish, and then there is the matter of a teeny, tiny birthday BASH happening at our house on Saturday. I’ve resorted to a list. Forgive me!

THE MAN WHO WALKED BETWEEN TWO TOWERS
Written and Illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein
Roaring Brook Press, 2003
Category: Picture book
We’ve read this favorite dozens of times, and still one or another of the kids frequently pull it off the shelf and ask me to read it. This is the first year my boys were tuned into the anniversary of 9/11/2001; tonight’s reading was steeped with new layers of meaning for them.

PUMPKINHEAD
By Eric A. Kimmel
Illustrated by Steve Haskamp
Winslow, 2001
Category: Picture Book
I cannot get this odd little book out of my (pumpkin) head. It has been dubbed “silliness”, and my daughter certainly agreed, but I read much more in the pages of this picture book. Satire. And lots of it.

THE THREE SNOW BEARS
Written and Illustrated by Jan Brett
Putnam, 2007
Category: Picture Book
We love getting lost in Jan Brett’s books. Who cares if the story is one we’ve heard many times before? The over-the-top fabulous illustrations are an entirely new adventure.

CHRONOBIOLOGY: BIOLOGICAL TIMEKEEPING
Edited by Jay C. Dunlap, Jennifer J. Loros and Patricia J. DeCoursey
Sinauer Associates, 2004
Category: Text Book
I kid you not. Research … you gotta love it. Turns out I once made apple cider at the home of two of these editors; gotta love life’s interesting curlicues too.

THE PRINCE OF THE POND
By Donna Jo Napoli
Puffin, 1992

Category: Middle-grade Fiction

This is one of my all time favorite read-aloud chapter books; I have now read it to my kids twice. It is impossible to read without doing the voices, which explains why my kids spent most of both readings rolling on their bedroom floor belly-laughing. And that explains why I enjoy this book so much … all that rolling and belly-laughing makes me happy.

The story is told by a female frog, later named Jade, who comes across the craziest thing in the hag’s yard: a giant, clumsy, and very handsome male frog. She finds him on the slate walkway, right next to a pile of fancy human clothes. Although the big male has trouble hopping and croaking and even catching bugs with his tongue, he seems like a nice frog. Jade sticks with him, and so we are treated to a frog’s-eye view of the frog prince … um, I mean the fawg pin.

Our book picks for the rest of the week are banned and beautiful (we’ve chosen #14 and #21). Happy Banned Books Week to one and all!

RED KAYAK
By Priscilla Cummings
Puffin Books, 2004

Category: Middle grade fiction

Okay, that last post was a little … smug? Snarky? Presumptuous? Let me try again …

Brady, is a good kid. So are his friends, J.T. and Digger. They live on the Chesapeake Bay where they can crab and oyster fish together in summer, skate together in winter, and help one another with chores (endless chores) all year round. But even good kids make mistakes, and this book—this incredible book—shows readers how hard owning up to those mistakes can be.

RED KAYAK is intense, gut-wrenching, and difficult to put aside once you’ve begun. I have added it to my “Favorite Books Ever” list and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Now, as I suggested earlier … read this book!

BIG SLICK
By Eric Luper
FSG, 2007

Category: Young adult fiction

I’ve warned you. I’ve told you and told you again that this book was coming … and that it was a must read. And now I am back to tell you that BIG SLICK is here!

My copy arrived on Friday, and it has been an incredible weekend. I’ve been able to scour the cover, analyze the flap copy, giggle over the author blurb, marvel at the snazzy interior design choices, and, most importantly, read the book. It is a dizzying thing, to read in published form for the first time a book you watched grow from a short story idea into a debut novel … and to see in print for the first time the name of a person you know is destined for big things.

BIG SLICK is here. Read it!

CAMEL RIDER
By Prue Mason
Charlesbridge, 2007

Category: Middle grade fiction

Lately my boys have had a lot of questions about the war. The most troublesome for me has been this: “Why doesn’t it feel like we are at war?” I have mixed feelings when I tell them that nine-year-old boys living in Iraq today are probably experiencing a war more like the one my boys hold in their imaginations … armies, battles, scary times. It reassures them (and me) to know they are far away from the danger, but it inevitably reminds me how little I know about life in the Middle East. It was against the backdrop of these worries that we decided to read CAMEL RIDER; we were hoping for a glimpse at life in that part of the world.

CAMEL RIDER is the story of two boys: Adam lives with his family in an ex-pat community in Abudai, Walid is a slave, forced to race camels for abusive owners. The boys come from different cultures, speak different languages, practice different religions, and live completely disparate lives … but when war comes unexpectedly to Abudai, they are thrust together, alone and in the desert. Their only chance at survival is finding a way to work together.

The book did give the boys and me a better sense for the Middle East as a place, and we came away with at least an appreciation for the cultural differences between Arabs and westerners. Kudos to Prue Mason, and to Charlesbridge, for giving us a place to start.

One last note: the author uses both Adam’s and Walid’s points of view to tell the story, and the switches happen frequently, even within chapters. These point of view changes are marked in the text by font changes, but are harder to convey when reading the book out loud.