Alice and Gert: An Ant and Grasshopper story by Helaine Becker illustrated by Dena Seiferling

The storyline is quiet, but it is sound and solid, and while the narrative speaks linearly, the whimsical illustrations round out the story with depth and nuance. The ant and the grasshopper are softly rendered and oh-so-subtly animated (most especially by the engaging luminosity in their big bug eyes), and insects never looked so cuddly. The soft, pale, earth-toned palette is as easy on the eyes as the gentle story is on the mind. Graceful, kind, and altogether soothing. Kirkus

Alice is the ant; Gert is the grasshopper. Alice is a worker. It is a hot summer, but she is preparing for the winter which is coming very soon. Gert is a dreamer and composer. She spends her days singing and relaxing and cannot understand why Alice is working so hard. Then of course winter arrives and this is where the story becomes a dilemma for the reader and for Alice. Gert has done nothing to prepare for the cold and lack of food over the coming months and so she might starve BUT Alice is kind and compassionate and is able to see Gert has actually helped in her own special way.

"Perhaps you should have planned better,' said Alice. 'Instead, you sang and danced through the long hard days of summer.' ... 'But ... your (songs) lightened my load, and now it's time for me to repay your kindness. I've collected enough food to last the winter - for both of us."

It is so important to share Aesop Fables with children in your library, classroom and home. AND there are so many fantastic versions to use with truly special illustrations. Dena Seiferling creates beautiful pages in this book:

Her illustrations are as classic as the fable, having used her pencil to create profound scenes that are steeped in atmosphere and characters evocative with feeling. From the dramatic Gert who never looks silly as she enjoys her creative pursuits to the tireless Alice who takes the time, amidst her work, to feel, Dena Seiferling makes us appreciate the depth of the story through her characters and the setting. Can Lit for Little Canadians

Here are a couple of other versions of The Ant and the Grasshopper:

Amy Lowry Poole

Jerry Pinkney

Ed Emberley

In the library where I volunteer each week the most recent book display showcased the Aesop Fables held in the collection. As I was reshelving these to make way for the new display (Yarn Yarns knitting in picture books) I stumbled upon Alice and Gert and on the cover I saw the name Dena Seiferling. Over the last eight years my field knowledge of international illustrators has grown exponentially thanks to this fantastic library where I am so privileged to work each week. I previously loved art by Dena Seiferling in these two books:

Night Lunch

King Mouse

Dena Seiferling is a Canadian illustrator and instructor at AuArts, Alberta. Her illustrations are characterised by a love for animals and nature, and she works with a variety of mediums including drawing with graphite and needle-felted sculpture. She has won the Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year Award from the New York Times and New York Public Library for Night Lunch, written by Eric Fan. She is the illustrator of King Mouse by Cary Fagan and illustrated for Joseph Coelho’s Ten-Word Tiny Tales.

Dean Seiferling's newest book is Things I learned from my Dog (due out this year). I am very keen to find this book from 2022:

Paper Son by Julie Leung illustrated by Chris Sasaki

 

Full title: Paper Son: The inspiring story of Tyrus Wong, immigrant and artist.

Take a look at these images from Bambi (Disney films).

"Bambi became a groundbreaking film. Audiences and critics gushed about the art - how it communicated so much by showing so little, how you could almost smell the mossy green of the woods and hear the rushing water of the brook. But in the end, Tyrus was credited only as a background artist."

One of my most favourite discoveries in recent years is the wealth of picture book biographies for young readers. Yes, they are written about famous and familiar people but the best ones allow readers to discover someone unknown.  I knew nothing about the art in Bambi or the artist who did this fabulous work. 

Tyrus Wong travelled to America from China when he was just nine years old. Tyrus arrived in the US at the time of a Federal law called the Chinese Exclusion Act. Tyrus had to change his name and memorise the contents of his forged identity papers. His real name was Wong Geng Yeo but he became Look Tai Yow and then later when he started school in Sacramento he was given a new name - Tyrus Wong. Tyrus excelled at art and so his father, who worked in very lowly jobs, saved enough money to send Tyrus to the Otis art institute. Tyrus did not abandon his Chinese heritage. He studied art from the Song Dynasty and he learned "mountains could look in the distance with a few jagged lines." 

Tyrus eventually found a job at the Disney studio but he worked as an in-betweener which meant the tedious painting of the same scene over and over with only tiny changes. Tyrus heard the studio were making Bambi and he saw a wonderful opportunity. He painted soft watercolour landscape scenes. Walt Disney loved them. Sadly Tyrus was not credited for his work but he never stopped painting - ceramics, silk scarves, murals and menus. He died in 2016 aged 106! In his later years he loved to make kites and you can see images of bright kits on the end papers of this book. Read more here. 

Here is a splendid video of the whole book. I was happy to see this presenter included the end papers and beautiful title page. This book was the winner of the American Library Association's 2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Best Picture Book! Chris Sasaki is the perfect illustrator for this book. Here are some other books by Julie Leung.

I found another picture book about Tyrus:

Manjhi moves a Mountain by Nancy Churnin illustrated by Danny Popovici

Publisher blurb: When a mountain separates Dashrath Manjhi's poor village from schools and hospital, he sees a solution no one else can imagine. Using only a hammer, chisel, and twenty years of exhausting work, Manjhi shows that one determined person can wear down even the most massive of problems.

This is an incredible true story - one I only just discovered today.

Here are a few facts which will expand on the publisher blurb above.

• Manjhi was born in 1934 and he died in 2007
• A mountain blocked Gehlar a village near Gaya in Bihar, India from another village called Wazirgani.
• Wazirgani had running water, doctors, a school and jobs. People in Gehlar live in poverty.
• Manjhi's wife, Falguni Devi, fell on the mountain trail. She died because Manjhi could not reach medical help in time.
• Manjhi decided their village needed access to Wazirgani and so he worked with hand tools after work each day chipping away at the mountain.
• He cut a road 360 feet long, 30 feet high and 25 feet wide. It took him 22 years.
• This book has won numerous awards and has been translated in to 18 languages. 

Here is the road carved by hand by Manjhi:

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Churnin’s prose has an elegance appropriate for her inspiring tale, which is based on a true story. Popovich’s double-page illustrations use a warm palette and are nicely composed. Kirkus

Here is a set of teaching notes from the publisher Creston Books. My friend at Kinderbookswitheverything collects picture book biographies in her school library. The power of these stories comes when you read about wonderful people who do amazing things and yet are often people you may have never heard of. For example I discovered Maria Merian through the biography Summer Birds and Emmanuel's Dream the story of Emmanuel Ofosu when I read the book by Laurie Ann Thompson. These are not related to the book I am discussing here today but they are powerful stories which linger with me.

I am keen to see another book by Nancy Churnin which compares the lives of Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. who were born in the same year. "Both faced ugly prejudices and violence, which both answered with words of love and faith in humanity. This is the story of their parallel journeys to find hope in darkness and to follow their dreams." Booktopia

Where the river runs gold by Sita Brahmachari

Shifa - the one who heals ...

There are scenes near the beginning of this book that I found so horrifying I just had to stop reading and take a breath. In this world of the future, society is completely stratified. Citizens are divided into Paragons, Freedoms and Outlanders. The rich, called Paragons, live almost obscenely opulent lives while the poor live in fear of the authorities in Kairos City.  There are optical eye checking points all over the city. Someone is always watching you.

Shifa has decided to sell her hair so she can leave some money for her father when she, and her brother Themba, leave to work in long hot polytunnels at the pollination farm. The siblings will have no contact with Nabil for the next five years. Shifa goes to a shop called Agora Hairtakers. She has to remove all her clothing and take a shower. Her clothes are taken away and steam cleaned. When she emerges from the shower her daisy dress is returned to her and it is now sparkling clean. Shifa sits in a seat and the hairtaker:

"opened her sharp metal shears. Shifa held her breath and was unable to stop the flow of tears as Nita made a clean sheer cut at the nape of her neck. She caught the length of hair in a pouch-like contraption attached to the chair."

Shifa is paid four hundred and sixty groits. But later she sees hair just like hers for sale for 1,000 groits. "With the groits she had in her pocket she wouldn't even be able to buy a quarter of her own hair."

So much happens in this story and working at the Freedom Farm is every bit as horrible as I anticipated. When the children arrive their palms are tattooed with a unique sunflower, their finger nails are treated (but Shifa bites her nails so this procedure is wretched) and the children are taken to have their eyes changed. The machine is called an Eyequaliser.

"Shifa felt the spherical orb inside the Eyequaliser pincer her lids open, as a jelly like substance shot into her eyes. ... Sifa glanced down at the tattoo on her hand. How she could pick out every coded seed dot in the centre of the sunflower. She peered into the distance, but the survivor tree had grown fuzzy, shimmering like a mirage on the horizon."

The children's eyes are changed because they need to be able to see very find details when they work pollinating many different flowers. This procedure is especially terrible for Themba and while Shifa wants to help, she finds she can no longer protect her precious brother from the horrors that continue to unfold.

Where the River runs gold will be published in July 2019. I highly recommend this book for senior primary and junior high school students. I do hope this book reaches a wide audience. You can read more plot details on the publisher web site. On her web site Sita talks about the inspiration for her story. She other books by Sita on the Love Reading 4 kids site.

I would follow this book with How to Bee which also explores the idea of our future world without bees.  It would be interesting to compare the idea of children as pollinators and to consider which plants are considered important. In How to Bee it is fruit trees and in Where the river runs gold the children pollinate flowers for the rich people to enjoy. The idea of exploiting children for this unnecessary luxury adds to the power of this dystopian story.

Square by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

Square is the second book in a set of three. You can probably guess all the titles Circle, Triangle and here is Square. One very interesting thing I noticed after reading reviews of the Shapes Trilogy is the wildly divergent audience suggestions. Kirkus say Square is for 10+, Triangle is for ages 2-4 and Circle is for 4-8.  I wonder if these were the ages Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen anticipated for these three wonderful books.  In my view these three books could easily be enjoyed by children in Kindergarten right up to adult readers.

Square is such a deep book. How amazing. It has very few words. It does not use a complex vocabulary and has only two shapes as the characters. For me, though, this is not a simple book. It is a book about work (is it futile?), creativity, self esteem and point of view. There would be so much to discuss here with a class of older students.

Square is working hard. His 'job' seems to follow the same routine every day. He seems okay with his life. Perhaps he doesn't question why the blocks need moving each day. Along comes Circle. She sees his blocks and declares they are a work of art. Square in not sure about this new idea. Circle praises the talents of Square and commissions him to make a circle. Square tries so hard but making a perfect circle from one his blocks proves impossible. Square feels like a failure but Circle sees the world in a different way. She sees wonder in his work - a circle of stones with a puddle in the middle which provides a perfect reflection.

"You are a genius,' said Circle.
But was he really?"

I love the shape of Square - it is a square, of course, but with rounded edges. I love the cover made from thick card the kind you usually find on board books. And I love those expressive eyes which seem to look straight at the reader.

Walker Books have made a set of teaching notes based around all three books. Watch this video where Mac and Jon talk about their books. Here is an interview with Mac and Jon.

Read some reviews.

• Publishers Weekly
• The Book Sniffer

This book takes a sweeter turn from its prankish predecessor in that Square works hard to create something for Circle, only to feel like he failed; but when Circle sees what he created, she is “beguiled” once more by his genius.  School Library Journal

For all its brevity, chockablock with philosophical topics to ponder and debate. Kirkus

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Helpful Staff

There was no greater feeling in the world than reading those words. 

Let's begin with the cover of Front Desk. I really like the US (Scholastic) one but I don't think the one offered here (Walker Books) in Australia will appeal to readers. I do hope I am wrong.  Which cover do you like? I wish I had been in the meeting when Walker Books were discussing changing the cover. I would have argued to keep the original. My copy is the Walker one but if I was putting this book into my library I think I might print the US cover and perhaps attach it to inside of the book to show students a different view of this story. If you click the review at the end of this post you can read how Mr Schu actually cried when he saw the cover because he thought it was so perfect!

Mia has recently arrived from China with her parents, with big dreams and with very little money. After a series of horrible jobs her parents apply to manage a motel - The Calivista.

"The Topaz Inn and Lagoon Hotel were right next door and bigger, but I immediately decided I like our little motel the best. ... Our lives were about to change. We were going to become Disneyland-going people. As if things couldn't get any better, the Calivista had a pool! ... This was going to be amazing."

You have probably guessed that none of this dream comes true for Mia. The motel owner is a cruel bully who swindles the family out of the money they were promised, he bans them from using the pool and for every minute of every day some one must 'man' the front desk of the motel so there can be no family outings to anywhere least of all Disneyland.

Mia will not be defeated. She is a problem solver. She is hard working. She does make mistakes but she learns from them and is never defeated. There has to be a way to make things better for everyone but most especially for her parents who had such dreams for their new life in America.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The authentic voice of Mia still lingers with me. I love the connection (explained in the final pages) between this story and the real life experiences of the author. Having started this book one morning I raced home later in the day and continued reading it very late into the night. This is one of those books you cannot put down. There were times, as a I read, that I just want to reach out and help Mia navigate her complex life circumstances or at the very least reach out and give Mia a hug.  Luckily there are some kind "weeklies" living at the motel who do offer help and understanding.

As you know I rarely rate books but I give Front Desk a score of ten out of ten. You can see Kelly Yang talking about her book here in a short Scholastic video. You can read an interview with Kelly here by Kids Book Review. You can read a text extract here and listen to Kelly Yang talk about the real life inspiration for this story.

Read some reviews here if you need more plot details :

Kirkus Star Review
Ms Yingling Reads - this is a very comprehensive review
Horn Book
Mr Schu Reads


Front Desk is testament to how a great story can grab you by the heart and never quite let go. Asian Review of Books

Sir Tony Robinson's Worst Children's jobs in History illustrated by Mike Phillips

If you follow this blog you will know I rarely talk about non fiction.  Taking this one step further if I AM talking about a non fiction title it must be really GOOD - and yes it is.

If you have students or children who enjoy the Horrible History series rush out and grab a copy of this book which won the Blue Peter Best Book with Facts award in 2007.

There are six chapters in this book each with an intriguing heading :

• First get yourself some training
• The great outdoors
• No hiding place
• Mean streets
• Service without a smile
• Slave to the machine

You can get a feel for the colloquial style found in this book from the very first page.

"Stop reading this book right now! Put it down, walk slowly to the kitchen and open the door of the cupboard under the kitchen sink.  Off you go!  Don't touch anything just look. Are you back yet? Did you see lots of plastic bottles ... they make jobs like cleaning ... quick and easy."

Of course if you'd been alive in the Middle Ages you would not have had access to any of these products and every job would be ten times harder than it is now.

What jobs are we talking about?  Here is a list of some that you may never have heard of and there are lots more too.

• mudlark
• costermonger
• link boy
• fuller's apprentice
• jigger-turner

Here is the picture for a fuller's apprentice.  "You had to take off your shoes and socks and climb into a barrel full of other people's wee."  This was the way they processed woven wool.

Each job has an easy to read description and a little job score scroll.  Here are the details for a stepper - a young orphan girl sent from a charity home to scrub doorsteps for a penny each.

Job Score
Stepper
Boredom
steps all look the same
Hard Slog
work till your hands and knees are red
Cash
very little
Glamour
nobody notices you

Each chapter ends with a detailed timeline and there is an excellent index.  This is a book you can read quickly or linger over ... you can dip in or read from the first page to the last.  What ever way you read this book you are sure to learn something new and fascinating and perhaps slightly gruesome.  Watch this little film where Tony Robinson visits an exhibition about the worst jobs.

I would pair this book with some fiction titles such as A very unusual Pursuit, Barnaby Crimes Curse of the Night Wolf, Midnight is a place and Lydie by Katherine Paterson.

I have discovered there are other titles in this series such as these books about World War I and World War II which are popular topics in our library.  These should go on the library shopping list.

The right word Roget and his thesaurus by Jen Bryant illustrated by Melissa Sweet

This wonderful book is simply inspirational - from the delicious words, scrumptious illustrations and profound intellect and work ethic of the man himself - Peter Mark Roget (pronounced 'Roh-Zhay').

The right word begins with a quote by JM Barrie taken out of his book Peter Pan:
"The man is not wholly evil - he has a thesaurus in his cabin."

I purchased this title to add to our growing collection of picture book biographies but this book offers so much more.  Our Grade Three students will study a unit entitled 'People and their beliefs'. Peter Mark Roget is a man of strong belief - a belief in the power of words.  From a young boy Peter loved lists.  In time his lists grew into a book.  "I want everyone to be able to use my WORD BOOK, not just doctors, politicians, and lawyers, but cobblers, fishmongers and factory workers."  And so the famous book used by people all over the world. Roget Thesaurus was born.

Here is an interview with the author.  Here are some teaching ideas.  Read more about the incredibly talented Melissa Sweet here.  Kirkus describes this book as marvelous! And I do too,

Here are some of the words you will find inside : whippersnapper, dodecahedron, rivulet, topsy-turvy, glimmer, luminary, iota, perfection, and unctuousness.  The final endpaper alone will give you many happy hours of word reading pleasure with exactly 1000 words selected by Roget.

You know that feeling, when you pick up a new picture book, and just the endpapers alone have you swooning?