The Imagineer by Christopher Cheng illustrated by Lucia Masciullo

These objects of Grandpa’s—obsolete and out-of-fashion—are valued for the way they have fulfilled a need at a particular time and revered for the creativity of invention. Old things are interesting ...  Reading Time

Penny is an inventor. Penny is a maker. Penny loves to design interesting contraptions. She makes wonderful inventions but their apartment is very small. Then Penny is taken to visit her grandfather. His spacious house is filled with wonderful things from the past - things Penny has never seen. There is a wall mounted telephone; a pump organ; and a mechanical butter churn. Then Penny steps inside her grand father's shed and she is blown away. 

"And Penny was sure that these thingamajigs and whatchamacallits and fandanged contraptions ... would be useful."

The final fold out page will make you gasp when you see the way Penny has combined so many wonderful things found in her grandfathers shed into her new travelling machine. This is a page that you will want to explore very closely. 

I am not sure if I am correct but I think The National Library of Australia commission our well known Australian children's authors and illustrators to produce books which explore parts of their extensive collection. In the book I talked about yesterday Jane Jolly explored the history of Sikh's in Australia. In this book all of the objects from the National Library are carefully referenced with their catalogue number so you can explore further.  This makes for a rich resource which is sure to be very useful for Primary school classes who study history.

Taking a close look at the cover. Readers can anticipate the design and make or STEM aspect of this story but it is also clear the character is a child as evidenced by the letter ‘m’ in crayon. 

Reading this book is a rich experience. There are themes of perseverance; imagination; problem solving; curiosity; and inter-generational relationships.  I really appreciated the rich vocabulary - words such as massive; miniscule; flabbergasted; phantasmagorical; and pondered. And there are also delicious invented words such as incredibleacous; stupendorific; and whatchamacallits. The illustrations are carefully positioned on each page use a consistent and aesthetically pleasing colour palette. The end papers invite careful study. 

It is fun to explore the eclectic collection of treasures on the final pages such as 1907 wine and jelly press; the house fire engine from 1890; and the sad iron from 1907.

Chris Cheng has a trailer with terrific sound effects on his web site.  Here is a set of detailed teachers notes. 

Thinking about the theme of this book as an exploration of history through objects I also found this wonderful resource from the UK - Teaching History with 100 Objects. 

This book reminded me of a very old book - The Weird things in Nana's house.

You might also explore Bamboozled and Australian Kids Through the Years:

Bamboozled

Australian Kids Through the Years

If you are using The Imagineer with a group of older students try to find this picture book:

I think the history themes are the main focus of this book but you might think of The Imagineer as a book about STEM and inventors and so you could hunt for these:

The Imagineer is a 2022 CBCA Notable Picture Book.

The one thing you'd save by Linda Sue Park illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng

 

Here is a book I was very keen to explore because:

• The title made me curious
• The cover is filled with interesting objects
• It's by Linda Sue Park - I am a huge fan of her work
• AND bonus - this is a verse novel or perhaps a better word might be novella (it is quite short at 65 pages)

Here is the school assignment:

"Imagine that your home is on fire. You're allowed to save one thing. 

Your family and pets are safe, so don't worry about them.

Your Most Important Thing. Any size. A grand piano? Fine."

And one more thing as our first narrator explains "Ms Chang says we don't have to write anything down, just think about it so we can discuss it with everyone."

I should also add this class has a lovely motto

WE PROTECT, AFFECT, RESPECT ONE ANOTHER!

So what do the students elect to save?  As you would expect in a verse novel there are poignant things; funny things; personal things; and some practical things.  Linda Sue Park takes her reader on a emotional journey as each student explains their choice. You can see some of these on the front cover.

You will want to share this book with a class. Here are a set of discussion questions from the US publisher HMH Books. Here is the web site for UK based illustrator Robert Sae-Heng. Here is a video where Linda and Robert talk about their book (49 minutes). Listen to an audio sample. For an Australian audience there are some possibly less familiar references in this book such as famous baseball players but this is one of the things I love about sharing children's books - all the incidental learning about other cultures and the lives of other kids from different families living in different circumstances. I do need to add, sadly, that here in Australia this slim book is very expensive ($29) but perhaps one day a paperback edition will be released. If your budget allows - The one thing I'd Save would be an excellent addition to your verse novel collection.

It’s impossible not to feel a sense of renewal from this thoughtful book. BookPage

Park’s extended rumination has the power to bring us home. Kirkus Star

Linda Sue Park is the USBBY nominee for the 2022 Hans Christian Andersen Award along with illustrator Kadir Nelson.

The poems in this book are written using a Korean poetry form called sijo.

Sijo is similar to haiku, a traditional Japanese poetic form, because they both have a fixed number of stressed syllables in each line. Sijo has 3 short lines or 6 long lines. But instead of focusing on nature themes, like haiku, Siju poems always have an ironic, unexpected twist in the last line. Great Kids Books

Linda Sue Park had explored this form in a previous book which is illustrated by Istvan Banyai (I love his book Zoom and the sequel Re-Zoom):

If you wanted to explore another verse novel with voices of students try to find The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary: 

And Pookie Aleera is not my Boyfriend and other books by Australia writer Steven Herrick.

Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park

Historical Fiction is a tricky genre.  The author has to do detailed research so that the period in history feels authentic while ensuring the story feels fresh and does read like a list of history facts piled one after another. The other complex issue comes when the story involves a timeslip. How will the character go back in time? how will the character return to their 'real life'? and most importantly what has happened to time itself?

In Playing Beatie Bow Abigail, a fourteen year old girl who lives with her mother in the Rocks area of Sydney, finds herself transported back to 1873. 

Blurb: "The game is called Beatie Bow and the children play it for the thrill of scaring themselves. But when Abigail is drawn in, the game is quickly transformed into an extraordinary, sometimes horrifying, adventure as she finds herself transported to a place that is foreign yet strangely familiar."

You can read a full plot description here.

Lets go back to my original questions:

Does the story feel authentic? Yes and Ruth Park calls on all our senses with her glorious descriptions of this area in 1873. Her book filled with richly researched scenes but it never feels like a history lesson:

"Stone steps ran up one side, and on the other two tottering stairways curled upon themselves, overhung with vines and dishevelled trees, and running amongst and even across roofs of indescribable shanties like broken down farm sheds. These dwellings were propped up with tree trunks and railway sleepers; goats grazed on their roofs,; and over all was the smell of rotting seaweed, ships, wood smoke, human ordure, horse and harness."

"the night was almost silent. There was no sound of traffic except a dray's wheels rolling like distant thunder over the cobbles at the docks. She could hear the waves breaking on the rocks of Dawes Point and Walsh Bay."

"The gutters, made of two tipped stones, were full of garbage. Abigail saw scaly tails twitching amongst the rotting debris and sprang away."

I also loved the way Ruth Park lets her reader hear the voices of Beatie and her family:

"I dunna ken what that means,' said Beatie gruffly, ' but I can tell by your mug it's no compliment. I'm telling you straight, I'll not have you come between them. I'll break your head first." 

How does the character move through time and what has happened to time during their absence? Abigail chases young Beatie Bow through the streets of the Rocks and as she races along the area transforms from 1980 to 1873. While she is running she hears the Town Hall clock - it is five thirty. Abigail spends many weeks or even several months with the Bow and Tallisker family but on her return she hears the last note of the half hour. This means time has stood still in the 'real world' but of course Abigail herself has changed both outwardly and more importantly inwardly. 

In a few weeks a group of friends and I have tickets to see a theatre production of Playing Beatie Bow so in preparation I just re-read this classic Australian young adult book. Playing Beatie Bow won the CBCA Children's Book of the Year award in 1981 and the Boston Globe-Horn Book award in 1982.

In my Primary school library teachers often asked to read Playing Beatie Bow to their class. I always said this book was more suitable for a High School audience which is why I have put Young Adult in my set of labels. Abigail is abducted in an area called Suez Canal. The people who take her have plans to use her in their prostitution business. Ruth Park vividly describes the women and their dependence on alcohol and other drugs. These are not scenes I would share with a younger child.

"A girl in a draggletail pink wrapper wandered over and looked at her curiously. She seemed half imbecile, with no front teeth and a nose with a flattened bridge. ... something soft and squashy moved beneath her. She realised with horror that it was a woman, a kind of woman, ... with tangled hay-like hair, cheeks bonfire red with either rouge or fever, and a body hung with parti-coloured rags."

I first read Playing Beatie Bow in 1981. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it again forty years later. One thing that struck me this time is the way Ruth Park moves Abigail on from her fierce anger to a level of self realisation where she can feel true empathy for others.  The final scenes, back in 1980, do read a little like a fairy tale but I was so happy when Abigail found her one true love. Playing Beatie Bow is still in print. I hope the new edition (mine was from 1998) has a slightly larger font to give it a fresh look. The cover is the same as the one at the top of this post. I note it has 14 extra pages so I am hopeful that the print and white space are now more appealing.

Playing Beatie Bow has had many covers over the last 40 years including one I found in German: