Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jerri Watts

I spent a long time reading Kizzy Ann Stamps - over a week.  Not because I wasn't enjoying it but because I just didn't want it to end - this is the mark of a truly wonderful book.

Kizzy Anne is an African American girl living in the 1960s. She is part of a world where people are treated differently and at times very unfairly just because of the colour of their skin.  Kizzy Ann has a voice - she expresses her confusion about life and her hopes and dreams through letters to her new teacher Miss Anderson and later through a journal.  The letters begin on July 1, 1963 and by September Kizzy Ann and hopefully some other students will move to a 'white or integrated school.'.  Early on Kizzy Ann asks the teacher about bathrooms.  "I know I can't use the ones in town, no matter how bad I have to go... Am I going to have to hold it all day?"  The teacher writes back (we don't read these directly but Kizzy Ann relates their contents) to say there will be one stall out of three set aside for the black kids.  This may give readers a small insight into the life and times of Kizzy Ann.

We have be talking about African American rights with our Grade 5 students this term and learning about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.  This little book, Kizzy Ann Stamps, is the perfect way to extend an understanding of this complex time in history.

Kizzy Ann has one very special and loyal friend - her dog Shag.  "Shag is the only one in the world who doesn't sneak glances at my scar.  She just looks me in the eye, dead on, and I prefer that.  You'd think I was a monster, the way people slide their glances around at me."

As a nine year old Kizzy Ann was helping with the harvest on the next farm belong to a white man called Mr Feagans. His son, Frank Charles, also loves Shag and on the day of the accident he knocks into Kizzy Ann and she falls onto a scythe that they have been using to cut the corn stalks.  "My scare is sizable, I suppose.  People do stare.  And it aches plenty when the weather socks in. Mama calls me Moon Child, because the scar is shaped like a crescent moon."

Kizzy Ann is a gifted student and a hard worker but there is so much to adjust to in her new school.  She is forced to wear a hand-me-down dress from a rich white classmate and has to endure teasing and some bullying but she also she excels at spelling and wins the spelling bee. Sadly she cannot attend the finals  "I should have known that winning the spelling bee wouldn't have meant I could really go. Of course they wouldn't have a way to reserve a room for a black girl in the hotel."

Kizzy Ann meets other injustices.  She has to ride in the back of the bus and suffer some abuse from the bus driver, she is not allowed to try clothes on in a dress shop - this horrified me "Folks like us aren't allowed to try on clothes in a dressing room.  The owner of the store doesn't want to clothes to actually touch our skin. He says ... he can't sell the clothes we don't buy if they've touched our skin.  So we either have to pick something of the rack and buy it or we put it on over our own clothes right there in the middle of the story and you have to wear long sleeves and gloves to try things on, so your skin and 'body oils' don't 'soil' the clothes."

The really special part of this story, though, comes from her relationship with Shag and the hard work they put into competing in a local dog and sheep show.  This reminded me a little of the wonderful book Shiloh.

Here is a detailed review which will give you more of the plot. I especially liked the way Jerri Watts wove all the historic details into this story while at the same time giving the reader a very satisfying story and a beautiful character to love.  Here is an excellent power point lesson plan.

If you enjoy Kizzy Ann Stamps I also recommend Walking to the bus rider blues which we also have in our library and for an older audience -  The Watsons go to Birmingham 1963.

The vivid historical setting of this short and satisfying read will leave readers feeling they have experienced life in Kizzy Ann’s world.

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

If you have read some of my blog you will know I adore verse novels.  When I was in New York I visited the famous children’s bookstore Books of Wonder.  My problem in a bookstore like this is what book or books to buy.  As I browsed along the shelves I saw Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson. I have seen this author mentioned on lots of book lists and while I have read some reviews of her books I have never been quite sure if her books would be good to purchase for my school library.

I bought Locomotion and read it in one sitting!  In fact I loved it so much that a few weeks later I gave my copy to Joyce, the US Reading teacher I mentioned when I was talking about The world according to Humphrey.  We had talked about how much we love verse novels so this book was the perfect gift.

I continue to be amazed at the way verse novels consistently present complex and deeply emotional stories from such brief texts.  The real name of our narrator is Lonnie Collins Motion or Lo Co Motion.  His mum loves to dance to the song Come on Baby do the Locomotion hence the name.  This is a special memory for Lonnie.  I say memory because Lonnie's parents are dead through a tragedy that is so profound I will not elaborate.  Jacqueline Woodson, just like Sharon Creech in Love that dog, slowly reveals what has happened and why Lonnie is living with Miss Edna while his sister is far away living with a new mama. “The floors are made of wood and there’s pretty rugs in different spots.  … I don’t lean back though cause Lili’s new mama will give me a look. … I take a little sip of milk and make sure to set my glass back down on the coaster thing ‘cause I know Lili’s new mama is watching me from the kitchen.”

This is a book for a sensitive reader in upper Primary.  It has won many awards which you can see listed on the author’s own web site.  As an added bonus I read this book while I was visiting Brooklyn and New York.  You can find some teaching notes here.  Here are some details about the poetry.  I do not give books a rating but I would give Locomotion ten out of ten!

Junebug by Alice Mead

Junebug has only 100 pages and yet it packs in a powerful story of growing up African American, poor, in a single parent family and in “the projects”. Luckily Junebug is living near water. I looked on Google maps to see New Haven, Connecticut and now I understand about the ferry trip he takes with his mother and little sister Tasha.

More on that ferry trip in a moment. Junebug has a big dream. The dream to go sailing. As the story opens we hear Junebug's thoughts as he imagines he is on a small yacht trimming the sails and following the breeze. Reading this book at this time in Australia feels quite serendipitous as the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race is just concluding. While it is wonderful Junebug has such a magical dream by contrast he is living in such a dreadful environment. It almost makes you cry out in pain for him and his sister. His neighborhood is dominated by poverty and drug dealers.

“There’s just a wall of old, smashed-up windows rising up to the sky. The embankment is piled high with dead leaves and trash stuck up against the fence … burned out cars sit in the lot, with no tires on them.”

There is one small glimmer of kindness in the form of a library run by volunteers and housed in a small space in the basement of his apartment building. One truly special lady comes each day and she has begun to teach Tasha to read. I love the way she uses Peter Rabbit to do this. Then in an awful heart wrenching scene violence erupts outside the door of the library and Mrs Swanson, an elderly lady who works as a volunteer running the library declares “That’s it … as of today, the library is closed. I refuse to stay here any more. I’ll tell the church. The reading program is over.”

Turning ten will mean Junebug will be forced to participate in a gang and this is something he dreads but can see no way to avoid until his mother mentions she has the chance of a new job in a different part of town, a new job of living in and caring for elderly people so Junebug and Tasha would live in a new home and attend a different school.

Now back to the dream of sailing. Junebug has a fabulous plan. He has been collecting bottles and he plans to write notes to place inside each one. For his birthday he has told his mother all he wants is corks. Can you make a connection between the bottles, corks and the ferry ride?

I now discover there are two more books about Junebug so I will need to investigate these for our library. I have also discovered that Oprah has book lists for children and that this title once appeared on her list. I don't usually give books a rating but I would give this one ten out of ten!