picture book – Reading for you

Riding the Rails

Go West!: The Great North American Railroad Adventure by Pascal Blanchet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a delightful picture book about the history of the railway in North America, as well as a train ride from Montreal to Los Angeles. There are stops along the way in Buffalo, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Cheyenne, Coutis, Calgary, Banff, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The pictures are done in art nouveau, with delightfully done drawings of either the train stations, or features of the city visited. New York gets both Grand Central, as well as a skyline.

When my daughter was young, I though it would be a treat to travel the slow way, on the train. We would take the Coast Starlight from San Jose to Los Angeles and from San Jose to Portland, and marvel at the country side. It is pretty much as depicted in this picture book. Union Station in Los Angeles really has that gorgeous look to it (see images below)

In between the stations, and facts abouat the cites, are facts about the early railroads, such as how the Pullman porters started, or what the first engines looked like.

The only issue I have with this well researched book is that there is no train that comes from Seattle to San Francisco. There never has been. The train to San Francisco stops in Oakland, across the bay.

Here are some examples of the pages:

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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How to fit in too

Where Oliver Fits by Cale Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even if you never take a course in children’s literature, which I have, you can start to recognize certain themes in picture books, and middle school books. For picture books the most often theme is making friends, and knowing your a loved. A variation on that theme is fitting in.

The main theme of fitting in is that you should be yourself, because, of course, that is what we want everyone to realize. You don’t have to pretend to like sports if you would rather play with dolls. You don’t want to pretend to hat veggies, if you secretly love them. You don’t want to pretend to go along with the crowd.

So, this is the story of Oliver, a puzzle piece, who wants to fit in, in both ways. He wants to be part of a puzzle, but he can’t find one where he fits in. So he paints himself to fit in, and the paint wears off. He puts on angles, but that doesn’t help. Finally, he disguises himself, and no one knows who he really is, and he finally fits in. But he is miserable. He has finally fit in a group, but they don’t want him for what he is.

And then he decides he would rather just fit in as himself, and he finds others who have also been trying to fit in, and haven’t been happy. And he finds a puzzle where he finally belongs.

I love how he goes through the thinking, just a as a little kid would do. I love that he figures out that this is not the life he wants to lead. Big, big theme for a little picture book, but it tells a good message, and the colors are beautiful and little Oliver is cute as well.

Good addition to any library or home. Probably close to a 4.5 star book. Not quite 5 stars, but dang close.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Trying to fit in

Rosie the Raven by Helga Bansch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is such a sweet little book. I love that the moral is not that if you are different you should find who you fit in with, but that you learn to be part of your family. What a wonderful message to give.

Rosie is born into the family of ravens, but despite not having wings that fly, she finds that she has wings that grab and carry, and she is able to help her parents gather food. And she doesnt’ need to fly, because she can cling to her parent’s back.

Thoroughly enjoyable. Lovely pictures and story.

Wonderful story of inclusion.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing this book for an honest review.

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The Pullman Porter

The Pullman Porter by Vanita Oelschlager
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great book for teachers or curious students about what was important in the lead-up to the Civil Rights movement. I was not aware of the history of the Pullman porter, nor what part it played in the Civil Rights movement.

Short, brief sentences, easy to read, great pictures, fun facts. This was a delightful book to read.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Sugar and Spice and Chicken Butts

Sugar and Snails by Sarah Tsiang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m sure we have all heard the saying:

What are little girls made of? Sugar and Spice and everything nice. What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails.

And if you have heard it, did you grimice, or just think it wasn’t worth bothering with, or did you wonder why?

That is what this book does. It wonders why. The grandfather is telling the old rhyme to his grandchildren, and they ask why? Why can’t it be other things? And so they come up with so many other things that it would be.

And so they muse, and it is so much fun, and the pictures, are great too, and very whimsical.

This should be a delight to all kids, and bring up discussions, or just read it on the level of being fun.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Holocaust memento

Fania’s Heart by Anne Renaud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow.

I thought I had read enough of Nazis and concentration camps. Does the world need one more book about it, including a picture book.

Yes, they do. This picture book is the story of a real woman who lived and survived Auschwitz, and on her 20th birthday received the little heart birthday card shown in these pictures below.

It is always important, to repeat stories that we don’t want to happen again. Each new generation needs to hear of what happened in the past, as the last of the survivors die off.

Very gentle, but real book. Highly recommend this to one and all.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Picture book of backyard chickens

Let’s Hatch Chicks!: A Day-by-Day Chick Hatching Guide for Kids by Lisa Steele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When one of my first hens disappeared, I though she had been eaten by a hawk. So much for having free-range chickens.

Imagine how surprised I was to not only discover her, about three weeks later, but also her eight little chicks. And although she had sat on them all, in the middle of winter, where the temperatures at night had gotten to freezing, they were all fine, and each one different from their mother.

What I didn’t know back then, could have been answered by this book, which is unique in the way it looks at the life cycle of a hen, by focusing on both incubator chickens, as well as ones raised by hens themselves.

And one of the facts that they pointed out, was, that although chickens will sit on their eggs for the whole three week to hatch them, they couldn’t possibly have laid all the eggs themselves, since they can only put out about one a day at most. What they do is let other hens lay their eggs, and then sit on all of them.

So, I like how this shows kids how baby chicks grow, both if they are with their mother hens, and in an incubator.

Well written, and follows one mother hen around, through the whole process. Good introduction to kids on life cycle.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Being a crow is beautiful

Lila and the Crow by Gabrielle Grimard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How do you fit in? Do you change? Do you conform? You can’t change your skin. You can’t change your eyes. You can’t change your body.

In this sweet little story of Lila, the new girl, she is teased because she has hair, eyes and skin like a crow, or so the children say. She wants so to fit in, she keeps hiding the things she is teased about, until you can’t see her at all, under all her clothes.

Then, in a beautiful moment, the crows show her how being a crow is beautiful, their feathers are not solid black, but bits of purple, and they shine and are soft. A rain of feathers falls on her, and she makes her Halloween costume and embraces her crow self.

Wonderful tale of how you don’t have to change.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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What is POTUS

When Penny Met POTUS by Rachel Ruiz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, this was fun. I was going to sit down and write reviews of a whole bunch of pictures books I read today, but I had to stop right here, after reading this one, and write about how much I enjoyed it.

The story is about a little girl who gets to go to work with her mother who works for POTUS. The little girl doesn’t know what that means. She thinks with a name like that, it must be a monster or an alien, and she really wants to meet it. [POTUS is a nickname for the President Of The United States.]

Her mother takes her to work, and she sneaks out in search of her monster POTUS. She asks people if they have see this POTUS, and they all say, not right that minute, but they saw POTUS earlier.

Finally, she runs into a woman feeding the fish, and she turns out to be the POTUS. Penny is so disappointed because she is human. But then the POTUS shares ice cream with her, and that makes her being human ok.

Just look at that delightful POTUS:

I loved that this book is on such an in the moment level, and so told from Penny’s point of view. She has a delightful imagination. I love that the president is a woman, and Penny is not surprised that she is, but that she is human. And I loved that her mother was able to take her to work with her.

So, I think this picture book would appeal to kids reading it or just looking at the pictures, as well as parents or guardians reading it.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Horrors of Residency school in a picture book

I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an amazing book. It is written simply and too the point, based on the life of the author’s grandmother.

In the United State, Australia, and Canada, and perhaps other places as well, the Indigenous people were removed from their homes and families and forced to become “white”. They were forbidden to speak their native tongue, forbidden to eat their food, and forbidden to have any contact with their families.

The author’s grandmother was one such child in 1928, in Canada. She and her bothers were removed from their family and forced to speak English, and beaten when they did not. This did not just happen to a few children, and this did not just happen back in the olden days. The last of the residential schools closed in 1996!

Perfect book for teachers to discuss history. Perfect book for young children to read to understand what happened.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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