Module 5: One Crazy Summer

Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One crazy summer. New York: Amistad.

Summary: Delphine, who is eleven, and her two sisters, Vonetta- nine, and Fern- seven, are headed from Brooklyn, New York to Oakland, California to see the mother that left them seven years before. For one month during the summer, they will be without the city, the father and the grandmother, Big Ma, that they have known and endure the standoffish nature of the woman who birthed them. As the eldest, Delphine tries to navigate her sisters through the strange new setting as they experience Oakland in 1968 against the backdrop of the Black Panther Movement. Their world is opened up as they figure out what it means to be in a time of revolution, to be young and to be the daughters of a mother they have never known.

Response: I absolutely loved reading this book and experiencing Oakland through the eyes of Delphine. The energy in her narrations translated genuinely of a young person who had to grow up a little too quickly to support her sisters. I felt present in the moments of nervousness when addressing her no-nonsense mother or when feeling guilty for having fun as a kid should do. I especially liked the way that she interpreted what was happening with the Black Panther Party, how it would affect her and her sisters and what she gained from the experience of community pride. I thought the dynamic between her and her sisters was enjoyable and felt real while propelling the events in the story.

Reviews:

One Crazy Summer By Rita Williams-Garcia.

Feb. 2010.224p.Amistad Gr. 4-7

Eleven-year-old Delphine has only a few fragmented memories of her mother, Cecile, a poet who wrote verses on II walls and cereal boxes, played smoky jazz records, and abandoned the family in Brooklyn after giving birth to her third II daughter. In the summer of 1968, Delphine's father decides that seeing Cecile is "something whose time had come," and Delphine boards a plane with her sisters to Cecile's home in Oakland. What they find there is far from their California dreams of Disneyland and movie stars. "No one told y'all to come out here," Cecile says. "No one wants you out here making a mess, stopping my work." Like the rest of her life, Cecile's work is a mystery conducted behind the doors of the kitchen that she forbids her daughters to enter. For meals, Cecile sends the girls to a Chinese restaurant or to the local, Black Panther--run community center, where Cecile is known as Sister Inzilla and where the girls begin to attend youth programs. Regimented, responsible, strong-willed Delphine narrates in an unforgettable voice, but each of the sisters emerges as a distinct, memorable character, whose hard-won, tenuous connections with their mother build to an aching, triumphant conclusion. Set during a pivotal moment in African American history, this vibrant novel shows the subtle ways that political movements affect personal lives; but just as memorable is the finely drawn, universal story of children reclaiming a reluctant parent's love.--Gillian Engberg

Program: Have a Black History in fiction book talk during the month of February and incorporate this book as well as others to discuss the movements that have taken place over the last several decades and how youth groups have always taken part in them.

Module 5: The Tequila Worm

Canales, V. (2005). The tequila worm. New York: Wendy Lamb Books.

Summary: Sofia grows up in McAllen, Texas with her Catholic Hispanic family, including her younger sister Lucy, her parents, cousins and many other extended family members and friends. As she grows, she is inspired by books and her studies to learn about the life outside of her small town. When she gets the opportunity to go to a boarding school in Austin, Texas, she must find balance between her pursuit of knowledge and her connection to family.

Response: I have mixed feelings about this book only because I felt like the perspective of the main character, Sofia, lacked self-understanding. At times I felt like the conversations that she had and her responses to what her family would say to her were portrayed in a condescending manner. This made it difficult for me to connect with her experiences throughout the book. What did really bring me into the book were the vivid descriptions of her world- from the details of her Tia’s makeup and giant storytelling bag, to the slow and thorough process of her and her father cleaning and cooking beans. These moments were captivating and made me feel as if I was right there witnessing everything.

Reviews:

The Tequila Worm

VIOLA CANALES. Random/Lamb

(202p) ISBN 0-385-74674-1

This tender first novel suffers somewhat from an awkward structure. Narrator Sofia, whose life story hews closely to the author's own Texas barrio-to-Harvard Law trajectory, begins by relating quotidian childhood experiences as vignettes. Three successive chapters go from first communion to dyeing Easter cascarones to trick-or-treating. A quarter of the way into the novel, she is suddenly 14 and has been offered a scholarship to a boarding school in Austin, Tex., 350 miles from her home in McAllen. The loosely connected anecdotes then shift to a conventional narrative thread about convincing her parents to let her attend. What will keep readers enthralled are the details of Sofia's home life--from the sobremesa, a "sacred time" after dinner in which the family reconnects through conversation, to the worm of the title, a critter soaked in mescal that acts as a "cure for homesickness" when eaten. Readers may well feel unprepared for both a death at novel's end and Sofia's out-of-the-blue neighborhood activism--but the characters are real and engaging, the vignettes funny and enlightening, and Sofia's lack of cynicism is refreshing. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

The Tequila Worm. (2005). Publishers Weekly, 252(46), 49-49.

* Canales, Viola. The Tequila Worm. 2005. 176p. Random/Wendy Lamb, $15.95 (0-385-74674-1); lib. ed., $17.99 (0-385-90905-5).

Gr. 6-9. From an early age, Sofia has watched the comadres in her close-knit barrio community, in a small Texas town, and she dreams of becoming "someone who makes people into a family," as the comadres do. The secret, her young self observes, seems to lie in telling stories and "being brave enough to eat a whole tequila worm." In this warm, entertaining debut novel, Canales follows Sofia from early childhood through her teen years, when she receives a scholarship to attend an exclusive boarding school. Each chapter centers on the vivid particulars of Mexican American traditions--celebrating the Day of the Dead, preparing for a cousin's quinceanera. The explanations of cultural traditions never feel too purposeful; they are always rooted in immediate, authentic family emotions, and in Canales' exuberant storytelling, which, like a good anecdote shared between friends, finds both humor and absurdity in sharply observed, painful situations from weathering slurs and other blatant harassment to learning what it means to leave her community for a privileged, predominately white school. Readers of all backgrounds will easily connect with Sofia as she grows up, becomes a comadre, and helps rebuild the powerful, affectionate community that raised her.--Gillian Engberg

Engberg, G. (2005, October 15). Canales, Viola. The Tequila Worm. Booklist, 102(4), 47.

Program: Have this book available as part of the Dia de los Muertos display. Have an event where participants, young and old, can bring some sort of token or items that represents a part of their family history, and share the stories in small groups.

Module 4: I, Juan de Pareja

Treviño, E. B. (1978). I, Juan de Pareja. New York: Yearling Book.

Summary: Juan de Pareja, a slave, tells the story of his life and how he comes to work for the great Spanish painter Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. Juan tells of his trials through life as a slave, the kindness of his master, and his desire to paint under the tutelage of his master even though it is illegal for a slave to do so. Through serving and supporting his master in Spain and in travels to Italy, Juan gains understanding of the world around him and his role in it.

Response: I found it interesting reading a piece from the perspective of a Black slave that was written during a time (1965) when perspectives in the U.S. on ethnic groups of color were still limited. I thought it to be well written and interesting as it pulled from the historical context of the life of Juan de Pareja as he may have lived it in serving Velazquez as his master. All of his emotions are appropriate- his attitudes towards kindness and viciousness are that of one who understands himself as a whole human who happens to be bound by the shackles of slavery. I especially like the introduction of Lolis, the slave that attends to the wife of Velazquez when she is aging and ill, because Juan is confronted with the realities of the lived slave experience from someone else. He is always approached with moments in his life that help him grow and understand the world around him.

Review:

In I, Juan de Pareja, Elizabeth Borton de Trevino unites two favorite strands of her previous work — her love for the Hispanic people and her interest in their artistic heritage. In 1959, she had already attempted a novel about El Greco, The Greek of Toledo, but I, Juan de Pareja describes the complex relationship between two vastly different painters. Taking as her starting point the famous Velazquez portrait of Pareja which now hangs in the Museo del Prado, the author utilizes portraits of both artists to illustrate crucial moments in their lives. There generally is no historical basis for her interpretation of the genesis of the paintings, but the weaving of historical data, authentic artistic works, and fictional narrative is ingenious and well conceived. Of special merit is the final glimpse of Philip IV, painting, with Juan’s help, the red cross of Santiago on Velazquez’s breast in his masterpiece Las Meninas.

The year of the publication of I, Juan de Pareja, 1965, was one of racial turmoil in the United States. In the afterwords, Borton de Trevino alludes to this strife and expresses the opinion that her story of two men, one black, one white, foreshadows all that can be achieved in the present.

Yet there is no moralizing tone in the novel. The author lets the situation and actions of her characters — the slave afraid to be sold, the princess refusing to be in the same room with a black man, the cruel conduct of a gypsy who is himself an outcast — speak for themselves. If there is any tendency toward sententiousness, it lies in the pronouncements of Velazquez concerning his art.

Besides its interpretation of a past relationship used to prefigure possible harmony in the present, I, Juan de Pareja is original in its treatment of a Hispanic theme. Credible books on historical Hispanic figures are rare indeed, let alone one dealing with two painters of the seventeenth century. The author wished to open children’s (and adults’) eyes to the richness of Hispanic culture. This book is well read with copies of both Velazquez’s and Pareja’s paintings in front of the reader.

Essay by: Charlene E. Suscavage

Suscavage, C. E. (1991). I, Juan de Pareja. Masterplots II: Juvenile & Young Adult Fiction Series, 1-2.

Program: Have a display with the painting of Juan de Pareja by Velazquez and ask children who come in to create a back story for the painting. Why was it painted? Who is the man in the painting? What do his clothes say about him? The expression on his face? Encourage them to read the book after creating the story to see how it compares to what they imagined. All written ideas will be posted with the picture.

Module 4: Holes

 

Sachar, L. (1998). Holes. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Summary: Stanley Yelnats is an overweight kids with a family curse that puts him in the wrong place at the wrong time and is accused of a crime. He is sent to a juvenile camp where he and several other wrong-doers are sentenced to digging a 5 foot long 5-foot deep whole every day. Stanley gains a sense of himself, makes and breaks friendships and ultimately gets clued into a mystery that has been several generations in the making.

Response: I had a difficult time putting this book down! I never read Holes when I was younger, and looked forward to the opportunity to do so as an examination of award winning books. I loved reading how everyone’s story was intertwined; it had me constantly guessing and going back to earlier parts of the book. Overall, I think this is an incredible book that is engaging and easy to read.

**Note: I write my response before I look at reviews, and I was quite surprised by this reviewers critique of the ending. I thought it was well thought out, tying in the importance of Zero reading, the warden and her cronies destroying files, and the importance of Kate Barlow’s peaches and Sam’s onions.

Reviews:

Gr. 6-9. Middle-schooler Stanley Yelnats is only the latest in a long line of Yelnats to encounter bad luck, but Stanley's serving of the family curse is a doozie. Wrongfully convicted of stealing a baseball star's sneakers, Stanley is sentenced to six months in a juvenile-detention center, Camp Green Lake. "There is no lake at Camp Green Lake," where Stanley and his fellow campers (imagine the cast from your favorite prison movie, kid version) must dig one five-by-five hole in the dry lake bed every day, ostensibly building character but actually aiding the sicko warden in her search for buried treasure. Sachar's novel Holes mixes comedy, hard-hitting realistic drama, and outrageous fable in a combination that is, at best, unsettling. The comic elements especially the banter between the boys (part scared teens, part Cool Hand Luke wanna-bes) work well, and the adventure story surrounding Stanley's rescue of his black friend Zero, who attempts to escape, provides both high drama and moving human emotion. But the ending, in which realism gives way to fable, while undeniably) clever, seems to belong in another book entirely, dulling the impact of all that has gone before. These mismatched parts don't add up to a coherent whole, but they do deliver a fair share of entertaining and sometimes compelling moments.

Bill, O. (2002). Review of Holes. In S. Peacock (Ed.), Children's Literature Review (Vol. 79). Detroit: Gale. (Reprinted from Booklist, 1998, June 1, 94[19-20], 1750)

Program: Create a display with “holes” (two pieces of brown paper circles attached together at the top) that can be lifted to reveal information. Kids can fill it with pictures or words to illustrate their family inheritance. It can be a combination of tangible (jewelry, land) and intangible (love, good luck, bad luck) things.

Module 3: The Hello, Goodbye Window

Juster, N., & Raschka, C. (2005). The hello, goodbye window. New York: Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children.

Summary: A visit to Nanna and Poppy’s house is told through the eyes of their granddaughter. She describes the most important parts of her visit, namely seeing her grandparents through the kitchen window as she arrives and leaves their home, as well as spending time with them throughout the house.

Response: The use of mixed media in the artistic rendering of the book drew me in upon my first reading. I enjoyed feeling the energy and excitement of the little girl as the story is told through her eyes. The art style has movement, texture and depth and accurately portrays the perspective of the young girl at her grandparent’s house. I think my favorite part is when she is taking a nap and says that “nothing happens until I get up”. I was also delighted to see that the grandparents are a mixed race couple, something that you don’t see in many picture and story books. The story relays no further insight to the family background and this lack of information makes the characters and their lives even more common place and accepted.

Reviews:

JUSTER, Norton.
The Hello, Goodbye Window.
illus. by Chris Raschka. unpaged. Hyperion/
Michael di Capua Bks. Apr. 2005. Tr $15.95.
ISBN 0-7868-0914-0. LC 2004113496.
PreS-Gr 1-- The window in Nanna and Poppy's kitchen is no ordinary window-it is the place where love and magic happens. It's where the girl and her doting grandparents watch stars, play games, and, most importantly, say hello and goodbye. The first-person text is both simple and sophisticated, conjuring a perfectly child-centered world. Sentences such as "When I get tired I come in and take my nap and nothing happens until I get up" typify the girl's happy, imaginative world. While the language is bouncy and fun, it is the visual interpretation of this sweet story that sings. Using a bright rainbow palette of saturated color, Raschka's impressionistic, mixed-media illustrations portray a loving, mixed-race family. The artwork is at once lively and energetic, without crowding the story or the words on the page; the simple lines and squiggles of color suggest a child's own drawings, but this is the art of a masterful hand. Perfect for lap-sharing, this book will find favor with children and adults alike.
By Angela J. Reynolds, Washington County Cooperative Library Services, Hillsboro, OR; Trevelyn E. Jones, Editor; Luann Toth, Managing Editor; Marlene Charnizon, Associate Editor; Daryl Grabarek, Contributing Editor and Dale Raben, Assistant Editor

Reynolds, A. J., Jones, T. E., Toth, L., Charnizon, M., Grabarek, D., & Raben, D. (2005). The Hello, Goodbye Window. School Library Journal, 51(3), 174.

THE HELLO, GOODBYE WINDOW
NORTON JUSTER, ILLUS. BY CHRIS RASCHKA.
Hyperion/di Capua, $15.95 (32p) ISBN 0-7868-0914-0

(*) Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth) crafts a cozy portrait of a grandchild and her grandparents in this endearing book, illustrated in paintbox colors by Raschka (Be Boy Buzz). A curly haired girl--who dances with wiggly energy in Raschka's lush paintings--describes playful visits to her Nanna and Poppy, whose kitchen window provides the perfect venue to say hello and goodbye. "You can climb up on the flower barrel and tap," she says, "then duck down and they won't know who did it." Her grandparents welcome her into a sunlit, spacious kitchen filled with plants, where she doodles and listens to Poppy play "Oh, Susannah" on the harmonica. At night, the "Hello, Goodbye Window" functions as a mirror, and the girl jokes about being outside looking in: "Poppy says, 'What are you doing out there? You come right in and have your dinner.' And I say, 'But I'm here with you, Poppy,' and then he looks at me in his funny way." Juster departs from the over-the-top punning of his earlier works to create a gently humorous account of a family's conversations and games, all centered on the special window. Raschka warms the pages with glowing yellow, emerald, sapphire and golden brown, and he pictures the garden and trees in emphatic midsummer greens. The characters smile at one another with a doting twinkle in their eyes, and grandparents especially will be charmed by this relaxed account of how a child's visit occasions everyday magic. Ages 2-up. (Apr.)

THE HELLO, GOODBYE WINDOW. (2005). Publishers Weekly, 252(8), 173-174.

Program: After reading the story, have a “special” window set up (a puppet show curtain or the like) and have the kids be visited by fantastical things, people and creatures.

Module 3: Grandfather's Journal

 

Say, A. (1993). Grandfather's journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Summary: The author recounts his grandfather’s travels through the depiction of striking portraits of the people and landscapes in the United States and Japan. It details his grandfather’s ties to both lands,a relationship maintained throughout the generations.

Response: I was taken aback by the beauty of the illustrations and fell immediately in love with this book. It felt as if I were looking through a photo album of colorized black and white photos. Each picture and each sentence felt so clear as if I could jump into that life at any moment. While each sentence was simple, the pictures and the words left room for my mind to connect the pieces between each life event. The illustrative quality brings to life the lives of people we otherwise would not know through the loving eyes of the grandson.

Reviews:

Grandfather's Journey

[*] Allen Say, Author-Illustrator

32 pp. Houghton 10/93 ISBN 0-395-57035-2 15.95

Returning to the picture-book biography format that worked so well in El Chino (Houghton), Allen Say tells the story of his own grandfather's travels throughout North America as a young man. Awed by sweeping deserts, oceans, and prairies, bewildered and excited by huge cities, and inspired by the racial diversity of the people he meets, he eventually goes back to Japan to marry his childhood sweetheart and bring her to the "New World." They settle in California and raise a daughter, but, unable to forget his homeland, he returns to Japan with his family when his child is nearly grown. It is there that the author himself is born, and although his grandfather speaks nostalgically of seeing California one more time, war interrupts. "Bombs fell from the sky and scattered our lives like leaves in a storm," writes Say. It remained for him to pursue his grandfather's dream. The author now lives in California, where he has raised his own family, returning to his native land from time to time. "The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other. I think I know my grandfather now." The immigrant experience has rarely been so poignantly evoked as it is in this direct, lyrical narrative that is able to stir emotions through the sheer simplicity of its telling. The soft-toned watercolors have the feel of a family album. The illustrations sometimes resemble old-fashioned photographs depicting stiffly posed figures in formal dress and sometimes look like more modern informal snapshots. These are interspersed with panoramic landscapes of the Japanese countryside or the North American continent. They seem to be moments taken from a life, intensely personal and at the same time giving voice to and confirming an experience shared by countless others.

By Nancy Vasilakis

[*] indicates a book that the majority of reviewers believe to be an outstanding example of its genre, of books of this particular publishing season, or of the author's body of work.

Vasilakis, N. (1993). Grandfather's Journey. Horn Book Magazine, 69(5), 590.

SAY, Allen.

Grandfather's Journey.

illus. by author. Houghton. 1993.

K-Gr 4 -In this fictionalized account, Say describes his grandfather's love for his native land and the lure of life in America, feelings the author experienced firsthand when he emigrated from Japan to the United States. In so doing, he sums up the quintessential immigrant experience, "the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other." Carefully composed, exquisite watercolors, resembling photographs in an album, match the quiet restraint and elegance of the text.

Compiled By Diane S. Marton

Marton, D. S. (2003). Grandfather's Journey (Book). School Library Journal, 49(4), 104.

Library Programs: Have children think of their own family and what they know of their family history. Provide paper, pencils and colors to allow them to create their own photo or photos that would tell a story of something particular about their family.