So Many Books; So little Time

The Robbery at the Diamond Dog Diner

The Robbery at the Diamond Dog Diner

By Eileen Christelow

c. 1986

This is another Reading Rainbow selection and another stupid book.

In this work, we have a diner where the female owner wears diamonds to serve the patrons. We also have the rumor of diamond robbers–wearing blue hats, driving a yellow truck and named Shorty and Slim. Amazingly, unnoticed by our main characters, a yellow truck pulls up with two “people” inside–one slim, one short, both wearing blue hats. HMMMM.

Meanwhile, one of the people inside comes up with a plan to hide the diamonds her friend wears–hollow out eggs, put the diamonds inside and seal them up. Then no one will think of looking in the refrigerator. And they might not have except that the one with the idea also had a big mouth and blabbed in the hearing of the slim and short men with blue hats and the yellow truck.

I’m not sure what the author is trying to prove here with this work. It just comes over as being incredibly silly. And maybe that was the point. But then I have to ask, what is Reading Rainbow trying to prove?

This has become a running gag around my house the last couple of days. Yes, everything turns out all right in the end but it’s definitely silly and then some.

Smoky Nights

Smoky Nights

by Eve Bunting

c. 1994

This Caldecott Medal winner is a beautiful book with a difficult concept.

Daniel watches from his window with his mother while looters raid his neighborhood. He is afraid and confused and his mother explains as best she can. Finally the looters leave their neighborhood and his mother tucks Daniel and his cat Jasmine into bed with her with just his shoes off. She tells him to sleep but he thinks he can’t. Then he is shaken awake by his mother and he and the rest of his neighbors are fleeing a fire in their apartment building. Daniel wants to look for his cat but is told she has already left and to get out of the building.

Once on the street, he tells the firemen about his cat and is led off to a shelter with his mother and neighbors including Mrs Kim who owns a market his mother won’t shop at because it’s “better to buy from our own people.” Mrs Kim also has a cat who fights with Daniel’s cat.

At the shelter, Daniel is given hot chocolate and a bed and his mother has him lie down. Then the fireman comes in with his cat and Mrs. Kim’s cat. The two cats were hiding together from the fire. Through the cats, Daniel and his mother and Mrs Kim learn what it means to get along. And through the fire, the cats learn to get along. And through Daniel’s mother, Daniel learns what goes through looters’ heads.

This is a concept book about intolerance and tolerance. It’s not expecially preachy but gets the point across. The illustrations are done in 3-D by David Diaz and then photographed making it a beautiful book to hold in your hand. This book should be shared with care given as to the needs of the child. It may make some children more fearful and it may ease the thoughts of others.

Sports Pages

Sports Pages

by Arnold Adoff

c. 1986

This is an unusual book. Just to be certain, I showed it to my husband who used to teach English and asked him if it was written in Free Verse. He said that’s what he would call it and he would also call it awful.

And I would agree–except that it is a great way to introduce Free Verse Poetry and also for kids to learn a lot about a lot of different sports all at once. I can’t take credit for the last thought, though, that came from my seventeen-year-old son.

This is a book of poetry about sports. It covers soccer, tennis, football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, gymnastics, track, biking and horsebackriding. It looks at it from the participants point of view and they are sometimes winners and sometimes not and sometimes on the bench and sometimes spectators. This takes you out into the middle of the action and lets you experience it without ever leaving home.

On the other hand, with it being in free verse, there are times when it’s extremely hard to read such as when the word parallel was written on three different lines as in:

par

all

el

In these cases it is annoying and difficult to understand and becomes a concept book.

Poetry is concept, though and so the experience is not lost. When it comes to Free Verse, this book takes poetic license to the maximum. So, if you need to show extreme examples of Free Verse or if you want to introduce what it feels like to play a sport or if you just want to give children the idea of describing their feelings in a different way, this book has some value.

A Reading Rainbow Selection.

Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express

Kate Shelley and the MIdnight Express

by Margaret K. Wetterer

c. 1990

Here’s another true story for kids to read. This one has adventure, prayer, and suspense along with truth in it.

A young Irish immigrant, Kate Shelley’s mother suffered from extreme fear. On this particular night a horrible rainstorm took out a bridge and a train engine, trapping two railroad men in the roaring water, clinging to trees. Their only hope is 11 year old Kate Shelley who leaves her mother and siblings to cross another bridge in the dark that she is scared to cross in the daytime. She must do this by crawling as she has lost the light in her lantern and she knows there are missing boards.

Kate is racing against time as the Midnight Express is rushing toward the bridge that is out and Kate must reach the station in time to send the word by telegraph to stop. Does Kate make it in time?

Well, of course she does. Well researched and very well told by Margaret K. Wetterer. All Reading Rainbow books should be this good. Probably not a good book to read on a stormy night at bedtime, however.

Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe

Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe

by Vera B. Williams

c. 1981

This is a fun and informative book. Our narrator is a child who finds a red canoe for sale on the way to school and tells her? mother. The mother and the aunt have gone on canoe trips before and so they take their children on a three-day canoe adventure. We follow them as they pack food, drive for an entire day, set up tents, almost get blown away, fish, cook, and get wet. Includes recipes and information about canoeing that you don’t find in other books.

For any child who is thinking about a canoe trip, this is a good start. This isn’t all rosy and happy but real. They meet a waterfall, hurricane force winds, mist, just about everything except wild animals. They even take an outdoor shower. This book deserves to be a Reading Rainbow selection because it’s just good.

A Living Desert

A Living Desert

by Guy J. Spencer

c. 1988

This is an excellent introduction into the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, Arizona, and California. It discusses the animals and plants as well as the rainfall and other issues. It’s not the final word on that or any desert but for students who don’t know anything about the desert, it’s wonderful.

Large, full color pictures on every page by Tim Fuller add to the interest of the book as well as the understanding of the text. The language is simple but precise. A wonderful book to start the study of the desert with. Rated as being for ages 8-11 but could be used with any age. It is a Reading Rainbow selection.

The Amazing Bone

The Amazing Bone

by William Steig

c. 1976

This book is just flat out weird. My sons had a good time laughing at it and Jedi did come up with a lot of questions he wants answered but unless you are into over the top fantasy, I wouldn’t recommend this.

In the book, we meet Pearl, who is a girl but who happens to look to us like a pig and who lives in a world of animals acting and dressing like people. She dawdles on her way home, ending up under a tree where she exclaims “I love everything.” At that point, she meets a talking bone that has been living on the ground for a year after having fallen out of a witch’s bag. He was tired of living with the witch or he would have called out to her.

Pearl befriends the bone and asks to take him home with her. The bone agrees and off they go, with Pearl forgetting her school books on the ground. (We never hear about them again.) She walks along and is attacked by highwaymen in masks with guns and knives. The bone scares them off. Then Pearl is grabbed by a fox who intends to eat her. The bone can’t get her out of this one so, in probably a last ditch effort by the author, the bone eventually shouts a shrinking spell at the fox who then grows as small as a mouse. Pearl and the bone go home where they live happily ever after.

And this book is a Reading Rainbow selection and has an award?? I don’t think so. It was entirely too strange and goofy for us.

Animal Cafe

Animal Cafe

by John Stadler

c. 1980

This is a fun, silly book. A restaurant owner goes home at night and comes back the next day to find that his shelves are empty and his cash register is full. He thinks it’s magic but what the reader discovers is that it’s not magic at all but his dog and cat running an Animal Cafe while he’s gone. They use up the food on the shelves cooking and serving all the animals of the neighborhood who, of course, pay their tabs just before the restaurant owner comes in to start the next day.

The copy I read from my public library is from the Reading Rainbow Library and includes lots of extras such as interactive lessons and arts and crafts and other thinking activities. There’s a word search, math activities, science experiments and even recipes for cooking. The Reading Rainbow edition would be a great summer activity book to use with children or an interactive book to use in a classroom.

Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie

Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie

by Peter and Connie Roop

c. 1985

Peter and Connie Roop write biographies for children and do a wonderful job of it. This book is no exception. In easy to understand language that makes you feel Abbie’s fear and determination, the Roops take the reader on a journey to Matinicus Rock off the coast of Maine.

Abbie’s mother is very sick and needs medicine and the food is running out. So, her father has no choice but to take his boat across the bay to town. And since Abbie’s brother is away at school and her mother is so sick, Abbie is left in charge. He expects to be able to buy food, medicine and lamp oil and come right back but just in case, he tells Abbie she must keep the lights burning in the two light houses. Abbie has helped her father but she has never done it alone.

While her father is gone, a storm comes up that lasts four weeks. During that time Abbie must climb the light houses, trim the wicks, light the lamps, and help her three sisters care for their mother. She is nearly swept away when waves reach into the light house keeper’s home and she runs out to save her three chickens. It’s a good thing she went when she did for the chicken house was swept away and all they had to eat from then on was the eggs the hens layed.

When the storm finally stopped, Abbie’s father came home with food, oil and medicine as well as corn for the chickens and a big hug for Abbie. He had watched for the lights every night so he knew his family was safe even though he couldn’t reach them.

This is a very heartwarming book about how a girl can when she has to.

The Bicycle Man

The Bicycle Man

by Allen Say

c. 1982

This is a great story of a little boy in first grade in Japan. He begins to tell us about his school and their annual field day with fun events and parents and others there to watch and then to participate themselves in adult events. There is laughter and falls and prizes all wrapped up in boxes to be opened. There is lunch to be shared that is brought from home.

And then, two American soldiers appear over the top of the fence around the school. These children have heard of the soldiers who are occupying their island since the war ended not so long ago but they have never seen them. And these two are so very different from the children and their families. One is a tall black man and the other is a redheaded white man. The boy is overwhelmed by the perfectly creased uniforms and the polished shoes. Other children are amazed at the color of the soldier’s skins and hair.

But what really impresses them all is the way the black man can ride a bicycle. He borrows the principal’s bicycle and does some trick riding around the school yard and makes the children laugh. His compatriot, meanwhile, runs alongside cheering him on. In the end, the soldiers win the biggest prize but you can’t help but think that perhaps, the prize they won wasn’t the biggest prize at all but that the riding went a long way to showing the children and their parents that the war was over and that they could all be friends and learn to respect each other.

There are lots of jumping off points to be had from this book. Race relations among whites, blacks and orientals following World War II in and out of the Army and the occupation would be a good one though it will most likely show that white and black American soldiers were not going to be traveling the countryside of Japan together. The little boy is so surprised by the height of the Americans that the nutritional changes and height increase in Japanese citizens can be researched as well. Cultural aspects such as the traditional bowing of respect in Japanese society should be discussed. And, of course, just the American occupation of Japan would a great research project for interested students.

Not just for smaller children. My high schoolers were asking questions when this one was over as well. Definitely a book that should be read by all.