The Book Search

There are some amazing new non-fiction picture books that have just been released.  What a great way to start your summer reading! The first one is called "Voices from the Underground Railroad" by Kay Winters.  It's poems about the experiences of two slaves running away from a master who is planning to sell them south to pay off his gambling debts.  What's great about this one is that it has ALL the voices-so there are poems from the point of view of the master's wife and the slave catchers and the people who are station masters on the Underground Railroad.  Larry Day's pictures are lovely pen and ink with water color and help the reader understand the urgency and the immediacy of the action of the story.  I thought this one was terrific. The second one is called "Girl Running" by Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrated by Micha Archer.  It's about a young woman named Bobbi Gibb who liked to run.  She lived in a time before Title Nine spo...

I caught a stupid cold this week and although I never really felt rotten enough to stay home from school, it slowed me down enough to take the time to read a bit more than I have.  Isn't that weird?  Probably- gratitude for a cold!  Anyway, I got to read a couple of terrific chapter books this week. The first one is called "The Memory of Forgotten Things" by Kat Zhang.  I was sure I had read (and enjoyed) her other books so I dove into this one.  Except, as it turns out, I hadn't read any of her books after all (I blame the nasal congestion).  But, it's completely ok, because this wasn't a sequel or connected to any of her books.  It's about a girl named Sophia who feels somewhat isolated-her mom died when she was small and Sophia misses her terribly.  But Sophia's been having these memories of things that actually never happened but could have, if things had been different-like a birthday cake that her mother made when she was 10, except that h...