Seeds of Change

Seeds of Change

• author:  Jen Cullerton Johnson  http://www.jencullertonjohnson.com/_jen
• illustrator:  Sonia Lynn Sadler  http://www.sonialynnsadlerarts.com/
• medium:  rendered in scratchboard and oil

• year of publication:  2010
• publication city:  New York
• publisher:  Lee & Low Books
• ISBN:  978-1-60060-367-9

Annotation:  A biography of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmentalist Wangari Maathi, a female scientist who worked in the struggle for women’s rights and her own Green Belt Movement, an effort to restore Kenya’s ecosystem by planting millions of trees.

Personal Thoughts:  This book took me by surprise!  I really liked it.  I didn’t realize when I started reading that the story if a nonfiction biography.  I thought it was fiction.  The more into the story I got, I thought this book has great transition, from a story of a young African girl getting an education to that girl fighting for women’s rights and starting a major environmental movement re-planting trees where greedy corporations had deforested huge areas of once fertile forest.  The further along I read, I realized there was no way author Jen Cullerton Johnson was making this up.  It’s too believable!  Sonia Lyn Sadler’s illustrations are rich with color and look like traditional African imagery. 

I would recommend this book for its multi-faceted dimensions.  It promotes equal access to education.  It promotes the struggle for women’s rights.  Finally, it describes how environmentalist movements can help repair the damage done by deforestation and general destruction of the environment.

***Curricular Connection – 9^th grade World History, Nobel Prize Winners, African Deforestation, 20^th Century Environmentalism

12^th grade Civics, Women’s Rights Movements, Gender Politics in Africa

Wabi Sabi

Wabi Sabi

• author:  Mark Rebstein  "no author website"
• illustrator:  Ed Young  http://edyoungart.com/
• medium:  collages of time-worn human-made & natural materials
• year of publication:  2008
• city of publication:  New York
• publisher:  Little Brown and Company
• ISBN:  978-0-316-11825-5

Annotation:  Wabi Sabi, a cat living in the city of Kyoto, learns about the Japanese concept of beauty through simplicity as she asks various animals she meets about the meaning of her name.


Personal Thoughts:  Is Wabi Sabi a simple story about a cat seeking the meaning of its name?  No.  The story is an explanation on a concept of beauty in simple things.  The collage artwork made of natural materials like leaves and hair, as well as photographs of cars and buildings is captivating.  The story is accompanied by haiku, structured line poetry that helps to flesh out the meaning of Wabi Sabi's search.  This is indeed a contemplative and philosophical story.  I liked Wabi Sabi but I wonder if 5th graders would respond well to this story.  I would suggest Wabi Sabi to students in 10th through 12th grades.

***Curriculum Connection - 10th grade English composition - hiaku, poetry
12th grade World Philosophy - eastern meditation, eastern philosophy

***Lesson Plan - choose students to read one haiku each from Wabi Sabi.  Ask the students to write down how the poem relates to the part in the story where it appears.  Then ask the students to come up with 3 haiku themselves based on anything significant in their lives.

Instructions

Instructions

• author:  Neil Gaiman  http://www.neilgaiman.com/
• illustrator:  Charles Vess  http://www.greenmanpress.com/
• medium:  pencil, ink, watercolor, digital coloring

• year of publication:  2010
• city of publication:  New York
• publisher:  Harper Collins
• ISBN:  978-0-06-196030-7

Annotation:  Follow a bipedal cat in medieval clothes as he takes a journey of adventure through magical, fantastic lands where he meets and interacts with mythical creatures, all under the instructions of master storyteller Neil Gaiman.

Personal Thoughts:  I liked Instructions.  I have to say I am biased because I grew up reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics and the characters and setting for this picturebook is similar to the stuff he was doing back then in the 90s.  The cat protagonist, as attractively drawn by Charles Vess, wanders with purpose amongst fairy and magic creatures like imps, giants and witches.  You may start wondering what the book is about and why the journey is taken in the first place, but in the end, Gaiman has written a short story about changes and how travel and experience alter your world and perceptions after you have been gone long and return back to where you began.  I like Gaiman’s writing for its contemplative nature and Instructions makes you think about what you’re reading as well.

Paul Revere's Ride

Paul Revere's Ride

• author:  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  http://www.hwlongfellow.org/
• illustrator:  Ted Rand  "no author website"
• medium: watercolor

• year of publication:  1990
• city of publication:  New York
• publisher:  Dutton Children's Books
• ISBN:  0-525-44610-9

Annotation:  The famous narrative poem recreating Paul Rever's midnight ride in 1775 to warn the people of the Boston coutnryside that the British were coming.

 

Personal Thoughts:   This was the second picturebook on the famous ride of Paul Revere I had the opportunity to evaluate.  I liked seeing the different presentations of the story.  Longfellow’s poem is fun to read, with its singsong rhyming scheme.  The other Paul Revere book I reviewed by Krensky had more factual details about the epic night of Revere’s ride.  I felt I learned more from Krensky, but Longfellow’s poem seems to be more memorable and written in 1861, it has an endearing and enduring quality.  It’s fun to read aloud, alone or with others. 

Funny, Ted Rand and Greg Harlan both illustrated different Paul Revere stories, and each books’ painting styles look rather similar.  Beside the differing texts, I wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the two books’ art.  It would have been a more exciting comparison if they had differed in looks more prominently. 

If you liked Longfellow and Rand’s Paul Revere’s Ride, you should check out Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride by Stephen Krensky and Greg Harlin.

***Curriculum Connection:  5^th Grade U.S. History, War of Independence, Paul Revere, American Colonies, American Revolutionary War

 

***Rhyme & Rhythm:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five, 

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

 

The rhyming aspect is more obvious than the rhythm, but the two go hand in hand.  The rhythm scheme is follows an A-A-B-B-A pattern, where the last word of the lines 1,2, and 5 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme independently.