Does My Head Look Big in This Review by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdel-Fattah, Randa. Does My Head Look Big in This? New York: Orchard Books, 2005. ISBN 978-0-439-91947-0. 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Sixteen-year-old Amal decides she is ready to hear a hijab full-time to show her commitment to Allah and to embrace all of her life-long Islamic teachings, but she has anxiety about how her fellow Australians will react at school and in the community.

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Randa Abdel-Fattah's protagonist Amal is 16-years-old. Her life revolves around her friends, her family, and Allah. In Australia, where Amal lives, there are social difficulties to being a visible Muslim. But Amal chooses to honor her faith and embrace her heritage by wearing a hijab in public.

During the beginning of the book, Amal is worried. She's afraid of the verbal abuse she'll endure, of the social ostracization she may suffer at school, and even of being humiliated by strangers who think that Muslims are all radicalized terrorists because that bigoted stereotype is most often what Australians sees in the news. It's a heavy burden to carry for all Muslims, and Amal's instincts about what trouble wearing her hijab could cause were not unwarranted.

Throughout the book, Abdel-Fattah writes Amal as a very likable young girl, which makes her an approachable character for all young readers, and allows her character to explain several layers of cultural challenges Muslims face in contemporary Austrailian society.

The first layer of complexity is that Amal is the child of immigrants from Palestine. Abdel-Fattah subverts the stereotype that all Muslim immigrants are poor, uneducated refugees, by introducing Amal's parents. One is a doctor and the other is a dentist. Although neither spoke English when they came to Australia, they made their way creating a successful joing medical practice. This divide between how Anglo-Australia views first generation immigrants versus their offspring is one of the challenges Amal faces -- because in her experience, often the women who are first-generation immigrants wear the hijab, but it is not as often that young people or later generations do -- which means that younger Muslims aren't "outing" themselves in public very often.

For example, when Amal decides to wear the hijab, her parents are surprised and concerned. They know the difficulty they experienced when they arrived in Australia, but as people of faith, they want to balance supporting their daughter while realizing that a certain level of harassment may come with her decision.

There is another divide in cultural understanding between immigrant parent and Australian-born child. For example, Amal's parents speak to their daughter primarily in English. Often times her parents use Arabic words of affection like shortening Yallah (meaning come on) and combining it with her name "Ya Amal" (Oh Amal) whenever they want her attention (22). However, when upset, they will use Urdu swear words related to cultural references Amal does not understand. For example, her mother would swear at unsympathetic strangers about their mustaches in public. It helped her get her anger out without Anglo-Australians understanding what she was saying, but Amal is more confused by why her mother is cursing mustaches (111). When Amal asked her mother about her strange anger at men's facial hair, her mother's response was: "You were hatched here, you wouldn't get it" (111).

This divide is also true for several of Amal's friends and relatives. Her cousin Samantha's parents pressure her to fully assimilate into Australian culture. They find tradition like wearing the hijab repressive now that they are Australian citizens. But Samantha admits that when her father found out she had a boyfriend the lifelong lessons she had heard about throwing off the old ways for the new came to a halt. "This coming from the man who thinks the word foreign is the f-word of our times. All our lives George and me get it rammed down our throats that we're supposed to forget our culture and live as Aussies, whatever that means. But then when I do something that he doesn't like, he does a one-eighty turn" (106).

Samantha's father, Uncle Joe, is pretty outspoken about his beliefs regarding wanting his family to be considered part of the native Australian culture. "We live in Australia. So we should assimilate and act like Australians. How can we be accepted and fit in if we're still thinking of Palestine and speaking in Arabic? Multiculturalism is a joke. We need to mix more" (185).

Leila, a long-time friend of Amal's, has a mother who holds a disdain for her daughter's academic success and at age 16 is already bringing suitors to the house to meet her daughter for marriage consideration. Leila's mother was never educated and all that she has comes from being married. At 16, she thinks Leila should also be concentrating on her future as a wife -- not in college.

Abdel-Fattah doesn't just lay out the generational dilemmas in her own Muslim culture, she lets Amal's non-Muslim friends share their points of view, too.

For example Eileen, one of Amal's best friends at school, is Japanese. Her parents were also immigrants and they push the old culture onto Eileen more than she would like (150). And her friend Josh is Jewish, who has a sister who is marrying a man who is ultra-orthodox. Although Josh's immediate family is not, he knows members of his family would be very unhappy if they knew Amal was one of Josh's close friends. Sometimes, though, he likes to push their buttons by being seen with her.

Amal's mother's friend Cassandra is a British woman who converted to Islam later in life. She rejected Christianity and at first became an atheist. She felt her Christian parents' Christian faith also embraced a deep-seated racism. "Africans, Asians, Arabs, Jews, anybody not of Anglo blood was, in their eyes, inferior" (134).

And Amal's cranky Greek neighbor Mrs. Vaselli discussed coming to Australia as a young immigrant unable to speak the language, married to a new husband and worrying about their future. Her anxiety was so thorough that she miscarried her first children during a health inspector's visit to their restaurant and kept working because she thought what was happening to her body was less important than keeping their business going. But in her heart, Mrs. Vaselli was very dedicated to her religion, and when her only son converted, she stopped talking to him (200). Like Cassandra's parents, his acceptance of another religion was a betrayal.

As if the difficult stories of acceptance and finding their way wasn't enough, Abdel-Fattah delivers Amal her greatest fear in a rich white girl at school named Tia. The animosity exists between them before Amal ever put on her hijab and it only gets uglier as the book goes on. The author gives Tia every opportunity to voice her anti-immigrant opinions. "We knew they were trouble as soon as we saw them. They just had that look you know" she says of a group of Asian men at a nightclub she visits (279). "My dad's right you know...He predicts Anglo Australian will be extinct in this country soon" (280)!

But Tia isn't the only hurdle Amal faces. Classmates thing her parents force her to wear the hijab and can't believe that she'd make the choice on her own. She's worried about being a member of the debate team and how she'll be treated or judged at traveling meets. She gets turned down for a job because of her hijab. And her principal tries to claim that her hijab is a violation of the school's dress code until her parents intercede on her behalf.

Abdel-Fattah does a thorough job of outlining how much grief immigrants and minorities contend with simply by existing within the dominant culture each day. But I appreciate how she wrote Amal with a strong backbone to not only stick up for herself but for her family and friends. I like how she analyzes what her role is in Aussie culture and how important the diversity of those in her life has influenced her to have a bigger, broader perspective of the world at large.

"When I think about it, it's mainly been the immigrants in my life who have inspired me to understand what it means to be an Aussie. To be a hyphenated Australian... It's their stories and confrontations and pains and joys which have empowered me to know myself, challenged me to embrace my identity" (359).

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S) and AWARDS
Australian Book of the Year Award
Astralian Book Industry Award
ALA Popular Books for Young Adults 2013

From Booklist
"More than the usual story of the immigrant teen's conflict with her traditional parents, the funny, touching contemporary narrative will grab teens everywhere." 

From Publishers Weekly
"This debut should speak to anyone who has felt like an outsider for any reason." 

5. CONNECTIONS
For American students, their understanding of Islam may be limited to what they see in the news each day. Studying different cultures in literature, history, and culture is a great way for children to grow their understanding of diversity. Taking a deeper dive into different cultures can only broaden children's' horizons. 

Reading Does My Head Look Big in This? alongside non-fiction books that explain more of the diverse cultures that exist in Amal's social circle will be a great starting point for students to learn more about Muslim and immigrant culture. 

Consider using Carla Mooney's Comparative Religion: Investigate the World Through Religious Tradition, which is an easy-to-read non-fiction book on five major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The author uses graphic cartoon panels and has links in the book to internet sources (videos, pictures, etc) that may interest students. (ISBN: 978-1-61930-305-8).

In addition, Sumdul Ali-Karamali's Growing Up Muslim: Understanding the Beliefs and Practices of Islam will is a great resource for understanding the generations of challenges that exist in the Middle East and the celebrations, challenges, and faith that Muslim people bring with them no matter where they live in the world. (ISBN: 978-0385740968).

Review of Rain Reign by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Martin, Ann M. Rain Reign. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2014. ISBN: 9780312643003.

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Twelve-year-old Rose Howard has autism and goes through each day hunting for homonyms, following rules, and relating to numbers, particularly primes. She has difficulty making friends with her peers, connecting with her father, and communicating with most of the neurotypical people in her life because her brain works differently than others. Rose takes comfort in regularity and consistency, but nothing is regular or consistent when a hurricane rips through her small country town and her dog disappears. 

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS 
Ann M. Martin's Rain Reign focuses on the life and inner struggles of a 12-year-old child with autism. Rose Howard is being raised by her father, Wesley Howard, a single parent. Wesley and his brother Weldon weren't raised in the safest household. In fact, they bounced from foster home to foster home after being removed from their family due to their father's physical abuse. Rose's mother is out of the picture, and Wesley works as a part-time mechanic in a small country town and sends Rose to public school because he can't or is unwilling to transport her the 22 miles to a special school for children with autism. He has a short temper and does not like to take assistance from anyone willing to help with Rose. "My father always says that he's not going to be the kind of father that his father was. He says he's going to raise me up by himself if it kills him" (29). But throughout the book, Wesley's temperament is consistently at odds with his daughter's neurobiological needs. 

One of these needs is to keep up a list of homonyms that she learns, another is to always follow the rules in order to stay safe and out of trouble, and to relate to the world through numbers. Rose finds comforts in these habits, though socially they make her an outcast. Other fifth graders don't find the same interest in making lists of words as Rose does. They also don't tend to often become friends with children who have been left back a year in school, who have frequent sensory meltdowns, who can't understand the social shades of gray when it comes to rule following.  Nor do other children want to be around a child that has a very hard time having a reciprocal conversation.

Martin shows how integral Rose's public education is in trying to draw her into the world with other children. Rose has a full-time aide, Mrs. Leibler, who sits with her all day in class and at lunch. The school has buddies who sit at the lunch table with her as Rose tries to facilitate a balanced discussion not related to her favorite things. But in some ways, Rose can't let go of her need for consistency as she eats the same lunch every day (44-45). In addition to her social struggles, Rose has sensory sensitivity, particularly toward noises like the teacher's computer that hums (39). She also has trouble making eye contact when the teacher talks to her (39). 

I have to be fully honest. I have a child who is neurodiverse. And several times while reading this book, I felt like some of these lists of behaviors and social tics came off of a checklist that Martin created while she did her research. They aren't wrong, but I don't feel they're described from the perspective of a neurodiverse person, particularly one who is often actively narrating the book. 

What Martin does portray well is the absolute crushing difficulty children with autism face every day trying to find a successful connection with other children and even the adults in their lives. Every day these children spend so much time and mental energy trying to find the strength to transition and cope both during times of normal transition and during times of high stress. For example, after the hurricane, Rose and her father are stranded at home by flooding and she cannot go to school. Her father tells her the school is closed indefinitely. "Indefinitely implies uncertainty. I don't like uncertainty" (99). Martin stays true throughout the book in writing Rose as brutally honest about her reality, even when social constructs discourage her from that forwardness.

In this story, Rose has only two always loving connections: Her uncle Weldon and her dog, Rain. Rain not only snuggles her to comfort her and help her fall asleep, so she doesn't have to fall back on her ritual of counting from a high number backward by three (212-213), but she also protects her when her father threatens abuse. 

The book centers on the fact that Rain has gone missing in the hurricane and Rose uses a structured system of rules to try and find her dog. A dog that was lost because her father let Rain out in the storm for reasons Rose has never been able to understand and the situation comes to an ugly head. 

Martin created many emotional climaxes for this book that did bring me to tears. Sometimes because of the extreme trauma she invents for Rose, who is already living in a sad situation, and sometimes because Martin fails to give emotional depths to Rose to allow her to really feel what's happening to her. Instead, Martin only allows her shallow, stereotypical movements between sensory tantrums and logic-based coping mechanisms. It was also sad because just when Rose had started making headway with her classmates when she brought Rain to school, and after the storm when Rose and the other children could empathize with each other because of the extreme loss to their community from the flood damage, she starts to unravel the only home situation Rose has ever known. 

It was also interesting that on the inner book jacket, the book description does not identify Rose as having autism, but in the Amazon.com book description it "outs" her as having OCD and Asperger's Syndrome. I wonder why one would list the disabilities and the other would not. 

I tried to read this book with my child, who is 11, but he is not interested in reading books about children who are in socially scary situations. He is particularly adverse to book characters with disabilities like his own or stories where anything bad happens to mothers or support animals (he has his own emotional support cat). He can assure you that if his father had let out his cat in a hurricane, his response would not have been to ask lots of questions and pile up wood waiting for the cat to come back. His said his heart would die and there would be an emotional explosion unmatched ever in the history of time that would probably create a monumental depression. Although not all children who are neurodiverse are the same, having a deeper understanding of that child/emotional animal connection was a strong disappointment in this book. 

My son also said he feels that most books from neurotypical people who write about characters similar to him portray them in a way that makes him feel embarrassed, broken, and as a burden on family. 

For example, if Rose had been neurotypical, would her father have gotten drunk so much? Would he have had so many personal problems? Rose makes this connection in the book, too. She figures it is her fault that her mother left them.  It's stories like Rose's that lead my child to not wanting to read books about children with similar diagnoses because from the first time Rose is called the "r" word by a classmate he was done reading the book. In those few pages, he knew nothing good was going to happen to Rose in the story, and he said that authors often do a great disservice to neurodiverse children by not understanding that getting up and going to school every day is traumatic enough -- without all the lost dogs and superstorms. 

"Why doesn't anyone find that interesting enough to write about? Why do they need to torture us, too?"

Maybe he has a story to tell that he and other neurodiverse children will find more authentic than those written by well-meaning neurotypical authors. 

4.  AWARDS and REVIEW EXCERPTS
Schneider Family Book Award
Publishers Weekly Best Books
ALA Notable Children's Book
School Library Journal Best Books
CCBC Choice
Kirkus Reviews Best Books

From Kirkus Review
"A story about honorable living in the autistic narrator genre that sets the bar high." 

From School Library Journal
"Reader will empathize with Rose, who finds strength and empowerment thorugh her unique way of looking at the world." 

5. CONNECTIONS
There have been many middle-grade chapter books written with main characters that have disabilities but only a few of them have main characters with autism. If Rain Reign doesn't appeal to students, perhaps one of these others will. 

In addition, understanding that not all people with autism are the same and why autism is considered a spectrum disorder is critical for neurotypical children to begin engaging and empathizing with children with this diagnosis. Sensitivity should be given to reading about the subject in a class with children with neurobiological diagnoses because making behavior links between them could create or perpetuate existing bullying problems.

Fiction books regarding children with autism that might interest middle grade readers:

• Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin (ISBN 1416995005)
• Mockingbird by Katherine Erskin (ISBN 9780142417751)
• Superstar by Mandy Davis (ISBN 9780062377777) 

Drama Review by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Telgemeier, Raina. Drama. New York: Scholastic, 2012. ISBN: 9780545326995.

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Seventh-grader Callie is enthusiastic about being in charge of set design for her school play, but the relationships among her theater friends are complicated and confusing. Can the cast and crew pull it together before the curtain falls?

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS 
Raina Telgemeier's easily readable, highly dramatic, graphic novel Drama introduces tween and teen readers to a creative seventh grader who is trying to work her way up the ladder of her middle school theater program. Not an actress, Callie thrives on creating and managing set designs for the school play (52). She also appears to be at a critical juncture in her adolescence and is often looking for romance with boys in her class. As she floats from crush to crush, she experiences plenty of heartbreak and disappointment. 

Although Telgemeier does not dive into defining the children's cultural and racial diversity in the text, she does illustrate a multicultural middle school experience for Callie. All of Telgemeier's drawings are vivid in color, and not just in the background. She spends a lot of time focusing on creating artistic identities for each character, who represent children from several different cultural backgrounds. 

Lively and vivacious, Callie's new friend Justin lands a role in the play. Justin is gay and has come out to his brother and his friends, but not at home. He also tells Callie that his twin brother, Jesse, is not gay, but thrives in a quieter academic environment because he is more of an introvert. Callie, who is a strong, independent girl, becomes fast friends with both boys because of their common interest in musicals. 

One area of concern for me related to stereotyping, particularly surrounding Jesse and Justin, was that even know Telgemeier does not identify cultures to the reader, Jesse communicates a pressure to get outstanding grades: "He still wants me to be the obedient son, and next year, when we're in high school, I'm sure I'll have to disappear into the books again, forever" (32). This kind of academic pressure made me wonder if in her mind Telgemeier was assigning stereotypes of an Asian American overachiever to Jesse. Putting the book's primary setting in a school theater atmosphere also made me worry that the book might be helping to assign a label of stereotypical school activities for gay students. 

As with any junior high, there are emotional ups and downs at Eucalyptus Middle School. Hormones seems to be raging as one of the girls, Bonnie, changes boyfriends frequently. Others engage each other on a friend level, but wonder about romantic relationships with those that they are closest to. 

Telgemeier offers a very positive, friendly introduction to several teenagers coming of age and represents personal sexual discovery as something that doesn't have to be terrifying. 

To children who don't engage with homosexual people, some families might find this topic uncomfortable, but for children who are aware that gay people do exist in the world (who may be their cousin, best friend, or parents) it's nice to see the diversity represented.  

Throughout the book, what is clear, are the hundreds of feelings the students have not only about putting together their play but also learning about how they individually relate to each other and to the larger world. 

4.  AWARDS and REVIEW EXCERPTS
Stonewall Honor Book

From Kirkus Review
"With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer." 

From Booklist
"In this realistic and sympathetic story, feelings and thoughts leap off the page, revealing Telgemeier's keen eye for young teen life." 

5. CONNECTIONS
Because Drama's storyline includes conversations and discoveries about teens and sexuality, it has been challenged in schools and public libraries. In fact, in 2016, it and four other books with LGBTQ storylines made up five of the ten most frequently challenged books in libraries according to the ALA. In public and school libraries talking about or introducing children and teens to sexuality is considered taboo. I'm not sure if it's conversing about people who are LGBTQ that is more difficult for adults or the fact that adult librarians may talk about sexuality with children. 

Regardless, having quality materials that reflect the human experience is expected from libraries. And addressing the elephant in the room that gay people exist is a critical part of opening a window to allow people who are not used to interacting with LGBTQ people to see them as human (i.e. someone's Mom or Dad or grandmother or best friend). 

In this connection, reading banned materials that center on LGBTQ storylines is a great introductory lesson to opening this window or door for students in the classroom or those that visit the library.

The second step is for children to determine and discuss why these books might be banned. What are people afraid of? What are they offended by? How does meeting the complaints of one specialized group negate the needs of another? How does literature push those comfort boundaries for adults where they lobby for books to be censored from children? 

The third step in this connection would be to study the history of LGBTQ rights as well as the current issues of this cultural group. Is it possible, even for children with no experience with this kind of diversity to talk openly and accept one another for who they are?

The Shadow Hero Review by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Yang, Gene Luen. The Shadow Hero. New York: First Second, 2014. ISBN 978-1-59643-697-8. 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Author Gene Luen Yang and illustrator Sonny Liew recreate the first Asian American comic book hero Green Turtle who takes to the streets to bring down Ten Grand, the local gangster who had Green Turtle's father killed and extorts money from local Chinese business owners.

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
In this graphic novel for teens author Gene Luen Yang creates his own origin story for Green Turtle, the first Asian American comic book hero in America from the 1940s, and unlike the original, which publishers would not allow the author to visually depict the hero's facial features as Asian American, illustrator Sonny Liew lets his visual representations of many different kinds of Chinese faces fill the book. Thus, defying the old racist portrayals as Asians as slant-eyed, buck-toothed people who all look the same.

This origin story shares some commonality with other superheroes. It focuses on the protagonist Hank, who has wanted to grow up to be a grocer in the city just like his father. Hank enjoys spending long hours working side-by-side with his father and the two are very close. But Hank's mother has other ideas for him. Super ideas. Hank is motivated by his mother's desperation to have something adventurous and amazing in her life to don a green super suit and rid their neighborhood of crime. However, later when a local gangster has his father killed in their store, Hank's heroism is motivated by his need to seek justice on behalf of his father and his community, similar to Batman.

Interlaced through Hank's story, which takes place a half generation or so after the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in 1911 and after his father and mother immigrated (separately) to America, is the underlying influence of four shadow spirits: Dragon, Phoenix, Tiger and Tortoise (1). The myth says that these spirits were born with the birth of China and live in a place between "our world and the next" (1). Their existence is linked to the livelihood of the country and their disagreement on how to help the country thrive after the fall of the dynasty leads to Tortoise hitching a ride to America and his brother Dragon coming after him.

Yang's attention on Hank's mother is a driving force in the book, not just because she encourages Hank to become something more, but because Yang is very forward about the disappointment the mother felt when arriving in America as an immigrant and in fulfilling her duty in honoring her parents' wishes, even though she desired to put space between herself and Chinatown. So often immigration stories are about how moving to America improved lives for immigrants, but for Hank's mother, she felt let down because instead of "color and astonishment" she found a world that was "gray, noisy and rude" (5).

Yang and Liew develop a hero who is very brave and quick thinking -- and still poor enough that he has to get everywhere by borrowed car, bus, and on foot. Even his costume, as the story progresses, becomes less and less, until toward the end of the adventure when he's barely in underwear and a cape, showing that his heroism is more human than super, which is an odd situation, given that superheroes really do exist in Hank's time.

Instead, Hank is a hero for regular people wanting to make a difference in their community. His detective work leads him to find that the evil in his neighborhood is highly connected to the leaders of his city, like the mayor and the chief of police. It's hard to have justice in Chinatown, when those in power have turned a blind eye to people in need.

But the bond Hank feels for his father is strong, and when he stumbles upon the Tortoise Shadow, he is promised one wish. Hank realizes that he could benefit by a superpower and asks to never be shot like his father. Tortoise grants him his wish and shares with him more about his father's life than Hank ever knew.

Throughout the story, it feels like Hank's ability to be accepted as a hero, when he isn't super, is equivalent to being able to be accepted in America, even though he isn't white. Toward the end of the book, his friend Red asks him: "Hank, be honest. Do you really think dressing up in that silly costume will make them accept you? Do you really think it will make you a part of them?" (150). Hank is unsure how to answer. In his heart he doesn't feel accepted into typical American culture, but as he learns on his adventures what makes the other super heroes super isn't really cultural assimilation, he realizes his cultural story doesn't have to be rooted in it either.

At the end of the book Yang gives the history of the original comic book hero and provides pages from one of the original comics. Both elements are great for readers who are interested in the history of comics and literary analysis.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S) and AWARDS
NPR Best Book of the Year
YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens
CCBC Choice
Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award
ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adults
YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
Booklist Editor's Choice

From The New York Times Book Review
"What America needs is for people to shed the expectations of translation and immerse themselves in other worlds. It's O.K. if you can't pronounce ma po tofu, it's O.K. if you can't pronounce my last name and it's O.K. if you learn about our ways through graphic novels. America has to start somewhere and I'd recommend The Shadow Hero. Soon enough, it'll all be familiar." 

From Kirkus Reviews
"Yang's funny and perceptive script offers clever riffs on familiar tropes and explores themes of identity, heroism and belonging." 

5. CONNECTIONS
The Green Turtle chooses his own costume and name, even after his Mom tries to push an identity on him. Parents can do that some times. They only want the best, but sometimes they miss who their child is telling them who they are. 

Think about your strengths, what would your special powers be? Would you have a shadow like GreenTurtle that was based on a connection to the past of your people? Or is there some aspect of your character that is more likely to suit you? Perhaps, if you're shy, you'd become invisible, or if you like to run you'd be super fast. Or if you have a lot of empathy, you could read others' thoughts!

Take time to think about who you are and then draw a self-portrait of what your superhero outfit would look like. Once you have your look and power identified, think of a challenge in your neighborhood that your superhero could resolve, and then create your own comic book about it. Teachers should have pre-printed empty comic panel papers for students to choose from as well as pencils, colored pencils, or fine markers for them to draw and color. 

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lin, Grace. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009. ISBN 978-0-316-03863-8. 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Grace Lin retells classic Chinese folktales and myths with her own delightful spin about a girl named Minli and her new friend Dragon as they set off on a mission to find the Old Man of the Moon so Minli can figure out how to bring good fortune to her poor family and Dragon can ask why he cannot fly. 

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is an exquisite Chinese folktale that leads readers on a wondrous quest with a young girl named Minli who wants to make her mother happy by finding the secret to good fortune.

Living in what Minli feels is poverty as the daughter of two rice farmers, Minli recognizes that her mother is constantly focused on what the family doesn't have. "Ma is right, Minli thought. What a poor fortune we have. Every day, Ba and Ma work and work and we still have nothing. I wish I could change our fortune" (12).

Inspired by her father's oral storytelling, Minli decides that the characters he describes in his stories are real and takes off with her talking goldfish in search of the Old Man of the Moon to answer her question about the secret to good fortune. On her adventure, she meets many other mythical characters including a Dragon, a poor boy with a water buffalo, a king, a poisonous tiger, a brave set of twins, and more. At each turn, Minli hears or remembers stories about the past of the Chinese people. And almost on cue, Lin sets up the current storyline to link the past to the present, usually relating them to a current state of conflict or a suddenly introduced mystery that needs to be resolved by the main characters.

Lin's storytelling is inventive, magical and complemented by her vivid illustrations. Coloring the titles of the ancient myths being told within Minli's folktale and setting them off with a different font are great visual cues for children and help them understand that there is a strong likelihood the story may jump off of the typical timeline, which can be a common storytelling method in some Asian cultures' folktales. Although Minli's story, as the protagonist, is very linear with a clear beginning of her journey, middle, climax, and end, the flashbacks of the myths and how they have influenced the different characters she meets are not.

The power of the story comes not only from Lin's portrayal of Minli as a resolute little girl who loves her family but Lin's own attachment to the characters she creates and the ancient stories they are retelling -- with Lin's own modern twist. "It is a fantasy inspired by the Chinese folktales that enchanted me in my youth and the land and culture that fascinates me in my adulthood," Lin says in her notes at the end of the novel" (298). Lin takes great care in portraying all of the characters in her book as having strengths and flaws, particularly Magistrate Tiger, who may easily be seen by children as the villain in the book for his bossy and greedy ways, but he is not entirely unrelatable to children's real-life experiences with bullies or cranky adults.

Although not focused on modern-day Chinese people, and representing one of the more often published about Asian cultures, Lin's novel on Chinese culture allows middle-grade readers to be captivated by an adventurous and loving storyline that is easy to read and get lost in.

My 11-year-old son read it in four sittings, each time remarking that the chapters were short, even though there were a lot of them, which helped him feel like he was flying through the book. He also enjoyed how the characters he thought were minor in the beginning, came back around and were connected by the end of the story. In many ways, we wondered if Lin was influenced by the Wizard of Oz, or if Frank Baum might have been influenced by Chinese cultural folktales.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon opened a window for my son to peek into ancient Chinese culture through commonly shared stories that were foreign to him. He enjoyed the experience and said that Dragon was his favorite character, because he was loyal and protective of Minli, no matter what magical beast they ran into. He also liked that although the myths within the folktale were telling morals, they were not lecturing children about being thankful for what they have. In essence, they were asking children to recognize they have power and can make positive changes not only in their lives but in the lives of the people they love, even though they are young and/or poor.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S) and AWARDS
Newbery Honor Book
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature


From School Library Journal
"The author's writing is elegant, and her full-color illustrations are stunning. Minli's determination to help her family, as well as the grief her parents feel at her absence, is compelling and thoroughly human." 

From Booklist
"With beautiful language, Lin creates a strong, memorable heroine and a mystical land. Stories, drawn from a rich history of Chinese folktales, weave throughout her narrative, deepening the sense of both the characters and the setting and smoothly furthering the plot." 

5. CONNECTIONS
Each character in Lin's book, past and present, is connected in some way. In fact, the Old Man of the Moon and his red string connects generations of people in China.

How are the students in your classroom connected? If you start with a large roll of yarn, can you go around the room finding ways that each person is connected in life by their similarities outside of school? 

Have the first child hold the end of the yarn and announce something about themselves. If it is similar to someone else in the room, students should raise their hands, and allow the first student to call on someone, pass the yarn, and allow that student to announce something different about their lives. Play can continue around the room and include the teacher to show how we have more in common than we might think. 

Grandfather's Journey Review by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Say, Allen. Grandfather's Journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993. ISBN 0-395-57035-2. 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Author Allen Say depicts how his grandfather's identity was split between his love for his homeland in Japan and his adoration for America, particularly California, in this touching autobiographical picture book. 

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
An older picture book from the early 1990s, Allen Say's work is timeless as an extraordinary visual representation of his grandfather's journey to and travels around the United States. The story and images show the emotions he felt during his decision to immigrate to California. "The more he traveled, the more he longed to see new places, and never thought of returning home" (13).

Say's watercolor images feel as if he based them from pictures from his grandfather's photo albums. He captures real light and color in American sunsets, fields of wheat, and desert rocks. On his trip, as a young man, his grandfather dressed in American clothing, which expresses how important it was to him to fit in culturally. What is cultural assimilation and what are the challenges balancing two cultures for immigrants? This is a narrative that immigrant children in the classroom may understand and identify with in ways that typical American children may not immediately understand. How many children would try to wear the clothing of other cultures when they traveled abroad? Where would such fashion even be available to purchase in their area? Why, in the illustrations, do none of the people smile -- Japanese or American? Is this a shift between days past and the modern era that is plagued with selfies? Did any of the students notice how dressed up Say's family is at all times? Are these photos of special times that warrant dressing up, or does his family dress nicely every day? These are questions that might give children a moment or two to think about more than just how immigrants are people who travel to live in new lands.

The act of discovering another country and falling in love with it while remaining faithful to one's birthplace is a noble theme and shows an influence from grandfather to grandson and the importance of family connection throughout generations. The portrait of Say, as a child, with his grandfather standing on walking stones in a Japanese garden, is touching. Say focuses his text on how his grandfather's oral stories about America inspired him to also make the journey across the Pacific. "When I was a small boy, my favorite weekend was a visit to my grandfather's house. He told me many stories about California" (24). But before Say was able to make his journey he had to experience some major emotional losses. One assumes from the illustration that World War II was a large influence on his childhood. Although he does not call the war by name, he illustrates a total destruction of the city where he lived in Japan by showing children among piles of gray rubble.

At 16, Say went to California, also dressed in American clothing. Say says he feels the same division between Japan and California that his grandfather felt. "The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other" (31).

This division represents to me something that is missing in today's political understanding of the immigrant experience. To be torn between two physical places is both a positive and a negative. One's understanding of humanity in a global sense is increased through travel and experience in different cultures. But one's sense of home or presence of self might come into question based on life experiences in another place.

In a perfect world, one would not have to choose between the family of origin and the family they create. One would hope in a global world, families would be able to stay together and travel freely to see each other.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S) and AWARDS
Caldecott Medal
Bulletin Blue Ribbon
ALA Notable Book
Boston Globe/Horn Book Award
Booklist Editor's Choice
School Library Journal Best Books of the Year

From School Library Journal
"A personal history of three generations of the author's family that points out the emotions that are common to the immigrant experience." 

From Kirkus Reviews
"Lovely, quiet — with a tenderness and warmth new to this fine illustrator's work." 

5. CONNECTIONS
It's too often that children are read to and see illustrations without understanding how illustrations are created. In Say's book, he uses watercolors, which are relatively easy for most schools and libraries to come by. This could make a lovely pre-grandparents', mothers' or fathers' day activity. Encourage children to bring a photo of their favorite relative to school (a print out if possible, so it doesn't accidentally get ruined). Talk about the colors in their photographs and have them draw out a replica of the photo on drawing paper and then use watercolors to fill the image. Some might choose to copy the photo completely, others might take a modern approach and use brighter, more vivid colors to express their emotions about the person in the photo. If a photo isn't available, have mirrors in the class, so children can work on self-portraits. These photos will make excellent room decorations and gifts and will allow children much needed creative time in the classroom. 

Review of The Birchbark House by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Erdrich, Louise. The Birchbark House. Ashland, Oregon: Blackstone Audio, 2004. ASIN: B0001GDQKY

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Young Omakayas lives with her family on an island in the middle of Lake Superior among the Ojibwa tribe. Her childhood is full of the joys of nature, the love of her family, and the annoyances of her little brother Pinch until the hard, long winter comes and with it an unwanted and lethal visitor. 

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS 
Listening to the audio version of The Birchbark House was both a joy and an indulgence. Some audiobooks can be on in the background while one goes about their lives and be absorbed just fine. But Nicolle Littrell's narration and individual character voices draw you into the story, the family's native language, and the beautiful natural descriptions that author Louise Erdrich depicts, which makes it impossible but to tune out the world and concentrate on the details of the story. 

As a listener who is not well versed in Ojibwa tribe culture and names, I researched the spellings of characters' names and the native words the author used (Eldrich is a member of the Ojibwa tribe), so I could have a better appreciation of the way she integrated native words into her writing, because the Ojibwa vocabulary was a giant focus of how the young, female protagonist and narrator, Omakayas, relates her story to the reader. The Ojibwa language also is reiterated through many oral stories that her grandmother shares about the family's history. To understand the language, is to begin to understand the efforts of authenticity that Erdich put into her novel.

In addition to the plethora of native language, Omakayas is very particular about describing the importance of food and meals in her home. The hard work that it takes everyone on the island to prepare for a long winter in the middle of Lake Superior has everyone from a very young age tanning hides, harvesting rice, fishing, hunting animals, and mashing corn. Bannock bread, a dough cooked over a fire, plays a constant role in the book, as well as maple sugar. Winter in the north lasts almost six months. Planning to store that much food for a family of seven is no small undertaking, particular when Omakayas' father travels most of the seasons outside of winter with the voyagers to bring back animal pelts to trade with the general store. 

But my favorite part of how Erdrich illustrated native traditions was in how Omakayas interacts with nature. She is a young girl in the book aging from 7 to 8 years of age, but it doesn't stop her from befriending two bear brothers, and trying to name her baby brother Neewo after birds. Nature calls out to Omakayas, similarly as it does to her grandmother Nokomis, and puts her on a path to become a healer. The use of natural life on the island isn't a stereotype that is often seen in Native American portrayals. Instead of viewing her family as environmentalists, it's very clear that the survival of the Ojibwa people depend on the plant and animal resources where they live. This isn't political, it is survival. But it does have a sense of humor. For example, Omakayas' family pet is a crow, Andeg, who picks up their language and chastises her brother, Pinch, whenever he causes trouble. Indeed the relationship between middle sister and middle brother is often strained, which many modern day children will be able to relate to, but it is not completely without hope. 

Omakayas' day-to-day life and involvement with her family and their closeness is the focus of the novel, but there are also secrets to how she herself is special. Omakayas does not realize until white men visit their island and bring yellow fever to her community that she is a very special child. Erdich allows Omakayas to handle the situation in a very adult way that honors her family, as she works hard to make decisions that will keep them all together in this world or the next. The illness and the terror it instills in the whole island also introduces hatred for white men through the real fear elders feel. Relationships with white voyagers may bring some prosperity, but it can also be deadly. 

The Birchbark House is the first book in a series, but it didn't need to be. This novel stands on its own just fine and does a beautiful job describing the work and love that went into the Ojibwa community. But I have to admit, my favorite character was Old Tallow, the old woman neighbor, who always held a special place in her heart for Omakayas, carried a gun, went through three husbands, and then surrounded herself with a pack of dogs. Old Tallow is described by Omakayas as being very tough and living outside of the normal social boundaries of women in her tribe. Yet, she was accepted either because of her grit or her talent as a hunter. 

Unlike the other books I read for this unit, The Birchbark House is more focused on Native American women and their influence on culture and home life. It is also the oldest setting of the three novels that I read. I am glad that I listened to the audiobook, as I think the various voices and tones were wonderfully acted. There were many moments of playfulness and joyfulness that really attracted me to become emotionally involved with the characters. And I have to admit when yellow fever hits the island in the dead of winter, I cried. But don't let my sentiment put you off of the audio recording. I laughed at the antics of the children far more than I felt despair. I promise! 

4.  AWARDS and REVIEW EXCERPTS
National Book Award Finalist, 1999

From School Library Journal
"Based on her own family history, Louise Erdrich has crafted a richly textured historical novel. Nicolle Littrell's slow, clear narration is rich and inviting. Ojibwa words are smoothly woven into the narration, and their meaning is clear from the context." 

From Kirkus Reviews
"With this volume, Erdrich launches her cycle of novels about a 19th-century Ojibwa family, covering in vivid detail their everyday life as they move through the seasons of one year on an island on Lake Superior." 

5. CONNECTIONS
When the story starts, Omakayas is 7 years old. She is already helping her mother by learning how to tan moose skin and watch her baby brother -- home alone! As she ages in the story, she helps the family cook meals, cares for the sick, run errands, harvests rice, etc. Have the students in your room think about the chores they do at home and the purpose of them? Do they give them a sense of pride? Are they helpful to their parents? Do they honor their home the way Omakayas does? Is this part of their modern day culture? 

Outside of the cultural similarities and differences, answer some basic questions like how hard is it to grind acorns? For younger children, this can be a great activity outside with a simple rock and acorn against blacktop, or if possible, bring in a mortar and pestle and have the children try grinding the acorns (you might need to give a helping hand to get them started). Also, as a math and science activity, how much food would their families have to collect to make it through six months of winter? How would it be preserved?

Food is a large part of Omakayas' life. Without farming, fishing, and hunting her small family would die. But she has a special food -- maple sugar. How is maple sugar turned into syrup? Is there a field trip near the school to go learn about the process? If not, is there an opportunity to make or share maple candy with your students?