Hooray for Anna Hibiscus! by Atinuke, illustrated by Lauren Tobia (Kane Miller, 2010).

That’s right, hooray for the team of Atinuke and Tobia who have brought a great set of books to the early reader/ chapter book shelves. Atinuke’s writing style and Tobia’s artwork work incredibly well together to charm the pants off of you and draw you right into Anna’s world.

Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa. Amazing Africa. She lives with her mother and her father; her grandmother and her grandfather; her aunties and her uncles; her cousins, little, medium and big; and her twin baby brothers, Double and Trouble. They all live together in a big white house.

The Anna Hibiscus series offers a glimpse into this one girl’s young life, one that many of us in the U.K. (where the books were originally published) and the U.S. have never seen before. The stories in Hooray for Anna Hibiscus! are based on Atinuke’s own childhood in a middle-class family in an urban area of Nigeria. While they are wonderfully specific to this character and her family they also touch on themes that children everywhere can understand: having to perform even when it’s scary, how to tell the truth even when it’s difficult, how to reach across difference, and learning how to appreciate one’s own beauty even if that means having your hair yanked and pulled into braids every week.

So for Anna Hibiscus, Atinuke and Lauren Tobia: a huge hooray and a standing ovation, too.

(Image source: IndieBound)

(via Racial Lens Used to Cull Curriculum in Arizona - NYTimes.com)

Matt de la Pena goes to Tuscon to read from his banned book, Mexican White Boy.

Ana Verdugo is a fan of Matt de la Peña’s young adult novels; she read his “Mexican WhiteBoy” in two days.

Like the lead character, Danny, Ana is a Mexican-American whose family does not have much, is being raised by her mother and has a father who spent time in jail.

Like Sofia, the lead female character, Ana, a high school junior, is hoping to go to community college, where she wants to study accounting. “Most books I read, I don’t know the people,” Ana said. “This book is the truth.”

High praise!

An excerpt.

And everybody shows up for a different reason. A potpourri of ballers:

Some guys come because they’re regulars. Used to seeing all the fellas on a daily basis.

Some show for the first time on a tip from a friend. Try their skills in the best pickup around to see if they can hang.

A couple of NBA cats roll through when it’s their off-season.

…Some guys pull in every day because they love talking trash. Barbershop talk in high-tops. They always have something to say when they score. They have something to say when anybody scores.

…Some of the best ballers roll in wearing a work shirt and jeans. Some of the worst have top-of-the-line sneakers, top-of-the-line gym shorts, the most effective and smooth-looking knee braces. Basketball runway show.

…Some cause it’s the only place in the world they get respect. The only place they have any real control.

But no matter who they are, or why they come, every one of them squints their eyes when they step foot out of the dark gym and back into the bright world that waits outside.

Ball Don’t Lie by Matt de la Pena (Delacourte Press, 2005) pp. 53-55.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus (Amulet, 2010).

Heart of a Samurai is based on the true story of Manjiro Nakahama. At age 14, he and four other fishermen are caught in a storm and end up stranded on a deserted island. Somehow they are found and rescued by an American whaling ship. The year is 1841 and the adventure of Manjiro’s life begins — an adventure that will take him from that deserted rock of an island to small town American life to the ranks of samurai back in his home country of Japan. 

Manjiro Nakahama’s life is an extraordinary one. And this book is a fascinating read: whaling ships, late 19th century America through the eyes of a Japanese immigrant, and life in Japan just as it is coming in contact with America.

(Image: Denver Library)

A Path of Stars by Anne Sibley O’Brien (Charlesbridge, 2012).

Real Kids/ Good Books has been up and running for a year and a half-ish now and this is the first book I’ve found that features a Cambodian protagonist and her family.

A Path of Stars is about the power of storytelling. Daya’s grandma, Lok Yeay, loves to tell stories about growing up in Cambodia, playing with her brother among coconut and mango trees, going to the temple for New Year, looking at the stars with her own grandparents.

She also has darker stories, stories about “a day the soldiers came.”

“…we ran from the war. By then I had only two people left— my brother, who is your Lok Ta, and my little daughter, who is your mother. We took turns carrying her on our back, just the way you are carrying your brother.”

“Lok Ta and I held on to the only treasures we had been able to save: your mother, and pictures of those who had died. So many people— our parents, our brothers and sisters, my husband, Lok Ta’s wife.

“We hid in the jungle by day and walked at night by the light of the stars. Lok Ta read the stars like a map, finding our way west.”

I have talked about the responsibility of children’s book authors in sharing historical moments that are heavy from war, racism or other violence when reviewing other books. It takes both a delicate touch and an unflinching commitment to the truth to pull it off well. And O’Brien has achieved that balance here.

(Cover image: Coloring Between the Lines) (Interior image: Charlesbridge)

Out of the Way! Out of the Way! by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy (Groundwood Books, 2010).

At the heart of this story is a mango tree — doing what trees do best — while all around it the village becomes a bustling urban center, roads are built, new babies are born, and people grow old.

I’ll bet that somewhere where you live there is a witness to things that have come before and things that will come after, just like this old mango tree. 

(Images source: Writing with a Broken Tusk, a.k.a. Uma Krishnaswami’s blog)

Namaste! by Diana Cohn, illustrated by Amy Cordova, afterward by Ang Rita Sherpa (Steiner Books, 2009).

A children’s story set in Nepal. Nima’s father is a mountain guide and when he leaves on his yearly trek, he asks his young daughter to save up some stories to tell him when he gets back home. Nima spends her day meeting all kinds of people in her community, each time greeting them with “Namaste.” Her story? “She will tell [her father] how she helps others every time she says Namaste!”

(Image Source: Goodreads)

Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulson Books, 2012).

Jacqueline Woodson was one of the first kids lit writers to steal my heart with Locomotion, Peace, Locomotion and Show Way. But her latest book didn’t grab me in that same way. 

Beneath a Meth Moon takes us into the heart of meth addiction. Laurel loses her mother and grandmother to Hurricane Katrina and in that tragic aftermath, meth slowly takes away everything that was once important to her. 

Moon smoke so thick around me, like a blanket, like an arm… And me there on the ground in the bright morning, starting out through it— not knowing anything else anymore but this new thing, this wanting nothing, needing nothing, feeling nothing… but moon. (p.99) 

I do admire Woodson’s writing and intentions for this book, but there is a ethereal, detached feeling in Beneath a Meth Moon that doesn’t quite give these events the hard-hitting tragic loss that they deserve. 

(Image source: Goodreads— perfect place for a second opinion, i.e. where lots of readers disagree with me on this book)

Fish for The Grand Lady by Colin Bootman (Holiday House, 2006).

Two boys out to catch more fish than they and their grandmother, the Grand Lady, can eat in a day. Derrick and Colly get up before dawn to head down to the market to get hooks then they’re off to the secret spot on the river that the Grand Lady has promised has lots of fish. As these stories go, just as the two boys are about to give up, they end up with a bucket full of fish. All the dialogue is written in the Trinidadian dialect and the illustrations are full of the lush greens of the countryside. 

(Image source: Holiday House)