scrounge: /skrounj/ informal verb: to actively seek [books] from any available source
For Day 13 of our Christmas Books series, we're featuring a book called The Christmas Ladder that is actually a short story in Kindle format, but is also personal because it was written by our neice (and she illustrated the cover as well), Annie Louise Twitchell, and is based on a true story from Professor Puzzler's family history.
In the story, Reverend Snow's young family does not have enough money for a Christmas tree, but he uses a little New Englander ingenuity to come up with a solution that works just as well.
This would be a lovely family read-aloud in the days leading up to Christmas!
Scrounged From: Amazon (Kindle)
Format: Kindle
Author: Annie Twitchell
Pages: 10
Content Advisory: None
The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas by Madeleine L'Engle is longer than a regular picture book, but shorter than a regular chapter book. I read it easily in one evening, but a family with children may choose to read it aloud over several nights.
While I haven't read any of L'Engle's "Austin Family" books, I don't think that hindered my enjoyment of this story. The narrative revolves around Vicky Austin and her role as an angel in the Christmas pageant. The Austins are also expecting a new sibling to be born sometime around Christmas. Vicky gradually comes to enjoy her angel role, but also is afraid that her mother will be in the hospital during Christmas.
In the midst of these worries, the Austins try to do something Christmasy each day, from gradually filling in their nativity scene, to hanging garland and other decorations. I thought this was a realistic look at how the hopes of Christmas can collide with a child's real-life anxieties, and am glad that, even though things do not go entirely according to plan, the Austins are able to be all together on Christmas day.
Scrounged From: My parents' yard sale box
Format: Hardcover
Author: Madeleine L'Engle
Illustrator: Joe De Velasco
Pages: 48
Content Advisory: None
The Pink Umbrella, originally published in French, is a tender story about a woman named Adele who manages a cafe, and loves the sunny weather. But when it rains, she has a hard time coping.
But then someone begins leaving her gifts to help protect her in the rainy weather, and she wonders who it could be...
The illustrations here are just perfect -- there's a lot of pink of course, but it doesn't feel overdone because the tones are so soft and beautiful. The story has just the right touch of romance to it which is communicated through thoughfulness and friendship -- the very best kind, in my opinion.
The only thing I didn't like was how the first quarter or so was written -- it felt like too much direct "summary" that didn't flow very well, and sometimes switched tenses as well. Of course, perhaps the fact that this is a translation is why it feels a bit clunky to me, but it's absolutely worth reading. It's not even that wordy, overall, but probably would appeal more to older children (or adults!) than younger ones.
(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)
Scrounged From: NetGalley
Format: Kindle
Author: Amélie Callot
Illustrator: Geneviève Godbout
Pages: 72
Content Advisory: None
Letters to a Prisoner is a wordless picture book that communicates quite a bit through a story of a man who is arrested for peaceful protest, and is encouraged (and eventually freed) with the aid of letters written by people around the world.
The story is understandably simplified, with the opposing political factions in the beginning simply denoted by different-colored shapes. Letters become symbolic of flight and freedom all through the story, and a lovely fantastical image helps to illuminate this idea even more at the end.
A note at the end explains that this story is meant to illustrate what can happen (and has) during Amnesty International's Write for Rights events. I had never heard of this before, so I went and looked into it more after finishing the story.
I definitely felt inspired after reading this, though it also serves as a reminder that not everyone in the world has the same rights that many of us enjoy. I probably would not read this to a preschooler (the images show people being hit and the man being separated from his young child in a fight, which might be upsetting for young children), but it's easy enough for an adult reader to preview for age-appropriateness.
(Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy.)
Scrounged From: NetGalley
Format: Kindle
Author/Illustrator: Jacques Goldstyn
Pages: 48
Content Advisory: See final paragraph above.
I'll be honest, words tend to hold much more interest for me than numbers. But that means that if I'm going to learn about a new mathematical concept, a picture book like Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci is probably the best way to do so.
The author, Joseph D'Agnese, admits in the informational page at the end that very little is actually known of Fibonacci's life. So some aspects of this story are speculation, but we are told the basics: that Leonardo Fibonacci was born in Italy in the 1170s and became one of the greatest known Western mathematicians of the Middle Ages.
This book is written from a first-person perspective, and the title is taken from Fibonacci's nickname, "Bigollo," which could mean "traveler," but could also mean "idler, dreamer, or lazy person." In this story, Fibonacci's obsession with numbers leads to him being labeled as a "blockhead" by some, which of course is not true.
As we learn (through dialog with Fibonacci's friend, Alfredo), Fibonacci not only popularized the Hindu-Arabic numeral system that we use today, but he also noticed numerical patterns in the world around him that came up over and over again. This book includes an explanation of his "rabbit problem," (leading to the Fibonacci sequence) and a visualization of the golden ratio spiral. The illustrations include several other examples of the fibonacci sequence in nature, which readers are invited to go back and search for on the last page.
While the book does not really delve into the implications of these numbers, it still gave me a visually engaging way to learn about them, as well as an appreciation for Fibonacci's curiosity, and the incredible complexity of nature. As Fibonacci tells us at the end, "Now you see why I don't mind being called Blockhead, after all!"
Scrounged From: Amazon
Format: Hardcover
Author: Joseph D'Agnese
Illustrator: John O'Brien
Pages: 40
Content Advisory: None (though some may object to use of the phrase "mother nature")
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