scrounge: /skrounj/ informal verb: to actively seek [books] from any available source
Drawing on Chinese folk tales, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon begins with a girl named Minli and her parents working hard in the poor soil all day, with only a little bit of rice to show for it. The adventure takes off when Minli decides to leave Fruitless Mountain in hopes of finding a way to bring good fortune back to her valley.
The tale is told in a straightforward manner, and involves dragons, a magic book, an evil green tiger, and copious references to the moon and moonlight. I like how this story includes many other short stories told by different characters, to help fill in plot points.
While I enjoyed the fantastical elements, the story was slow going for me at times, but by the end I began to appreciate how the different characters and events were gradually woven together into one big story, and I really liked the way the ending came together, with an emphasis on patience, contentment, and familial love.
Scrounged From: PaperbackSwap.com
Format: Paperback
Author: Grace Lin
Pages: 282
Content Advisory: Very little violence, but one scene involves the dragon getting wounded.
Stormy Seas is a timely look at young refugees of the past, especially considering the current refugee crisis in which more than five million people have fled Syria, half of whom are children. This book helps to show us that refugees are not new at all -- the young people featured in this book fled from Germany, Cuba, Vietnam, Ivory Coast, and Afghanistan, all due to violence, government oppression, or other threat of persecution.
Each of the five sections shares the story of one person's flight, the reasons for leaving, and a first-person account of their time on the boat. We are then given a summary of what has happened to them since these events. More than one of these desperate refugees were turned away from the country they had initially been trying to reach.
This book is well designed, with many photos and quotes set off from the main text, as well as maps and other illustrations to create visual interest. But what interested me the most were the stories of these refugees, who are humanized in these pages rather than appearing as statistics.
In the introduction, the author tells us:
"If you're reading this, you--like me--have probably won the lottery. Not the giant-check, instant-millionaire kind of lottery. The other lottery win--the really valuable one. That random, lucky break that means you were born in or immigrated to a relatively peaceful and prosperous place in the world."
It's not always something we're forced to think about, but this book helps young adults appreciate their situation by sharing the stories of others, and hopefully encourages empathy in our response toward those who simply want to survive.
(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)
Scrounged From: NetGalley
Format: Kindle
Author: Mary Beth Leatherdale
Illustrator: Eleanor Shakespeare
Pages: 64
Content Advisory: Some depictions of violence, and of squalid conditions on the boats.
Dolphin Adventure is a short chapter book about a true experience Wayne Grover had while scuba diving. Two dolphin parents surprise him by bringing their baby to him with a hook stuck in its back, in hopes that he can help it.
We get to experience Wayne's response and his thoughts during the process, the parents' anxiety, and the baby's fear, as well as an interruption by sharks!
I found this to be an inspiring story that encourages compassion for animals, as well as giving us some very neat glimpses of dolphin behavior. If you enjoy this one, there is a sequel called Dolphin Treasure (though the dolphins don't feature as prominently there as they do in this one).
Scrounged From: HomeschoolClassifieds.com (Sonlight Core A)
Format: Paperback
Author: Wayne Grover
Illustrator: Jim Fowler
Pages: 80
Content Advisory: The baby dolphin's wound is described in order to detail how the hook is removed.
Wolf Story was originally published in 1947, but feels timeless in its portrayal of a five-year-old boy named Michael who is always asking his father to tell him a story. That story -- about a hungry wolf named Waldo who is after a many-colored hen named Rainbow -- takes on a life of its own and becomes a "story within a story" as bits and pieces of it are told before bedtimes and on road trips by Michael's father.
Michael is reminiscent of many five-year-olds in that he wants to have input into the story, and doesn't want to let his father get away with ending it too soon. Michael's father is patient and creative, with an occasional sarcastic streak.
I wouldn't have minded if the story of Waldo the wolf had gone on a bit longer, but as the ending shows, the best stories never really end. This book is a great length for young children who are just getting old enough for chapter books, but older children would probably enjoy it just as well.
Scrounged From: Amazon
Format: Hardcover
Author: William McCleery
Illustrator: Warren Chappell
Pages: 82
Content Advisory: One swear word, and a bit of cartoonish violence including bats and guns (no death).
From Beatrix Potter to Redwall, Wind in the Willows and Jill Barklem's Brambly Hedge, among others, the British appear to be the most accomplished experts on writing fictional accounts of rodents.
Watership Down is in that category, but at 400+ pages, it's not something most children are likely to pick up. It's the story of a journey, and of survival, with plenty of heart and endearing characters.
The story follows an intrepid band of rabbits who leave their home after Fiver, an eccentric (but accurate) rabbit foretells disaster to their current warren. On the way, they encounter many obstacles and set-backs, but finally arrive at Watership Down, which they decide to make their new home. Once there, however, they realize they won't last long as a colony without females, and thus begins a new phase of adventure as they decide they must find a way to infiltrate the other warren in the area -- the one that is run under the iron paw of the ruthless General Woundwort.
While the rabbits in this story are anthropomorphized to a point, as in they do speak to each other, Richard Adams did not simply stick human personalities onto rabbits. I get the impression that he has spent an awful lot of time observing and pondering these creatures, and so the characters he created are relatable and yet feel more rabbity than human. He gives them their own folk heroes and folk tales, and you have to wonder whether rabbits really are like this if you could just speak their language.
Scrounged From: PaperbackSwap.com
Format: Paperback
Author: Richard Adams
Pages: 476
Content Advisory: Lots of peril, and several scenes of fighting and other violence, including some descriptions of injury and death.
Blogs on This Site
Like us on Facebook to get updates about new resources