Reading for you

What is POTUS

When Penny Met POTUS by Rachel Ruiz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, this was fun. I was going to sit down and write reviews of a whole bunch of pictures books I read today, but I had to stop right here, after reading this one, and write about how much I enjoyed it.

The story is about a little girl who gets to go to work with her mother who works for POTUS. The little girl doesn’t know what that means. She thinks with a name like that, it must be a monster or an alien, and she really wants to meet it. [POTUS is a nickname for the President Of The United States.]

Her mother takes her to work, and she sneaks out in search of her monster POTUS. She asks people if they have see this POTUS, and they all say, not right that minute, but they saw POTUS earlier.

Finally, she runs into a woman feeding the fish, and she turns out to be the POTUS. Penny is so disappointed because she is human. But then the POTUS shares ice cream with her, and that makes her being human ok.

Just look at that delightful POTUS:

I loved that this book is on such an in the moment level, and so told from Penny’s point of view. She has a delightful imagination. I love that the president is a woman, and Penny is not surprised that she is, but that she is human. And I loved that her mother was able to take her to work with her.

So, I think this picture book would appeal to kids reading it or just looking at the pictures, as well as parents or guardians reading it.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Kim-bap is not Korean Sushi

Krista Kim-Bap by Angela Ahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I was in the grade school, we studied our heritage, just as Krista does in this middle-school book. And like Krista, we were encouraged to study our cultural history through food. We were all supposed to bring in recipes from our family that were part of our heritage. My heritage was half Italian and have British. But, my father, like the parents in this book, who are first generation born in their country, do not speak to the language of their parents. Thus, like Krista, I did not know Italian, in her case Korean, and so felt closer to my British heritage. So, while all the other kids were brining in strange and exotic recipies, I brought in one for fruit cake. My teacher though I had misunderstood the assignment. She kept saying, bring in something from my heriatage, and I’d tried to explain to her that I had.

She sent me back to try again.

I told my mother, the British side of my family, what had happened, and she realized the teacher wanted something Italian, despite the fact that none of us ate anything more Italian than pizza, and so gave me a receipt for eels in wine sauce.

The teacher approved.

Krista, in this book, does not have this problem, because her grandmother is still alive, and actually wants to help her learn to cook Korean.

But this book is not just about Krista learning how to cook Korean food. This is a fish-out-of-water story. A girl whose best friend is a boy, and how doesn’t understand the girls in her class, not because she is Korean-Canadian, but because she doesn’t understand girls in general.

And it takes her grandmother to help her with the assignment, and with the understanding.

It really is a sweet story, and I am so glad that Krista showed how eating Korean was important to her heritage and who she was.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Bats of fun

Megabat by Anna Humphrey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A talking fruit bat who like Star Wars. A talking fruit bat who is far from home. A talking fruit bat who is best friends with a lonely boy, the girl next door, and birdgirl, the local pigeon.

All this makes for a fun, silly book about loneliness, and making friends, with bats and people.

Daniel has had to move to a new house from Toronto.

Megabat has accidentally moved to the new house too, by way of Borneo.

With the help of Talia and Birdgirl, Megabat and Jamie find what is important in friendship.

It is silly. It is fun. It is just right for early readers.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Hospital drama

Kasey & Ivy by Alison Hughes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, what a delightful book. The cover drew me in, and then the bright, funny, real voice of Kasey pulled me in the rest of the way.

The longest I have had to spend in a hospital was about a week, when my daughter was born. I hated it. Kasey has to stay a month, with old people, as the children’s ward is having renovations. At first Kasey doesn’t like to be around people. She thinks they are strange. Then she warms to them, as the story progresses. As she likes to say, being in the hospital is like being in a little village, with all the different characters you would meet.

And we get to meet all the characters through her letters that she writes home to her best friend. Missy Wong, the old woman who wants to go “upstairs” all the time. Louise, the candy stripper, (or whatever they are known as in Canada), who brings by snacks, and Night Owl, one of the night nurses.

The friendship between Missy Wong and Kasey is so strong, it was wonderful to read that she based it on someone the author met in the hospital when had to stay there, she was nine years old

The funny thing is, as I was reading this book, as an American, I thought, wow, this must be in Canada because the cost of her stay is never brought up, and isn’t part of the plot, the way it would be in the US. What does that say about how different this book would have been.

Highly recommend this book for all, even if you don’t like middle school books. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry. It’ll make you stay up late to finish it, even when you have to get up the next day.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Out in the Canadian Bush

Susanna Moodie: Roughing It in the Bush by Carol Shields
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I will start by saying that I have never heard of Susanna Moodie, but then I have not read nearly enough Canadian history. This shows me that I really should. I saw that Margaret Atwood had written the introduction, but I decided I needed no introduction, so plunged right into it.

Going in cold, without any background of Canadian history made this all the more intriguing. Susanna was born an aristocrat in the early part of the 19th century, int he UK. When her father dies, she has no money for a dowery, so must find a suiter who does not care about such things.. She, like most of the upper class, was not taught to take care of herself, or any domestic duties. She wanted to write, and did so. She ends up marrying a retired military officer, but finds that his pay will not support her, so decide to move to Canada, because it is cheaper there. She and her husband are not told that they are really moving into the wilderness, and they will have to do everything early settlers have to do for themselves.

And example of the protagonist at the beginning of the story.

And how she looks after she have moved to the “bush”, and lived there for a while:

This reminds me a little bit of The First Four Years, but Laura Engles Wilder, but Laura grew up in the wilderness, and did know how to do things, like milk cows, and bake bread. Susanna had no clue how to cook, or do any of these things. And she has to learn, and learn quickly. She does make friends with the local First Nation people, as well as a man of color, who sells her a cow, so she can have milk.

Life is not easy, but Susanna goes into it determined, and it is an interesting transformation. The story follows her life from when she is a young woman to when she is an elderly woman. Through it all she has a sense of humor, and strives on.

Apparently, according to the prolog of the book, this was originally going to be a movie, but it never got made. And once I read that, and saw Margaret Atwood mentioned again, I decided to read the introduction, and learned how important Susanna Moodie was to Margaret, and why she wrote a poem about her, and how others have brought her up in their works.

I really enjoyed reading this. It makes me want to read the original book. It makes me want to read more about Canadian History. It makes me realize how ignorant I am of women writers in the 19th century.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Canadian History, interested in Women’s history, interested in writings about what it was really like to live in the bush.

My only problem with this book, and the reason it does not get the final star is that the illustrations sometimes go “off-model” and look wrong, or the poses would look ackward. It is a minor thing, but bugged me.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Horrors of Residency school in a picture book

I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an amazing book. It is written simply and too the point, based on the life of the author’s grandmother.

In the United State, Australia, and Canada, and perhaps other places as well, the Indigenous people were removed from their homes and families and forced to become “white”. They were forbidden to speak their native tongue, forbidden to eat their food, and forbidden to have any contact with their families.

The author’s grandmother was one such child in 1928, in Canada. She and her bothers were removed from their family and forced to speak English, and beaten when they did not. This did not just happen to a few children, and this did not just happen back in the olden days. The last of the residential schools closed in 1996!

Perfect book for teachers to discuss history. Perfect book for young children to read to understand what happened.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Journey of Reconciliation

Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation by Monique Gray Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The horror that was the residential schools is explored in this book that talks about what happened and what can be done to reconcile all that has gone before, for previous generations, and existing generations, by talking to survivors of the residential school system, as well as with youths of today who are only now learning about this horrid history.

For thos who don’t know, the residential schools are schools where the Canadian government took children of First Nations’ people, by force, and put them in to schools where they had their hair cut, had their clothes taken away, as well as their language, which they were punished if the spoke. They were not allowed home, except the summer, and sometimes not even then. this went on for generations. This distoryed families, for many generations, as well as obliterated the structure of the First Nations peoples.

Good book for those who want a thorough overview of what can be done, and what has been done, and what needs to be done.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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When words are stolen

Stolen Words by Melanie Florence
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With tears still in my eyes after reading, this I want to get my feelings down about this sweet, short picture book. So simple, only 13 pages long, but with such impact, I might as well as read a whole novel.

A little girl comes home from school and asks her grandfather how to say grandfather in Cree, since they are of those people. Alas, her grandfather has lost all his words, because he was forbidden to speak them when he went to residential school. He explains this in such simple ways, but gets the idea across:

“[They took me] away to a school that was cold and lonely, where angry white faces raised their voices and their hands when we used our words,” he answered. “They took our words and locked them away, punished us until we forgot them, until we sounded like them.”

Such a powerful way to explain what happened, with lovely pictures, the words becoming a cadged bird as they flew from their mouths.

Is this book relevant? Damn right it is. Is this book needed? Damn right it is. Does this book made you cry and rage at the same time. Damn right it does.

With stories in the news such as this one, where a senator says that residential schools weren’t all bad? Sheesh, we need a whole boat load of books like this.

Highly, highly recommend this book to all libraries, homes, and schools, both in Canada, and the US. This history needs to be told, and told again.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. Thank you Second Story Press for publishing these, and other important books.

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Vikings you need to know about

Vikings in 30 Seconds by Philip Steele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love when I read a children’s book and find facts that I was not aware of.

This is another in the series of “30 second” fact bites of information, this time on Vikings.

We learn about how four of the days of the week, in English, are still named after Viking gods. We learn that Vikings did not have horns on their helmets, and what their helmets looked like. We learn that Vikings used to play games and sing songs.

They had something called “kennings” which were word puzzles. They played board games and sang, but we don’t know what their music sounded like, because when outsiders came to hear it they said it sounded like dogs howling.

Fun, and quick read. Great for children to learn about Vikings.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Red Sky at night, Sailors Delight

Red Sky at Night by Elly MacKay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How many sayings do you know about the weather? The only ones I knew, in this book were:

Red Sky at Morning,
Sailers take warning
Red Sky at Night
Sailers delight.

And although I did not know this saying

If seabirds fly to land
There truly is a storm at hand

I was aware of this weather phenomenon, and have mentioned it many times in the past.

The illustrations are paper craft, and gorgeous, and each of the sayings, are explained at the end of the book, where it explains what each saying means, and why it works. Beautiful book to look at, and good information for children to have, because, sometimes you don’t have access to the weather.com (which isn’t always right for your neighborhood anyway).

Thanks to NetGalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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