WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: The Patron Thief of Bread

A gargoyle on top of a cathedral. The Patron Thief of Bread by Lindsay Eagar is the story of eight-year-old Duck, who was found in a river as a baby and “adopted” by and cared for by a band of street urchins in Medieval France. The Crowns, a band of young thieves, are the only family Duck has known and even though Gnat, the group’s leader, is not especially fond of her, the group is her family, and they survive by stealing money and food from vendors in street fairs and town markets across their region. Orphaned children were often overlooked, abused, or ignored and thus had to fend for themselves, regardless of how young they were. However, the Crowns were skilled at stealing and thus a threat to other bands. They move from town to town as a way of avoiding bands of older orphans as well as punishment by a town justice once they become too visible in any particular place. Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: Ancestory: The Mystery and Majesty of Cave Art

A group of people looking up at cave drawings, illuminated by flashlights.Ancestory: The Mystery and Majesty of Cave Art by Hannah Salyer is an exceptional book that grabs the reader’s attention immediately. After capturing the reader with an intriguing beginning, the author/illustrator continues to engage the reader with a brief but informative text and brilliant, full page illustrations. She refers to cave art as time capsules, “ancient rock paintings, drawings and etchings.” She describes the rock artists as our ancestors who are Homo sapiens, and also Neanderthals, a different species. Salyer shows in her illustrations and text how “some of the markings and creatures shown in the art are symbols.” She also portrays the numerous animals shown in the cave art, with some of those animals, “long extinct.” Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: The Girl Who Heard The Music

A young girl plays the piano, which shows the scene of Rapa Nui island at night.The Girl Who Heard the Music, How One pianist and 85, 000 Bottles and Cans Brought New Hope to an Island, is the true story of musician Mahani Teave and her island home, Rapa Nui. The authors, Marni Fogelson and Mahani Teave, weave together the themes of the love of music, environmental concerns, and life on a remote island, a thousand miles away from other populated areas. The story opens by describing the music of nature and the ancestral songs that surround Mahani as she grows up. Sometimes visitors to the island would bring musical instruments and give lessons. Once a retired music teacher came with her piano, the only one on the island, and Mahani was quickly able to learn how to play. Her talent was later recognized by a visiting Chilean pianist who convinced Mahani to leave home in order to study at conservatories. She became an accomplished pianist who now plays concerts around the world. However, she returns to her island home whenever she can. Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: Corner

A crow stands on a ladder in the corner of a concrete room, holding chalk.Corner is a whimsical, almost wordless picture book by Korean author and illustrator, ZO-O.

The story is about a crow who makes a cramped corner into a space for living and loving – a home. The crow starts a new life in an empty corner. After a while, the crow begins to gather objects: a bed, a bookshelf, a rug. A shelf appears with books and a lamp to read by. Lastly, the crow brings a small plant to complete the corner. The plant flourishes with the crow’s loving care. Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: Be a Good Ancestor

Two figures look over a forrested valleyIn Be a Good Ancestor, Canadian authors Leona Prince and Gabrielle Prince, issue this simple, four-word request to readers as an inspiring call to action. The authors, who are sisters, have written a poignant picturebook with themes of interconnectedness and stewardship that will resonate with readers of all ages. The repetition of the phrase, “Be a good Ancestor,” in each stanza invites readers to contemplate their roles as ancestors of future generations. Readers will hopefully recognize that the actions (or inactions) they take today have consequences that will last for decades to come. Each double-page spread features a unique call focused on the environment and on living beings, both human and non-human:

Be a good Ancestor with water
Be a good Ancestor with the land
Be a good Ancestor with living things that swim

Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: Wildoak

A sihlouette of a girl is filled in with starry night sky. A snow leopard fills the space of her shoulders.It’s London, 1963 and Maggie Stephens stutters. Because she stutters so badly, Maggie rarely speaks and finds all kinds of ways not to have to speak or read in school. Interestingly, Maggie does not stutter when she speaks to animals. Her parents, concerned (and perhaps a bit embarrassed) about her behavior, wonder if she needs to be treated at Granville, a school for children who don’t seem to fit in to the typical school. Granville is terrifying to Maggie who has heard rumors about how children are beaten if they cry. Looking for a way out of the Granville plan, Maggie agrees to an alternative plan to spend time with her grandfather in Wildoak Forest.

Meanwhile, Rumpus, a snowy leopard for sale at Harrod’s Department Store, is purchased as a birthday present for a woman who seems to have everything. Rumpus is separated from his littermate sister Rosie and is expected to behave like a domesticated cat rather than the wild cat he is. Rumpus is shortly abandoned in none other than the Wildoak Forest, where he and Maggie encounter one another.

The forest is a magical place, and as Maggie’s grandfather notes, it has “Real magic, if you know what I mean.” Her mother thought the air in the forest might be beneficial for Maggie, and in turn, Maggie thinks that maybe, just maybe it would make a difference and her stutter would go away.

But others soon find out about a snowy leopard in Wildoak and his life becomes endangered. Maggie realizes that like herself, time may be running out for Rumpus. Additionally, time may be running out for the forest as well. Copper has been found under the forest and the owner of the land is thinking of mining it. While copper can make the owner rich, mining it is dangerous for the land and those who much remove the ore from the ground.

Bringing together three sentient lives in a race against time, C.C. Harrington’s Wildoak is a story of the interconnectedness of humans, nonhuman animals and the environment, and how we are all dependent upon one another. Told in Maggie’s and Rumpus’ alternating voices, readers are invited into a timeless story of wonder and compassion with an inter-generational relationship that is both beautiful and lovingly respectful. With drawings by Diana Sudyka, the story would make a marvelous read aloud for elementary and middle school students or as a companion piece to Sam Thompson’s Wolfstongue, which also chronicles the interdependence of a young boy who stutters and nonhuman animals. -Recommended by Holly Johnson, Emeritus Professor, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH

Title: Wildoak
Author: C.C. Harrington
Illustrator: Diana Sudyka
ISBN: 9781338803860
Publisher: Scholastic Press
PubDate: September 20, 2022

Each month a committee of Worlds of Words advisors recommends a book published within the last year. Our hope is to spark conversations on our website and on social media about the book that expand global understandings and perceptions. Please join us by leaving a comment. You can also share your thoughts with us by using the hashtag #WOWRecommends on social media. Check out our alphabetical listing of all the books featured in WOW Recommends.

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: The Mystery of the Monarchs

Characters of all ages observe monarch butterflies in an open greenspaceThe Mystery of the Monarchs: How Kids, Teachers, and Butterfly Fans Helped Fred and Norah Urquhart Track the Great Monarch Migration by Barb Rosenstock and Erika Meza (illustrator) is a fascinating and absorbing account of how the mystery of where millions of monarch butterflies migrate over the winter was solved by Fred Urquhart, a Canadian professor of zoology and hundreds of citizens from three different countries. Fred, who lived in Toronto was a “bug man,” from the time he was eight. One of the bugs that fascinated him was the monarch butterfly. He knew a lot about the monarchs including that “during the fall, the monarchs disappeared.” Fred even wrote to a famous professor. “He asked: ‘Where do the monarchs go? He got a surprise answer: No one knew…. It was a mystery that Fred wanted to solve….” For ten years as he worked as a scientist he tried different methods of tagging the butterflies, but never heard back from anyone who found the tagged insects. Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: A Land of Books: Dreams of Young Mexican Word Painters

A group of Mexhicah people making a book against the backdrop of a pyramid and snowcapped mountains.In his new book, A Land of Books: Dreams of Young Mexican Word Painters, Duncan Tonatiuh weaves verbal and visual narratives together to create an historic account of how the “Mexhicah who dwell in the valley of the volcanoes, make books….”

Long ago, before woodblock printing, moveable typeset and the printing press, the Mexhicah made books by painting images onto long strips of amatl, or paper, made from the bark of the amacuahuitl tree. The long strips of paper were folded accordion style and then bound by covers made from wood that were decorated with hides, feathers and jewels. The reader of the amoxtli (book) would unfold the pages so that it could be read. When the reader had finished, the amoxtli was folded and stored in the amoxcalli, the house of books. The tlahcuilohqueh, the painters of words, mixed plants and insects with clay, ash and water to create the paints they used to record the stories of the past and the present, and from which future generations would read to learn about the lived experiences of the Mexhicah.

Fortunately for readers of Duncan Tonatiuh’s newest amoxtli, the future is upon us. In Tonatiuh’s picturebook, he tells a story of Mexhicah book making from the perspective of the daughter of a tlahcuilohqueh. The young girl explains to her brother how their parents make the amoxtin. She tells him why the amoxtin are made and about the contents painted on the pages. She tells her brother that the tlahcuilohqueh need to know “a great deal” about many subjects including “religion, astronomy, warfare and history” for this is the content that fills the pages of the amoxtin.

As the story progresses, readers join the sister and brother at the flower festival where performers sing the stories printed on the amoxtin. There are no letters on the pages, only drawings that certain people like noblemen, priests and wise elders know how to read. For this reason, the amoxtin are read or sung aloud at special occasions, like the flower festival, so that all the villagers can hear the stories and see the paintings.

Readers familiar with Tonatiuh’s own amoxtin know that he draws artistic inspiration from the iconography of the Mixtec codices written centuries ago. As such, Tonatiuh’s distinctive illustrations in The Land of Books seem to authenticate the research-based narrative of the book making process featured in the text. Readers will find much of Tonatiuh’s research in the Author’s Note at the end of the text. A Glossary, Bibliography and list of websites complete the resources that readers can access to learn more about the Mexihcah and their book making process.

Tonatiuh’s picturebook serves as a history lesson about the Mexhicah culture that is not often told in schools today. History lessons sometimes imply that book making began with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press when, in fact, books were being printed in China, Korea and Mexico long before Gutenberg began printing his texts in Europe. Fortunately, Tonatiuh’s newest picturebook provides a more accurate account of the evolution of book making which adds another layer of truth about the history of books and book making on a global scale. -Recommended by Mary L. Fahrenbruck, Associate Professor, New Mexico State University

Author/Illustrator: Duncan Tonatiuh
ISBN: 9781419749421
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers
PubDate: November 15, 2022

Each month a committee of Worlds of Words advisors recommends a book published within the last year. Our hope is to spark conversations on our website and on social media about the book that expand global understandings and perceptions. Please join us by leaving a comment. You can also share your thoughts with us by using the hashtag #WOWRecommends on social media. Check out our alphabetical listing of all the books featured in WOW Recommends.

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: The Moon from Dehradun

Boy sits on the lap of a girl who shares her doll while a train full of people passes in the evening backgroundThe story in The Moon from Dehradun is based on the history of the 1947 partition that created the individual countries of India and Pakistan. Prior to the partition the region had been a colony of Britain from 1858 to 1947. At the end of their rule the British divided the country according to the majority religions. Muslims must live in Pakistan and Hindus in India. Continue reading

WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: Chirri & Chirra In The Night

Two young girls who are identical twins ride their bikes through a colorful night.In Chirri & Chirra In the Night, identical twins, Chirri and Chirra, hear the sounds of drums and flutes coming from the forest just as the sun is setting. Off they go on their bikes to “take a look.” They first discover an enchanting, “… black cat drink stall!” There the sisters drink multiple delicious full-moon sodas. As they drink they sprout cat tails, whiskers, ears and enhanced night vision. “They can see everything now, even in the dark.” The magic has begun! Next, their cat guides pick flowers that “Chirri and Chirra have never seen before to make necklaces for them.” The cats tell them “these will be your tickets for the festival.” Continue reading