Celebrate November with Traci Sorell's Books

(photo by Kelly Downs Photography)

Native American Heritage Month, National Children's Book Week, AND Veteran's Day all occur right now--and Thanksgiving is coming up. I am happy to know and introduce you to Traci Sorell, an author whose books cover all of those celebrations!

I was so taken with Traci's first published and multi-award-winning picture book, We Are Grateful, illustrated by Frané Lessac, that I blogged about it here when it came out in 2018. It's now available as an audiobook, too. Somehow we began corresponding and hoped to meet someday. It finally happened this year at the Children's Museum in Brookings! We had time for a quick selfie between her sessions of presenting to school kids lucky enough to attend.

                             

The kids and I got to hear about her latest books, including Powwow Day, illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight.

As River and her family travel to the powwow, she is not well enough to dance this year. Seeing her sister and her friend dance while she sits on the sidelines makes River sad. Will she dance again? The book takes readers through the powwow experience from the Grand Entry drums and singing to the prayers to the various dances. Goodheart's soft palette and accurate illustrations bring the scenes to life and give motion to the dancers. Back matter gives more detail about different aspects of powwows, including the fact that everyone is welcome. Sources are included for further learning.

The subtitle of We Are Still Here! explains the book in a nutshell: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know. This non-fiction picture book, illustrated by the same artist as We Are Grateful, has won Honor awards for the Siebert Informational Book Award and the American Indian Youth Literature Award. The audiobook was selected as an ALA Notable Children's Recording. 

In this book fictional students present facts to their classmates and families for their Indigenous People's Day Project. While the students and project are fictional, each spread gives brief bulleted facts about a topic concerning Native Americans in the United States, followed by the refrain, "We are still here!" For example, one timely topic is the Indian Child Welfare & Education Act, now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Other topics include relocation, allotment, religious freedom, and language revival.  A timeline at the back helps readers understand the sequence of events. Back matter also includes a glossary, sources, and an author's note. 

The "More Information" section summarizes each topic and gives context to the illustrations. Illustrator Lessac based her illustrations on actual people, places, and events to help readers visualize the content. She brings the topics together in a joyful final spread that shows the students at their topic tables on Presentation Night. Diverse families mill about, learning what the students have discovered. 

This book is easy to read and comprehend about things often not taught or covered by media. This book belongs in every public and school library.

Traci and illustrator Weshoyot Alvitre honor veterans and their families with At the Mountain's Base. This multi-award winning book begins with a Native grandmother in her cabin at the base of a mountain. She weaves, and with her family, she worries, sings, and prays, awaiting her military pilot granddaughter's safe return home. Military families from all cultures will understand the concern, and those of us not from military families will gain new understanding. The poetic text and drawings full of warmth and longing show us the many threads of Native family life and family life in general. A special note about a special Oglala Lakota veteran, Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, the only Native to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP): Her service photo was the reference for Alvitre's drawing of the pilot granddaughter. 

Traci has many other books available now and coming soon! Visit her website for more information: https://www.tracisorell.com/. 

Time for Costumes: Dressing Up the Stars

        

This time of year, you & your family may be thinking about what your costumes will be for Halloween festivities. Some of you have changed your minds several times already! It's a fun time of year, yet there are people whose profession it is to create costumes year 'round for cinema and theater.

I was elated to win Dressing Up the Stars, written by Jeanne Walker Harvey and illustrated by Diana Toledano in an online raffle. This new picture book tells how Edith Head, winner of 8 Oscars for Best Costume, got started. 

We find out that Edith's life began far from Hollywood's glamour. She grew up in mining camps in the deserts of Nevada and Mexico. As an isolated only child, her imagination led her to dress up her pets for pretend tea parties--her first designs! 

Edith never sought the stage spotlight herself, but her designs added to actors' star power in many movies, developing their characters. She finally did end up in the spotlight when she accepted her Academy Awards.

Dressing Up the Stars will inspire young readers to pursue their dreams, employ their imaginations, persist, and practice, practice, practice--Edith's keys to success. The Author's Note gives a summary of Edith's life, and Selected Sources leads readers to more information about this Hollywood icon. Harvey has created an Activity Kit available for free download to extend the fun and learning of this book: https://www.jeanneharvey.com/projects. 

The illustrations are perfect from the cover to the end papers to the spreads in-between. Toledano's mixed media drawings show the pattern, texture, and color that make up the design world, while giving them a child-like simplicity.

I enjoyed learning how Edith Head came to costume fame and remember rooting for her when watching the Academy Awards. 

Marianna Diamos, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I wonder what kind of Halloween costume Edith Head would design for us. Hmmm....

How Can We Be Kind?

 

We tell children to be kind, but do they know what that means? Janet Halfmann's new picture book for ages 3-7 and released by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books/Quarto this week, shows the way! A hint is in the subtitle "Wisdom from the Animal Kingdom." As she has in other books, Janet turns to nature to find the answer to her title question. She says, "I was inspired to write this story to add positive ways to look at the world. Since nature can be so calming and restoring, I spotlighted the positive ways animals react to one another as examples for all of us to follow."

The book features caring European badgers, welcoming capybaras, sharing jackdaws, teamworking ants and bees, patient African elephants, selfless prairie dogs, laughing orangutans, encouraging blue manakins, and other animals and their traits. interspersed with the refrain, "How can we be kind?". Through the words and friendly, accurate animal drawings by Darla Okada, children will see the many ways they, too, can be kind. 

Readers of all ages can learn more about the animals in this book, some of which are not usually found in books for the very young.  Okada bookends the text with spot drawings of diverse humans showing kindness. Backmatter uses text and animal photographs to give more information.

Janet's approach is fun and effective.  I can imagine sharing it with children and referring to it with them later, reminding them to be like a zebra and stick up for their friends, for instance. Thank you, Janet, for showing us that being like an animal can be a good thing!

American Ace: Joe Foss: Military Appreciation Month

(photo by Mike Huber)

To wrap up Military Appreciation Month, I want to feature the new book American Ace: Joe Foss written and illustrated by Hector Curriel, published by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press. 

South Dakotans should know who Joe Foss is, but many people pass his statue at the Sioux Falls airport without recognizing him. The statue made Hector curious, so he researched to find out more. He discovered a story so compelling that he itched to tell it, and he set out to do so. 

He went to the library, spending time in the special collections room where books by and about Foss were held. He scoured the internet and watched videos of his new hero. To Hector, Foss' story was so inspiring that he wanted to tell it in a way that would engage and inspire young people. 

That was the beginning of his graphic biography for middle graders and up, which shows Foss' boyhood desire to fly become reality and tells how he became a World War II flying ace through hard work and determination. The story focuses on Foss’ time on Guadalcanal and its air battle. The impeccably detailed drawings work perfectly with the text to tell this hero’s story. Hector shows Foss' setbacks and mistakes and their consequences, which included learning from his mistakes. Hector presents the difficult facts of war, including dangerous conditions and the loss of Foss’ friends and fellow pilots. The graphic approach makes this biography exciting for young readers, who will immediately see the emotion and suspense of Foss’ life in and out of a plane cockpit. The story ends with Foss receiving his Congressional Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt. An epilogue gives an overview and summarizes the rest of Foss’ life. A bibliography gives the many sources Hector used to research. The url is given for the ones available online, including videos of Foss himself, which will aid readers in their own quest to know more about this famous South Dakotan, who went on to be Governor and the first Commissioner of the American Football League.

Hector's labor of love is a tribute to Foss and to South Dakota, his adopted home after emigrating from Peru. His training as an architect shows in his book's precise drawings. Hector is also known as a watercolor artist, a children's book illustrator, and art teacher to young people in a variety of settings.

Enjoy this SD Public Broadcasting interview by Lori Walsh: 

Chasing Words with Joy Harjo and Eric Ode: National Poetry Month

 

What is writing but chasing words, after all? And poets may do this more than other writers, for as Mark Twain said, "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning." Choosing the right word matters for meaning, understanding, and relating to readers.

Who are these word-chasers? Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of the United States, has written two memoirs in which she expresses the importance of words in her life. In Crazy Brave, she talks about enjoying words, rolling them around in her mouth to feel the shape of them, and reading to escape and to learn. The book begins with her birth and goes through her early adulthood, a difficult and confusing time. She could have gone in many different directions, some of them destructive, but she ends the book with, "I followed poetry."

Poet Warrior is more non-linear and mystical, remembering her ancestors' stories and dreaming those stories to grow with her in poetry from Girl Warrior to Poet Warrior. About the first poem she learned ("The Lamb" by William Blake), she says, "It was more than the words. It was how the words locked into a pleasing rhythm and we would move to them, and how like a lamb frolicking in spring, the words danced across the tongue" (p. 26). Her love of words stayed with her, and in her school years she "kept a dictionary to look up words. One summer, I spent learning words in the dictionary and practicing them" (p. 39). As in her first memoir, she claims the path of poetry: "I would never have become a poet if I hadn't listened to that small, inner voice that told me that poetry was the path, even when I had different plans" (p. 44). 

Eric Ode is another word-chaser--a poet, author, song writer, and performer for children. His latest picture book, Stop That Poem!, is literally about chasing words! And in an unusual twist, the idea came from an image in his mind, not from words. He told me, "It started with that first scene of someone stacking words, one on top of the other, and someone else coming along wondering what in the world they are doing." The words take flight and hike and float, with a diverse group of children chasing them, until the poem is finally set free to find a home with readers. He quickly sketched it out and then worked on the words. Here's what he started with: 

As you can tell from the cover at the top of this blog, the book looks very little like this. Even though Eric is an artist, the publisher, Kane Miller, hired artist Jieting Chen to illustrate. 

Watch her tell about how meaningful this book is to her and see what the book looks like inside:

"There are beautiful things happening in the world," Chen says. Here's to the illustrators and word-chasers among us who help us see it.

If This Bird Had Pockets, and Other National Poetry Month Fun

 

It's National Poetry Month! And Earth Day! AND--April 28 is Poem in Your Pocket Day!

So--here to help you enjoy all three is a brand new book by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, illustrated by Emma J. Virjan, which I was fortunate to win in an online drawing! (Thank you, Amy.)

In this cheery book, poet Amy Ludwig VanDerwater teams up with illustrator Emma J. Virjan to imagine the poems that a variety of animals would write. The book begins with a poem by "me," a child who wonders about nature "If this bird had pockets...," which sets in motion a series of mask poems written in several forms "by" an ant, dolphin, alligator, butterfly, and other animals. It closes with a final poem by "me," in which the child acknowledges her animal self and ponders "Each creature/lives a poem/without ever/writing a line." This book is fresh as spring, full of relatable animal facts, fun, and wonder.

Listen to poet Amy's musical voice, as she introduces her book and reads the opening poem:

I encourage you to wear clothes with pockets on April 28 and stuff the pockets with poems to give away to all you meet. Sounds weird? I have been surprised at the smiles and excitement I've received when I have given someone a poem. Try it! If you need help finding the right poem, go to the Poem in Your Pocket Day page: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day  or look around the Academy of American Poets site: https://poets.org/ I haven't decided what poem(s) I will be gifting people this year. Maybe "Tail of Red, Tip of White" by "Red Fox" from If This Bird Had Pockets.

Alzheimer's, Dementia, and A DOLL FOR GRANDMA

With more than 6 million Americans living with Alzheimer's or dementia (2021 Alzheimer's Facts and Figures), you may know someone affected. The enormous changes in family dynamics are hard to handle and hard to explain to children. That's why I really like the book I won from author Paulette Boching Sharkey, illustrated by Samatha Woo, and published by Beaming Books. 

A Doll for Grandma: A Story about Alzheimer's Disease shows a close, fun relationship between young Kiera and her Grandma. Kiera notices changes in Grandma that she doesn't understand. Mom explains that there's something wrong with Grandma's brain. When Grandma is moved to a memory care home, Kiera tries to think of ways to reconnect with the Grandma she knew. With her mom's help, Kiera's idea of getting Grandma a doll did the trick. They were able to enjoy their dolls together and establish a different, but still special relationship. The book includes a page for grownups by Judy Cornish, "Helping Children Understand Alzheimer's Disease." While real life may differ, this book gives adults a way to help children understand, with encouraging ideas of how to connect and engage the person with dementia.

Sometimes the process of living with Alzheimer's or dementia is called "the long goodbye." This is well described by my friend Carmen Graber, who graciously allowed me to post her poem here. 

A LETTER TO MY FATHER

Dear Papa

I know, I know

I never called you papa

While I was growing up.

It was always “dad”

I called out

When I needed help

When I needed advice

Or when I just needed to know I was loved.

You were always there

Sometimes even before I called.

You taught me how to love,

How to serve,

How to talk to anyone and everyone,

How to have faith in God and myself.

You guided me into the person I am today

You were my hero, my dad.

And then came a disease called Alzheimer’s.

It began to take pieces of you

And hide them from view:

Slowly at first

Then faster and faster

Until all of my dad was hidden,

Blocked from view.

This is when you became papa.

You no longer responded to dad,

And you no longer responded to me as your daughter.

My heart was broken

And I was devastated.

But a new relationship was needed

Because you needed my help, my guidance and my love.

I was now a new person to you

And you were a new person to me

And that is how you became papa.

Together we journeyed this uncharted territory

Through your anger and fear,

Through your stories of the past

Both real and created in your clouded mind.

I grieved for the man I had lost

While you struggled to find your way back.

Sometimes, when I took your hand

And looked deep into your eyes,

I could catch a glimpse of my dad,

But just as quickly, he was gone

And you became papa again.

This went on for years

Until your mind betrayed your body

And it too began to fail.

Only then did dad began to return.

But dad was too weak to speak

Too weak to open his eyes

Too weak to hold my hand.

Then one cold night

You slipped away

Joining dad and papa

Making you whole once again

When you returned to your heavenly home.

Now after all these years,

I am telling our story.

I am saying my farewell to you

My father, my dad and my papa.

I will love you forever

And miss you for always

Till I see you again.

~Carmen Graber, Copyright 2020, All Rights Reserved

Research continues, and we hope for the day when we will have solid answers for prevention and treatment. Find help and support at the Alzheimer's Association.