Abel's Island

Abel's Island. written and illustrated by William Steig. 1976. 128p. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

Genre: survival story

Honors and Awards: Newbery Honor, 1977

Review: The story of a foppish mouse, Abelard Hassam di Chirico Flint (Abel, for short), who, while on a picnic with his wife, is swept away from a life of leisure and into the adventure of a lifetime. Abel ends up being stranded on an uninhabited island, where he must learn to become self-sufficient, eating wild foods and building his own shelter. As the days turn into weeks, and the weeks into months, Abel despairs of ever seeing his wife or family again, yet he goes through a process of immense self-discovery. When, after a year of being stranded, Abel is able to leave the island, he is a new and changed mouse.

Opinion: While I am a huge fan of William Steig's picture books, and enjoyed Abel's Island, I have a somewhat hard time picturing to whom I might recommend this book. As with Steig's other books, the vocabulary is rich and varied, which works well when an adult is reading the book to a child, but independent readers might be stymied by some of the less common words (equinoctial anyone?).

Ideas: I see this book best used as a serial read aloud in a classroom or library.

Inside Out & Back Again

Inside Out and Back Again. by Thanhha Lai. 2011. 260p. New York: HarperCollins. Newbery Honor, 2011.

In a series of free verse poems which act as diary entries, Inside Out and Back Again is the story of a year in the life of a young South Vietnamese girl as she flees her home with her mother and brothers, and struggles to build a new life in America. Though life in Saigon in 1975 is fraught with uncertainties, ten-year-old Há loves the sights, sounds, smells and rhythms of her hometown, which are richly evoked in Lai’s heady descriptions. When North Vietnamese troops take over the city, Há’s family is forced to make the heartbreaking decision to leave behind everything they know, including her father who has been missing in action for several years, in order to seek refuge in a foreign land.

Há and her mother and brothers end up in Alabama where they must each make their own place in an entirely new and sometimes hostile world. Há sees her new town as colorless and lonely; she struggles with learning a new language and faces school bullies who taunt her for her differences, yet she also learns kindness from her sponsor and a neighbor who both defend and support Há through her travails.

This is a sad, beautiful and hopeful book told in simple, yet profound language. Readers both young and old will be deeply moved by Há‘s story.

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night
by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen, 2010. New York: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. (9780547152288).

Author Website: http://www.joycesidman.com/

Illustrator Website: http://www.beckieprange.com/

Media: relief prints, handcolored with gouache

Awards and Honors: Newbery Honor Book, 2011; CCBC Choices, 2011; NCTE Notable Children's Trade Book, 2011; New York Times Bestseller, 2011; ALA Notable Children's Book, 2011; Horn Book Fanfare Selection, 2011; Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2010; Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, 2010; Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book; Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor Book; Cybils Poetry Award Finalist; Booklist Editor's Choice; CBC Bank Street Best Book of the Year (starred); Chicago Public Library Best book of the Year; NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book


Annotation: Joyce Sidman's poems explore the bustling, buzzing nocturnal forest and shed light on the woodland creatures who inhabit the night.

Personal Reaction: A beautiful and ingenious blend of non-fiction book and poetry collection. Sidman's poems are haunting and evocative, imbuing the nighttime forest with a beguiling enchantment. These poems are a sensory feast and emphasize the smells, sounds and feelings of the night, accentuating the importance of all the senses for nocturnal animals who don't rely primarily on vision:

"Come feel the cool and shadowed breeze,
come smell your way along the trees,
come touch rough bark and leathered leaves:
Welcome to the night." (p.6)

    Each spread highlights one denizen of the night forest through a poem accompanied by an informational sidebar. Sidman often writes these poems in first person, using the animals or plants as narrator. Her factual sidebars provide the reader with additional information that expounds upon the poems. "Cricket Speaks" is narrated by a cricket eager for the "trilling hour" to come so that he can "sing, sing, till the branches tremble" (p. 20). The sidebar teaches readers that a cricket's trill is called stridulation and female crickets will pick a mate based on the strength of his song. Sidman provides a glossary at the back of the book for words and concepts with which children may be unfamiliar. 

    Allen's illustrations, gouache colored linoleum prints, are beautifully textured and rich with detail. Double spread, full bleed illustrations at the beginning and end of the book act as wordless opening and closing scenes; one depicts the sun setting and an owl- the eponymous "Dark Emperor"- taking wing, the next shows the sun rising and the owl roosting in the tree tops. 

Use of Onomatopoeia: (p. 6) "To all of you who crawl and creep,/ who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep."
(p. 12) "What symphonies of/ squeaks and skitters, darts/ and rustles, swell the vast,/ breathing darkness of your realm?"
(p. 18) "We mew and coo a soft duet." 

Use of simile: (p.22) "Like noses pink/ in midnight air,/ like giants' ears,/ like elfin hair,/ like ancient cities/ built on cliffs,/ the mushrooms come,/ the mushrooms come."

Curriculum Connection: 3rd grade, science- nocturnal/diurnal animals, language arts, poetry