Kellee – Page 94 – Unleashing Readers

Blog Tour with Author Q&A: Legends from Mom’s Closet by Sasha Olsen

May 21, 2020 by Kellee

Legends from Mom’s Closet
Author: Sasha Olsen
Published May 19th, 2020

Summary: In Legends from Mom’s Closet, 10-year-old Sasha Olsen documents how she spent a rainy summer indoors using her creativity and imagination. After reading a stack of books about women like Frida Kahlo, Audrey Hepburn and Billie Holiday, Sasha’s imagination ran wild and she ended up in her mom’s closet picking through her clothes and her grandmother’s vintage pieces to dress up like all the female legends she had been reading about. Complete with photos of the looks she created and tips for other young girls on how they, too, can emulate these iconic women, Legends from Mom’s Closet will inspire readers to delve into the lives of truly remarkable women from the past to learn a thing or two about what it means to be legendary in today’s world.

About the Author: Sasha Olsen is a 10-year-old author, environmental activist, ballroom dancer, bookworm, pianist, and enjoys anything artistic. She always finds new hobbies and things to do, which usually ends up in her trying to juggle everything. She lives with her family in Bal Harbour, Florida, where she also spearheads the conservation movement “I Want My Ocean Back.” Legends From Mom’s Closet is her first book.

Q&A with Sasha:

In your book, Legends from Mom’s Closet, you share tidbits about and dress up like legendary women you read about during a rainy summer spent indoors. A lot of kids your age would spend a rainy summer watching TV or playing video games. What made you decide to start reading books about famous women?

Well, I actually love to read, especially biographies. I don’t usually spend a lot of time using any devices. I didn’t specifically start reading books about famous women, but I started looking around for books to learn more about legendary people. I just happened to meet these iconic women through their amazing stories and spending a day in their shoes!

Who was your favorite female legend to read about?

My favorite legend to read about was probably Frida Kahlo! I felt like she had a very inspiring story. She had a lot of difficult times in her life, but no matter what, she worked hard to achieve her dreams and become an artist.

What is the biggest lesson you learned from getting to know all of these female legends?

I learned many lessons! Most of all though, I learned that women are super strong. Women work very hard and can get through anything that might stand in their way of achieving their goals. Women are so inspiring!

What inspired you to use your mom’s clothes and your grandmother’s vintage pieces to recreate all of their iconic looks?

Actually, I just went into my mom’s closet and started trying on her shoes and dresses. This was after I read about Frida Kahlo. So, I just got the idea to try and dress up as her! I thought my mom might be really upset with me for playing with her things, but she loved the idea. If the legend was wearing something like I really couldn’t figure out where to get, I would call my grandma for advice. Most of the time, she had exactly what I needed!

Who was your favorite legend to dress up as and why?

My favorite legend to dress up as was definitely Yayoi Kusama. I love her bright artwork, and I was able to get even more creative to dress up as her!

How did you decide which legends to include in Legends from Mom’s Closet?

I didn’t choose them before. I just started to read about people who I didn’t know much about yet and it ended up being all women! After, I just decided to share them in this book.

Your other passion is the environment. Tell us what you learned about vintage fashion versus fast fashion.

When I was started my movement Iwantmyoceanback and this project, I was doing a lot of research during that time. I wanted to know more about what are the biggest things that pollute our oceans and cause problems for our planet. I found out like clothing is one of the biggest ocean pollutants and some fabrics, like polyester, have plastic in them so it breaks down and hurts our sea animals. After finding this out, I realized that it’s very harmful to buy fast fashion because people just buy the clothes and throw them away soon after. It inspired me to learn more about vintage and how we can buy secondhand instead, and just reuse clothing!

Ultimately, what do you hope your readers take away from your book?

I hope readers learn how important it is to let your creativity run wild! I want other kids to know that we can get inspired and have fun while also learning new things and growing our knowledge. It’s also very important that we learn more about how fast fashion affects our oceans and that we stop it! We need to win the war against fast fashion to help save the planet.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about the book or what you learned while writing it?

I just want to share that this book project is super special to me! It means a lot to me, and I worked very hard on it. I hope that everyone enjoys my stories and experiences dressing up as these legendary women. Most of all, I hope readers try it themselves and that it inspires them to think outside the box! I learned a lot from reading and getting to know these women, especially that we can do anything if we believe in ourselves.

For additional details, visit www.legendsfrommomscloset.com.

Visit the other blog tour stops:

**Thank you to Nicole at PR by the Book for providing the blog tour materials**

The 2020 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Winner & Finalists!

May 21, 2020May 19, 2020 by Kellee

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the 2020 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction winner and finalists. Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be
presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.

The 2020 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award winner is:

Lovely War by Julie Berry
(Penguin Random House/Viking)

The 2019 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
(HarperCollins/HarperTeen)

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
(HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
(Penguin Random House/Kokila)

White Rose by Kip Wilson
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt /Versify)

The winner and finalists will be honored at the 2020 ALAN Workshop on Monday, November 23rd in Denver, CO, and the authors will be invited to participate in a panel discussion.

The 2020 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee would like to thank: the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Foundation, the ALAN Executive Council, the ALAN Board of Directors, NCTE, and the many publishers who submitted titles for consideration.

The 2020 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee considered over 300 young adult titles throughout the process. The committee included ten members representing the university, K-12 school, and library communities. They are:

Beth Shaum, Committee Chair
K-8 Librarian
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, Ann Arbor, MI

Wendy Stephens, Past Chair
School Library Program Chair
Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL

Robert Bittner
SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

Jodi Blair
Librarian
Alcoa High School, Alcoa, TN

Nicole Clawson
Visiting Professor
Brigham Young, University, Provo UT

Bryan Gillis
Professor of English Education & Literacy
Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA

Sarah Mulhern Gross
English Teacher
High Technology High School, Lincroft, NJ

Walter M. Mayes
Librarian
The Girls’ Middle School, Palo Alto, CA

Elizabeth Parker
English Teacher
Saunders Middle School, Manassas, VA

Jennifer Paulsen
English and Social Studies Teacher
Holmes Junior High School, Cedar Falls, IA

For more information on the award, please visit ALAN Online: The Official Site of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents: http://www.alan-ya.org/awards/walden-award/.

Congratulations to the winner and finalists! We love this award so much, and are so happy to share this year’s recipients!

Visit http://www.alan-ya.org/alan-picks-aprmay-2020/ for reviews of each of these books by members of the Walden Committee and a special video interview with Julie Berry!

Our posts about the Walden Award and our time on the committee: https://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=4361

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 5/18/20

May 18, 2020May 18, 2020 by Kellee

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
Sharing Picture Books, Early Readers, Middle Grade Books, and Young Adult Books for All Ages!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop co-hosted by Unleashing Readers and Teach Mentor Texts which focuses on sharing books marketed for children and young adults. It offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other.

The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

We encourage you to write your own post sharing what you’re reading, link up below, leave a comment, and support other IMWAYR bloggers by visiting and commenting on at least three of the other linked blogs.

Happy reading!

Tuesday: Blog Tour with Q&A and Giveaway!: One Last Shot by John David Anderson
**Giveaway open until Wednesday!**

Thursday: Ricki’s Lessons Learned from Teaching her Kindergartener Stop Animation

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Engaging Reluctant Readers” by Sarah S. Reida, Author of All Sales Final

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Kellee

The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead: “After her parents’ divorce, Bea’s life became different in many ways. But she can always look back at the list she keeps in her green notebook to remember the things that will stay the same. The first and most important: Mom and Dad will always love Bea, and each other.When Dad tells Bea that he and his boyfriend, Jesse, are getting married, Bea is thrilled. Bea loves Jesse, and when he and Dad get married, she’ll finally (finally!) have what she’s always wanted–a sister. Even though she’s never met Jesse’s daughter, Sonia, Bea is sure that they’ll be ‘just like sisters anywhere.’As the wedding day approaches, Bea will learn that making a new family brings questions, surprises, and joy.”
Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson: I read the first couple of books in the series a couple of years ago, but when I noticed the whole series was on Hoopla from my public library, I decided to reread them so I could read the rest, and WOW! They are even better than I remember! They are such a fun combination of camp-life friendship fun, crazy adventures, fantasy, mythology, love of all identities and people, and weirdness!!!
With Trent: The Creature of the Pines by Adam Gidwitz: I loved reading the first book in this series with Trent. His review: “I liked this book because the Jersey Devil is blue and red, and I like blue and red. And it looks cool with its wings. I liked how Professor Fauna talked about pirates in the Pine Barrens. Elliot is like me and I like that. We both don’t like to take risks, and he has hair kind of like mine. The book was adventurous.”

To learn more about any of these books, check out my 2020 Goodreads Challenge page or my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

The kids have been wanting to read a lot of Berenstain Bears books lately, so I posted one above, but we’ve plowed through about a dozen of them. I’ve also grown to love the Giggle Gang series of early readers (What is Chasing Duck? is above). As long as you all will keep it a secret, I am exhausted by the DC Super Friends and Lego Super Heroes early readers. I posted four of the books we read. I honestly don’t see the appeal of freezing and superhero-ing. But my 6- and 3-year-old love them. Sigh. We’ve got several more on hold. I will pretend to love them!

The Refuge by Sandra Le Guin. Whew. This one is stunning. My guess is that it might rake in some awards this year. I found it to be quite captivating (review to come next week).

We love Helen Docherty and Thomas Docherty, so we enjoyed rereading The Story Book Knight. The Snatchabook is one of our family’s favorite books. We found that one hiding in the bookshelf last week, and my 3-year-old walked into my partner’s office while he was working to smile broadly and hold it up. There was mutual shared joy. That book is magnificent, and we really love The Story Book Knight, as well.

We reread some classics (Harold and the Purple Crayon and The Paper Bag Princess–which are both fantastic). We also finished our book club book Unicorn Rescue Society. It’s the first in the series, and we’ll likely read the others in the future. And finally, my 3-year-old would be upset with me if I didn’t highlight We Don’t Eat Our Classmates. This one really made him giggle.

Kellee

Reading: After the Worst Thing Happens by Audrey Vernick & Lumberjanes Vol 5 by Noelle Stevenson
Listening: Tornado Brain by Cat Patrick
Reading/Listening with Trent: Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters by Andrea Beaty & Mac B. Kid Spy: Mac Undercover by Mac Barnett

Ricki

We are also reading Mac B. Kid Spy: Mac Undercover by Mac Barnett. I read the first four chapters to the boys tonight, and my 6-year-old was really into it. I stopped after the first chapter and convinced him to clean his room. This earned him the next three chapters. We are reading four chapters a week with his book club, so we’ll be finished in four weeks. I also found a copy of Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds. I am excited to check that one out. I missed it, and I have read most of his books.

Admittedly, I’ve gotten out of my reading groove. I’m reading about 15 books a day with the kids (most of them rereads while we wait for the library to open). But my night time is spend working. Without childcare, I am really struggling to find time to read YAL because I have such limited work time. I am hoping to get back into the groove soon. Tonight, I am closing up my computer and going upstairs to read. I miss normalcy!

Tuesday: The 2020 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Winner and Finalists

Thursday: Blog Tour with Author Q&A: Legends from Mom’s Closet by Sasha Olsen

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Opening the Door: How Stepping Inside the Poem can Help Your Students — even those who hate writing — Read, Understand, Create, and Enjoy Poetry” by Marjorie Maddox, Author of Inside Out: Poems on Writing & Reading Poems

Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

and

Author Guest Post: “Engaging Your Reluctant Readers” by Sarah S. Reida, Author of All Sales Final

May 17, 2020May 17, 2020 by Kellee

“Engaging Your Reluctant Readers”

Some kids don’t read anything beyond what is required, and even the best Harry Potter book can’t beat the movie in their opinion. That’s unfortunate for a bookworm parent, but it’s also not the worst thing. Those kids are probably much better than we were at science and math.

As a new(ish) parent, I’m finding that some kids are natural readers. Some are not. While we should always encourage kids to read, the reality is that some are never going to find curling up with a book a fine way to spent a Saturday afternoon. Still, there are ways you can trick–er, engage a reluctant reader by making reading an actual experience. Here are five suggestions:

#1 Attend an event

I have a three-year-old. Even though books don’t hold her attention, she still has her favorites, and the Bad Kitty alphabet book is one of them. Nick Bruehl was supposed to come to our local bookstore (Anderson’s of Naperville), but cancelled due to COVID-19. I know Brooke would have loved to have met Nick (who is very pleasant; I met him at a conference once), and she would have been thrilled to see the actual author sign her copy. Many authors attend events, have book signings, have contests, etc. If a kid attends an event and has a good time, that good time is linked to books. Also, if they personally like an author because that author was kind to them, they may bother to read that particular author’s books in the future. (I can say that seeing the actual writer pen his name to her book would have blown Brooke’s mind).

#2 Form a very exclusive book club

Read a book at the same time as your child. Let them pick the book, and when you’re both done, let them pick a lunch place to talk about the book. Maybe you can make them think about something in the book they haven’t considered, or vice-versa. If you’re reading the book with them, they’ll feel like it’s less of a chore.

#3 Create a book project

You can’t do this with all books, but for some, you can create an associated non-reading project. For instance, with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you could create your own golden tickets. With Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, you could devise a scavenger hunt. In All Sales Final, its nefarious owner Ruth keeps a collection of snow globes, each symbolizing a town where the shop has been. A child could make a snow globe, selecting items that best represent their town (though, of course, that snow globe would be a decorative piece and not used for the same purpose as Ruth). For Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, a shoebox may be used for the mouse’s habitat.

#4 Book versus movie

Plenty of good books have been made into movies. After reading a novel with your child, Friday night movie night can feature the film version. In the morning and over pancakes, discuss the differences between the two, and why any deviations were an improvement or not.

#5 Join the celebration

Each year, our local library celebrates the Harry Potter series with an all-day event that takes over the entire library, to include an actual Quidditch game, the Honeydukes Express food trolley, book-themed arts and crafts, a scavenger hunt, and dozens of other activities (which have expanded over the years). You can even take the Hogwarts Express via Platform 9 ¾, as my little Brooke is doing below:

Some books are so awesome they have droves of fans who celebrate them. If your kid gets excited, it could result in them dabbling with similar books they might never have read.

Not every kid is a reader, but every kid likes to be entertained and to feel special. There are plenty of reading-related projects that can serve these ends, and perhaps even make a kid discover a new author or realize that reading isn’t such a chore, after all.

In All Sales Final, my second middle grade novel, only eleven-year-old Anna can save her town from the dark magic of a secondhand shop that opens on Main Street. In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews referred to it as “. . . [a] delightful, safe read with insidious dark edges . . . An enchanting fantasy for middle-grade readers who like a touch of magic in their fiction.”

About the Book:What price would you pay for everything you’ve ever wanted?

11-year-old Anna has always wanted to be extraordinary, but she feels as ordinary as her sleepy Midwestern town of Longford. Then a secondhand shop opens in Longford – a shop full of magic that only Anna can see. When the shop’s owner, Ruth, offers Anna a job not just anyone can perform, Anna feels that her dream is finally coming true. Proudly, she spreads the news of the shop, charming others into visiting and helping match each person to the perfect item.

Then Anna sees what Ruth’s bargains take away from her customers. Ruth’s magic is darker than she let on, and so is the life she’s offered Anna. Even worse, if Anna doesn’t stop Ruth, Longford will be doomed. But what chance does one ordinary girl have against someone like Ruth?

Thank you, Sarah, for some fun ways to engage our readers who may not be engaged yet!

Blog Tour with Q&A and Readers’ Guide!: One Last Shot by John David Anderson

April 22, 2023May 12, 2020 by Kellee

One Last Shot
Author: John David Anderson
Published May 5th, 2020 by Walden Pond Press

Summary: For as long as he can remember, Malcolm has never felt like he was good enough. Not for his parents, who have always seemed at odds with each other, with Malcolm caught in between. And especially not for his dad, whose competitive drive and love for sports Malcolm has never shared.

That is, until Malcolm discovers miniature golf, the one sport he actually enjoys. Maybe it’s the way in which every hole is a puzzle to be solved. Or the whimsy of the windmills and waterfalls that decorate the course. Or maybe it’s the slushies at the snack bar. But whatever the reason, something about mini golf just clicks for Malcolm. And best of all, it’s a sport his dad can’t possibly obsess over.

Or so Malcolm thinks.

Soon he is signed up for lessons and entered in tournaments. And yet, even as he becomes a better golfer and finds unexpected friends at the local course, be wonders if he might not always be a disappointment. But as the final match of the year draws closer, the tension between Malcolm’s parents reaches a breaking point, and it’s up to him to put the puzzle of his family back together again.

About the Author: John David Anderson is the author of some of the most beloved and highly acclaimed books for kids in recent memory, including the New York Times Notable Book Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, Granted, Sidekicked, and The Dungeoneers. A dedicated root beer connoisseur and chocolate fiend, he lives with his wonderful wife and two frawsome kids in Indianapolis, Indiana. He’s never eaten seven scoops of ice cream in a single sitting, but he thinks it sounds like a terrific idea. You can visit him online at www.johndavidanderson.org.

Q&A: Thank you so much to John David Anderson for answering these questions for us!

What was your inspiration for writing this novel?

One Last Shot is somewhat autobiographical in nature. As an adolescent once myself (so many eons ago) I can empathize with Malcolm’s (the protagonist’s) conflicts and concerns: the desire (or is it burden?) to please others, the need to find something you’re good at, anxiety over a potential parent split, the ache for a friend that just gets you—these are all feelings I struggled with as well. So think the emotional core of the book is definitely informed by my childhood.

At the same time, I literally just sat down one day and said, “I’m going to write a sports novel. Hold up…I don’t play sports! But I do play miniature golf. Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody—i.e. me–wrote a book about miniature golf and made it exactly eighteen chapters?” I think a lot of my stories start this way, as artistic challenges or experiments, though the real challenge is turning these exercises into full-fledged narratives.

Why mini golf?

Um…because it’s awesome! Honestly I picked mini-golf because it worked well as a metaphor for the coming-of-age story I was telling. On the one hand it’s so whimsical and random—windmills, barns, pirate ships—but at the same time its so methodical and predictable. It’s basic geometry. For Malcolm that’s appealing because it’s something he can control; it’s a problem with an easily discernable solution—the cup is right there. It’s also individualistic. Nobody is counting on him to catch the fly ball or safely get on base. His successes and failures are entirely his own—though that comes with its own pressures, of course.

Could you tell us some about your writing process?

Anyone who knows me already knows that chocolate is involved. Beyond that, though, it’s 6-8 weeks of pure writing fury followed by 6-8 months of torturous revision. My initial drafts are explorations—my editor says they are me laying out miles and miles of track hoping that it leads somewhere (it doesn’t always)— but the most important thing for me is to maintain momentum so I can push through the difficult middles to get to the rewarding ends. I just have to trust myself that the exhaustive revision process will bang all the pieces firmly into place, fashioning my mess of a first draft into something presentable.

I also have come to realize that the process never really stops. Even if I’m not in front of the laptop, I’m still writing. When I’m working on a novel my brain never fully steps out of that world. So much of the process happens in the ongoing dialogue I have with the characters inside my head (much like the voices Malcolm hears in his).

Of course this particular book afforded me the chance to do some fun hands-on research: I’ve visited my fair share of mini-golf courses in the last couple of years.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from ONE LAST SHOT?

The world is unpredictable. It throws obstacles at you right and left. You don’t get to make the course, you just have to play it.

But you also have more than one shot. Not everything is going to be a hole-in-one. You are going to doink off the rock or stick yourself in the corner or even hit it way too hard, somehow jump the wall and end up in the parking lot. But that’s okay. I want my readers to know its okay. You learn from your mistakes, and you take a better shot next time.

Readers’ Guide:

Blog Tour:

May 4 Nerdy Book Club
May 7 Teachers Who Read
May 8 A Library Mama
Kirsti Call
May 10 Bluestocking Thinking
May 12 Unleashing Readers
Maria’s Mélange
May 14 The Book Monsters

Giveaway!:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**Thank you to Walden Pond Press for providing the Q&A and a copy for giveaway!**

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 5/11/20

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020 by Kellee

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
Sharing Picture Books, Early Readers, Middle Grade Books, and Young Adult Books for All Ages!

The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

Happy reading!

Tuesday: The Princess in Black and the Case of the Coronavirus by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale, Illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Thursday: Review and Giveaway!: It Is (Not) Perfect by Anna Kang, Illustrated by Christopher Weyant
**Giveaway open until Thursday!**

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Studying the Past, Writing the Future: Some Thoughts on the Study of History” by Todd Hasak-Lowy, Author of We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World

Updated Often: The Big List of Online Learning Resources for COVID-19 and Quarantine

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Kellee

Major Impossible by Nathan Hale: This is the first of Nathan Hale’s books where I knew nothing about the history of, and it was so interesting! Powell is such a fascinating character, and I want to learn even more about him! And I adore Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales and how he mixes the text structure and adds in so much humor in serious history.
Unicorn Theater by Dana Simpson: Pheobe and her Unicorn are some of my favorite comics to read to just feel happy, and this one definitely filled that want!
BenBee and the Teacher Griefer by K.A. Holt: “The Kids Under the Stairs: BenBee and the Teacher Griefer is a funny, clever novel-in-verse series about Ben Bellows—who failed the Language Arts section of the Florida State test—and three classmates who get stuck in a summer school class.
But these kids aren’t dumb—they’re divergent thinkers, as Ms. J tells them: they simply approach things in a different way than traditional school demands.
Each chapter is told through the perspective of one of the four students, who each write in a different style (art, verse, stream of consciousness).”
Lafayette by Nathan Hale: It was so much fun to read Lafayette’s story since I only knew aspects of his history from high school history class and Hamilton.
With Trent:
- Miss Maple’s Seeds by Eliza Wheeler: What a beautiful story to read to celebrate spring. Read by Michelle Obama on her story time.
- The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli: We’ve been watching Standby Book Club with Greg Pizzoli, but we kept missing this one. We were so glad that he reread it.
- My Brother Charlie by Holly Robinson Peete: Such a sweet story about siblings, one with autism.
- Much else of what we’re reading right now are either chapter books or rereads (primarily of Mac Barnett, Josh Funk, Kate Messner, or Oliver Jeffers books because we watch their storytimes!).
- Trent has also been reading to us! This week he read Fox the Tiger by Corey R. Tabor, Harold and Hot Pretend for Real by Dan Santat, and The Good for Nothing Button by Charise Mericle Harper.

To learn more about any of these books, check out my 2020 Goodreads Challenge page or my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

The boys and I tried out the library’s overdrive because we were looking for some new books for the oldest to read aloud. The books we were looking for weren’t available, but we found a lot of amazing alternatives! How Many Jelly Beans? offered some great number sense. They loved the DC Super Friends: Bizarro Day and Star Wars Sith Wars books.

Our shared favorites were A Pig, A Fox, and a Box by Jonathan Fenske (very funny!) and The Doghouse by Jan Thomas. We’ve put holds on a few other books by these two authors but we may be in for a long wait.

My oldest loves anything history or autobiography, so he liked listening to Magic Treehouse’s Fact Tracker: Abraham Lincoln. We’ve read Hope’s Gift by Kelly Starling Lyons three times this week because he likes learning about the Civil War.

We’ve read other books in Stacy McAnulty’s companion series, but we hadn’t read Earth! yet. It was just as amazing as the others. This is one of our favorite science series.

Kellee

Reading and Listening: I don’t know… I’ve been on a graphic novel kick to keep my engagement up, but who knows what I’ll turn to.
Listening with Trent: Unicorn Rescue Society: The Creature in the Pine by Adam Gidwitz (finishing this week for book club)
Reading with Trent: Rosie Revere and the Caucous Riveters by Andrea Beaty (starting for our other book club)

Ricki

We are going to explore the Kindle Overdrive options our library offers some more. The library is starting to offer curbside pickup in a week, and we may try to brave it and leave the books to settle for a few days before we open them up.

Tuesday: Blog Tour with Q&A and Giveaway!: One Last Shot by John David Anderson

Thursday: Ricki’s Lessons Learned from Teaching my Kindergartener Stop Animation

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Engaging Reluctant Readers” by Sarah S. Reida, Author of All Sales Final

and

Author Guest Post: “Studying the Past, Writing the Future: Some Thoughts on the Study of History” by Todd Hasak-Lowy, Author of We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World

May 10, 2020 by Kellee

“Studying the Past, Writing the Future: Some Thoughts on the Study of History”

Before I even finished co-writing Roses and Radicals: The Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right to Vote (Viking, 2018), I knew I wanted to write another book like it. By “like it” mean:

A book of history for younger readers.

A book that tells the story of incredible, genuinely heroic, and underappreciated people.
A book that, despite its younger audience, still captures the nuance, complexity, and, above all, rich profundity of some important chapter from the past.

It took me many months, many long walks, and many conversations with many people before I stumbled upon the subject of nonviolence. As had been the case with suffrage a few years before, I knew next to nothing about this topic, but as I began reading my way into it, I could tell that it would make for a great book.

There was a more specific link connecting the two projects as well: Alice Paul, who led the American women’s suffrage movement during the final decade of its long struggle. I had grown utterly fascinated with the intense, truly radical, and somewhat mysterious Paul while working on Roses and Radicals. As I began reading about nonviolence I came to understand that she herself was a nonviolent activist, even though only a tiny fraction of the scholarship about Paul views her work in this context. So the writing of my book, We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World, would begin by retelling her story, yet again, but this time in order to establish her rightful place alongside Gandhi, MLK, and Cesar Chavez.

But as I did this, I learned that We Are Power would be crucially different than Roses and Radicals. For one thing, it would tell more stories—and would thus require considerably more research. More important, however, these stories would be tied together not by a common set of characters, a single movement, or a shared setting, but by the strategy of nonviolent activism itself.

In this regard, We Are Power is not only a book of history, but a book of political theory, or, more precisely, a book about a half-dozen instances of this political theory being put into dramatic, inspiring practice. The book, as narrative, would be propelled by characters and conflicts, but the spine holding it all together would be the theory itself: the way nonviolence rethinks the very nature of political power and social change.

Unfortunately, I found this theoretical material, all on its own, dense, abstract, and, when read separately from the history, extremely dry and perhaps even boring. I knew that the parts of my book dedicated directly to this theory would have to be brief or I’d lose my readers. And yet, these parts, I learned as I wrote my various chapters, were in a sense the very point of the book. As they were interwoven into the various narratives I was constructing, they often found their place in and around the climaxes to each story.

The historical events were, I realized, the occasion to present the timeless truths at the center of nonviolent activism. This would explain why the title to my book of history—We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World—contains not one but two present tense verbs. It also explains why the book is able to pivot, in its conclusion, from past movements to a present struggle—the fight against climate change—that is very much ongoing.

Ultimately, We Are Power isn’t a book of history, or only a book of history. It’s a book about power and the way those who don’t appear to have power can claim it, in order to change the world in which they live. The truth about power at the center of this book is timeless.

I don’t have a lesson, per se, to offer teachers here, but instead a rather large bit of advice I encourage teachers to keep in mind when working on history with their students: studying the past is worthwhile not because there’s value in knowing, all by itself, what happened in earlier times, but because understanding history helps us see our present more clearly. This great, meta-historical truth needn’t receive a lot of attention in lessons, but it should be there, I believe, as an often-silent motivation for the entire enterprise.

Our responsibility to study the past is inseparable from our responsibility to apply what we learn to our actions in the present. When we teach young people history, we’re giving them a crucial tool in becoming informed citizens capable of transforming our present into a better future, and I can think of no lesson more important than that.

Published April 7th, 2020 by Abrams Books for Young Readers

About the Book: Author Todd Hasak-Lowy’s We Are Power is a stirring introduction to nonviolent activism, from American women’s suffrage to civil rights to the global climate change movement.

What is nonviolent resistance? How does it work? In an age when armies are stronger than ever before, when guns seem to be everywhere, how can people confront their adversaries without resorting to violence themselves? Featuring leaders Gandhi, Alice Paul, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Václav Havel, and Greta Thunberg, We Are Power brings to life the incredible movements that use nonviolent activism to change the world.

By answering the question “Why nonviolence?” and challenging the notion of who makes history and how, author Todd Hasak-Lowy shows the ways key movements have succeeded again and again in all sorts of places, using a variety of methods and against overwhelming odds. Breaking down nonviolent resistance into digestible lessons for next generation of activists, this book is an inspiring call to action, a reminder that true power ultimately rests in our hands.

We Are Power also includes an overview of other movements from the last one hundred years, a bibliography, and an index.

★ “Hasak-Lowy’s writing gives life to both the people and issues involved, taking time to explain historical backgrounds and the ways the lessons from one movement affected future ones.” — Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

★ “Highly recommended for its outstanding treatment of the history of social justice. A good resource for student activists.” — School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

★ “There has never been a time when a book is more relevant than this one.” — School Library Connection, STARRED REVIEW

“A striking and very timely conclusion highlights teenage Greta Thunberg’s bold challenge to fight global climate change.” — Publishers Weekly

“This excellent, timely overview will open eyes and deserves a wide readership.”— Kirkus

About the Author: Todd Hasak-Lowy is the author of several books for young readers, including the novels 33 Minutes and Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You. He is a professor in the department of liberal arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has a PhD from University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife and two daughters. Visit his website at toddhasaklowy.com.

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Thank you, Todd, for this look at how history helps write the future: good and bad!