Amy's LIS 721 Blog

  Inside Out and Back Again , a Newbery Honor Award Winner told in verse, is a story about survival and finding oneself during a significant historical conflict.  A young girl named Ha is experiencing the Vietnam War.  The story is told in chronological order with the first section of the book titled “Saigon” which tells the story of Ha’s family as they see their lives begin to deteriorate in South Vietnam.  The second part moves on to “At Sea” where Ha and her family make a narrow escape and are provided refuge on a boat that moves them to a safer place.  While focusing on survival on the boat–with hundreds of others and meager rations–Ha learns that her homeland no longer exists.  Ha’s new life finds her in America–in the section titled “Alabama”-- learning the ways of Americans’ food, education, and people that at first completely confuse her, but then begin to shape who she becomes.  This is a story about survival, but literally in Ha escaping war,...

  Babymouse: Queen of the World is a graphic novel that is the first in a series of 20 books.  Babymouse believes she has a very boring, routine life, and she wishes for great things to happen to her; she’s especially looking for an invitation to a classmate's birthday party since she feels left out of many things at school and believes nothing can go her way.  This graphic novel first moves between Babymouse’s reality and her imagination to create a more exciting life for herself.  There are three times throughout the text that readers find themselves in a different realm of possibilities based on what Babymouse is conjuring in her imagination.   The story could be a little confusing with the movement between the character’s imagination and reality, but the illustrations help somewhat.  When Babymouse is in reality, the illustrations are black and white; color is not included at all.  When Babymouse has her dreams–or departs from reality–the col...

  Stop! Bot! by James Yang is a Level 1 book for early readers. It is a very short text that begins with a boy who has a robot (bot) that he controls with a remote control.  The bot gets away from the boys, and throughout the book, people help him in a variety of ways to reunite the boy with his bot. This plot is easy to understand and includes the conflict within the first few pages. Each page consists of a significant illustration that encompasses the entire page and includes silly ways that people in the community try to reconnect this boy with his bot.  Each set of facing pages includes one word bubble that contains short, monosyllabic words.  Some word bubbles contain an entire sentence consisting of no more than five words, while other word bubbles contain only two exclamatory words such as “Ooo! Bananas!” to accompany the illustration that a large gorilla has the bot in its hand and is trying to be enticed with the bananas so it drops the bot.  This book ...

  Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre is written by Carole Boston Weatherford, a children’s writer who writes books that, according to her website, focuses on bringing joy and justice to topics that include forgotten struggles and the African American resistance.  The author has personal connections with the racial tension in the South that dates back to the 1920s, and she has done extensive research on the racial tensions that date back even earlier.  The scope of coverage of this book is narrow; it focuses on the history of Tulsa and Greenwood Oklahoma, setting the stage for what is yet to come, the massacre of hundreds and the destruction of Greenwood, a thriving African American town. The story is told in a narrative format that starts with the positive growth of the community of Greenwood and the promising direction of the town, and the repetition of the phrase “once upon a time” suggesting a fairy tale start, but the racial tensions proved to be too much and led d...

  This book by Amanda Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. History, is a narrative poem that includes couplets on each page telling the story of how important it is to enact change.  Each set of facing pages includes an illustration that depicts a story that is not necessarily connected to the words, but connected to the theme of change.  Further, each set of illustrations contains at least one musical instrument whether it’s being played, shared with other children within the illustration, or set among the setting within the pictures.  At times, the instruments are large, while other illustrations show the instruments as a shadow or as a very small part of the picture.  The musical instruments correlate with the words “anthem” and idea of “change sings” in the title. The illustrations show a wide variety of characters from various backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions, showing that change is made possible by all who are willing, and clearl...

  These 27 tales were chosen by the illustrator to be featured in the book of translated tales originally published in the early 1800s. There is not an introduction to identify why each of the tales were translated and included, but the brief synopsis on the back lets the reader know that the tales include compromise stories that are both familiar and unfamiliar to readers.  Some stories are lengthy and a few others are short, very reminiscent of fables. Maurice Sendak is the illustrator of a popular children’s book– Where the Wild Things Are –and his illustrations of the characters and settings seem to correlate with that book, one in which many children have read. The illustrations are hand drawn in pencil and featured only in black and white.  There is one illustration embedded in each story which takes up a full page, and each illustration focuses on only one important plot element or character of the story. While the intended audience are children of late elementary ...