Around the World 

by Matt Phelan

Around the World is a graphic novel that tells the stories of 3 adventurers who set out to go around the world before the age of airplanes or cars. Thomas Stevens journeyed by bicycle, the type with the big front wheel; Nellie Bly travelled by ship and train to travel the globe in seventy-four days, faster than any one had ever done it before; Joshua Slocum ventured to be the first man to sail around the world alone.  Setting up each story with background information about how each of the journeys came to be, each story takes on a life of its own and the reader gets a sense of the character of each of these individuals and what motivated them to pursue their goals.

The book tells each story beautifully. The pictures are interesting and provide context and setting to each of the journeys. I found that the quotes from the adventurers’ writings give a clear voice to each story, adding a unique clarity to the characters’ voices which allows the reader to get in the head of each of them. The book brings them all to life. 

Phelan, M. (2011). Around the world. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Meanwhile 

by Jason Shiga

Meanwhile is a reader interactive graphic novel/comic strip designed with mazes and color-coded tabs that have the reader decide the course the story will take. According to the book cover, “there are 3,856 story possibilities.” The first scene is of a boy named Jimmy at an ice cream shop and the first choice the reader must make for him is chocolate or vanilla ice cream. From there, he can go home and talk to his dad or find his way to Professor K’s lab and from there he can decide if he wants to play with a time machine or a machine called a Killitron or a squid and from there he can decide if he wants to go back in time or go forward and from there…you get the idea.

This book seems like it would be appealing to middle school kids who are interested in graphic novels and I can see them reading the book together to explore the different plot possibilities. It’s a pretty cool concept that took me a while to get used to because, at first, I found it a little confusing. I’m used to linear types of books, I guess.

Shiga, J. (2010). Meanwhile. New York, NY: Amulet Books.

Wonderstruck 

by Brian Selznick

In addition to being the title of this book, Wonderstruck is the title of a book that links the stories of Ben and Rose, two characters from different generations who both lack a critical person in their lives. Ben has never known his father and his mother has recently died, leaving Ben to be raised with his aunt’s family. Rose is being raised by her father and is desperate to be with her mother. The story of how Ben and Rose are connected is the premise of Wonderstruck.

The parallel stories, Ben’s told in words and Rose’s told in pictures, are brought together in Part Three. At first, it is not clear that Ben and Rose share any characteristics except deafness.  Ben is deaf in one ear at the beginning of his story. Rose is completely deaf. A locket, wolves, lightning, stars, a postcard, museum, and a bookstore are among the things and places that are common in both stories and prove to be significant in bringing Ben and Rose’s stories together. Wonderstruck is a beautiful story brought together beautifully in words and pictures.

 Selznick, B. (2011). Wonderstruck. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Chloe and the Lion 

by Mac Barnett with pictures by Adam Rex

This book starts out a little different than most because the author introduces himself and the illustrator before introducing the main character of the story. The story is about a girl named Chloe who looks for loose change every day so that she can get enough money to go to the park on Saturday and ride the merry-go-round. But one day she is attacked by a lion which turns out to be a dragon. And then the book takes on a twist when Mac, the author, and Adam, the illustrator, cannot agree on what will happen to Chloe in the book. Of course Chloe intervenes to assist the creators in resolving their difference so that her story can be told.

It’s a cute story with likable characters, including Mac, Adam, and Hank, the replacement illustrator that doesn’t work out after all. This book is a great example of metafiction, a book about fiction or the process of writing fiction. 

 Barnett, M. (2012). Chloe and the lion. New York, NY: Disney Hyperion Books.

Over and Under the Snow

By Kate Messner with art by Christopher Silas Neal

A wintry, snowy wood provides the perfect setting for this picture book in which a young girl glides over the snow and learns about a hidden network of life going on under the snow, even as there is little sign of life above. In the last scene, she goes from over the snow to under the covers and under the stars.

The story and illustrations combine perfectly to create this wintry presentation of woodland animals and their habitat, and how the activities under the snow relate to what happens in the spring. The Author’s Note at the end of the book describes the wintry setting in more scientific terms and also describes each of the animals presented in the book, making it a nice addition to a unit on  Woodland Animals.

Messner, K. (2011). Over and under the snow. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. 

The Un-forgotten Coat 

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Printed on what looks like lined paper, journal format with Polaroids throughout the story, this book is a remembrance of two Mongolian brothers who named the narrator, Julie, their “Good Guide”. The brothers first made an impression on Julie because they were wearing long, furry coats in the hot sun during summer school. And when the older brother, Chengis, began talking to Julie about how to keep an eagle calm, she says, “And in that moment, I felt my own ignorance spread suddenly out behind me like a pair of wings, and every single thing I didn’t know was a feather on those wings. I could feel them tugging at the air, restless to be airborne.”  Julie ends up taking her Good Guide responsibilities very seriously and the un-forgotten coat triggers the memories of the brothers and how they opened her eyes to a world larger than she knew before.

Boyce, F. C. (2011). The un-forgotten coat. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Where Things Come Back 

by John Corey Whaley

It’s a small town in Arkansas named Lily in which the townspeople get hyped about a sighting of a Lazarus woodpecker, thought to be extinct, and in which a teenage brother mysteriously disappears. It’s a place described as “some nothing town where, as its seemed, things could come back from the dead, mistakes could be rectified, lives could be started over.” (p. 207). Told mostly from the point of view of Cullen Witter, a seventeen-year old boy, who in the opening scene of the book describes the first dead person he ever saw and then describes the second dead person, his cousin Oslo.

The characters in the story weave in and out of each other’s lives, some of them connecting peripherally, but they are all interesting and all key to the story. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, going back and forth in time and it seems to zoom in and out of the characters’ lives.

I found myself wanting to figure out the way the people, places, and names of people and places are most obviously connected and how those connections relate to the book’s theme. It’s that kind of book. I have my theories. You will probably have yours. It would all be open to debate.

Whaley, J. C. (2011). Where things come back. New York, NY: Atheneum Books. 

Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word

by Bob Raczka and Illustrated by Nancy Doniger

This short collection features poems written from words made of letters from a single word. The poems are playful and imaginative and the illustrations match the text with their simplicity and pointedness. At first, I didn’t much enjoy reading the poems that were written in a kind of scatterplot format; I found it much easier to read the same poem written in a straightforward format on the back page. But after reading them again, I got the hang of the scatterplot format and had a kind of “Aha” moment.

This book would be an excellent resource for a poetry lesson for grades 4 – 9 because it presents a refreshing twist on a form of writing that students often find boring and incomprehensible.

           

Raczka, B. (2011). Lemonade and other poems squeezed from a single word. New York, NY: Roaring Book Press.

Chopsticks 

by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral  

Chopsticks is an unconventional novel told in photographs, chat conversations, newspaper articles, concert programs, news anchor screen shots, and letters that require close examination and give a feeling of having more there than meets the eye. It is the story of Gloria Fleming, a music prodigy whose mother dies when she is young. The novel begins with a newspaper article reporting Gloria’s disappearance from a hospital and explains Gloria’s mental breakdown and subsequent hospitalization when she reverted to playing the song “Chopsticks” over and over and was unable to play anything else. From there, the story is told in flashback, recalling different events in her life: Gloria’s birth, her mother’s death, her first recital, her rise to musical greatness. Enter Francisco Mendoza who moves into the house next door to hers and their love is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet.

Unfortunately, I actually was not sure how the story ended and had to re-read several sections of the book several times. I’m still not positive what happened. It’s like the Chopsticks song. It ends where it begins.

Anthony, J. & Corral, R. (2012). Chopsticks. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It 

by Gail Carson Levine

The title seems a little tricky and when I read the Contents page, it looked like some sort of puzzle because the only title listed is “This Is Just to Say” in different fonts with different page numbers, except for the Introduction, which is on page 18. But no. It is no mistake. All of the poems in this book have the same title. And yes, the Introduction is on page 18, after the fifth poem in the book. Hmmm. Something tells me Ms. Levine is playing with me. She explains that the poems in the book are false apology poems – poems that resemble an apology from a writer who is not remorseful at all - modeled after a false apology poem by William Carlos Williams in content and structure.

The poems in this collection are witty and entertaining and allude to other tales such as Snow White, Pinocchio, Jack and Jill, and Cinderella. [metafiction] The drawings complement the poems and help crystallize the characters’ emotions and circumstances for each. This book would be a good resource for teaching a poetry unit to students 10 – 14 because the structure is easy to follow and students can get creative with their false apologies. 

Levine, G. C. (2012). Forgive me, I meant to do it. New York, NY: Harper Collins Children.