Who Am I?

Skies Like These

Hilmo, Tess. Skies Like These. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

“While visiting her eccentric aunt who lives in Wyoming, twelve-year-old Jade befriends a boy who believes he is a descendant of Butch Cassidy.” – CIP. This lively story, with the rhythm of a rollicking square dance, is highly recommended for readers who love language and laughter.  [Astronomy; Aunts; Dogs; Eccentrics and eccentricities; Friendship; Ranch life; Self-acceptance; Wyoming]  

Jade’s reluctance to enjoy country life reminds me of Arthur, for the Very First Time by Patricia MacLachlan.

The crazy kindness of Jade’s aunt reminds me of The Canning Season by Polly Horvath.

Jade’s determination reminds me of Hazel Rye be Vera Cleaver.

Her friend Roy’s imagination reminds me of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Roy’s certainty that he is related to Butch Cassidy reminds me of Arthur’s Toothache by Barbara Williams.

The stargazing reminds me of The Same Stuff as Stars by Katherine Paterson.

The strong verbs and the rhythm of the language remind me of Missing May by Cynthia Rylant. 

“I am not eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people.” – Edith Sitwell, British poet

Achieving the Impossible

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

(New York, N.Y.: Puffin Books, 2015)

In 1987, William was born to a farming family in Malawi. Surrounded by people afraid of magic, he learned from his Presbyterian father to trust God. Too poor to pay school fees, he found books in a small library, taught himself to read English, and figured out how to build a device that created electricity to power a water pump for his village.  This 290-page autobiography of an intrepid and determined boy will inspire readers 11-years-old and up. [Africa; Electricity; Engineers; Famine; Ingenuity; Inventors; Windmills]

“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. It is a process; it’s not random” – Ken Robinson

Click HERE for more inspiring autobiographies and biographies.

“For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, ‘Here I am, read me.’ Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.” – Maya Angelou 

Click HERE for more stories of courage.

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” – Barack Obama