White Raven

Sophie Rosen , ,

Spathelfer, Teoni. White Raven. Victoria: Heritage, 2021.
Little Wolf moves with her husband and three daughters to a peaceful island home where they enjoy living by the seashore and exploring in the forest. When Little Wolf’s mother, White Raven, comes to visit, the girls learn about their grandmother’s childhood in a residential school. Based on the author’s own mother’s experiences at a residential school in Alert Bay, B.C., this picture book is one of the most detailed in its depiction of life for indigenous children. It focuses on facts: children had their heads shaved and covered with DDT; the food given to them was often mouldy and bug-ridden; sausages were served raw; toilet paper was sometimes eaten to appease the constant hunger; nights were filled with the sounds of children crying; if they spoke their own language, their mouths were washed out with soap; they were always called by number rather than name. However, the story also mentions the kindness of one of the teachers, Mrs. Oak, who cared for White Raven when she was ill and sewed her a new dress.

The format of this book – brightly coloured illustrations and a relatively large font with widely spaced lines of print – makes it ideal for reading aloud. The sentence structure is straight-forward and well-suited for readers eight to ten years old. The factual details make it excellent as a research resource for students nine to twelve years old. Therefore, while discretion should be used in presenting this picture book to very young readers, it is highly recommended for both elementary and middle school libraries. 

More picture books based on memories

More books about indigenous people

More books set in Canada

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Just Jerry

Sophie Rosen ,

Pinkney, Jerry. Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2023.
Jerry Pinkney always loved drawing. He would lie on his bunk bed and draw pictures on the wall. He would lie under the piano in the living room of the small house where he lived and draw pictures in his sketchpad. He would ride his bicycle through the streets of Philadelphia and stop to draw more pictures. School was difficult, especially in the 1940s and 50s when few people recognized dyslexia. But when Jerry picked up a pencil and started to draw, he came alive. This memoir is a vivid account of Pinkney’s childhood and young adulthood. Right from the first page, the style of writing pulls a reader into the life of a boy growing up in a city where African Americans didn’t feel safe if they ventured beyond their neighbourhoods. It immerses readers in the life of a large loving family and shows how Pinkney was able to become one of the most famous children’s book illustrators in America. Highly recommended for readers 10 years old and up. 

Jerry Pinkney illustrated over 100 books. Here are a few…

Pinkney, Jerry. Aesop’s Fables. New York: SeaStar Books, 2000. 

Pinkney, Jerry. The Grasshopper and the Ants. New York: Little Brown & Company, 2015.

Pinkney, Jerry. The Lion and the Mouse. New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009.
A dramatic wordless book.

Pinkney, Jerry. The Tortoise and the Hare. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.
An almost-wordless version.

Pinkney, Jerry. Noah’s Ark. New York: SeaStar Books, 2002. 
A lovely retelling of the Biblical story with lushly detailed illustrations.

More books about artists

More books about writers

More books about – and by – people of African heritage

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The Brilliant Calculator

Sophie Rosen ,

Lower, Jan. The Brilliant Calculator: How Mathematician Edith Clarke Helped Electrify America. New York: Calkins Creek, an imprint of Astra Books for Young Readers, 2023.
Edith Clarke was born in 1883 and grew up loving numbers, excelling at school math competitions. She was sent to boarding school to learn about manners and music but instead dreamed of building railroads and bridges. After attending college, she became a math and physics teacher and helped invent a slide rule to speed up math calculations. She studied engineering, designed electrical transmission lines, and invented a calculator to help other engineers provide electricity for people all across America. All the information is told as a smoothly flowing story, in short sentences comfortable for reading silently or aloud. Extensive additional information is included at the end: an author’s note; a timeline; a glossary; a descriptive list of eight more women mathematicians, engineers, and inventors; and a lengthy bibliography. This beautifully designed and illustrated biography highly recommended for readers 9 to 90 years old.

More books about mathematics

More biographies

You know those paper grocery bags and lunch bags? Margaret Eloise Knight invented a machine that could fold and glue paper to make those flat-bottomed bags.

Have you heard of desalination? Maria Telkes invented a device that used solar power to turn salt water into fresh drinkable water.

Every day, there seems to be a new computer software programme. Erna Schneider Hoover received one of the very first patents for computer software, designing a system to prevent telephone networks from becoming overloaded. 

 

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Told and Retold

Sophie Rosen

Berry, Holly. Told and Retold: Around the World with Aesop’s Fables. New York: Philomel Books, 2022.
The Lion and the Mouse. The Tortoise and the Hare. The Crow and the Pitcher. These short memorable stories are known as fables, first told by Aesop in ancient Greece. Did he really exist? Maybe. Maybe not. But versions of his stories are told all around the world. In this brightly illustrated collection, the author retells nine tales from the Andes, Africa, China, Greece, Israel, Siberia, Switzerland and the U.S.A. Highly recommended for readers 8 to 11 years old and as a read-aloud for younger children.

More fables

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The Big Sting

Sophie Rosen , , ,

Delaney, Rachelle. The Big Sting. Toronto: Tundra, 2023.
Leo and his family are spending a week on a small island off the coast of British Columbia. Leo enjoys virtual adventures on his computer at home in Toronto, but now he is in the middle of a real-life mystery: his recently deceased grandmother’s beehives have been stolen and his grandfather is determined to find them. Meanwhile, his parents have taken themselves off to a luxury resort. How will Leo cope with his grumpy grandfather and impetuous younger sister? The hopefulness of Patricia MacLachlan’s stories and the zany humour of Polly Horvath’s stories combine in this life-affirming novel highly recommended for readers 8 to 11 years old.

A novel by Patricia MacLachlan

Novels by Polly Horvath

Stories about grandparents

Stories by Canadian writers

Stories set in Canada

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Bees, Bees, Bees

Sophie Rosen

Raczka, Bob. Beware! Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2019.
This charming picture book – about a little bear frolicking with a bee in a grassy meadow – contains words made using only five letters: b, e, w, a, and r.  Delightful as a read-aloud, it is recommended for young children starting to sound out words for themselves. 

Caprioli, Claire. A Swarm of Bees. New York: Children’s Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2023.
This small book is perfect for young readers starting to do research projects. There is a page of contents, several short chapters, a glossary and an index, all in only 32 pages. The large font, short sentences, and colourful photographs combine to create an appealing nonfiction book highly recommended for readers 6 to 10 years old. 

 

Holasová, Aneta Františka.  Bruno: the Beekeeper. Somerville, Massachusetts : Candlewick Press, 2021.
This detailed picture book – first published in the Czech Republic in 2013 – is full of information for readers who want to learn about beekeeping. It contains anatomical drawings, illustrated timelines, and lovely illustrations of plants and animals. There are details about caring for bees and harvesting honey. There is even a recipe for gingerbread cookies made with honey. The confusing part is that this is all told as an anthropomorphized story of two bears. There is far too much information in much too small a font for this to be a read-aloud book. Meanwhile older readers – using the book for research – will not care about Bruno and his grandmother. As a result, while I can recommend this book for people 11 years old and up who want to expand their general knowledge, be forewarned: ignore the story line.

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Mum, Me, and the Mulberry Tree

Sophie Rosen , ,

Rosie, Tanya. Mum, Me, and the Mulberry Tree. Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2022.
Early on a summer morning, a little girl sets out with her mother to pick berries. They fill their buckets with mulberries, share a picnic lunch, and come home to make a delicious pie. This cheerful rhyming picture book, set in the English countryside, is recommended for children 5 to 9 years old.

A picture book about a blackberry dessert

More rhyming picture books

Another picture book illustrated by Chuck Groenink

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