“‘You see, everything changes, the world and everything in it. Everything but me. Goodby, little friends.’ They stood openmouthed, but no words came to them. There was so much they wanted to say. They wanted to persuade him to remain, to explain how much he had done for them, and to assure him that the…
Author: Diane Pendergraft
The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek
What child wouldn’t love to discover a living dinosaur in the backyard? What if that dinosaur could talk? That’s what happens to Joey and Joan Brown, freckled, red-headed twelve-year-old twins. On the first few pages of the story, we are made aware of the family Problem. The Problem is money. Mom, a widow, has inherited…
The Crab Ballet
Someone gave me a couple of readers from All About Learning, and I had never seen that series before. I also had never heard of the author, Renee M. LaTulippe, so I went to her website and discovered this book. Miraculously, our public library had it. This illustration made me laugh out loud. I know…
Casey Over There by Staton Rabin
“When Aubrey was seven, his brother Casey joined the army.” Aubrey lives in Brooklyn, New York. Casey is fighting in the Great War in France. Aubrey writes letters to his brother and waits and waits for an answer. It takes a long time for mail to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Casey waits for packages Aubrey…
Good Luck Duck
Timothy and his father and mother live in a quiet valley. It’s too far away from the woods to hear the crows calling all day, too far from the bigger valley to hear the trains rolling by, and streetcars and buses don’t go that far. The little family loves their quiet valley, but sometimes Timothy…
Snow Treasure
I just finished reading Snow Treasure to my literature class of eight- and nine-year-old homeschooled students. I only see them for forty minutes once a week, and the timing just happened to work out that I had to leave the kids hanging for a whole week with the hero captured by Nazis and with only…
Virginia Hall, an Extraordinary Woman
Whether they loved her or hated her, everyone who knew her considered her an amazing and memorable woman. Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon became obsessed with finding the “Limping Lady of Lyon.” He had posters made and offered a huge reward for information leading to the arrest of “The Enemy’s Most Dangerous Spy.”
Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein
WARNING:
CAUTIONARY REVIEW WITH PHOTOS DEPICTING ADULT CONTENT.
Paint the Wind
While checking my county library catalog for Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Echo, the description of Paint the Wind caught my eye because the story takes place in Wyoming. I’m always a little skeptical about stories supposed to take place in Wyoming, but I remembered, from years ago, that Ryan’s Esperanza Rising was surprisingly good. Echo, which…
Grace Banker and Her Hello Girls Answer the Call: The Heroic Story of WWI Telephone Operators
Several years ago I spent quite a bit of time studying the early 1900s through WWI. I read nonfiction and fiction about and from that era. So I was fascinated when I discovered Switchboard Soldiers: A Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini. How had I never heard even a hint about these women who were the first…
Books by Horseback: A Librarian’s Brave Journey to Deliver Books to Children
“Edith is a packhorse librarian. Every day she travels for miles to deliver books. William lives far back in the mountains. Edith will have to ride hard to reach his family’s cabin.” There is a storm coming, but that doesn’t stop Edith. Or her horse. And this is what keeps her going. As summarized in…
One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II
“We have only one pair of boots and must take turns. I work at night, and my husband works during the day. We spend the rest of the time in bed for warmth.”
From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World
James Rumford’s story opens with a riddle. Each element of the riddle is explained in imagination-sparking prose with glowing illustrations. The rags became paper stiffened with glue made from bones. The brown coat was leather, printing types were molded from the lead and tin, and the oak was used to build the printing press. The…
The Christmas Rocket
Dino is almost ten years old. Many years of working in the family pottery shop have shriveled his grandfather like an old pea with a knitted cap upon his bald head, and made his Papa’s back stooped. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Dino must go down to the village with his Papa to sell their…
A Long Road on a Short Day
“Early on a white January morning, Samuel’s mother said, ‘I do wish we had a brown-eyed cow to give us milk for the baby.’” So Papa sets out to get Mama a cow, and Samuel goes with him. “‘Keep up,’ said Samuel’s father. He looked up at the gray clouds. ‘It’s a long road on…