June is Pride Month! Pride Crafts 2016 Edition

Pride is a little more than a month away so I'm putting on my rainbow-colored hat and digging in for some good teen, tween and kid crafts that provide for good times and a subtle bit of learning or reflection all at the same time.

Whether 18 or 8, i'm determined to incorporate Michael Hall's 2015 picture book Red: A Crayon's Story into my craft hour. Beautifully illustrated story about diversity, how we are all unique human beings and what happens after we stop trying to find labels to fit who we are.

In keeping with the diversity theme, I'm re-purposing the so-so-easy paper doll craft for Diverse Paper Dolls. The craft is all about coloring and decorating so it will be interesting to see if kids/tweens/teens even notice if all the dolls are the same shape or if they color them all the same or differently.

More fun to come...

Yet Another Book Challenge With A Young Adult Lit Twist

When did online Book Challenges become a big thing?

If there's one thing I love to do when struggling to finish a book its dawdle online reading about books. So it was to my surprise that all these book challenges escaped me until last year when I signed up for the Diverse Books Challenge.

With each January 1st wouldn't you know the book challenge universe continues to expand into genres and online reading groups. I was jazzed to be pointed to Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge by a colleague. In its second year, Book Riot's challenge combines elements of Bingo into your book challenge, directing readers with assigned tasks for their book selections (Read a book about religion, read a book about politics, read a book over 500 pages, to type a few). My colleague and her co-workers have turned it into a competition.

Loved it.

But this was a book challenge that seems geared toward adult readers. Some of the assigned tasks weren't necessarily conducive to those of us who read mostly Young Adult fiction and non-fiction. I wanted a Book Riot Read Harder Challenge for YA readers. While I pride myself on being a kick-ass, semi-decent librarian, my cursory online searches came up with nothing.

So I shamelessly stole Book Riot's idea and applied it to the world of Young Adult Literature:

Thank you Book Riot!

A Book Review Starring "Anna and the Swallow Man" by Gabriel Sarit

First off, welcome me back!

It's been a wee bit of a whole lifetime ago since my last post due to this adorable little treat that landed into the world of oxygen on August 17th, 2015. In the meantime, in what felt akin to a very long obstacle course, I managed to complete my reading as a member of the Stonewall Youth Awards Committee too, which meant a lot of great reading but no blogging.



What a treat it's going to be to write about "Anna and the Swallow Man" upon my return.





THE SHORT VERSION:
Set in 1939 Krakow, Poland, seven year old Anna is suddenly alone in the world when her father disappears. A chance encounter with a tall, dark, looming man known only as "The Swallow Man" sets her on a seemingly aimless journey of survival throughout Poland and into Russia and back again while she learns from him the tools she'll need to exist while living in the heart of wartime Eastern Europe.

THE LONG VERSION:
Spare, dark, eloquent. Deliberately written. Rich characters illuminate a highly original tale of wartime survival. Such great ambiguity to characters and plot that I so appreciate about the literary side of young adult fiction. There are great, eloquent hints about who the Swallow Man is, and he really is the great mystery of the novel, but he never sits down to explain himself, that trust in the reader I appreciated above all else.

How uncommon it is to read a young adult novel that brims with it's own unique tone, so much so that I had a hard time deciding who the audience is for this book, which while a conundrum wouldn't prevent me from adding it to my collection.

From the start it has the feel of children's fiction. The main character is seven. The prose is spare enough that the violence and coldheartedness of wartime while present, isn't pointed or explicit. But two thirds of the way in, Anna encounters violence and adult behavior that even if it's spare storytelling is very specific. Throughout the story I kept asking myself who this novel is for, who do I recommend it to. I'm still not entirely sure.

Words can save your life. Knowledge can cause good but also harm. Such beautiful themes woven deftly throughout the story, both in plot and in how the author chose to tell his story, the words he used, the phrases he put together. It doesn't make for the easiest of reads, it's not at all a skimmable read, but a rich and unforgettable one nonetheless.

(Review of an Advanced Reader Copy)