The Not-So-Boring Letters of Private Nobody by Matthew Landis. 300 p. Dial Books for Young Readers/ Penguin Young Readers Group, February, 2018. 9780735227989. (Review of finished copy borrowed from the public library.)
Middle Grade Monday features The Not-So-Boring Letters of Private Nobody by Matthew Landis. Twelve-year-old Oliver Prichard is a Civil War history buff. He knows everything about the battles, generals, successes and failures of the conflict. He even takes part in re-enactments. So when his seventh grade social studies teacher announces a huge project centered around the war, Ollie knows he has it nailed. He doesn't even need a partner. In fact, he would prefer to work alone. But when he's partnered with slacker, Ella Berry and she picks the name of Private Raymond Stone out of the hat, Oliver's dreams for a fantastic project fizzle. Private Stone never saw combat and died of dysentery. Still, he wants a good grade, so the two head to the local historical society to read some primary source documents and a friendship grows.
Middle school dynamics are spot on in this terrific read. Well, save for the use of cell phones and ear buds during the school day. Small quibble, maybe it's just my school that bans them in the classroom. No surprise that the author is a middle school social studies teacher.
Everything about this book is appealing from the cover to the voice. There's plenty of humor, a relatable main character and history! I loved how re-enactments and historical societies were seamlessly woven into the story. I can't wait to buy this for my own library and share it with my students.
The Quilts of Gee's Bend by Susan Goldman Rubin. 56 p. Abrams Books for Young Readers Abrams/ June, 2017. 9781419721311. (Review from purchased copy)
I don't recall now when I first learned about the quilts of Gee's Bend. It might have been when Jacqueline Woodson's Show Way was published (2005) and I got interested in the history of quilting in the south among enslaved women. Gee's Bend popped into my consciousness again in 2011 when I read Belle, the last mule of Gee's Bend by Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Bettye Stroud. I also became a fan of Susan Goldman Rubin after reading her biography of Diego Rivera. Books by her are basically an automatic purchase by me even if I can't get to read them all.
The Quilts of Gee's Bend is just gorgeous through and through from the trim size through the cover to it's meticulous writing and arresting photographs of both the quilts and portraits of the quilter artist.
The history of Gee's Bend dates back to the 1800s, when enslaved women would toil all day before returning to their quarters to cook, tend their family and quilt. Quilts were important in a variety of ways from the practical to the symbolic. New generations of quilters learned at the knees of mothers, grandmothers, aunts and other women. Once the Civil War and slavery ended, most stayed on in Gee's Bend and became sharecroppers. Most lived in abject poverty and constant debt that they could never pay off. Still, they were a tight-knit community who supported each other through good times and bad.
Readers will get to know a few of the more prominent quilter artists through the leisurely flowing text. There is hardly a page without a photograph of either the quilts (in full-color) or archival black and white photos and portraits taken during the late 1930s when FDR sent a team of photographers to the town to document the condition after an article was written by a journalist named Beverly Smith.
Plenty of care went into the details of the book's design, with plenty of "white space." The background of the text is a creamy ecru with top-stitching that frames each page, a colorful, bright red, yellow and cream border along the top and page numbers framed in red and blue quilt rectangles.
Backmatter includes cheerful instructions for making a quilt square complete with traceable patterns. Three pages of notes follow. The bibliography includes six books, six articles, a video and three websites. Acknowledgements, image credits and an index conclude this fine volume.
Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. unpgd. Seagrass Books, October, 2017. 9781633222762. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)
Let me put this right out there first: Language arts and social studies teachers who might be looking for a great title for a cross-curricular project, stop and take a look at this beauty! So rich with possibility!
Okay, now I can meander.
I am not really a water person. While I love to be near the water, in the water? Not so much. I will enter the water as long as I can stand. Going out past where I can see land? Nope, nope, nope. The first time I saw the Mayflower II and realized just how small and rickety a craft it really was, I nearly barfed. That a hundred-plus people packed their worldly possessions and themselves onto the vessel and set out for the unknown boggles my mind. Still, those great expanses are intriguing. I confess that I never viewed the sea as a road.
Traveling the Blue Road is a fascinating collection of original poems centered around the theme of arrival, whether by choice or capture or needing to flee a homeland. These poems will make you think. They are arranged chronologically and gorgeously illustrated with mixed media collages, most of which incorporate primary source images. This collection is one to get lost in both words and images. Seriously. Don't rush through it. In addition to a sprinkling of quotes throughout the book, the back-matter includes historical information behind each poem. Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea is a great addition to any library.
