Non-Fiction for youth review: An Egg is Quiet

My little reluctant reader (age 8) LOVES science. She makes a beeline to the dinosaur exhibit at the Children's museum and especially loves the area with the fossils and eggs. I thought she and I would read this book together and learn some things. An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston with illustrations by Sylvia Long

• Age Range: 5 - 6 years

• Grade Level: Kindergarten - 3

• Paperback: 36 pages

• Publisher: Chronicle Books; Reprint edition (March 4, 2014)

• Language: English

• ISBN-10: 1452131481

• ISBN-13: 978-1452131481

My daughter is at the top of the grade level range for this book, but as I said, she is a reluctant reader. She has a vision impairment as well that hindered her learning to read as quickly as her smart little brain would have otherwise allowed. We read the Kindle version of this book, so I would like to talk for a minute about accessibility. It was really disappointing how small the print was on this e-book. Most of the time I can access e-books quite well, often much better than paper books. For this book, however, the print was so tiny that my daughter and I were both really struggling to make out the text even when we opened the book on my 13 inch MacBook to enlarge the print. I haven't seen the physical book, so I'm not entirely sure if it would have been better or worse trying to read it off the paper. In addition, much of the book is written in a fancy script font, which looks very nice but is harder for children, reluctant readers, or those with visual impairment to read. I would have liked to see slightly less attention paid to the aesthetics of this book and more attention paid to the content being accessible to all. Even my ten year old daughter with near perfect vision who is an excellent reader had a bit of a hard time making out some of the text. I would like to check out a physical book in this series to see if the print is any more legible. Another option could be an audiobook version, but I wasn't able to easily find one.

When I asked my 8 year old what she liked most about this book, she said, "I liked the pictures and that there was so much information." She said what she didn't like was, "HOW SMALL THE WORDS WERE!" This book does have lots of appealing elements. The illustrations are whimsical while also presenting some scientific authenticity. The eggs aren't shown exactly to scale, but the varying sizes are represented. There are lots of fun facts about varying types of eggs and the creatures that come out of the eggs. Some of the pages were nice for reading aloud, while others are more of a catalogue style page that is not as well suited for reading aloud.

These books are part of a series. The other titles are 

A Nest is Noisy

A Seed is Sleepy

A Rock is Lively 

A Butterfly is Patient

A Beetle is Shy 

These books would be nice for winding down before a nap or bedtime or for quiet reading time for a child who can individually read the print and the script. 


 

Non-fiction for youth review: Grandfather's Journey

Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say is a poignant, lovely book about the internal conflict within an immigrant who feels belonging to two places at once. A person can never be in two places at once physically, but many immigrants feel that their hearts are torn. 

• Age Range: 4 - 7 years

• Grade Level: Preschool - 3

• Lexile Measure: 650 (What's this?)

• Paperback: 32 pages

• Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (October 27, 2008)

• Language: English

• ISBN-10: 0547076800

• ISBN-13: 978-0547076805

While the text itself is simple, the story is tender and nuanced. Say describes how his grandfather emigrated to the United States and then later returned to his home country of Japan. Whenever the grandfather was in one country, he missed the other country, feeing a sense of belonging to both. Young children may not fully understand the situation described in the book, and the overall emotional feel is a bit sad. That isn't to say that picture books need always to be jolly, and this particular story would resonate with children and grandchildren of migrants, as well as educating children whose families have lived in the United States for many generations on the experience of immigrants and their descendants.
The illustrations in the book are beautiful. They remind me of French Impressionism, such as Claude Monet. This particular illustration in the boat I thought was especially pretty. Grandfather's Journey won the Caldecott Medal in 1994. 

My ten year old daughter read this and commented that she liked the flow between the characters and that the book wasn't disjointed in identifying what was happening to whom. She also liked that it didn't feel like an "average children's book". She said the picture book almost felt like a novel and enjoyed that it was more mature. She said she would have enjoyed more detail about the characters and the story. I loved the beautiful illustrations and the lyrical honesty of the text.I would have liked it to have a more uplifting feel. The last page is at once heartwarming and heartwrenching. 

What do you think? Have you read Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say? If you did and you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy

Tea with Milk by Allen Say 

Watch the Stars Come Out by Riki Levinson

Non-fiction for youth review: Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek

For this post, I decided to read Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen. I was kind of blown away by it. Here are the quick stats.

• Age Range: 12 and up 
• Grade Level: 7 - 9
• Lexile Measure: 730L (What's this?)
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers (April 15, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525426817
• ISBN-13: 978-0525426813

I love a good coming-of-age fiction novel, and Popular reads in a similar way. The premise of Popular is that Maya Van Wagener picks up a guide to popularity published in the 1950's and decides to implement the wisdom within at her modern day junior high. Maya really does desire that popularity. She feels like an outcast, and is frequently teased. In some ways, the author is your average teenage girl, but her maturity, self-awareness, empathy, and intelligence made this a great read for this 37 year old. I wish I had been able to read this book in my awkward teenage years, to be honest, and I will definitely pass it along to my daughters when they are a little older, as there are some sensitive situations in the book that I don'f feel they are quite ready for. Teen Vogue did a good article on Maya which you can read here. You can also follow her on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter. Though she's busy with college at the moment, she has been signed for a two book deal, so we have another book to look forward to in the future, and apparently, Dreamworks has bought the rights to the movie, so that stands to be delightful as well!  

Popular has an over 4 star average on both Amazon and GoodReads, and was recognized as a YALSA book of excellence for 2015. All of the acclaim is well-deserved. This book will stick with you. It's simple and light, the way a book inspired by 1950's vintage insights should be, but it also is tender and touching. I enjoyed the author's eccentric family as well as the descriptions of the town they were living at the time. Some subjects that were not handled as well as I might have hoped are obesity and Autism, but Maya is never hateful in her writing, just very true to her teenage voice in those instances. 

Adult Readers of Popular might enjoy 

Please Stop Laughing at Me: One Woman's Inspirational Story by Jodee Blanco 

and

Queen Bees and Wannabees (3rd edition): Helping your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boys, and the New Realities of the Girl World by Rosalind Wiseman

Young Readers might enjoy 

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley 

and of course I would be remiss not to mention the book that inspired Maya, leading to a close friendship with its author, Betty Cornell's Teenage Popularity Guide by Betty Cornell.

Check out this book. It's a quick read, mostly light, and I'd love to hear what you think!