Teaching with Children's Books: Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead

Dia de los Muertos (also known as Day of the Dead) is coming up. This celebration of the dead, occurring on November 1 and November 2, embraces the idea that the living can still continue to care for those who have passed on.
 
There are many books on Dia de los Muertos out there. Here are a few books I like on this holiday:

 

CLATTER BASH!: A DAY OF THE DEAD CELEBRATION by Richard Keep (Picture Book- Peachtree) Cheerful skeletons party through the holiday with lots of food, noise, and festivity.

THE DAY OF THE DEAD/EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS by Bob Barner (Picture Book- Holiday House) This rhyming picture book shares customs associated with the holiday and is dedicated to Jose Guadalupe Posada, an artist known for his skeleton-themed art.

UNCLE MONARCH AND THE DAY OF THE DEAD by Judy Goldman, Illust. by Rene King Moreno (Picture Book- Boyds Mills) "Never be afraid of the dead for those who loved us can never hurt us," an uncle teaches his niece before he passes away.The girl later believes her uncle has returned to her in the form of a monarch butterfly. 

EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS by Mary Dodson Wade (Picture Book- Scholastic Library Publishing) The color photos in this  book about Day of the Dead take a reader straight to the heart of the holiday and its customs. 

Feel free to recommend other books on Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead.

 
DAY OF THE DEAD: A MEXICAN-AMERICAN CELEBRATION by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith, Photog. by Lawrence Migdale (Middle Grade Picture Book- Holiday House) This book, with its colored photos, follows a family as they celebrate Day of Dead while explaining the history and the traditions behind this holiday.

Asian Ghost Stories and Other Spooky Asian Kidlit

When I was a little kid, I remember getting creeped out hearing the story about the guy who picks up a lady hitchhiker. The guy lets the hitchhiker wear his jacket. Then the hitchhiker disappears when the driver reaches  her house. Later he finds out she has been dead for X number of years, and when he visits her gravesite, he finds his jacket on her tombstone. You know, that one?

How 'bout feeling your heart ache over the '80s Hong Kong movie where this character played by the late Leslie Cheung falls in love with a ghost?  You know, that one? Mmm...hmm...

Ghost stories and spooky tales are pretty big in Asian cultures. With Halloween around the corner, I thought it would be fitting to share a few of the many kidlit books I've read that spotlight spook from an Asian or Asian American perspective:

 
A BANQUET FOR HUNGRY GHOSTS: A COLLECTION OF DELICIOUSLY FRIGHTENING TALES by Ying Chang Compestine (Young Adult- Henry Holt & Co) Each of the eight stories in this collection references a Chinese dish and the author's insight into ghosts, revenge, injustice, karma, and respect for the dead. Steamed dumplings and cannibalism.  Beef stew and illicit organ harvesting.  Egg stir-fried rice and being buried alive. 

BEHIND THE MASK by Yangsook Choi (Picture Book-Frances Foster)- A Korean American boy is haunted by his last memory of his senile grandfather, who was wearing a "scary" talchum mask worn in a traditional Korean folk dance...until the boy puts on the mask and his grandfather's old dance clothes, and  now has a Halloween costume. 

 

GHOST TRAIN by Paul Yee, Ilust. by Harvey Chan (Picture Book- Groundwood) Set in the 1800s, this story spotlights a Chinese girl who travels to North America to visit her father only to find out her father died in an accident while he was trying to build a railway. After boarding a ghost train to view the ghosts of the many men who sacrificed their lives to build the railway, the girl is tasked to bring the souls of the dead men back home. Check out my author interview.

 

THE BONE COLLECTOR'S SON by Paul Yee, (Young Adult-Marshall Cavendish) A Chinese boy living in Canada during 1907 reluctantly helps his father dig up bones of the buried Chinese so the bones could be sent back to China. When the boy and his father dig up a skeleton without a skull, bad luck strikes. The boy ends up working in a house that is haunted and confronts his fear of ghosts. The ghost stories embedded into the main story enhance the spook factor.  

 

BOY DUMPLINGS by Ying Chang Compestine, Illust. by James Yamasaki (Picture Book-Holiday House) A Chinese boy outsmarts a hungry Garbage-Eating Ghost who threatens to make dumplings out of him.

 

 

MORE BONES: SCARY STORIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD (Middle Grade- Viking Juvenile) This book features spooky tales from places like Spain, Scotland, Germany, and Asia. Stories include: The Severed Head (Persia) where a beheaded physician exacts revenge on the king who had wrongly condemned him, The Dangerous Dead (China), where four travelers stay at an inn and room with a homicidal corpse, The Gruesome Test (Japan) where a maiden challenges her suitor to snack on a corpse, and The Ghost of Rainbow Maiden (Hawaii) where a murdered rainbow maiden tries to find her body so she could live again. 


Feel free to add any additional books or stories to this list.

Banned Books Week Sept 24-Oct 1, 2011

Banned Books Week is coming up. This is an annual event celebrating the fabulous First Amendment and our rights to access information. Not surprisingly and unfortunately, there are quite a few kidlit books out there that have been banned. Many of them happen to be classics such as: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger, THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie, the HARRY POTTER books by J.K. Rowling, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee, BLACK BOY by Richard Wright, and FOREVER by Judy Blume. (And these books are all FANTASTIC.)

When I skim through the stories behind banned book challenges, a common pattern arises: A parent is bothered or feels threatened by something in a book their child has access to, and so they launch a campaign to have that book removed from the classroom or library so no other children can have access to it. 

As a parent myself, I can understand why parents would want to screen their children's reading materials. And certainly, if a parent finds something they perceive as "questionable," they have the right as a parent to keep their own child away from it.  HOWEVER, I don't think it's fair for a parent to make that kind of decision for other people's children. That's where I have to draw the line.

There's lots of information out there on Banned Books Week. Here are a couple of web sites (and there are more out there):

Banned Books Week

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression

American Library Association on Banned Books Week

Children's and Young Adult Literature for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Kidlit is one of many things that shed light on the rich and diverse heritage and cultures of Asian Pacific Americans. Being Asian American, I grew up thirsty for books about Asian Americans that I could relate to. But not all books featuring Asian American characters resonate with me. But there are many that do. The following is an abbreviated list of just some of the many children's  and young adult books about Asian Americans that touched me in some way:

 

GIRLS FOR BREAKFAST by David Yoo (Young Adult- Delacorte) A girl-crazy Korean American boy struggles with his identity as an Asian male in his predominantly-white high school. Check out my author interview.

 

THE YEAR OF THE DOG by Grace Lin (Middle Grade- Little Brown) A Chinese American girl tries out different things, from entering in a science fair to performing in a school play, to decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

A STEP FROM HEAVEN by An Na (Young Adult- Puffin) A Korean American girl and her family immigrate from Korea to America. In addition to struggling with a new language and culture, the girl is a constant witness to her alcoholic father's abusive nature towards the family.

 

SHADOW OF THE DRAGON by Sherry Garland (Young Adult- Harcourt) A Vietnamese American boy wants to date a white girl whose brother is in a skinhead gang, and at the same time, he tries to keep his refugee cousin from joining a Vietnamese gang.

WILLIE WINS by Almira Astudillo Gilles, Illust. by Carl Angel (Picture Book-Lee & Low) A Filipino American boy is embarrassed to bring to school his father's alkansiya, a bank made from a coconut shell, and then he discovers a valuable item inside.

HOME OF THE BRAVE by Allen Say (Picture Book- Houghton Mifflin) In a story told through dark and dreamlike images, a man confronts haunting memories of his Japanese family's internment during World War II.

SHINING STAR: THE ANNA MAY WONG STORY by Paula Yoo, Illust. by Lin Wang (Picture Book- Lee & Low) This is a true story about Anna May Wong, a Chinese American actress who toughed it out in Hollywood during the 1930s in spite of the limited film roles offered to her. 

  

Feel free to share any favorite children's or young adult books depicting the Asian Pacific American experience that aren't on this list.

Happy Birthday, Beverly Cleary!

Today is Beverly Cleary's birthday and also National D.E.A.R. Day, or Drop Everything and Read Day. For more info on this day, click here.

  

I heart Beverly Cleary. RAMONA AND HER FATHER was the first chapter book I read when I was a kid.  Ramona Quimby was and still is one of my favorite heroines from kidlit. I always understood where Ramona was coming from- from her exacting revenge on her classmate Susan for copying her owl to her if-only daydream of being  a star in a TV commercial to her embarrassment from cracking a raw egg on her head in front of her classmates. 

One of my favorite Ramona moments is from BEEZUS AND RAMONA (I think).  Beezus freaks out 'cuz she thinks Ramona's gone missing and then she finds her in the basement where Ramona has been busy taking one bite of each apple from a crate of fruit. Totally something I would have done at that age.

If anyone has any favorite Ramona memories they'd like to share, feel free to leave a comment!

Teaching with Children's Books: Poetry

April is National Poetry Month and what better way to bring poetry into the classroom than to read aloud some rhyming children's books. Here are a few picture books told in rhyme and/or verse I've read:  

 

THE MONSTER WHO ATE MY PEAS by Danny Schnitzlein, Illust. by Matt Faulkner (Picture Book-Peachtree) A boy gives up his favorite things to a monster in exchange for getting his peas eaten for him.

HOP! PLOP! by Corey Rosen Schwartz & Tali Klein , Illust. by  Oliver Dunrea (Picture Book-Walker & Company) Mouse and Elephant share some noisy adventures together on the playground. The book is stocked with examples of onomatopoeia (pronounced on-uh-mat-uh-PEE-uh), which refers to words that mimic the very sound they describe (e.g. plop, boom, whoosh).

 

FIREFIGHTERS IN THE DARK by Dashka Slater, Illust. by Nicoletta Ceccoli (Picture Book-Houghton Mifflin) A girl imagines all the surrealistic places a fire engine goes to when its siren goes off.

PIGGIES IN A POLKA by Kathi Appelt, Illust. by  LeUyen Pham (Picture Book-Harcourt) I was a guest at a piggie hootenanny, which is a rowdy and merry gathering among folk musicians and locals. 

I've also read couple of poetry collections intended for older readers I just wanted to share:

 

AN EYEBALL IN MY GARDEN AND OTHER SPINE-TINGLING POEMS edited by Jennifer Cole Judd and  Laura Wynkoop, Illust. by Johan Olander (Middle Grade-Marshall Cavendish) A group of writers contributed to this collection of poems where Dracula goes coffin shopping, the ghost of a goldfish haunts a toilet, a monster lurks in a wishing well, and a dead girl who was bullied comes back for her bully. (Keep this one around for Halloween.)

SHUT UP, YOU'RE FINE: POEMS FOR VERY, VERY BAD CHILDREN by Andrew Hudgins (Adult/Young Adult-The Overlook Press) I found this in the grown-up section and couldn't stop reading this award-winning poet's glimpses into the dark world of the young and troubled. With poems featuring verbally abusive parents, creepy grandmothers, masturbation, thoughts of violence, and animal cruelty, this collection of poems is NOT intended for children or the classroom. But I wanted to mention this book because I think some mature teens would get the subversive voice of the poems, told in the form of upbeat nursery rhymes.

Teaching with Children's Books: Women's History

March is Women's History Month. Here are a few children's books I've read about strong American women who responded to societal norms by figuratively putting their thumbs on their noses:

 

STORM RUN by Libby Riddles, Illust. by Shannon Cartwright (Picture Book/Early Reader-Sasquatch Books) Dog musher Libby Riddles writes about her experience being the first woman to win Alaska's big Iditarod Sled Dog Race. 

HIROMI'S HANDS by Lynne Barasch (Picture Book-Lee & Low) Based on a true story, this book spotlights a Japanese American girl who aspires to be a sushi chef, just like her father.

 

BOYCOTT BLUES by Andrea Davis Pinkney, Illust. by Brian Pinkney (Picture Book-Greenwillow Books) Told in verse, this book narrates Rosa Parks' role in the Civil Rights Movement.

ROSIE THE RIVETER by Christine Petersen (Picture Book/Middle Grade-Children's Press, Scholastic) This book salutes the women who joined the work force during World War II.