Book Review: Cleopatra Rules by Vicky Shecter

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Cleopatra Rules image

Cleopatra Rules! The Amazing Life of the Original Teen Queen by Vicky Alvear Shecter is sure to be a hit with anyone who is interested in learning more about the real story of Cleopatra, her life, and the times she lived in. This nonfiction book combines modern references with ancient facts while questioning the motives of the Roman historians who wrote much of what has come down through history of this most famous Queen of Egypt..

The book starts by asking readers three questions: Was the last queen of Egypt an evil, gorgeous woman dripping with jewels? A power-hungry temptress trying to rule the world? A pharaoh with a small snake problem? How about none of the above?

From there it goes into each phase of Cleopatra’s life, beginning when she was a child and going through her life with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony until her death. Each chapter is full of interesting facts that are illustrated with photos of ancient artwork, maps, drawings and more. The chapters are short and read quickly, but they are chock-full of information.

The tone is fun and irreverent throughout, but there’s no doubt the facts are accurate. To back up her text, Shecter has extensive endnotes on each chapter, a timeline of events, a glossary, and a bibliography of sources. Cleopatra Rules! should be a great way to bring history to life for middle-grade readers.

Book Review: Dogsled Dreams by Terry Lynn Johnson

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Dogsled Dreams imageRebecca loves nothing more than to be out on the trail with her huskies on a sled. She dreams of leading a team in a race one day, and when her change comes, she really wants to prove to her dad that even though she’s only twelve, she can do it.

Dogsled Dreams by Terry Lynn Johnson is a fascinating look at the life of a musher. Rebecca puts in a lot of time with her dogs, feeding them, cleaning up after them and making sure they’re safe for the night. She also has to learn about dangers on the trail, like running in extreme cold and white-out conditions, and encountering wild animals on the trail. She knows that her dogs have to trust her, and she has to trust them, if they want to stay safe on a run.

Dogsled Dreams is a great book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 12. Becca is confident, and she’s also willing to put in a lot of work to get what she wants. The dogsledding details are interesting, and they carry the story along without bogging it down. Moms and daughters can also talk about taking on responsibility and setting goals to work towards a dream.

The author has a great teacher’s guide that can be downloaded from her website. The guide can help book club members generate discussion questions. You’ll also a find a few fun facts about dogsledding, more information about the author and lots of other interesting tidbits when you visit: terrylynnjohnson.com.

Book Review: Far Above Rubies by Cynthia Polansky

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Far Above Rubies imageWhen Sofie Mecklenberg married Jan Rijnfeld in Amsterdam in 1937 she knew she was becoming stepmother to six daughters. The oldest was 21 and about to be married herself, the youngest was 11. Sophie knew she would have to work hard to be their friend and a stand-in for their mother who had died five years before. She didn’t know her commitment would take her to a Nazi work camp and then Auschwitz.

Far Above Rubies by Cynthia Polansky is historical fiction that is based on the true story of a woman who volunteered to accompany her six stepdaughters when they were called out of Amsterdam and sent to a work camp. Vowing to her husband she would do all she could to keep them safe, she packed her suitcase and headed to the train station with them. She had no way of knowing what awaited them once they left home.

Sofie’s unfailing strength of spirit kept her going until the Russians liberated Auschwitz and during the hardships after the war. While Sofie’s circumstances are true, the story has been fictionalized to allow us a glimpse of what every one of the real people may have been thinking as the story unfolds.

The result is a cross between documentary and fiction that helps the reader get through the worst passages about Nazi atrocities. The title is based on a quote from proverbs: “A woman of valor who can find? For her price is far above rubies.” Polansky has insured that Sofie’s story of sacrifice and selflessness in the face of inhuman acts will not be forgotten. Mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 15 and up will be able to explore how Nazi occupation affected Amsterdam, the realities of life in a concentration camp and how those incarcerated often kept their humanity by small acts of kindness.

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Make Beliefs Comix.com Offers Printables That Are Fun and Help With Literacy

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MakeBeliefsComix.com is a site created by author Bill Zimmerman that helps to engage reading learners in fun activities that lead to literacy. The site allows anyone to create their own comic strips. There are also resources for teachers and parents. Find out more about what this site has to offer from its author:

“As an author of interactive books to help young people find their writers’ voices, I often am asked by educators and parents for help in reaching reluctant writers. With this goal in mind, I have added more than 100 free PRINTABLES on my online comic strip site, MakeBeliefsComix.com. Now  you can print out, at no cost, interactive pages from my comic books to use for writing, reading, drawing and telling stories.

This enhanced MakeBeliefs PRINTABLES feature is the latest addition to the four year-old online educational comics site where educators and students from 180 countries come to build their own comic strips and practice language, writing and reading skills. The new printable pages are taken from my popular Make Beliefs books  and drawn by cartoonist Tom Bloom, who illustrated the best-selling Children’s Letters to God.

Now, a teacher or parent using the web site will be able to distribute graphic handouts to students in English-as-a-Second Language or literacy programs that ask for written or drawn responses to such imaginative questions as:

  • Make believe you possessed a magic flying carpet.  Where would your travels take you?
  • Make believe you had a net to catch a favorite moment in your life.  Which would it be?
  • Imagine you could talk to  your favorite book character.  Who would that be? What would you say?
  • Make believe that with the snap of your fingers you could change yourself.  How or what would you become?
  • Make believe you could create your own set of holidays. What would they celebrate?

For copies of these printables and more go to http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Printables. The feature also offers comix templates using characters from the web site along with blank talk and thought balloons that students can fill with text to create their own comic strips.

Google and UNESCO selected MakeBeliefsComix.com as one of the world’s most innovative web sites fostering literacy and reading — http://www.google.com/literacy/projects.html

Users of MakeBeliefsComix.com make comics strips by selecting from 20 fun characters with different moods — happy, sad, angry, worried — and write words for blank talk and thought balloons to make characters talk and think. This site is used by educators to teach language, reading and writing skills, and also for students in ESL programs to facilitate self-expression and storytelling, as well as computer literacy. Some educational therapists use the online comics with deaf and autistic people to help them understand concepts and communicate. Parents and children can create stories together, print them to create comic books or email them to friends.

Please share MakeBeliefsComix.com with your colleagues, students, friends or readers of your publications and favorite listserv groups. We need your help — it takes a community to build and nature a rich educational resource.

Sincerely,

Bill Zimmerman
Creator, MakeBeliefsComix, and author, Your Life in Comics’’

Book Review: Gaia Girls, Enter the Earth by Lee Welles

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Gaia Girls Enter the Earth imageElizabeth is excited that fourth grade is almost over and she’ll soon be able to hang out for lazy days on her farm with her best friend Rachel. She knows there will also be lots of work to do, but she loves her family’s land and the way her parents care for it. She’s always felt a close connection to the things that grow there.

But Elizabeth’s idyllic summer is not to be, as she discovers Rachel is moving away and a large corporation that runs giant pig farms is buying up nearby land to turn into a factory farm. Her parents refuse to sell, but will they be able to stand living next to the new operation, which will change their own quality of life in many ways?

Even though Elizabeth’s parents fight against the plan, it seems as though they are doomed to lose. But then Elizabeth meets an otter who can talk, and otter who calls herself Gaia. Gaia says she is the living Earth, and she says Elizabeth herself can do something to help save the land she dearly loves.

Gaia Girls, Enter the Earth by Lee Welles, illustrated by Ann Hameister, is the first in a series that focuses on children using special powers to help save what they love. It shows that saving our environment can be very personal, not just a term that’s thrown about. It’s personal when we can equate a small piece of land that we love, and the reasons we love it, as something worth saving. Gaia Girls, Enter the Earth should be good for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 12 who have in interest in learning more about the environment.

Book Review: The Pony Whisperer: Team Challenge by Janet Rising

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Team Challenge imageIn The Pony Whisperer: The Word on the Yard by Janet Rising, Pia found an ancient figurine that helped her communicate with horses. Her new talent gained her both friends and enemies, as some people used Pia’s new ability to help their ponies and some just believe she’s lying.

In the second book of the series, Team Challenge, Pia and her friends are discovering that being part of a team is a lot of work. It also means if you want to be successful, you have to focus on what works for your teammates, not just what you feel is best for you. In this case, the teammates include everyone’s horses.

Team Challenge is interesting to read both for the things Pia and her friends learn about working together for a common purpose, and also for the insights it gives into preparing for a team competition. It also delves into the question of ethics, as Pia wrestles with whether or not her ability to talk to horses, and possibly get their cooperation in the competition, counts as cheating.

Great Christmas Book for Family Reading with Older Kids

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A Christmas Memory imageSaturday night my husband and youngest daughter set off for a basketball game, leaving my oldest daughter and me alone together for the evening. We intended to take advantage of the time to watch a movie only the two of us would like, but instead I remembered a little book of three short stories I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. The book is by Truman Capote, who I haven’t read much of, but I remember thinking when I first read it how touching the  stories were.

So I asked my daughter Madeleine if we could read before we picked out a movie, intending only to read the first story, my favorite. She like it as much as I did, and we ended up spending our evening reading the other two stories and talking about them.

The collection of short stories is called, A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor. In A Christmas Memory, Capote recalls making fruitcake with an elderly cousin who had never matured past the mentality of a child. She was his friend when he was a child, and the memory he describes, as well as his descriptions of a simple life and times, are heartwarming. In One Christmas, Capote talks about visiting his father in New Orleans for Christmas one year. He didn’t really know his father, and the experience of being with a stranger in a big city was both overwhelming and exciting for him. Finally, in The Thanksgiving Visitor, Capote describes how his cousin and friend insisted he invite the boy who had been bullying him at school to Thanksgiving dinner one year, and what happened when the boy came for the day.

Each of these little stories vividly evokes the times they were set in. They are also intimate portraits of the people involved. I highly recommend this small volume as a read-out-loud book at Christmas for families with children aged 10 and up.

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Book Review: Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder

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Penny Dreadful imagePenny and her parents live a rather privileged though somewhat isolated life in New York City. One day Penny is feeling rather bored and writes a wish to throw into the fountain in her back yard: “I wish something interesting would happen when I least expect it, just like in a book.”

The next thing she knows, her dad has quit his job and the family is rapidly falling into dire financial straits. It’s not exactly what Penny had in mind when she wished from something interesting. When Penny’s mom inherits a house in Tennessee, the family decides to move from the city and get a fresh start in the country.

At first, the plan seems to work, and Penny starts to make friends for the first time in her life. Her new home is actually a collection of houses filled with quirky characters and lots of new things to discover. For the first time in months, her parents seem happy. Then they discover that their new house comes with a lot of debt, and if they want to keep it, they’ll have to find a way to earn a lot of money.

Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder is a look at how families and communities can band together to help each other in times of need. It’s about finding a way to make a living while being happy with what you do at the same time. It touches on how children can feel powerless when their parents don’t include them in issues that are important to their future. And it tackles all of these serious subjects with a healthy dose of humor and lightheartedness. It’s a delightful book about first impressions, friendship, determination, personal responsibility, family and community. Mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 12 will find lots to discuss.

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