In the Hammock Reading

1.     Bibliography Hale, Shannon, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale. Rapunzel's Revenge . New York, NY: Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2008. ISBN: 978-1599902883 2.     Plot Summary This graphic novels follows more or less the beloved and well-known tale of Rapunzel, but with a few twists! Rapunzel’s long hair is used as a lasso as she embarks on a wild adventure with Jack to seek revenge on the woman who took her away from her mother. 3.     Critical Analysis Wife and husband duo Shannon (Newbery Medal award-winning author) and Dean Hale team up to recreate the classic Rapunzel story with a wild west twist. Rapunzel's Revenge more or less follows the same storyline of the classic fairy tale, but the Hales have incorporated several fun changes, twists, and explanations to this tale. Firstly, the story is presented in a graphic novel format. Shannon and Dean Hale do an A+ job of writing the story so that it flows. Also, props to Nathan Hale and his imaginative illustr

1.     Bibliography Gaiman, Neil, and Dave McKean. The Graveyard Book . New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2008. ISBN: 978-0060530945 2.     Plot Summary Poor Nobody (Bod) Owens finds himself abandoned as a baby after his father, mother, and sister are murdered by a mysterious man named Jack. Baby Bod happens upon a graveyard filled with friendly ghosts who adopt him as their son. Bod is appointed a guardian named Silas who feeds him and arranges for his education. Through this story, Bod surprisingly finds love and life in the oddest of places, a graveyard. 3.     Critical Analysis "It takes a graveyard..." Props to Neil Gaiman and this Newbery Medal award-winning ghost story. Gaiman manages to create a story completely set in a graveyard that is surprisingly "full of life". The story follows the adventures and life of Nobody Owens as a baby up into his adolescence. Bod's parents are murdered by a mysterious man named Jack and baby Bod toddles into a ne

1.     Bibliography Green, John. Looking for Alaska . New York: Penguin Group, 2005. ISBN: 978-0142402511 2.     Plot Summary Looking for Alaska is a story of life, loss, recovery and finding meaning through it all. Young Miles (Pudge) attends boarding school in Alabama; there he meets Alaska Young who flips his paradigm of a life upside down. Pudge and his group of friends band together, learn life’s toughest lessons and grow to understand loss on a different level through this funny and sad story. 3.     Critical Analysis Looking for Alaska is a classic tragic coming of age story. John Green does a phenomenal job of developing the characters in this Printz Award Winner.  The story takes place during present day at the Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama. The setting provides a scenic and quaint backdrop to the story. Looking for Alaska   is told from the first person perspective of Miles, who gains the ironic nickname of Pudge by his friends. Pudge is a teenager tr

1.     Bibliography Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker. The War That Saved My Life . London: Puffin Books, 2016. ISBN: 978-0147510488 2.     Plot Summary In The War That Saved My Life, young Ada and her brother Jamie flee from their abusive mother’s clutches. They are taken in by the caring single woman “Miss Smith” or Susan. Ada suffers from an untreated clubfoot and post-traumatic stress disorder from her abusive mother. Her journey is not an easy one; but with the help of caring Susan, she finds her way amidst the backdrop of World War II in England. 3.     Critical Analysis This touching historical novel is a wonderful portrayal of resiliency, overcoming obstacles, and adopting a new family. Bradley certainly doesn’t dilute the tragic and horrific events of World War II, rather they are retold from the perspective of 11 year old Ada. Although a children's book, this novel covers some very intense themes (abuse, PTSD, the gruesome horrors of wartime) but Bradley does

1.     Bibliography Cushman, Karen. The Midwife's Apprentice . New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996. ISBN: 978-0547722177 2.     Plot Summary One day, young Brat (who renames herself Alyce) is found by the town’s midwife laying in a dung heap. After some persuasion, Alyce convinces the midwife to take her on as her apprentice. Alyce learns and grows under the harsh midwife's tutelage in 1400s medieval Europe. Will Alyce have what it takes to make it as a midwife someday? 3.     Critical Analysis This delightful story unfo lds for the reader in short vignettes. The research and care of the author are evident as she explains what midwifery was like during the middle ages in Europe. The reader certainly gains the perspective of the townspeople and life back then through the author’s clever writing. Superstition and prejudice of class are clearly evident through the short vignettes of the story. At the beginning of the story Brat is spat upon, dismissed and tea

1.     Bibliography Schlitz, Laura Amy. The Hired Girl . London: Walker, 2015. ISBN: 978-0763694500 2.     Plot Summary In this novel, Joan (she later changes her name to Janet) runs away from her brothers and her verbally abusive father and flees to early 1900s Baltimore Maryland. While sitting on a bench in the overwhelming city, a kind young Jewish man finds her and invites her to his family’s home to stay. After some convincing of Mrs. Rosenback (the lady of the house), Joan proves herself a hard and capable worker, and she is able to stay and work as a hired girl in the wealthy Jewish family’s home.   3.     Critical Analysis Schlitz does a phenomenal job of recreating life, customs, and the line of thinking during the early 1900s. This historical novel, written as journal entries of the main heroine Joan, brings to life multiple examples of religious acceptance and diversity. The reader gets a single person point of view of exactly how religion and race were perceived

1.     Bibliography Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. ISBN: 978-0544225824 2.     Plot Summary  Bartoletti explains where the K.K.K. originated, how it commenced, who started it, and the bitter feelings of the South that gave way to the horrible acts of the “American Terrorist Group”. Although this book tells the tale of an extremely hard-to-swallow time in history, readers will ultimately come to see Bartoletti's purpose in writing this book. Bartoletti wishes to understand "why?", to give a memorial to the victims of the K.K.K., and to provide hope to tomorrow for more kindness, love, tolerance, and acceptance. 3.     Critical Analysis Accuracy: Bartoletti receives praise (and rightly so) from multiple sources for her well-documented research, sources, travel, and experiences that molded and shaped this book. Bartoletti explains that informatio

1.     Bibliography Jenkins, Steve. Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. ISBN: 978-0618494880 2.     Plot Summary This short relatively simple nonfiction book gives several fascinating facts about the earth and its superlatives. Readers will learn where the hottest spot on the earth is, where the deepest spot of the ocean is, and where the highest peak in the world is. 3.     Critical Analysis Accuracy: Jenkins does not include a list of sources in his picture children's book. He does, however, include excerpts of maps in each page and a more extensive map at the end of the book showing where each location resides in the world. Jenkins also includes little graphics of information for reference. For example, readers can see how tall the highest mountain is in relation to The Empire State Building. Organization: Each page contains a superlative (for example the highest spot on the earth) a brief blurb explaining the location

1.     Bibliography Fleming, Candace. The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia . New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2014. ISBN: 978-0375867828 2.     Plot Summary Flemming tells the fascinating tale of the fall of Russia and the circumstances leading up to the mysterious fall and end of Tsar Nicholas and his family and the rise of Communist Russia   3.     Critical Analysis Fleming does a phenomenal job of telling the multifaceted story of Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra and their four daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia and treasured son Alexei. Although the story of pre-World War I Russia and the birth of communism could read as boring or dry, Flemings writings are anything but dry. The Family Romanov reads as a storybook unfolding before the reader’s eyes. Her use of first-hand accounts, dialogue, pictures, and historical information make this an incredibly gripping read.  Accuracy: Fleming includes a multitude of family phot

1.     Bibliography Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown girl dreaming . Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2017. ISBN: 978-0147515827 2.     Plot Summary In Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson gives the reader an intimate look into her childhood and her life and experiences growing up in Ohio, South Carolina, and New York. These beautiful stories are crafted and told eloquently through verse. 3.     Critical Analysis Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming is a novel in verse told entirely from the perspective of the author as a young child. Woodson has done a phenomenal job of entering her mindset from the past, and she conveys her memories, emotions, and experiences as a small child. Some of Woodson's poems are quite long, and some are quite short. Regardless, each poem is an incredibly vital piece of her life puzzle. Some of her poems are written in four-line stanzas, some are free verse, and a haiku even makes an appearance.    Woodson

1.     Bibliography Grimes, Nikki. One last word : wisdom from the harlem renaissance . New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA, 2017. ISBN: 978-1619635548 2.     Plot Summary Written in the “Golden Shovel” form, Nikki Grimes shares an anthology of poems embodying stories, experiences, and “wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance”. 3.     Critical Analysis Nikki Grimes writes her anthology One Last Word ever so cleverly using the "Golden Shovel" form. Grimes includes her inspiration poem and she bolds out a line or stanza as her inspiration. Grimes takes every word of the line, stanza or in some cases the entire poem and puts the words separately in the right margin, one on each line. Then, she crafts a new poem incorporating the words. The effect is essentially that the theme of her inspiration poems bleeds into her writing, but at the same time, she organizes stories and experiences from African Americans. Through her powerful use of emotion, Grimes tugs at the heartstrings of rea