How to Train Your Dragon

Title:  How to Train Your Dragon (#1 in a series of 9)

Author:  Cressida Crowell

Rating:  *  (1 star out of 3 possible, "C")

             Recommended with Reservations

Audience:  8 years old and up

If you're finding it hard to engage your kids in reading you may find Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon a helpful prescription.  While I can't vouch for the entire series yet, we just completed reading the first book out loud with good results.

Being a book about barbarian Vikings, there will be the expected lack of manners and violent lifestyle to deal with.  The reason we can tolerate this in this particular book is that the main character, Hiccup, triumphs with brain over brawn.  By writing and illustrating a caricature of Viking lifestyle, Cowell and Hiccup automatically make opposing behaviors more attractive.  For example, by making dragons selfish and undependable, readers are more likely to cheer for Hiccup's thoughtful, responsible personality.

A Long Way from Chicago

Author:  Richard Peck

Rating:  ***  (3 stars out of 3 possible, "A")
             Highly Recommended

Audience:  4th Grade and up

Part of the summer our family is reading books with serious themes (see reviews for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963) and part of the summer we're spending on good, clean fun!

A Long Way from Chicago is set in rural Illinois during the Depression years.  Joey and Mary Alice take the train each summer from Chicago to spend a week with their unconventional Grandmother Dowdel.  Grandma can fix a mean breakfast and a mean gooseberry pie just as easily as she can wield a shotgun, trespass, brew beer at home or blackmail the local banker.  The townspeople are just as colorful and hilarious.  Visits generally find Joe and his sister slack-jawed at what will happen next in the usually sleepy hamlet.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Title:  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry  (Mildred Taylor)
         
Rating:  ***  (3 out of 3 stars possible, "A")
             Highly Recommended      

Title:  The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963  (Christopher Paul Curtis)

Rating:  **  (2 out of 3 stars possible, "B")
              Recommended

Audience:  5th Grade and Up

I volunteered in my 5th grader's public school library this past school year and was introduced to these 2 civil rights/race relations gems.  The librarian mentioned one teacher in particular who insisted on reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to his class every year.  I observed that the 4-5 class-time books my own daughter's reading/social studies teacher offered this past year seemed to focus mainly on adventure reading meant to hook the boys with limited attention spans.  After hearing just a chapter of each of these books read aloud I knew I needed to offer my daughter something more convicting and important than just another Rick Riordan escapist escapade.

I keep a lot of book lists around and many of these race relations/historical fiction titles were also listed in another anthology:  The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease.  As a Christian, not to mention a suburban white Christian, I need to better understand the persecution and lack of justice our country historically offered to minority races.  I'm responsible to instill a better understanding in my children.  Recently, my (outspoken) 7 year old met a young, black friend and announced "Twenty years ago your people were slaves to my people!"  Obviously, I have some work to do.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is the shining star of it's genre.  Told from the point of view of 9 year old African-American Cassie Logan, this Newbery Medal winner contains the right mixture of humor and drama.