Nonfiction Monday: The Storyteller's Candle

The Storyteller's Candle (La velita de los cuentos; Children's Book Press, 2008) may be technically fiction, but it's a wonderful way to introduce children to Pura Belpre, the New York Public Library's first Puerto Rican librarian; and particularly appropriate today, on the eve of Three Kings' Day. In Lucia Gonzalez's story, it's the winter of 1929, and cousins Hildamar and Santiago, newly arrived in New York City from Puerto Rico, wonder if the Three Kings can travel that far. But then Pura Belpre welcomes them and their families to the library and organizes a Three Kings' Day celebration featuring a performance of the Perez y Martina folktale. You can read more about Belpre and her work as a storyteller, puppeteer and writer as well as a librarian in a biographical note at the back of the book, which has been published in a bilingual edition.

Lulu Delacre's warm and lovely illustrations also merit a note here and at the back of the book. They include bits of an original copy of the New York times from January 6, 1930 (that would be Three Kings' Day) that relate to the part of the story on that page. For local folks: Lulu Delacre will be at Aladdin's Lamp in Arlington on Sunday, January 11 at 1:30 to read from and sign The Storyteller's Candle. We'll try to be there, too!

[The 2009 Pura Belpre Award winners will be announced along with the other ALA award winners (like the Newbery and Caldecott) on January 26; perhaps The Storyteller's Candle will be among them.  The Heartland Chapter of REFORMA held a mock Belpre session on Saturday; see the list of books under consideration here.  Any opinions on the Belpre?  Please share them here!]

[Nonfiction Monday is at Picture Book of the Day.  Thanks, Anastasia!]

Nonfiction Monday: George Washington's Christmas Camel

No, that's not the title of the latest picture book about George Washington (I'm still writing it).  Apparently, Washington paid 18 shillings to bring a camel to Mount Vernon for the Christmas holidays in 1787.  This year, the folks at Mount Vernon have expanded their Christmas program to include another Christmas camel, one-year-old Aladdin (pictured above with a Mount Vernon volunteer).  Leo's class got to see the camel on a field trip to Mount Vernon:  it was the high point of their visit.  Well, the camel, and being interviewed by a FOX television news reporter about the camel (the segment aired yesterday).  There is a surprising amount of local interest in this.  Actually, I feel a little bad for former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier, who spent 300 hours reconstructing Mount Vernon out of gingerbread for this year's Christmas program only to be upstaged by a camel.

This seems like a good opportunity to mention a recent nonfiction picture book about George Washington, Farmer George Plants a Nation by Peggy Thomas; paintings by Layne Johnson (Calkins Creek, 2008).  Visitors to Mount Vernon learn (if they are not too distracted by the camel) that Washington considered himself first and foremost a farmer.  This book draws a neat parallel between Washington's work as a farmer, specifically his efforts to make Mount Vernon self-sustaining, and his more well-known accomplishments as general and president.  The text is accompanied by well-chosen quotes from Washington's diaries and letters; back matter includes a timeline, short essays about George at Mount Vernon and George's thoughts on slavery, and a good bibliography.  No camels, though!

Happy birthday, Wilma

Today is Wilma Rudolph's birthday; she was born on June 23, 1940 near Clarksville, Tennesee, the twentieth of twenty-two children (I love this detail).  Wilma was the first American woman to win three gold medals in an Olympic Games (Rome, 1960); she defeated polio and prejudice to get there.  We re-read Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull; illustrated by David Diaz (Harcourt, 1996) today in her honor; she became one of Leo's heroes (and mine, too) when we first read this book before the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.  It's an amazing story; well worth reading before this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, too.

[See more Nonfiction Monday posts at Picture Book of the Day.]

Nonfiction Monday: Gray?

These are the opening lines of The Secret World of Hildegard, a picture book biography of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) written by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Jeannette Winter (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007):

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago in a time known as the Middle Ages, men ruled over the earth.  And these men were very gray.  And the buildings they built were very gray.  And all the towns were very gray.  And all the gray towns were run by mayors who were men.  Girls were not allowed to go to school, and most girls could not read.  They were taught to serve and obey all the boys around them.  They were taught to keep quiet and to be very gray.

Is this an accurate description of the Middle Ages?  Is it how most people imagine them (not my former students, I hope)?  Or does it function as a dramatic device, as the Horn Book's review (available here) suggests; one that allows the Winters to "set the scene perfectly: out of the dark, gray world of the Middle Ages shines the radiant light of visionary Hildegard."  Is it acceptable (if also, I would argue, overly generalizing and negative in the extreme) for a nonfiction picture book?

I'm a medievalist. I would have loved this small square volume (I, or rather my kids, are probably its intended audience):  Jonah Winter's writing is simple and elegant; Jeannette Winter's illuminations, done in acrylic and pen on watercolor paper, manage to be both medieval and modern (and gorgeous).  There is a good author's note expanding on Hildegard's fame as a scientist and composer as well as a mystic visionary; and a bibliography.  If I could only get past the first page.