The Shepherd's Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter

Winner of the Canadian Library Association's Children's Book of the Year, 2009.

Amani Raheem is a Palestinian who loves sheep. She started accompanying her grandfather and the flocks into the mountain fields when she was six years old. She chooses to be home-schooled so that she can continue to learn her vocation as a shepherd, and, less than a decade later, she takes over the herd when her grandfather dies.

The Raheem family farm lies in the West Bank some distance from Al Khalil (better known as Hebron). The grazing area for Amani's sheep is gradually encroached, first by new Israeli roads, and then an illegal Israeli settlement is built right on her family's lands. Injustice and tragedy come one after another. It is an absolutely heartbreaking story. I can't remember the last time I cried so much over a novel.

Without ever becoming preachy, the strong message of this book is one of peace and nonviolent protest. Carter tells a compelling story. I highly recommend it to anyone (Grade 6 or older) looking for insight into the complicated situation in Palestine. Another powerful book on this topic (suitable for Grade 5 and up) is a collection of interviews put together by Deborah Ellis: Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak.

The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

First published in The Saturday Evening Post magazine, The Snow Goose was awarded an O. Henry short story prize in 1941. I finally got around to reading it because I had heard of a new edition (well, relatively recent -- 2007) illustrated by Angela Barrett.

Joanna Carey wrote about Barrett’s work, “A lot of children’s illustrators today grab your attention with the speed and economy of their style, but Angela Barrett approaches things very differently. There is a stillness and a quiet atmospheric intensity to her illustrations which appeal across a wide range of understanding. She doesn't simplify things - on the contrary, she both assumes and respects the intelligence of her readers - and her richly allusive work, full of detail and symbolism, invites and rewards as much time and investigation as you care to give it."

The Snow Goose is a sentimental story about a hunchback who becomes friends with a girl when she brings an injured goose to him. The man is killed after rescuing many soldiers who had been stranded on the beach of Dunkirk.

The restrained style of the illustrations nicely balances the melodrama inherent in the tale. The story travels into sappy territory but not so far as to prevent my enjoyment of it. I appreciated the mood change in the section where the narration shifts from third person to bits of conversation between soldiers, telling of their experiences at Dunkirk and their sightings of a snow goose. There was one point (the mine in the water) where I felt my emotions manipulated and resisted the author, but other than that, I liked the story and loved the artwork.

This edition may draw new readers (like myself), but will also be enjoyed by people who already know and love the classic story. A picture book for all ages: Grade 4 to adult.

Talking Like the Rain: A Read-to-me Book of Poems

This collection of poetry for young children is selected by X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy and charmingly illustrated in bright watercolours by Jane Dyer. The poets range from Emily Dickinson to Dennis Lee to Christina Rossetti to Langston Hughes and Robert Louis Stevenson.

All of the poems are short and have been chosen to share the beauty and rhythm of language. Some are fun and snappy, like the two lines that make up the entirety of "The Wapiti" (Ogden Nash): "There goes the wapiti / Hippety-hoppity."

Others are more lyrical, inspiring a child's imagination:

"a cold little / raindrop / in her winter nightgown" from "First Snowflake" (N.M Bodecker)

"stars come out / with silver keys / to open up the night" from "Taking Turns" (Norma Farber)

"Far away, on the world's dark rim / He howls, and it seems to comfort him." from "The Wolf" (Georgia Roberts Durston)

This would be an excellent gift for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th birthday. Like a collection of Mother Goose rhymes, it is a book to reread with a child many times.

Tsunami! by Kimiko Kajikawa

I've always liked Ed Young's artwork and so I looked forward to seeing this new book that he illustrated. It was a surprise to me that, this time, I think the story is stronger than the art. (It is adapted from a story by Lafcadio Hearn.)

The cover illustration is the best; tiny bits of flotsam give a sense of the enormity of the wave swamping a Japanese village. The orange colour of the title pops against the grey background and echoes the shape of the wave. Barring a few exceptions, I found the rest of the mixed media collage images too busy or too difficult to interpret the action or both. The two spreads that show Ojiisan and his grandson seen against the sky from a viewpoint slightly below the top of the mountain are very nice, however.

The story, as I've already said, is great. A man sacrifices his wealth in order to save hundreds of people. Kajikawa's writing is spare, yet evocative. "And presently an earthquake came -- a long, slow, spongy motion. The house rocked gently several times. Then all was still." I've never experienced an earthquake, but I was perfectly able to imagine it. The awesome, destructive power of nature is there too, when the tsunami hits. Might be scary for young children, especially if they live by the ocean.

Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet

Tammet is a young gay man who has Asperger's Syndrome. Born in 1979, he grew up the oldest of 9 children and credits his supportive family as well as his first lover, Neil, for helping him to overcome the obstacles presented by autism and to learn how to live independently.

Autism may affect 3.4 out of 1000 children, according to a recent American study. Few people on the autism spectrum, however, are as high-functioning as Tammet. He is one of only 50 people in the world who can be called an autistic savant. His brain power is phenomenal. He sees numbers as shapes, colours and textures and can perform amazing calculations in his head. He also sees the patterns and relationships between words and can learn a new language in as little as one week's time.

In 2004, Tammet broke a European record by reciting pi from memory to 22,514 decimal places. It was a feat of stamina as well, taking a little over 5 hours. He undertook the challenge in order to raise money and awareness for epilepsy, which he had as a child.

Doctors and scientists consider Tammet to be a gold mine of information about the way our brains work because he is able to articulate what is happening inside his head. I found his memoir fascinating as well as touching. Since reading the book, I've gone to his website. He now lives in Avignon, France, with a man named Jerome. His newest book is called Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind.

Stet by Diana Athill

From the jacket: "This is a book about books, about the people who write them and the process of making them, a world dissected with sharp and irresistible honesty." Irresistible describes Athill's prose style very well. She knows how to tell a good story in few words.

The first part of the book deals with the two London publishing houses (both headed by publisher Andre Deutsch) where Athill was an editor for nearly 50 years. In the second part, she talks about some of the writers that she got to know, like Mordecai Richler, Brian Moore and Jean Rhys.

I like very much that she is not afraid to say what she thinks. For example, "[Virginia] Woolf, whom I revered in my youth, now seems almost more embarrassing [than Angela Thirkell] because the claims made for her were so high. [...] and that self-consciously 'beautiful' writing, all those adjectives - oh dear!"

If you've been following my blog for a while, you probably know that I'm not often a fan of books that make the bestseller lists. Why some books with little literary merit become popular is always a bit of a mystery to me, so I was interested in what Athill had to say on the subject (in reference to V.S. Naipaul).

"It is natural that a writer who knows himself to be good and who is regularly confirmed in that opinion by critical comment should expect to become a best-seller, but every publisher knows that you don't necessarily become a best-seller by writing well. Of course you don't necessarily have to write badly to do it: it is true that some best-selling books are written astonishingly badly, and equally true that some are written very well. The quality of the writing - even the quality of the thinking - is irrelevant. It is a matter of whether or not a nerve is hit in the wider reading public as opposed to the serious one which is composed of people who are interested in writing as an art."

So, I now count myself among the serious reading public.

Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards by Jim Ottaviani & Big Time Attic

Two 19th century paleontologists, Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh, battled for scientific supremacy in the field of dinosaurs. The story is told in black and white comics with lively dialogue. The addition of a "Fact or Fiction?" section at the end clarifies where events were fudged a bit to make a better story, but the truth is often strange enough on its own. I preferred Ottaviani's biography of Niels Bohr, Suspended in Language, but Bone Sharps is accessible to a younger audience (meaning teens) and is more entertaining.