So, I made writing book reviews one of my goals for this school-year. I took the plunge last week and attended my first children's book review meeting sponsored by the Southern Maine Library District. The way the book review works is that publishers send new books to the examination collection at the Portland Public Library. Librarians meet once per month and select new books to read and review. Each month, the group meets to share their reviews and to select new books.
I left the meeting with 7 different titles that I had not read before. I decided to put my Maine Student Book Award reading on the back burner for a few days so that I could get a start on my review books.
Here are a couple of reviews I wrote last night.
The Red Umbrella. By Christina Diaz Gonzalez. Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 284 pages. $16.99
Young adult readers will gain an understanding of the Cuban revolution in this debut novel by Christina Diaz Gonzalez. Set in 1961 revolutionary Cuba, The Red Umbrella follows the life of Lucia, a fourteen year-old daughter of an affluent banker. When soldiers take control of Lucia's town, her carefree life changes drastically. Her family is watched, neighbors are murdered, and friends pressure Lucia to join the Jovenes Rebeldes (Rebel Youth). Lucia’s parents send Lucia and her brother to the U.S. in an attempt to protect the children from Castro’s regime. Readers will empathize with Lucia as she tries to adjust to her new life with a foster family in Nebraska while retaining her Cuban roots. Gonzalez uses Spanish phrases to weave this rich story about family, friendship and a teen caught between two cultures.
Clemente!. By Willie Perdomo. Illustrated by Bryan Collier. Henry Holt and Company, 2010. 32 pages. $16.99
The life of baseball great, Roberto Clemente, is told from the point of view of a young boy who was named after the baseball legend in this picture book biography. The narrator highlights Clemente’s baseball and humanitarian accomplishments as baseball statistics take on a poetic form. Perdomo intersperses the text with Spanish phrases. Collier’s rich watercolor and collage illustrations bring a somber tone to the story, which ends with Robert Clemente’s untimely death in a plane crash. A timeline, author’s note and illustrator’s note provide more details for interested readers. Clemente! would make a welcome addition to any elementary biography collection.
