It's a No-Money Day written and illustrated by Kate Milner

It's a No-Money Day 

written and illustrated by Kate Milner

Barrington Stoke, 2019, 32 pages

The first Kate Milner book I read, My Name is Not Refugee, was about what life would be like when a young boy and his mother leave their homeland and journey to a safer country. The honest simplicity of both text and illustration of that book made it a powerful story for helping young readers understand and have empathy for the complexity that is the refugee crisis. 

Now, Kate Milner has written another powerful picture book about different humanitarian crisis - poverty. The story begins when a young unnamed girl wakes up hungry one morning and all there is for her to eat is a piece of toast, leaving nothing for her mother to have. It is, she explains, a no-money day for her and her mom, which also means it is a no-food-in-the-house day. 

And even though the child knows her mother works hard for what they need, sometimes there just isn't enough money for everything. And a no-money day means a trip to the local food bank. It's clear the mother is humiliated to have to do this, but her daughter doesn't mind. At the food bank, she can eat biscuits and tell the lady who helps out all about the kitten she's going to get...someday. Back home, a day that begins hungry ends with full tummies, thanks to the kindness of others. 

Poverty and hunger aren't usually the kind to topics that end up in a children's picture book, but it is important for kids who are more fortunate to have a window into the lives of those who are not so blessed, a lesson in charity, compassion, and understanding. And It's a No-Money Day succeeds in doing just that, without preaching. The story is simply told in spare text, but accompanied with textured line images, some full page, some only spot illustrations, and all subtly colored in drab hues. Milner has used the expressions on the faces of mum and daughter to illustrate their feelings - mum's emotions range from shame, and sadness to love for and playfulness with her child. Her daughter's emotions are more cheerful and reflect the hope she feels for the future. 

It's a No-Money Day is a poignant book that should be read by everyone, especially now during the holiday season, when food banks traditionally run out of food quickly because donations are down. 

The book is recommended for all readers

This book was purchased for my personal library 

🎄And since it is the holiday season, I thought I would share something that a cousin sent to me. I don't know where it came from, but I really like it. It is a different kind of Advent Calendar. The idea is simple: take a cardboard box and place a food item in it for every day up until Christmas Eve day, then take the box to a local food bank and donate it. For me, Christmas is always about Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All People, and I think this really epitomizes that.

Where the Heart Is by Jo Knowles

It's the first day of summer and Rachel Gartner's 13th birthday. But this year it appears that her family, including younger sister Ivy, 8, have forgotten. Instead of the usual birthday pancakes, there's a welcoming pie in the oven...for the new neighbors just moving in. Later that night, however, Rachel is surprised to see her birthday wasn't forgotten after all, and that her present is an almost new, better-than-the-old-one bicycle, cleaned, repaired and greased by Ivy. Getting a second-hand present is nothing new, but Rachel doesn't mind. Ever since her mother lost her job as a school librarian, money has been super tight, and bills have gone unpaid, including the mortgage on their home, Bittersweet Farm.

Money isn't the only thing on Rachel's mind. Her relationship with best friend Micah Sasaki has been feeling different these days. Micah has let Rachel know that he would like to be more than best friends, but Rachel doesn't feel the same way. In fact, she's not attracted to any boy and is beginning to think she never will be. Needless to say, things are tense between the two friends.

To help out her family financially, Rachel takes a job caring for the new neighbor's animals, - two horses, two sheep, two goats, chickens, a baby steer named Ferdinand, and a pig named Lucy, the only animal being raised "for meat."

The job gives Rachel lots of time to spend with Micah at the beach, almost always taking Ivy along. But when a new girl named Sierra shows up with Sam, a girl from school, and starts to flirt with Micah, Rachel finds herself feeling angry and sad and doesn't understand why. As the summer passes, she and Micah are invited to parties, but Rachel's feelings become more complicated as she sees her classmates having typical boy-girl fun and fooling around together, causing her to feel more and more different and afraid to admit what it can mean.

To add to her stress, Rachel's parents are fighting more than usual until they are all finally forced to face the fact that the bank is going to foreclose on Bittersweet Farm. It means moving into a small apartment, giving up beloved mementoes, and finding new owners for their pony Rainbow, an elderly rescue Rachel was given for her 10th birthday. But there is a bright spot in all of this for Rachel - a budding friendship with Cybil Jackson, and a clearer sense of her sexual identity.

This is a coming of age story that really explores what it is like when a family has serious financial problems after a parent loses a much needed job and the impact it has on the children. It's an area that isn't really dealt with in quite the same way it is in Where the Heart Is. And the family's economic difficulties certainly might lead you to think this is a story about coping and just getting by. Or that it is a story about loss - of a job, a home, a best friend. And it is all these things, but...

I think it is more of a story about change. For one thing, the book begins on Rachel's 13th birthday, a milestone birthday, one of transition from childhood to adolescence. Over the course of the novel, Rachel's relationship with her sister Ivy changes as she becomes more responsible for her when her parents can't be. And her friendship with Micah changes as he explores relationships with other kids, especially girls, and as Rachel begins questioning her sexuality, and her passing acquaintance with Cybil. But not all change is bad. Consider the name of the Gartner home, Bittersweet Farm, named for the wild bittersweet that grows along their property line, and which serves as a well chosen metaphor for Rachel's life, which is, to say the least, bittersweet.

Where the Heart Is is a realistic novel, and though it doesn't have a big, major conflict, dealing with the constant stressors that are thrown at Rachel is enough. And, I suspect many kids will relate to Rachel's situation and take comfort in her growth as a person.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was a EARC received from NetGalley

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle.

The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden

For seventh grader Zoey Albro, living in Vermont in a trailer with her mother, three siblings, step father Lenny and his father Frank, life really isn't easy. It's her job to get Bryce and Aurora up, dressed and out for school every morning. And after school, Zoey has to care for  them while her mother works in a low wage job waiting tables in pizza shop, then make sure the kids get dinner, eaten in their bedroom so they don't get in Lenny's way or disturb Frank's constant TV watching, and get them to bed, and hope sleep isn't interrupted one of by Bryce's nightmares that began after they moved in with Lenny.

Zoey's dislike for Lenny is no secret, but it is mutual. She hates that he constantly berates her mother for doing things wrong, ignores her, Bryce and Aurora, and only paying attention to his son Hector. And now, Lenny has lost his job.

So, even though she would like to do it, there just isn't any time for Zoey to work on her homework, not even the latest assignment - a debate prep packet on the topic Which animal is best? That's easy for Zoey, who knows that being an octopus is the best, and she already has all the information she needs to support her argument. She often thinks that if she had all those arms, she could do so much more to make life easier for the kids and her mom. Besides, an octopus has the ability to camouflage itself when it needs to hide, something she would really like to be able to do, especially at school.

Where her teachers are always disappointed that she hasn't done the required work, her only friends are Silas, a loner who loved to go hunting with his father, and Fuchsia, a girl with her own serious issues. Zoey never speaks in class, preferring to try to be invisible, and yet, always subjected to bullying by the other kids in school.

Filling in the debate prep may have been an easy task for Zoey, but then, of course, she would have to speak in front of the class. First, she forgets her packet, then when given another chance, she lies and says she has forgotten it again. When her Social Studies teacher, Ms. Rochambeau, discovers the Zoey's debate prep packet in the trash and reads it, she begins to see her in a different light and insists that she join the debate team, even offering to drive her to where the school bus lets Bryce and Aurora off in the afternoon so she can still babysit them.

At first, Zoey has not interest in participating in the debate club, and having to work with who make no secret of what they think of her. But the more she learns about the art of debating, the more she begins to understand the way her stepfather has been manipulating and verbally abusing her mother and why her once strong, independent mother has become cowed by his treatment.

But can Zoey put her new debating skills into practice and convince her mother to leave Lenny and their toxic relationship before it is too late? And where would they go?

I had a hard time collecting my thoughts about this novel. Certainly, from a teacher's perspective, I thought it was great - here was a teacher who looked beyond the obvious and found the real Zoey, a girl who needed support, encouragement, but mostly validation.

The Benefits of Being a Octopus is told from Zoey's point of view, in the first person present. Her narration is open and honest, at times, brutally honest. Zoey is a smart, strong, courageous girl with way too many responsibilities put on her shoulders by the (supposed) adults around her, who should have been taking care of her, not the other way around.

Braden has put Zoey in a difficult life - she and her family seem to have alway lived in poverty. She's never known her father, though Bryce and Aurora's father was in the picture for a while before leaving, and only baby Hector belongs to Lenny. Clothes and toys are bought second hand and Zoey's mom is eligible for public assistance. This is real realistic fiction and Braden's writing is as hard-hitting and matter of fact as Zoey's story.

And yet, it is also a book with a message of hope. It would take a lot of strength to get up every morning and face Zoey's day, but she does it without too much resentment but a lot of humiliation. Gradually, thanks to the rules of debate and Ms. Rochambeau's belief in her, that changes and Zoey can see her way out of the terrible circumstances they are in because of being so poor and dependent on Lenny for a roof over their heads.

Zoey may have wished she has eight arms so she could get everything done herself, but in the end, it is a combination of her own resilience and determination, and the arms of those around her reaching out that ultimately help her find her way in this well crafted coming of age novel.

My only regret: The Benefits of Being an Octopus is a book I wish I had had to share with my students when I was teaching 4th grade in the Bronx.

You can download a very useful Educator's Guide for this book on Ann Braden's website HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan, translated by Helen Wang

Bronze and Sunflower is set in communist China during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The goal of the cultural Revolution was to eliminate traditional Chinese life and thought, to replace it with communist ideology and get rid of any opponents. Artists and other intellectual were sent to remote Cadre Schools, where they did heavy manual labor during the day, and attended political re-education meetings at night. 

Sunflower, 7, and her father have been living in the country, in a Cadre School for a while. Her father is an artist, a sculptor, well-known for his beautiful sunflowers cast in bronze. Sunflower is the only child at the school and very lonely. Since she doesn't go to school, she often watches the children across the river playing and laughing. When her father dies unexpectedly, women from the Cadre School take Sunflower across the river, to the small village of Damadai, to see if anyone would take her in.

Only Bronze's family, the poorest in the village, is willing to accept Sunflower and make her their own. Bronze, a few years older than Sunflower and just as lonely, hasn't spoken since he was 5 and witnessed what was to him a traumatic event.

Bronze and Sunflower are soon inseparable, seeming to understand each other without the need to speak. Over time, the now-siblings and their loving, but poor family, endure and survive many hardships such as famine, locusts, bitter cold winters, and a fire that destroys their home. The children share not just friendship, but many adventures and good times, as well, like punting little boats on the river, riding to school together on Bronze's water buffalo, even though only Sunflower is a student,  or Bronze letting Sunflower sit on his shoulders so that she is high enough to see the circus over everyone else's head, and even working together as a family making reed shoes to sell in the January market to pay for Sunflower's schooling or grandmother Nainai's medical needs.

Bronze and Sunflower is a beautifully written story about the many sacrifices that were made by Bronze's family when they decided to take in Sunflower, how they lived poor but with great dignity and love, and how they continued to do that even when forced to make the greatest sacrifice of all.

Chinese life during the cultural revolution is not a usual subject for a children's book, but Cao has managed to present a picture of rural life that neither sugarcoats nor romanticizes it. In fact, he has produced such a heartwarming story that it has a feeling of timelessness about it despite the time it is actually sent in, mainly because Mao's China takes a backseat to the traditional values of family that the book really demonstrates.

Cao grew up during the 1960s and 1970s and experienced China at that time first hand, which give his novel a real feeling of authenticity. His descriptions, though beautifully rendered, are often heartbreaking at the same time.

Bronze and Sunflower is a large book, 400 pages long. It is a story of day to day survival, so there is not really a big central conflict. I have to wonder if it will appeal to young readers as much as it appeals to adults. My 12 year old self would have loved getting immersed in the lives of Bronze and Sunflower, but I didn't grow up with as many distractions as kids have today (video games, screens, instant gratification, etc. I'm not putting these things down, just pointing out how life has become faster). Though I highly recommend it for its thematic portrayals of community, family, loyalty, and poverty.

On a personal note: my Kiddo has been home visiting and when I asked her if her husband's parents, who both grew up in the midst of the cultural revolution, ever talk about it, she said not, never. They refuse to say anything, but her husband's grandparents did tell her about how hard life was in those days. I'm guessing they would have really appreciated Bronze and Sunflower.

Bronze and Sunflower won the 2016 Hans Christian Anderson award and was translated from Mandarin by Helen Wang, who won the 2017 Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for it.

Original Chinese Cover 

You can find out more about Cao Wenzuan in a New York Times interview HERE

And Zoe at Playing by the Book has a wonderfully informative interview with Helen Wang HERE

If an interest in translated children's Chinese books has been kindled, you
might be interested in Helen Wang's blog Chinese Books for Young Readers

Classroom and Home School teachers can find a useful PDF discussion guide
HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

Two Books About Soccer - the game of the moment

Just in time for the beginning of the 2014 World Cup, here are two interesting soccer books for young readers.

Soccer Star by Mina Javaherbin, illustrated by Renato Alarcão is set in Brazil, where this year's World Cup is being played.  Young Paulo loves soccer and hopes to become a soccer star like his heroes Garrincha, Pelé and Ronaldo.  Each day, however, before any soccer game can be played, Paulo must walk his sister Maria to school.  Afterwards, as he makes his way to work, he visits his fellow team mates where they work.  Carlos shines shoes, Jose dives for money, Givo is working on carnival floats, and Paulo works with Senhor da Silva on his small fishing boat.

After work, the soccer game begins. Whenever Paulo and his friends play, Maria begs to be allowed to join in, but the answer is always "not this time."  One evening, when Jose injures himself in a game, Paulo thinks it may be time to give Maria the chance she has been waiting for.  Can Maria play and score as well as she thinks she can?  

In this multilayered story the reader is introduced to Paulo and his mother and sister.  The family lives in poverty, like all of Paulo's friends and even though they are really just children, the boys must leave school and work at a young age to help their families survive.

Soccer is a beloved sport around the world and that is true for Brazil as well.  At the end of a long day of work, playing a game of soccer with friends provides a bit of escape from the poverty surrounding them.  For Paulo, soccer also provides a dream of excaping that poverty.  Many of Brazil's best soccer players were also poor kids who worked and loved to play soccer with friends at the end of the day, so on some level, Paulo's dream seems believable.

Paulo has a strong sense of friendship with the other players on his team, taking the time to stop by and see each one, on this day even sharing his breakfast cheese buns with them as he goes along.

(Spoiler Alert)
The fourth layer of Soccer Star breaks the gender barrier of no girls on the team when they vote to let Maria play and it turns out she can play with the best of them.

What a great story for young readers.  To see dreams kept alive despite the difficult circumstances in which these kids live is really inspirational.  The positive message that you can overcome difficulties is strong and hope rules the day throughout the story.  Javaherbin doesn't sugar coat the poverty in this honestly told narrative, however.  The realistic ink illustrations add much to the enjoyment of Soccer Star.

The Soccer Fence: A Story of Friendship, Hope and Apartheid in South Africa by Phil Bildner, illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson begins when apartheid is still in effect and blacks and whites live separately.   The story is narrated by a young black boy who loves soccer, but must play with a mishapened ball in a rocky dirt field in an unnamed Johannesburg township.

When he goes to work with his mother at a house in the wealthier white part of Johannesburg, he can see some white boys playing soccer with a round ball on a grassy field.

Then, it is announced that Nelson Mandela has been released from prison and although apartheid finally ends, it doesn't mean the fences automatically come down.  One day, the narrator gets a chance to kick the ball back to the while kids, and even though one white kid seems to realize what a good player he is, they still won't let him play.

But thing change when Nelso Mandela is elected president of South Africa.  And in 1996, when the African Cup of Nations is played with intergrated soccer teams, it seems that that race barriers will finally come down once and for all.  But can it bring together two soccer loving kids from different sides of the fence?

It is hard to believe that there is a whole generation of young readers who live in a world where apartheid officially no longer exists.  All the more reason to have books like The Soccer Fence.

Using the story of two different soccer-loving kids, the author does an excellent job of using the game as a metaphor for apartheid.  There are fences that separate the world of black and white South Africans; a nameless black narrator representing all black South Africans and a nameless blond haired white child representing the ruling South Africans, nameless until the end; a round robust soccer ball as opposed to the weak mishapened ball; a green fireld vs a dirt field.  The differences are glaring and the reader can feel the narrator's desire and disappointment each time he asks if he can play with the white kids and is completely ignored.

Even the illustrations, done with pencil and acrylic paint, build on the feeling of separation, of the haves and have nots, until the end.  Jessie Joshua Watson uses a palatte of hot sun-burnt yellows and oranges for the black neighborhood of the narrator and contrasts its with cool bright greens and blues of the white neighborhood, furthering the metaphorical nature of this story.

Bildner also includes a short history of apartheid and South Africa's racist policies and the role soccer played in bringing the country together, thanks to Nelson Mandela's love of sports.  There is also a list of books, internet websites and even a film for further exploration.  An apartheid timeline is also included.

These two picture books are excellent works for introducing young readers to the different impact the game of soccer has had in two coountries the average kid may not be familiar with.

These books are recommended for readers age 6+
These books were borrowed from a friend