EIGHT DAYS: A STORY OF HAITI

Welcome to KidLit Gems!

Join us in a coffee-style chat about favorite children’s books and the elements that make them shine.

This month’s theme: Survivor Stories

NameplateLousGemIEIGHT DAYS: A STORY OF HAITI
Text © 2010, Edwidge Danticat
Illustrations © 2010, Alix Delinois

Eight-DaysPicture
Book

Fiction

Age Range:
4-8 years

Grade Level:
Preschool-
3rd Grade

Orchard
Books,
an imprint of Scholastic Inc.

Kirkus, starred review

 

.. when the earth shook again and again, I was afraid. And sometimes I cried, because I missed Manman and Papa and my little sister, Justine. But in my mind, I played.
~ Eight Days: A Story of Haiti

Haiti’s 2010 earthquake didn’t end happily ever after, yet it’s the subject of an inspiring picture book. In Eight Days: A Story of Haiti, author Edwidge Danticat introduces us to Haitian daily life through Junior, a fictional boy pulled from the rubble after eight long days.

As we wait for Junior’s rescue, day by day, the story focuses on pre-earthquake Haiti. We daydream with Junior about his favorite, wonderfully ordinary activities—flying kites, eating sweet mangos, and helping Papa sweep up at work. Through his eyes, we feel the simple joy of jumping in puddles, racing bicycles around statues, and singing in the church choir. The text resonates with a child’s voice and word choices, letting us peek into a far-away culture full of light and joy despite unimaginable challenges.

The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed or troubled, read Eight Days for a dose of hope, happiness, and humility.

~ Lou

EightDaysBeginningFourthDay ___________________________________________________________________

But then Oscar felt really tired and went to sleep. He never woke up. That was the day I cried. ~ Eight Days: A Story of Haiti

How often does news of natural disaster cause a knot in your stomach and a lump in your throat? Do you wonder how such global challenges affect children? Can you comprehend the anxiety felt by child survivors, like the Haitian children who worried for their families and loved ones after the January 12, 2010 earthquake? Edwidge Danticat could. Her own five-year-old had questions. Danticat wanted her daughter and other children to know that hope, memories, and imagination can survive disaster. That’s why she wrote Eight Days: A Story of Haiti.

Danticat wrote about struggle, determination, and loss through a small survivor named Junior. Through this creative format, kids can understand and accept, without feeling overwhelmed by sadness or despair. Alix Delinois’ beautiful, bright, colorful illustrations keep Haiti and its culture alive as it was and can be again.

Power in a picture book: If you want to assure children or yourself that it’s okay to talk about sad things–and that perseverance, empathy, and compassion can overcome tragic circumstances, look no further than Eight Days: A Story of Haiti.

~ Anna

FifthDaySeventhDay

KEM Diamond

Watch for my gem next!

We want to hear from you!
What’s you favorite survivor story for children?

SOLD

“Fact: There are more individuals in slavery today than at the height of trans-Atlantic slave trade.” Polaris, a non-profit organization working to combat human trafficking

SOLDPatriciaMcCormickYoung Adult,
Fiction

Age Range:
14 years & up

Grade Level:
9 and up

Text copyright:
Patricia McCormick © 2006

Published by:
Disney-Hyperion

 

 

 

 

 

AWARDS

  • ALA Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults 2007
  • National Book Award Finalist 2007
  • National Public Radio – Top 100 Books of the Year 2007
  • Book Sense Pick 2007
  • California Young Reader Medal 2007
  • Quill Award 2007
  • Gustav-Heinemann-Peace Prize 2008
  • Elliot Rosewater Award 2009-2010

SOLD, THE MOVIE

  • Executive Producer Emma Thompson and Director Jeffrey Brown will bring SOLD to screens March 15, 2015, limited release.

WHY SOLD IS A KidLit GEM

KKRISTI’S TAKE
The YA novel, SOLD, is told with rich, lyrical metaphors, each vignette, more masterful than the next. Like a playmate, Patricia McCormick takes your hand and guides you to see, hear and feel what Lakshmi’s life in Nepal is like. And then, like the monsoon, washes it all away, as the metaphors shift from land and sky to survival and endurance.

Unlike the endearing Tali, the black and white billy goat, SOLD is a story about all that is gray in life. Meehhhh!

McCormick wisely uses the voice of an eager, innocent, thirteen-year-old narrator to help the reader endure this haunting journey, for without the element of hope, I’d sooner endure a monsoon. The very element that make’s the harsh reality of sex trafficking palatable, Lakshmi’s innocence, makes the taking of it, all the more heart wrenching. I applaud McCormick for not tiptoeing around the harsh reality of sex trafficking.

Favorite line
 “Simply to endure is to triumph.”

KEM Sapphire
E
ELISE’S TAKE
SOLD is both convicting and compelling for those of us privileged with a secure, loving environment. Patricia McCormick’s well-researched novel is gripping, not only because of its personal perspective and thoughtful, emotionally charged vignettes, but also because this story could belong to any of the millions of women and children imprisoned in sex trafficking today. McCormick doesn’t soften the edges, staying true to the callous reality of Lakshmi’s nightmare. But instead of focusing on the details of Lakshmi’s forced sexual encounters, she concentrates on the emotional trauma of a girl robbed of her home, health, identity, and innocence.

While the novel’s intimate point of view will certainly draw cruel disappointment time after time as Lakshmi is repeatedly abused and abandoned, readers are also given hope through this young woman’s stunning resilience and the compassion and courage of those who save her.

Favorite line
How odd he is, this man who pays for a girl and does nothing but talk.
KEM Diamond
MGrayANNA MARRAS’ TAKE
I won’t kid you. SOLD is a difficult read. Patricia McCormick’s first-person  account from thirteen-year-old sex trafficking victim, Lakshmi, will drain the color from your face and develop knots in your gut. As I read the book, lounging under a cozy blanket on my comfortable couch in my comfortable home, it repulsed and horrified me to consider the young children that were being violated in all parts of the world at that very moment. And that repulsion and horror won’t leave until their nightmare stops.

After entering Lakshmi’s world, where a hug and a pencil meant everything, I felt ashamed of my apathy and ingratitude. Lakshmi’s gentle narrative shook me to say, “Look! See! Do something!” And that’s good. After all, that’s what the gutsy author/activist intended.

Favorite lines
I have been beaten here, locked away, violated a hundred times and a hundred times more. I have been starved and cheated, tricked and disgraced.

How odd it is that I am undone by the simple kindness of a small boy with a yellow pencil.

GEMrub

I must admit, we didn’t consider the Valentine’s  weekend timing when we selected this Gem. But there’s no better story to show what happens without love.

Consider the gravity of the statistics. According to Polaris, trafficking affects 161 countries worldwide, enslaving an estimated 20.9 million men, women, and children for forced labor or commercial sex.

Educate Yourself:

Do Something:

Get Help:

Please share your SOLD comments with us!

THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN

“One day, a still day when the hot air hummed, the humans came.”
~ Ivan, page 128 in THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN

THEONEANDONLYIVAN600 IVANBACKCOVERMiddle Grade/Chapter Book Fiction
Age Range: 8-12 years
Grade Level: 3-7
HarperCollins Publishers
Text copyright © 2012 by Katherine Applegate
Illustration copyright ©  2012 by Patricia Castelao

AWARDS

2013 Newbery Medal
2012 Christopher Medal
Gold Medal in Juvenile Literature 2012 California Book Award
Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators 2013 Crystal Kite Award Winner
#1 New York Times bestseller
School Library Journal Best of Children’s Books 2012
Kirkus Reviews Best of Children’s Books 2012
Amazon 2012 Best Books of the Year
Middle Grade Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2012
New York Public Library 100 Books for Reading and Sharing
2012 Cybils shortlist
2012 middle grade fantasy (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards)
Texas Bluebonnet Award, 2013-14 Master List

2012 Nerdies Book Award, middle grade fiction
Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review, School Library Journal
Starred Review, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

WHY THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN IS A KEM GEM

KKRISTI’S TAKE
Grab the box of tissue. THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, inspired by a real gorilla named Ivan, will change your perspective, forever! In this illustrated novel told from the point-of-view of Ivan himself, Katherine Applegate has taken the tried and true, “when a stranger comes to town” plot, and authentically created heartache, humor and heroics. Ivan, in and of himself, is remarkable; he creates art. When Ivan meets Ruby, a needy baby elephant, he confronts his fears in order to help his peers. This reflective story about a silverback gorilla’s humanity has a silver lining that will leave you shining.

Like the novel, Patricia Castelao’s drawings are extraordinary, simple, yet, sophisticatedly rendered.

Favorite line
“Someday, I hope I can draw the way Julia draws, imagining worlds that don’t yet exist.”

KEM Sapphire
E
ELISE’S TAKE
Katherine Applegate of ANIMORPHS fame has a reputation for weaving humans and animals in unique ways. Her latest narrative combines human emotion and dialogue into the lives of a great silverback and his unlikely collection of friends in the Big Top Mall. Applegate incites sympathy for every one of these characters, not just the indicted performers. We learn to see that the stray dog, the janitor and his daughter, and even the animal trainer have both good intentions and their own personal heartbreaks.

Through quiet, bite-sized chapters, we experience these relationships, the losses each individual has suffered, and the hopes he or she clings to. Although each vignette is packed with emotion and sensory detail, each is also concise enough for readers to digest a little or a lot in one sitting, perfect for a reluctant or busy reader.

Favorite line
“Because she remembers everything, Stella knows many stories. I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings. But any story will do.”

KEM Diamond
MGrayMARRAS’
 TAKE
This fictional treasure, based on the captivity of Ivan, a real-life silverback, evokes compassion and empathy for all creatures, great and small.

The extra white space formatting of Applegate’s thoughtful text and Castelao’s moving illustrations calls readers into a deeper contemplation of Ivan’s lonely and desperate experience. This gorilla memoir made me feel the bankruptcy of the collapsing infrastructure and the human flaws and frailties surrounding Ivan and his companions. I cheered for Ivan while he thrived as a primate art prodigy and again, when he rediscovered his true nature as protector.

I’m a better human for having experienced life through Ivan’s eyes.

Thanks to Katherine Applegate and Patricia Castelao for following their creative natures to assemble this poignant story of love and self-worth.

Favorite line
“Humans always smell odd when a change is in the air.  Like rotten meat, with a hint of papaya.”

GEMrub

The One And Only Ivan Book Trailer by Katherine Applegate

Please share your One and Only Ivan comments, too!

One More Moment, Please

“We’ll be friends forever, won’t we?” asked Piglet.
“Even longer,” Pooh answered.
~A.A. Milne, WINNIE-THE-POOH

FIXMEUP600Piglet and Pooh’s thoughtful exchange opens the “Fix Me Up” music video featuring Zach Sobiech, Sammy Brown, and Reed Redmond of A Firm Handshake.

The “Fix Me Up” soundtrack sprouted from the trio’s resolve to bring beauty and goodness out of 18-year-old Zach’s terminal diagnosis and impending death from osteosarcoma. In “Fix Me Up” Sammy pleads, “One more moment, please.” The Piglet/Pooh dialog fittingly echoes Sammy and Zach’s heartache, love, dread, and hope. By communicating their conflicting emotions with such urgent truth and transparency, the life-long friends remind us that sooner is better. Their message has hit a universal cord, as proven by Zach’s #1 hit single “Clouds”.

Bestselling children’s book author Kate DiCamillo uses music to create a specific mood in her books. In 2006, a New York Public Library Author Chat participant asked,”Which music would be the best soundtracks to accompany your books?”

DiCamillo answered,  “I wrote Despereaux to Bach, Winn-Dixie to Van Morrison, Edward to Rachmaninoff. Does that help?”

I’ve toiled to find the perfect songs for my work.  For children’s books, I’ve found that Veggietales Radio produces better results than Etta James. For my family memoir, baroque keeps me serious, but too stuffy. Buddy Holly helps me remember, but I find myself dancing instead of writing and regressing to an age nobody else remembers.  Colbie Callait helps me forget, but that’s not good when you’re writing a memoir.

I could waste a lot of time selecting songs and never do the work. My distracted mind needs music of focused urgency. Tuesday, my craft received a defribulating jolt when I won the “Fix Me Up” Deluxe Edition CD and music video DVD in a door prize drawing.

I’d already received a what-are-you-waiting-for kick in the pants while laughing, crying, and crying some more through Zach’s mother Laura Sobiech’s memoir, Fly a Little Higher.

Laura wrote Fly a Little Higher  in only twelve weeks, just months after her son’s death–with no lack of professionalism or clarity. I hadn’t been so inspired by a family story since Atticus raised Scout and Jem in To Kill A Mockingbird. And I’d never experienced such a graceful, life-giving death in someone so young–or old–ever. The Sobiech experience spoke to me. It said, “What are you waiting for?”

I bought extras for gifts. Shhhh.

I bought extras for gifts. Shhhh.

 

Zach (and Laura) raised the bar to billowy heights, but Zach’s short life reminds us to share our talents, not hide or waste them. And now we have his music to encourage and inspire us to reach higher in whatever we’re doing.

Now my favorite ear candy while writing for children: “Sandcastles” and “Star Hopping”. For living, breathing, memoir writing, and everything else: the “Fix Me Up” soundtrack set to repeat.

A Firm Handshake‘s melodies soar; their words stir, yet fill you with hope. By baring and sharing the fruit of their young, wise souls, the trio challenges others to be real, to step into the unknown despite our fears, and to live while dying.

“Because, let’s face it–we’re all dying.” ~ Laura Sobiech.

To experience more of this story, go to Zach Sobiech’s Page on the Children’s Cancer Research Fund website, especially SoulPancake’s  documentaries preceding and one year after Zach’s death.

Other links for you

I’ll leave you with KS95’s Largest Choir’s singing “Clouds” .

Zach Sobiech-RIP
May 3, 1995 – May 20, 2013

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying good-bye so hard.”
~A.A. Milne, WINNIE-THE-POOH

Alice Herz Sommer-The Lady in Number Six

“I think I am in my last days but it doesn’t really matter because I have had such a beautiful life. And life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and music are beautiful. Everything we experience is a gift, a present we should cherish and pass on to those we love.”
~Alice Herz Sommer

Today ash crosses adorn foreheads. They serve as a reminder that Easter is coming. Lent literally means “spring”, a season of preparation. The reflective 40 days ahead offer a prime opportunity for growth.

As we enter this growing season, Alice Herz Sommer’s preparation and waiting is over. She’s reached her “harvest” day. The 110-year-old pianist will go down in history as the last living Nazi Holocaust survivor. Yet, she was one of the world’s most joyful, hopeful, and “Lenten” souls.

Alice Herz Sommer says that music saved her life. Maybe her saving grace wasn’t the music, but her capacity to hear it.

THELADYINNUMBERSIXThis Lenten season, my preparation will be less about what I give up and more about who I want to become. In Alice Herz Sommer I’ve found a modern-day mentor.

Read more about The Lady in Number Six here.

Marathon

fpublic0009-true-history-hare-tortoise-lord-dunsany_full

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE, written by Lord Dunsany. Artwork by Milo Winter. This image by THE AESOP FOR CHILDREN is a public domain image.

Writing a book is a marathon–not a sprint. So much else in life is an all-out race, this slow-and-not-so-sure reality makes most book writers feel judged for not producing immediate results.

Our cultural urgency to succeed and do it now deals writers an undue amount of shame and guilt. We’re rarely there on time to meet and greet the people  prematurely gathering at the finish line.

A 90-year-old relative said to me, “People ask me what you do with all of your time. I told them, ‘I have no idea.'”

Another relative, a 23-year-old, said, “What will you do while I take my nap?”

I said, “I’ll work on my book.”

A couple of hours later, she awoke and stretched. “So, are you done with your book?”

Another friend said, “Oh, children’s books.Those are easy to pump out, aren’t they? So-and-so wrote a children’s book. If he can do it anyone can.”

That’s what I used to think.

Instant success expectations are why there are more people who want to write books than books. Writing is humbling. And if enough people think you’re taking too long or doubt you can finish the marathon, you can start to doubt it yourself.

Me? I’m sticking with the process because I know how the story ends. The tortoise wins the race–maybe skinny and battle-scarred by the sacrifice–but she/he crosses the finish line.

The pleasing ending of the Hare and the Tortoise was possible because the tortoise was at home (a state of being for us/a physical place for tortoises) doing what he/she was designed to do, yet unafraid to stick his/her head out and plod forward under the protective thick shell of faith, hope, and focus.

Limbitless Nick Vujicic

Man of Steel Christopher Reeve drew admiration leaping tall buildings in a single bound faster than a speeding bullet. And all of that in tights. His superhero persona wasn’t bad, if you like that rippling muscle, perfect jawline, piercing eyes sort of guy; but he earned my hero-worship when he persevered, even thrived, as a  quadriplegic after his real-life horse-riding accident. It was then he said, “Some  people are walking around with full use of their bodies and they’re more  paralyzed than I am.”

Wow, did his words convict me. It’s so easy to let life intimidate and stop us short of our potential. Then I learned of another real live superhero five years ago. A friend sent me a YouTube link featuring a motivational presentation by Australian Nick Vujicic. Vujicic’s fearless joy stirs me to the core.

I hope to introduce everyone I know–children and adults–to Nick, as an inspiration to live life zestfully and gratefully, and to never become paralyzed by fear of life’s failures or successes.

Some people make us move forward in hope. See for yourself why I wanna be like Nick.

Click on the photo for a recent presentation by Nick Vujicic.

Click on the photo for a recent presentation by Nick Vujicic.

And, here’s what he’s up to now.

Click on the photo for a 2013 60 Minute report on Nick Vujicic and his wife.

Click on the photo for a 2013 60 Minute report on Nick and Kanae Vujicic and his wife.

Vujicic Family with Baby Kiyoshi James

Vujicic Family with Baby Kiyoshi James

Nick Vujicic’s life formula:
I’ve never met a bitter person who was thankful.
Or a thankful person who was bitter.

Click on the photo for the short film starring Nick Vujicic.

Click on the photo for the short film starring Nick Vujicic.

If you want more:
Nick Vujicic full DVD

His web sites:
attitudeisaltitude.com
lifewithoutlimbs.org

When life paralyzes you, remember Nick Vujicic. Like him, you are important and your life is a gift for the world. Don’t deny us the joy of knowing the real you. Keep moving forward!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy birthday, Mom! Mildred Lucille passed from this life into the next almost seven years ago.   We miss her, but know she’s very much alive, loving us in ways we can’t yet appreciate.
Recently my husband and I attended a Rediscover: faith talk where the speaker challenged us to join him in considering our purpose in this world.  Then he got our attention. “Every action reveals our answer. Every action is an investment we can never get back bringing us closer to or further from who we want to become… Will we leave an inheritance that will last?  Are we building lasting value?”

Mom lived a modest life. Based upon the world’s standards she’d be considered an utter failure.  She didn’t obtain a college degree.  She died with no sizeable estate.  She never had a powerful job.

But, by otherworldly standards, she was our family’s most productive stock broker.  She left an inheritance that will last. She invested in faith, hope, and love — and then gave it all away.

From all of us: Thanks, Mom! We LOVE YOU!