Corinne L. Gaile

Tiger Boy, written by Mitali Perkins with illustrations by Jamie Hogan, tells the story of an Indian boy who lives in the Sunderbans, an archipelago of islands spanning Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, where the story is set. In this delta region, people live on half of the islands while the other half make up a mangrove forest preserve which is home to the last remaining wild Bengal tigers, endangered from poaching. Cyclones, deforestation, and global warming are some of the problems threatening the survival of the area as well as the people and creatures living there.

Neel is the smartest boy in the village. His family and elders in the community hope he will pass the exam to earn a boarding school scholarship. Neel doesn’t want to leave his village with its surrounding tidal rivers, mudflats, and creeks, and hopes he fails the test. His sister, Rupa would love to trade places with Neel. Like most girls in her village, Rupa had to drop out of school to work, or in her case, take care of their ailing mother and home.

When a baby tiger escapes from the preserve, Neel and Rupa race to find her before greedy, opportunistic, Gupta, and his henchmen capture and sell the tiger on the black market. Their father taught Neel and Rupa to respect and protect the plants and animals of the preserve, but even he has decided to work for Gupta to catch the tiger. His father wants the extra money for a tutor to prepare Neel for his exam. Neel uses his knowledge of the area and mathematical skills to chart and identify the most likely hiding places for the tiger. When Neel and Rupa find the baby tiger, they must go against their father to bring her to safety. Neel comes to understand the value of an education not only for himself, but to benefit his island community. He can use his boarding school education to help protect the land and expand opportunities in his village.

Author Mitali Perkins skillfully uses Neel’s dilemma to illustrate larger issues of poverty, changes to natural habitats, and education for boys and girls that beset the villages of the Sunderbans. The black and white drawings are a nice addition to the novel, giving a sense of place to the characters and the landscape.

Mitali Perkins was born in India and has lived in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Mexico, Thailand, Great Britain, and the San Francisco Bay area. She is the author of numerous books. Visit her website http://mitaliperkins.com/.

Tru & Nelle by Greg Neri is a middle grade novel about celebrated American authors, Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee, when they were children and best friends growing up in the small Alabama town of Monroeville during the early 1930s. I was aware of Capote and Lee’s association as adults living in New York City, but was amazed to learn that the writers had been childhood friends. From a young age, Truman and Nelle were making up stories. If you’ve ever wondered where greatness begins, Tru & Nelle provides a peek at the early personalities of these prodigious talents and shares some of the character-molding experiences that informed their writing.  

The story follows fashionable and refined seven-year-old Truman and rough-and-tumble six-year-old Nelle, from their first encounter through various escapades while seeking enigmatic happenings like the ones in their favorite Sherlock Holmes adventures. Suspense and intrigue were hard to find in sleepy Monroeville, but Truman and Nelle knew all they had to do was wait, and eventually, a first-class whodunit would turn up.

Equally precocious, Truman and Nelle know the pain of growing up with an absent parent. Nelle’s father provides stability during the long absences of her mother who suffers from mental illness. Truman’s rascal of a father and self involved mother uproot him from New Orleans, and deposit him in Monroeville to stay with his adult cousins, eccentric siblings who live together in the family home. The two misfits forge a friendship based on empathy and love of books.

From their tree house headquarters, Nelle, Truman, and his young cousin, Big Boy, read, discuss literature, and ponder the connection between two cases of local vandalism, and a mysterious snake pit. Add in a cast of characters including Truman’s big-boned African-American cook named Lil Bit, a bully called Boss, and Catfish, his Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon dad.

Tru & Nelle is inspired by true stories from the memoirs of Capote’s cousin and aunt. Some of the capers are far-fetched, but in his author’s notes Neri states, “the more outrageous and unbelievable a scene, the closer it is to real life.” Neri’s voice has just the right amount of old fashioned elegance and southern charm to capture the time, place, and spirit of the tale. Characters Scout, Dill, and Jem, in Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, are based on Nelle, Truman, and Big Boy, aka, Jennings Carter. Middle graders and adults will love this book. Learn more about author Greg Neri at: http://www.gregneri.com.

A Single Shard is a quiet book about a boy living in a small coastal village in mid to late 12^th century Korea. The boy called Tree-ear has lived most of his life under a bridge with Crane-man, who although poor and disabled, took him in when he was orphaned as a young child. Tree-ear and Crane-man live in poverty, struggling for each meal, but their life together is rich in love and companionship.

Tree-ear is fascinated with pottery, which his village is famous for. He spies on the potters while they work, wishing he could learn the skill. He gets his chance when he begins to work for Master Min, the best potter in the village. Tree-ear hopes to become Master Min’s apprentice and learn how to make pottery, but the gruff Master keeps him busy chopping wood, collecting clay from the river bank, and refining the clay for pots and glazes. When Tree-ear finally gets up the nerve to ask Master Min to accept him as an apprentice he learns that the pottery trade is handed down from father to son. Master Min’s son died and an orphan like Tree-ear could not take his place. The news devastates Tree-ear at first, but if he cannot learn how to throw pots on the wheel, he will teach himself to mold clay into figurines.

When an emissary from the royal court travels to his village looking for a potter to award a royal commission, Min’s pottery, although finely crafted, loses to Kang’s innovative new technique of inlay. Master Min’s only chance for consideration is to incorporate the inlay technique into his pottery and send an example to the court. Min cannot travel the distance over mountains to reach the court, so Tree-ear offers to deliver the beautiful vases for him.

Tree-ear sets out on an adventure that will take him over mountains, through many small villages and a big city. Most people are kind, but Tree-ear knows there are dangerous animals and bandits along the way that he must avoid. Unfortunately, he cannot avoid the bandits. They steal his money and throw the prized pots over a cliff. All that is salvageable from the beautiful pots is one single shard. It takes all of Tree-ear’s courage to fulfill his duty.

Through Tree-ear’s chores, the reader learns about the process of pottery making in the 12^th century. In a voice that is gentle and at times poetic, Tree-ear reveals his thoughts and feelings and shows us the culture and society of that time.

Linda Sue Park, a Korean American, won the Newbery Award and many others for A Single Shard. She has written numerous novels, and picture books for children.

Return to Sender is a story about a family of undocumented Mexican migrant workers and the American family who employs them to work on their dairy farm in Vermont. The story is told by two sixth graders, Mari Cruz, the oldest of three sisters whose father and uncles work on the dairy farm, and Tyler Paquette, who lives on the farm with his parents and grandmother. Mari tells her story through a series of lyrical and heartfelt letters and journal entries, while Tyler relates his experience directly. Ms. Alvarez peppers the story with Spanish words easily understood through context.

Both Mari and Tyler are grieving the recent deaths of a grandparent. Tyler misses his grandfather deeply and has been depressed about it. Mari grieves the loss of her grandmother, but she is more worried about her mother who has been missing for almost a year. Her family fears she did not survive the dangerous trip across the border from Mexico to the US.

It is against the law to hire immigrants who have come into the US illegally and do not have the proper documents to work. Tyler’s family hires the undocumented Mexican workers after Tyler’s father is unable to work due to a farming accident. Without enough workers, they will have to sell the farm. Tyler knows that his family is breaking the law, and at first he doesn’t want them on his farm. With time he reasons that the Mexicans need the work and his family needs the workers. He has made friends with Mari and her family and knows that they are good people. Tyler comes to believe that the law, which prevents Mari’s family from working, is unfair.

The following year brings challenges and changes for to both families. Although Mari reunites with their mother, the family is deported back to Mexico. With nobody to help them run the farm, Tyler’s family has to sell it. Mari and Tyler continue their friendship through letters and visits.

The title, Return to Sender, was the name of a 2006 dragnet called Operation Return to Sender which raided many workplaces around the US, deporting undocumented workers. Although it is a fictional story, many undocumented workers in the US experience the struggles of Mari and her family. This beautiful book introduces children to both sides of the immigration debate. It gives a face to the thousands of families who take great risks to come to the US for the chance at a better life.

Julia Alvarez was born in New York City and lived as a child in the Dominican Republic and New York. She is an accomplished writer of adult fiction, essays, poetry and books for young readers. She is best known for her novels, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In The Time of The Butterflies. She lives on a farm in Vermont.

In Brown Girl Dreaming, author Jacqueline Woodson describes her childhood growing up in Ohio, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York through a collection of lyrical poems. Brown Girl Dreaming engages all of the senses to express experiences and feelings that are both universal and uniquely her own.

Ms. Woodson was born in Ohio in 1963, the same year of the Birmingham, Alabama children’s campaign at the height of the civil rights movement.  Woodson believes that growing up during the sixties and seventies, a time of upheaval and social change, helped to form who she is.

On her website, Ms. Woodson said, “I wanted to understand who my mom was before she was my mother and I wanted to understand exactly how I became a writer. So I started researching my life, asking relatives and talking to friends – and mostly, just letting myself remember.”

Although she lived her early years in Ohio, her father’s home, Woodson moved to South Carolina with her mother and siblings when her parents separated. Her family moved in with her mother’s parents in a house in the country surrounded by farmland where her grandfather cultivated a garden that provided fresh vegetables for the family.

Woodson’s poems from that time describe a wonderful childhood, surrounded by nature and the love of her family. She was especially close to her grandfather. Her mother travelled to New York to find work and eventually moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. Woodson tells stories about her experiences in New York, her best friend, Maria, her grandfather’s death, and her strict religious upbringing.

As a child, Ms. Woodson struggled with reading and writing. She taught herself to read and write by reading the same books over and over again until she memorized them, copying the lyrics to songs, and writing down the words to TV commercials. She liked to read picture books even though everyone thought she was too old for them. What young Woodson did best was listen. She was a careful observer and much of what she saw was worked into her stories.

Woodson was good at making up stories but had trouble writing them down. Even with all her difficulties, she knew she wanted to become a writer and she never gave up. Her first book was a collection of seven poems called Butterflies. She cut out pages and stapled them together, writing a poem on each page. In the fifth grade, her teacher told Woodson that she was a writer and had her read a poem that she had written to the class.

We know Ms. Woodson grew up to become a very successful writer. She has written dozens picture books, middle grade, and young adult novels and has won many awards. Brown Girl Dreaming won the National Book Award for 2014. Visit her website http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com to learn more about the author and her books.