how supporting ballou sr high school library will make you a magician

You may be thinking that magic is an illusion, a slight of hand, a trick. That's not the kind of magic I have in mind though.

I'm talking about a type of magic that you see when a face lights up. It's a magic I used to live for as a teacher and one I continue to relish as a parent. It's a magic of a moment when someone receives a gift that transcends the physical. It's the Ah-ha!, the joy of surprise, the connection of finding something that speaks to you and let you know that you are not alone in the world. 

I'm talking about the magic of a book.

And I'm asking you to consider becoming a magician, an agent of change that will get books to kids so they can experience that magic.

Each year the blog Guys Lit Wire, which I contribute to, puts together a book fair for a worthy cause, someplace in need of a little outside help. This year we are headed back to Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC because, as much as we were able to help them last year, they are still deep in need when it comes to books.

You can read the whole deal here at Guys Lit Wire. Read the background, click on the link of books, make a purchase. It's pretty straightforward but here's how I like to think about it:

Somewhere out there is a book. It was written by an author with the hopes of one day reaching a reader. One day that book finds its reader and the reader is astounded: it's as if the author wrote the book specifically for them, is speaking directly to them. But in between there is a missing piece of magic, that midwifery that delivers the book to the reader. 

You will never know how you changed a reader's life or even that you did, but never knowing, never being sure, that's the territory shared by magic and faith. 

Go. 

Be a magician.

Spread the word, help others become magicians. 

Soldier Bear

by Bibi Dumon Tak

spot illustrations by Philip Hopman

translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson

Eerdmans Books edition 2011

A cgarette-eating, beer-drinking, ammunition-carrying bear? Only warfare could create a story so improbable.

During World War II as Russia and Germany fight to claim Poland for their own the citizens caught in the middle are taken as prisoners in their own country, forced to flee to neighboring Iran. Among these escaped expatriates are Stanislav and Peter, a pair of inseparable friends who agree to join the British in the fight to help reclaim their homeland. One day while stopped along the road they spy a starving young boy with nothing to trade the soldiers but a small sack containing a bear cub. A cute little bear cub, who so totally entrances Peter that he trades a pocket knife, some cash, and tin of meat for it. None of the soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps would imagine that this cute little pet would become not just a mascot but a source of comfort and a valuable comrade in the fight.

Once weened from milk the bear they named Voytek, "smiling warrior" in Polish, quickly adapts to his surroundings and behave much like a small child in the camp. Voytek prefers to sleep with Peter instead of his little makeshift bed, he bothers the cook for scraps, and learns how to give himself showers in the heat of the Palestinian desert where they are based before moving closer to the front. When scolded or scared Voytek covers his eyes with his paws and rocks back and forth, and when the soldiers become melancholy he knows to stand on his hind legs and place a reassuring arm on a man's shoulders. Raised around men Voytek learns how to behave as a man, as much as a bear can without betraying his nature. Granted, the soldiers introduce the bear to beer, which he loves and can be bribed with, and he mimics the soldiers smoking by stealing their lit cigarettes and eating them, but he also pitches in and carries ammunition when its time to work, earning Voytek an official designation as a Private in the 2nd Polish Corps.

There is something decidedly old school about Soldier Bear, an innocent absurdity that feeds into the wartime images we have of people doing and performing extraordinary tasks in the face of adversity. The connection with nature, a bear in this case, in the face of something as unnatural as life during wartime keeps the men of the 2nd Polish Corps grounded. All around them humanity is focused on so much destruction and yet here are soldiers chasing a bear, two dogs, and a monkey that they have also adopted around the camp as they wreak havoc. And when a winter snow quiets the war it is the animals who remind the soldiers about the joys of life by frolicking and starting a snowball fight that involves the entire camp. Ironic, that the link these men have to their humanity comes from the antics of a bear who was raised by soldiers in adversity.

photo from the Polish Institute, not from the book

Written in a clean style with a deceptive simplicity, Soldier Bear has the feel of a high-interest title aimed at reluctant readers without talking down to any. As a collection of vignettes, we follow Voytek's story with the 2nd Polish Corps for the five years until the moment after the war when his minders must return home and leave their friend and comrade behind. Though the parting is bittersweet, we learn in the Afterword that Voytek lived happily in the Edinburgh Zoo for another 15 years, which isn't bad for a bear who served during the war, drank beer, and was fond of eating lit cigarettes.

In thinking about it after the fact, the story is remarkable, but completely sidesteps the moral implications of these soldiers deciding to take care of a bear cub over the boy who owned him. A bear cub in the wild without its mother probably wouldn't have survived – indeed, I suspect the only reason the boy has the cub in the first place is because something happened to the bear's mother – but what about the boy, and what of his mother? Why not take the boy as a mascot, feed him and make him an honorary soldier? Is it not entirely possible that Peter and his friends saved the bear at the expense of the boy's own life?

Nonetheless, Soldier Bear was this year's winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for “the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States.” A worthy winner, to be sure, but there is nothing "foreign" about the reading experience.

[This review is also cross-posted over at Guys Lit Wire today, your home for books of interest to guys, by some of the best bloggers in the business.]

Big Dumb Book: Tim, Defender of the Earth!

by Sam Enthoven
Razor Bill / Penguin 2008

Let's play a game of Mental Picture and see how things go.

First, imagine two giant monsters throwing down like a couple of WWF wrestlers in a large metropolitan city. Sort of like in a Godzilla movie, with both of these monsters a couple hundred feet tall, tossing each other into famous landmarks and obliterating the skyline. One of them is a genetically cloned T-Rex and the other is a mad-scientist- turned-humanoid-cockroach mutant.

Are you still with me?

Okay, so the city is London, not Tokyo, and both creatures are the inadvertent results of secret British government funding. There is no radioactivity involved. T-Rex makes his appearance when the funding for his project evaporates and he escapes down the Thames to the sea where he instinctively seeks the Yoda-like wisdom from a nine million year old Kraken who is the current Defender of Earth.

Have you cried uncle? But wait! When asked by the Kraken if he has a name T-Rex responds with a line pulled straight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

"There are some who call me... Tim."

Oh yes, and the mad scientist. Well, he was working with nanobots that could deconstruct organic matter at the cellular level, move about as a swarming cloud under mental telepathy, and then recombine it either as it was or modified. When his project is rebuffed by the government he takes it upon himself to take his research to the field, as it were, deconstructing roaches and rats and hapless drunks in the Underground at closing time and recombining them into his own super-self, a god-like being impervious to almost anything that can be thrown at him.

And the scientist has a daughter, Anna. And she's a bit of an outcast. And she hooks up with another outcast, a boy named Chris. And Chris has been chosen to wear a special bracelet that can harness the energy of Earth, energy that can be used by Tim. And...

I'm sorry. Once you get started with a story like this it's hard to know how much is too much. Clearly the author doesn't believe in such restrictions because he tosses everything into the pot. There are times where I would say this is a bad thing because sensory overload eventually kicks in and numbs the brain to the point of boredom, but not here.

This is the book that recently helped solidify my thinking behind the Big Dumb Book. Just as there are Big Dumb Movies that you can enjoy on a purely entertainment level, so are there books that just carry you along, like surfing a wave on absurdity. As a break from all the other required summer reading -- you know, that stuff like broccoli that's supposed to be good for you -- here's a bit funnel cake from the county fair to prevent the brain from calcifying.

Bonus time! Check out this illo to be bound into the hardcovers










Do you know a teen boy who can appreciate literature, Monty Python, and comic books? Bingo, here's their next book.

Introducing... Guys Lit Wire!

Taking a break here from the reviews to announce a very big project that has been in the works for some time. It's a new blog, collectively dedicated to the pursuit of matching good books with teen boys

Guys Lit Wire is live!

The origins of this blog came about late last year when a bunch of us kidlit bloggers were lamenting a lack of books for teen boys, or at least a perception that there weren't enough good books, or that boys -- especially teen boys -- were getting lost in the static because of a presumption that teen boys don't read.

So for the last six months or so a whole passel of us have been preparing for a launch of this new site that will serve as a sort of clearinghouse of reviews, interviews, and whatnot aimed at books of interest to boys. Or rather, guys.

Colleen over at Chasing Ray and Sarah at Finding Wonderland have been the primary movers and shakers working behind the scenes, lining up our schedule of posts for the rest of this year, designing it to be Made of Awesome. This final result is the culmination of a whole lot of work by a lot of people and I, for one, am excited and proud to be a part of this.

New posts go up every weekday. I'll be checking in with my first post on Wednesday the 9th. No need to mark your calendar, I'll probably cross-post my reviews. In the meantime, drop in and see what's up!