Whatever your reason to gift a child — be it a birthday or some other holiday — consider giving the gift of reading from an author right here in our back yard. Here are some of our recent favorites from Northwest authors and illustrators.
PICTURE BOOKS
A Bedtime for Bear
By Bonnie Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton (Candlewick Press, $16.99)
Seattle author Bonnie Becker introduced us to grouchy reclusive Bear and unfailingly enthusiastic Mouse two years ago with A Visitor for Bear, which won an E.B. White Read Aloud Award and was named the Best Picture Book of 2008 by Amazon. Mouse's efforts to charm Bear into friendship continue in A Bedtime for Bear. Bear reluctantly agrees to have Mouse stay for a sleepover despite his fears that Mouse will upset his routine and quiet. Bear and Mouse end up facing unexpected fears in this tale, which is accompanied by MacDonald Denton's delightful illustrations.
Christmas with the Mousekins
By Maggie Smith (Alfred A. Knopf, $15.99)
Crafter alert! You'll want to pick this book up early. Christmas with the Mousekins is a scrapbook of poems, crafts, recipes and stories loosely held together through the story of the Mousekin family as they prepare for the holiday. The illustrations and simple Christmas traditions hearken back to an earlier time of cookie-baking and caroling, decorating and gift-giving.
EARLY READER
Zelda and Ivy: The Big Picture
By Laura McGee Kvasnosky (Candlewick Press, $14.99)
Just in time for the holidays, Seattle writer Laura McGee Kvasnosky, has the sixth offering in her series about the Fox sisters, Zelda and Ivy. Kvasnosky has built a following for these tales, which feature two sisters who are every bit as tricky and supportive and quarreling and loving as sisters can be. Her 2006 book, Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways, won a Theodor Seuss Geisel Award.
In the latest installment, Zelda and Ivy are joined by their neighbor Eugene as they brave a scary movie together, "spy" on a neighbor and camp out in the living room, complete with s'mores and falling stars.
MIDDLE READERS
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword
By Barry Deutsch (Amulet Books, $15.95)
As the book cover says, Hereville is a graphic novel about "yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl." Yep, it is. It's also a delightful tale about a strong girl defining herself within the confines of a traditional culture.
"There's a lot of comics out there about grown-up, muscle-bound goyim," says Hereville creator Barry Deutsch, who lives in Portland, Ore. "I thought it would be fun to have a protagonist that isn't like 90 percent of the characters out there."
In the story, Mirka, who lives in an Orthodox village with her father, stepmother, one brother and seven sisters, is more interested in fighting bullies, monsters and dragons than in learning the proper behavior of an Orthodox Jewish girl. She'd rather wield a sword than a knitting needle.
If you know a little something about Jewish culture, you'll get a few more chuckles out of reading Hereville, but you really don't need it. Deutsch explains just enough for the story to make sense. And, as he said, "every one has something in common."
Dear America: The Diary of Piper Davis
The Fences Between Us
By Kirby Larson (Scholastic, $12.99)
This fall, Scholastic Books did a relaunch of their "Dear America" series, the fictional journals of girls living through significant events in U.S. History.
We in Seattle are lucky that as part of the relaunch, Scholastic chose local author Kirby Larson to write a new book that is set in Seattle in 1941, The Fences Between Us. Larson, a Newbery Honoree, writes about World War II from the perspective of 13-year-old Piper Davis, whose brother ships off to Hawaii with the U.S. Navy and whose father is the white minister of the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church.
After Pearl Harbor is bombed, the family anxiously awaits news about Piper's brother and is witness to the growing anger towards the Japanese-Americans in the congregation.
Piper, torn between worry about her brother and sympathy for the Japanese her father has ministered to all of her life, offers an especially nuanced perspective on the war. When Seattle's Japanese and Japanese-Americans are sent to Camp Harmony, then the Minidoka internment camp, Piper's father follows his congregation, taking Piper with him.
The book addresses some serious issues while still managing to sound like it could have been written by a young teen.
The Other Half of My Heart
By Sundee T. Frazier (Delacorte Press, $16.99)
Sundee Frazier, biracial herself, finds rich material in exploring the lives of biracial kids and how they come to define themselves in a world that often wants them to simply be black or white.
In The Other Half of My Heart, Frazier tells the tale of 11-year-old Minni and Keira, twin girls who experience the world very differently because Minni has the light skin and red hair of their white father, while Keira has the dark coloring of their African-American mother.
When their black Southern grandmother invites the girls to North Carolina to compete in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America Program, suddenly Minni is the one who looks different from everyone else. Through the experience, Minni learns a lot about herself, her twin, and the pressures her grandmother faced in the Jim Crow South.
Frazier's story raises fascinating questions about identity while also bubbling with the mischief, humor and emotion of two 11-year-old sisters thrown into a weird and exciting adventure.
