by Alicia Rudnicki,
Library Mix

My Life As a Chicken,  as told to Ellen A. Kelley, Harcourt, Inc., 2007, ISBN 978-0-15-205306-2
Available at Powell's Books

Pauline is a hard-working hen who is dismayed by her life of "cluck 'n' lay, night and day." But it isn't until she overhears the farmer planning to bake a chicken pot pie that she flees the coop.

Pauline tells her story of life-changing misadventures in rhyme, using interesting vocabulary that will pique young readers' interest.

Perils of Pauline
The brave hen encounters hungry predators on land and sea, including a  crew of pirate cats. Pauline waits in the crows nest of their ship until the "scalawags" fall asleep.

"I tiptoe aft, steal a raft/ brave the waves,/ and sail my craft."

Illustrator Michael Slack invents a clever raft for Pauline,  a black pirate's hat complete with skull and crossbones on which she sails into further trouble.

"Pauline, prevail!" she squawks whenever danger looms. And prevail she does with the help of author Ellen A. Kelley who resolves Pauline's plight by ending the story in chicken paradise — a friendly petting zoo.

by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

Pets and poetry form a winning combination in Dogku and A Curious Collection of Cats.

Homelessness is a compelling topic gently brought into focus by Andrew Clements delightful stray dog story Dogku. Completely written in haiku, it is an excellent introduction to that poetic form.

Betsy Franco refers to her book, A Curious Collection of Cats, as containing “concrete poems,” because they are part of the art shapes, such as one poem that forms the tail of twitchy, itchy cat. This makes the poetry more enticing and less abstract to young readers.

Dogku, by Andrew Clements, Simon and Schuster, 2007, ISBN 978-0-689-85823-9, Available at Powell's Books

Mooch is a nameless mutt until he wanders forlornly up to the open back door of a suburban home where a friendly looking mom takes pity on him.

Traditionally used to express thoughts about nature, the 5-7-5 syllable form of haiku has expanded to many other subjects in recent years. Each page of Mooch’s story is told as a haiku.

After mom feeds and bathes him, the children wake.

“Morning brings children./ Hugs, licks, barking, and laughing./ Warmer than sunshine.”

While the children are at school, Mooch happily accompanies the mother as she drives around town to accomplish errands.

“Nose out the window,/ ears flapping, hair pushed straight back./ Adventures in smell.”

It is difficult for Mooch to sleep through the long afternoon awaiting the return of the children. What is even more difficult is his worry that the family won’t keep him.

But all is well at the end when dad returns carrying a surprise for children and dog alike.

“A new doggy bed!/ Food, a bowl, a squeaky toy!/ Mooch has found his home.”

Tim Bowers vibrant illustrations add extra warmth to Clements’ heart-tugging story.

A Curious Collection of Cats: Concrete Poems, by Betsy Franco, Tricycle Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-58246-248-6, Available at Powell's Books

Thirty-two poems, some rhyming and others written in free verse, describe the many whimsical traits of cats.

In “Her Royal Highness,” a cat wearing a crown curls up on a pile in a laundry room bright with rosy sunshine. The folded edge of each item in the pile contains a line of the poem: “ Sunbeams catch the cat/ Curled up on her/ Throne of / Folded laundry.”

Similar to Clements, Franco has a gentle way of approaching sad topics, such as the death of a pet. In “A Tree for Samantha,” the poem concerns an oak tree that the author plants to commemorate a favorite cat that knew how to soothe her when she was having a bad day.

Each line of the poem starts at the base of the tree’s trunk and stretches upward on one of its branches. The poem concludes by Franco writing, “The oak is strong, and it will make good climbing when it grows,/ But it will never guess I’m sad and kiss me on the nose.”

On the next page, the mood lifts with the humorous “Pascal’s Tongue,” in which all the words of the poem form the tongue.

“If you’ve/ Ever attempted to lick your neck clean./ I think you’ll understand what I mean./ When I say my cat’s tongue is especially long./ Go ahead. Lick your neck. Prove me wrong.”

Franco’s Curious Collection is a treat for bedtime reading and a purr-fect teaching tool for discussions about feelings, pets, and vocabulary as well as the art of poetry.

by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

A Friendship for Today, by Patricia McKissack, Scholastic Press, 2007,
ISBN 978-04-3-966098-3
Available at Powell's Books

It’s 1954, and Rosemary is scared about being the only African-American student in her class at a new elementary school in Missouri.

In A Friendship for Today, McKissack deftly shows the discomfort and difficulties students faced during the first days of school desegration in the United States.

Rosemary feels “like everything around me is wrong.”  She is especially uncomfortable because her best friend suddenly can’t attend school due to polio.

There is plenty to fret about in addition to her former running partner’s paralysis and the unfriendliness of her classmates. Rosemary is worried about her parents’ endless arguing and her father’s frequent absences.

From bad to worse
Rags, a mottled black, white, and brown cat that Rosemary found near death by the railroad tracks, is another major concern. Rags spends her days lying in a box, healing so slowly that she barely seems to be alive. Rosemary talks to Rags about her troubles and tries to understand why Rags “won’t meow, or purr, or make any sound.”

Making matters worse, at school, Rosemary must sit next to Grace, a poor white girl who lives near Rosemary and whose family is well known for being racist.

In a note at the end of the book, author Patricia C. McKissack said that she based the story on her own experience of being the only black student in her sixth grade class in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri, in 1954.

That was the year the U.S. Supreme Court made it illegal for states to maintain separate public schools for black and white students in its Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision.

Adjusting to desegregation of public schools
Although Missouri remained part of the Union during the U.S. Civil War, slavery was legal there at its outset. Due to this fence straddling and the fact that it was just north of states that broke away to form the Confederate government, Missouri was called a “border state.”

While unofficial segregation of schools was a problem throughout the U.S. in 1954, segregated schools were the law in 17 southern and border states, including Missouri. McKissack wrote that Missouri integrated its schools immediately following the Brown decision, but it took decades for the south to comply with the law.

A Friendship for Today clearly shows the wariness of whites and blacks as they adjust to this historic change. The chilly atmosphere in Rosemary’s class begins to improve when her kind and creative teacher conducts an experiment intended to help the students develop tolerance.

Practicing prejudice
Mrs. Denapolis surprises the class by announcing that all the blue and green-eyed students will be barred from the cafeteria and will have to eat lunch in the classroom. She implies that this is necessitated by their inferiority.

“I’ve always been told green-eyed people are inferior,” Mrs. Denapolis says and adds, “Not too smart, a little bit slow… if you know what I mean.”

The daylong experiment jolts the class and causes tears, but is successful. It is an experience that sets the unimaginable in motion for Rosemary and Grace, who reluctantly become friends.

Empowering teachers to create change
Perhaps McKissack had a clever, insightful teacher such as Mrs. Denapolis. Or perhaps she based this part of her story on the experience of Jane Elliott, an Iowa teacher who conducted a similar experiment shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968.

As Stephen Simpson noted in a 2005 article in The Seattle Times, over the years, Elliot’s experiment “was repeated, filmed and became a symbol both of what is wrong with our country and what can be right. Her lesson showed every teacher in every classroom in the nation the kind of power they have.”

Books such as A Friendship for Today further increase that power by giving teachers excellent tools for encouraging discussion about how far our nation has come and how much further it must go to erase intolerance.

McKissack has written many books for children by herself and in conjunction with her husband, Fredrick. One of their co-authored projects is the outstanding upper elementary picture book Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters, which depicts the differences between the lives of plantation owners and their slaves prior to the Civil War.

McKissack has said, “I write because there’s a clear need for books written about the minority experience in America—fiction and nonfiction. I also write for the love of it!”