The Learning Umbrella

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.  I have a certain fondness for “what if” science fiction, and my husband is a fan of “end of the world” or “post apocalyptic” stuff, so the description of this book sounded good to me.  And it is Really Good.  This is the best book I’ve read so far this year (but it is only February - so I hope to find more good ones).  The setting is post apocalyptic, in an America that has been burned and a world where ash obscures the sunlight.  The people that are left have very little to eat - and they turn to killing and eating each other.  It is a horrible vision of the future, and many parts of it made me feel sick to my stomach.  But walking through this world are a father and son, and that father loves his child with the same aching love that I feel toward my children.  The story asks the question - what do you live for?  Could you live for your child after hope is gone?  It was a visceral reading experience, and I felt the urge to hug my children close many times.  My DH is reading it now, and we are having some great conversations about it.  If you have slightly stronger nerves (if you can handle reading about canibalism toward children, for instance) I highly recommend this book.

This week’s best children’s books (picture at Flickr)

Chopsticks by Jon Berkeley.  A little mouse helps a wooden dragon come to life, and they fly all over the world together.  Nice illustrations and appropriate for this week’s Chinese New Year.

Beautiful Warrior: The Legend of the Nun’s Kung Fu by Emily Arnold McCully.  The kids weren’t super engaged by this book, but I loved it.  It is the legend of the two female Kung Fu masters who are credited with the creation of the Wing Chun style of Kung Fu (which Bruce Lee popularized here, and which I studied for 2 years).  In this book these girls have to find their own way in life, and learn to use their soft strength to defeat force.  It’s very female-empowering, and it shows the ideal of the control and peace of Kung Fu.

The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons.  The history and many of the designs of quilts are shown in this book, and the kids really enjoyed the illustrations of the designs.  We sat down with it and tried to make construction paper models of the different quilt blocks shown - it was a lot of fun.  I was also pleased that the illustrations showed men making quilts.

Snow White by Laura Ljungkvist.  There are so many versions of this story out there, and in many ways this one is pretty corny.  But the illustrations are original, with a continuous black line running through color blocks.  The kids were drawn to it, and chose to sit and “read” the story to themselves over and over again.