This Newbery winning author has many wonderful books to her credit, so a discussion of favorites could be great fun. Movies were made based on her books BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE and THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, the Medal winner. Others have won numerous honors. The latest to appear on bookstore shelves couldn’t come at a better time. For a weary world, coping with shaky ground from earthquakes to economics, here is a children’s book that offers a message of hope. Young readers need this–and so do we.
THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka.
When a magician asks for lilies, he doesn’t expect an elephant to come tumbling through the roof. And yet the elephant was necessary for so many reasons in the lives of many people in the small city of Baltese “at the end of the century before last.” This elephant mattered most to ten year old Peter Augustus Duchene. I will not tell you how and why but I will tell you this, “...the truth is forever changing.” Enjoy!
My favorite is THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE. What’s yours?
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Hillview School Library
Because of Winn Dixie... I love the interaction of the dog with the different people of the town. The reader learns sub-characters profiles through actions or because of the dog.
ReplyDeleteThis is in support of THE TIGER RISING by Kate DiCamillo, for the elegance of her language & imagery, for the heartbreak of a young man who stuffs his feelings in a suitcase, for the joy of a new friendship & for confronting fears. This is a brave story that in showing us the release of one young man's emotional shackles, also forces us to question the continued symbolic shackling of exotic animals as pets. It is not as well known as KD's others which I also love, but it deserves a second look if you read it awhile back & a first look if it is new to you. As a child whose mother recited William Blake's "Tyger" when I was a wee one, on a personal note I loved it that Blake's words appear here.
ReplyDeleteMany reasons to applaud TTR.
The mother of a young friend told me her daughter LOVES Mercy Watson. Happily this is a series so she doesn't have to be content with one book. This delightful young reader is in first grade. She doesn't text or play on the computer. She reads. So do her friends. If the future is in their hands, children's writers can rejoice!
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