Chrissie Writes, Vol. 41
Happy summer!
We’ve reached the point where educators everywhere have clocked their last day of school and are in various stages of recovery. For teachers, especially parents, summer still has its complications. But I for one am grateful to have a little more margin in my days: in summer, I do wild things like cook good food, sleep well, and exercise all on the same day. And, of course, a little more time to read. Rejoice!
This month, I’m recommending…
Three Great Picture Books
Usually, this corner of my newsletter is reserved for picture books that passed the read-aloud test. But in summer, when I’m away from the library, I like to share a curated handful of newly-released picture books I love. I plan to take these for a spin in the library next school year (but haven’t read aloud to a group yet).
Another Tongue by Yevgenia Nayberg (out 7/15): picture books can perform many kinds of magic trick. Here, the razzledazzle lies in the form’s capacity to convey a complex concept (multilingualism) in a way that feels like play. In this chat with Jennifer Garner, Mac Barnett highlights the idea that the best picture books “feel like they’re on the kid’s side.” Nayberg does this in spades, taking the expression of “mother tongue” literally. What an homage to the quotidian frustrations of childhood! Kids live this frustration often — multilingual kids, in particular. The sparse text and stop-you-in-your-tracks artistic style work in tandem, alternately laugh out loud and gut-punching. In my library, I serve a highly diverse student population with more than 30 languages spoken, and this book will be a joyful staple in our collection.
Her Muddy Majesty of Muck by Beatrice Alemagna: I lived the book lover’s dream and discovered this one while browsing at Darvill’s Bookstore on Orcas Island. It’s part down-the-manhole fantastical adventure, part brother-sister story. It manages to be both incredibly weird and piercingly tender. It’s sprawling and wily and boasts some very funny boogers. Now I just have to decide whether to share it during a Beatrice Alemagna author/illustrator study or save it for next year’s weird book unit — or both!
The Night Giant by Lorenzo Coltellacci, illustrated by Lorenzo Sangio (translated from French): I love a reading experience where you think you’re reading one kind of picture book, then the penultimate page turn makes you realize it’s something else entirely. Such is the case here. The story feels a little like if Godzilla were just a cozy and curious guy, gently bumbling his way through the village. It’s a nighttime monster story that feels gentle — what delicious dissonance.
Get Graphic
Historically, graphic novels are some of my very favorite reading. Lately, though, I’ve struggled to find ones I love, instead struggling through issues from microcscopic font size to samey-same plotting and characterization — often cringe to the degree of feeling dishonest and unrelatable to actual middle graders. These two books, though, are something special:
Boss of the Underworld by Tor Freeman: I’ve been hearing buzz about this one in the UK market for months and am thrilled its US publication has finally arrived… and doubly thrilled that I love it as much as I hoped I would! Shirley, a bumbling, oddball protagonist, falls through a manhole and finds herself on an accidental quest to escape the underworld. (Two manhole stories in one newsletter!?) She teams up with a three-foot cockroach named George to fumble her way through any number of encounters, from a Hansel-and-Gretel-adjacent witch to getting eaten by not-a-whale. The villains are more funny than scary, and the storytelling reminds me of Sid Sharp — one of my favorites in the biz. This could be a great pick for your fans of fairy tales or mythology because of the cast of off-brand tropes Shirley meets along the way. Days after reading, I find myself chuckling as scenes pop into my mind — what a pleasure. A favorite of the year.
Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters by Yevgenia Nayberg: This one had my attention straight out of the box because of its unconventional trim size: it has both larger dimensions and a shorter page count than the typical graphic novel, and it feels more like a picture book when open in your hands. What joy, then, to discover that the story in its pages is as beguiling and unexpected as the physicality of the object. Even better? It’s a memoir. Nayberg gives us her textured, child’s-eye recollection of living through the Chernobyl disaster, but she does it with humor and honesty. Layered with the time in which Genya is living is the real desire of her heart: getting into art school. I found it moving to see that however history casts the events you live through, inside your days, you’re really just a kid. One of my favorite things about the book was Nayberg’s playful use of the word banal throughout, deployed in the same way most kids use, overuse and misuse a new-to-them word. I also delighted in Nayberg’s quippy honesty about the too-often illogical behavior of grown-ups: Genya complains, “I hear this over and over again. Don’t adults have anything interesting to say?” My reading experience reminded me of Sylvie Kantorovitz’s art memoir, of Eugene Yelchin’s Genius Under the Table, and of other immersive explorations of historical events like Daniel Miyares’s How to Say Goodbye in Cuban. This is another favorite of the year.
Note: are you making the connection to Another Tongue, reviewed above? Apparently it’s Yevgenia Nayberg week around here — you’re welcome!
This Month on Chrissie Writes
Here’s a roundup of my other posts from the past month. Feel free to upgrade to a paid subscription to access my full archive. Don’t miss the latest edition of Read Alouds Ranked, where I ranked over 28 read-alouds from the library:
Happy reading,
Chrissie
