We had great discussions at our last meeting, filled with a variety of opinions and reactions to our books, both of which were recent winners of major children's book awards. We started with the novel,
Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly. Our reactions varied from great to 'not-so-great'. One reader listened to the first few chapters on an audiobook, and was put off by the alternating male and female voices in the first few chapters...so much so that she sadly didn't continue. Others of us liked the fact that each chapter was the 'voice' of a different character, and felt that maybe reading the words made it easier to 'get inside their heads'. We all felt the book was quite predictable; when Virgilio fell in a well, and had to spend a great deal of time there thinking about his life as a very shy boy, we all knew he would be rescued. We also knew that the bully, Chet, would get his comeuppance, and that Virgilio and Vanessa, who were in the same 'Resource Room' class (and had the same initials!) but didn't know each other, would eventually meet and find that they had a lot in common and become friends, with the help of the 'mystic' Kaori and her little sister's pink jump rope. (We also vowed to not read another book that had someone falling in a well!) One reader remarked that this book 'hit all the buttons': a Filipino boy, an Asian girl, a bully, a deaf girl, a pesky little sister, etc. etc. Some felt it was all a bit contrived. But -- several of us still liked the story, and felt that a 9- or 10-year-old reader would like it also. We all loved Virgilio's 'Lola' (Grandma) and we also all loved the one word ending.
We had equally mixed feelings on our picture book,
Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell. It was almost a wordless picture book -- the only words being the sounds that animals made -- HOWL, ARF ARF, etc. Some readers absolutely did not like the illustrations -- many of which showed a 'Red Ridinghood' clad, triangular-shaped little girl walking across a field of snow to save a lost wolf cub. A couple of readers didn't like the way her face was portrayed, except in the illustrations at the front and at the end when she was with her family. We also liked the close-up illustration of the mother wolf. Others felt the illustrations on the whole were ok, even though there were some problems with perspective as different scenes were shown. One reader said the book had been used in her school in teaching children sequencing in a story, and we agreed that would be a good use for it. At the end of the evening we wondered how and why these two books were award winners...the answer to which we may never know.
