WELCOME

WELCOME! For the last 17 years, about once a month, usually on a Thursday evening, a group of writers, illustrators, teachers and librarians meets in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles to discuss children's books. Usually we talk about one picture book and one middle grade or YA novel. After the meeting, Sandy Schuckett, a retired LAUSD librarian, summarizes our discussion. Here are her reports of our thoughts about the books we have read. We'd love to have your comments too!
Thanks to Nancy Hayashi for our wonderful title art! NOTE: We are changing to a new schedule. Our meetings will now be quarterly and during the afternoon. Our group has been meeting since 2007. It was organized under the auspices of the Children's Literature Council of Southern California (CLCSC).

Thursday, October 24, 2019

FRONT DESK by Kelly Yang and ODE TO AN ONION: PABLO NERUDA AND HIS MUSE by Alexandria Giardino

We started our discussion at our October meeting with our novel, Front Desk by Kelly Yang. We all agreed that this very accessible book contained so many issues that relate to the times in which we are now living: immigration, poverty, racism, families, extortion, injustice, and empowerment, among others, as 10-year-old Mia helps her immigrant Chinese family run a somewhat seedy motel in 1990s Anaheim, California. Mia's resourcefulness and deeply felt indignation at the various wrongs she observed in her daily life at the motel and in school leads her to write a series of letters that she feels could solve the problems. Although we felt that some of her actions and her letters were a bit far-fetched, we agreed that they created a good story that young readers would want to follow to its conclusion. We liked the group of diverse characters, both adults and children, and the relationships that were formed between several of them. We thought it provided a good message for these times.

There were two things we really liked about our picture book, Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda and his Muse by Alexandria Giardino: the illustrations and the fact that we could read Neruda's poem in its entirety -- in English or Spanish -- in the back matter of the book. But sadly, we felt that this very short, and drily written story about one lunch with the Chilean poet and his muse, Matilde, which came from vegetables they discovered in her garden -- including an onion -- did little to show the depth of this very sensitive and intuitive man. Although some of the illustrations did present a clue as to how Pablo created 'Ode to an Onion,' we didn't feel that was enough. We thought the book would be a good companion to a couple of other outstanding books for young readers that have been written about Neruda.

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