Once again we were unanimous in our reactions to both of our books. Usually we begin with our picture book, but this time we decided to start with the novel, Greenglass House by Kate Milford, because we wanted to get it out of the way because -- well -- here are some of the comments: didn't finish it; too much effort/no payoff; didn't hold the reader's attention; too slow; chapters were too long; too convoluted; too complicated; couldn't figure out when/where the story happened; disengaged parents; main character, Milo, not compelling; secondary character, Meddy, not nice/too bossy; plot had too many names/stories to remember; and I could go on, but I won't. A couple of readers did finish it, and -- on the positive side, liked the natural setting, the vocabulary used in the description of the windows of the house -- varying shades of blue and green, and the fact that Milo, who was adopted, was Chinese, unlike his adoptive parents (although it took ages to get into his actual adoption story.) We did feel that some kids might like the role-playing that Meddy & Milo got into, and other aspects of the mystery, but as a whole we were far from giving it a thumbs up.
We unanimously gave a HUGE thumbs up to our gorgeous picture book, Cougar Crossing by Meeg Pincus, illustrated by Alexander Vidal. We loved the way it described the life of P-22, a local Los Angeles puma who had been born in the Santa Monica Mountains in 2009, and was ultimately tagged in 2012 by the National Park Service (NPS) in Griffith Park, miles away in the middle of northeast L.A. It appeared that he had crossed two freeways in order to make his home in the park, and this set off a huge fundraising campaign to create a wildlife crossing over a major southern California freeway. We loved the way his story was told through clear, simple text and beautiful, earth-colored (rusts, browns, blues, greens & black) collages, and further embellished on many pages with framed circular sidebars which showed a cartoon-style conversation between Miguel from the Natural History Museum and Jeff from the NPS that created a running commentary about what was happening. We thought it was a fantastic book with a fantastic story about a fantastic animal, and how his life made the wildlife crossing, which will be completed in 2025, a reality. We felt it gave a good description of how wildlife fares in a big city, and we thought young readers could learn a lot about how people and animals can co-exist. We especiall liked the Back Matter which contained a timeline of P-22's life, facts about pumas/cougars, suggestions for further research, and a great double-page spread of Wildlife of Southern California. A couple of readers questioned whether kids/teachers outside of So. Calif. would be interested in this story, but we determined that it could serve as a model for people in other areas to explore what animals might be living in their own surroundings, and what might be done to make their lives better. Sadly, P-22 died in December 2022, but many more animals of his 'tribe' will be helped by the wildlife crossing. We were glad to end our meeting with this book that we all loved.
