Because of an expected heavy rainstorm we decided to have our meeting on Zoom. (We were correct!) We began with our picture book, Good Night, Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle. All of us mostly liked this rhyming story of several animals rescued from a severe thunderstorm by Toad and his friend Little Blue Truck. (It was quite appropriate for the day we met!) We appreciated the feeling of safety it provided, the theme of animals helping one another, and the humorous, appealing illustrations which showed a lot of action, gave the feeling of a thunderstorm, and provided many humorous details. Animals in pajamas! A pig holding a teddy bear! A toad sleeping in 'his own bed' on the top of the cab of the truck! One reader was not thrilled with the rhymes, and felt that unnecessary words had been added just to create the rhymes. We had a bit of discussion about this, and most of us were not bothered by it. We all agreed that this was a good read-aloud, a sweet story for the intended audience, and definitely a good bedtime read.
We all felt that our novel, The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat, labeled as a fantasy because of a (good, well-meaning) dragon, presented a quite believable world with seemingly real characters. We entered life with Sai, a young girl who was an apprentice to the most famous mapmaker, Paiyoon, as she got the chance to travel with him on a very dangerous expedition by sea to explore and discover new lands. We appreciated how it showed the struggle of people in the lower classes of their society who tried to improve their lot in the world. We lived through their adventures on a stormy sea, through several 'page turners', some deceitful actions by various characters, and a happy ending which some felt was a bit 'too neat'. We thought the book was very well written and showed that the author had done a great deal of research. Some felt there were too many coincidences, and it was a bit unbelievable that all survived the ordeals that were described in the story. One reader who was unable to attend our Zoom meeting wasn't so thrilled with the book. She didn't really relate with Sai at all, and felt that her relationship with her father needed to be better developed, as did the class distinctions within their society. She also felt it needed some editing in various places. But we felt generally that it would be an exciting read for the target age group and that young readers would enjoy many of the suspenseful adventures.
