Category: Children’s Books

Dr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest by Rebel Girls, Eugenia Mello #BookReview #ChildrensBooks

On By MischenkoIn Biography, Children's Books, Reads, True Stories12 Comments

Dr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest

Blurb:

From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes the historical novel based on the life of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist from Kenya.

Wangari lives in a magical place in rural Kenya where the soil is rich for planting, the trees abundant, and the nearby pond full of mysterious creatures. She drinks from cool, clean streams and plays beneath her favorite fig tree under her mother’s watchful gaze.

Then Wangari grows up and goes away to school, and things start changing at home. Farmers chop down the trees. Landslides bury the stream. The pond dries up. The soil becomes overworked, dry, and unusable for planting. And people go hungry. Dr. Wangari Maathai has a simple solution to all of these problems: plant trees.

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This Week’s Books: Fable by Adrienne Young – The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley – Bo’s Magical New Friend by Rebecca Elliot #Books #Reads #Reading

On By MischenkoIn Children's Books, Middle Grade, Reads, Young Adult11 Comments

Books just finished over the weekend:

Luckily, all of these turned out to be good reads. My daughter loved Sydney and Taylor, and we’re hoping to get the second and third books in the series next. Gone to the Woods and Red Wolf were fantastic reads. My review for Red Wolf will be up soon because the publication date is in July. This one adds another book for the retelling challenge, which is a plus.

Continue reading “This Week’s Books: Fable by Adrienne Young – The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley – Bo’s Magical New Friend by Rebecca Elliot #Books #Reads #Reading” →

Book Review: Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen #BookReview #GoneToTheWoods #Memoir #MiddleGrade

On By MischenkoIn Animals, Children's Books, Memoir, Reads, True Stories15 Comments

Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen

Blurb:

A middle grade memoir, giving readers a new perspective on the origins of Gary Paulsen’s famed survival stories.

His name is synonymous with high-stakes wilderness survival stories. Now, author Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments from his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age thirteen, he may never have become a reader. And without his desperate teenage enlistment in the Army, he would not have discovered his true calling as a storyteller.

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Book Review: Vasilisa (Old Rus #1) by Julie Mathison #BookReview #Vasilisa #RetellingsReadingChallenge #2021ReadingChallenge

On By MischenkoIn Children's Books, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Fiction, Reads, Retellings7 Comments

Vasilisa (Old Rus #1) by Julie Mathison

Blurb:

Three witches, two children, one ogre — and nowhere to run.

It’s 1919, but in Edenfall, Pennsylvania, the Great War is not over — not for Vasilisa, at least. Papa is presumed dead on the fields of Flanders, Mama is being courted by an absolute ogre, and now Babka, her beloved grandma, has had a bad spell. Or has she fallen under one? Only the Old Tales, the Russian fables Vasilisa was raised on, offer any comfort or counsel.

But what if they are more than child’s tales?

Continue reading “Book Review: Vasilisa (Old Rus #1) by Julie Mathison #BookReview #Vasilisa #RetellingsReadingChallenge #2021ReadingChallenge” →