FLOAT

Float

By: Laura Martin

Hey guys! 

Long time no read. Just joking. Anywho, Let me catch you up on some books I've read 

FLOAT is about a boy name Emerson with floating powers  that he can't control. He has to wear big heavy boots and a big vest so he doesn't float away. His mother signed him up for an at risk summer camp for kids just like Emerson. There, Emerson got to meet some cool kids like himself and eventually made some best friends. Even Emerson's teacher had powers. 

The kids were ranked by how dangerous their "gifts" were and all of Emerson's friends were at a lower level of risk than he was except his friends Murphy. Murphy had the ability to time travel but against his will and if you touch him while he is about to time travel there's a possibility he takes you with him and there's also the possibility they neither of you return. Because of this, he puts everyone at risk. This makes the summer more interesting.

I found this book to be fun and exciting because each child had their own unique powers and each one of them were at risk of hurting or causing trouble for the other. It was fun to read about their everyday adventures and obstacles and them learning to co-exist despite their adversities. This book is not predictable and is probably good for ages 8-12. If you're interested in purchasing this book you can do so by clicking here.

Thanks for reading!

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Grandpa's Face-Interview with Illustrator Floyd Cooper

I'm super excited to tell you about this book! Why? Well, because I had the privilege of interviewing the illustrator, and of course, because it's a good book! 

The reason this book is so cool and the illustrator is even cooler, is because I see faces that look like mine and read about things I can relate to. The illustrations in Floyd's books are vibrant and familiar to me. I love it!!!

Grandpa's Face is about a little girl named Tamika who adored her grandfather, and even more, his facial expressions. No matter how angry, sad, or worried, Tamika always saw love in his face. 

Look at his face, it really is such a loving face. He seems like an awesome Grandpa to me.  

Later in the book, Tamika walked in on her grandpa rehearsing for a play he was in, and noticed a face that she have never seen before. She describe the face as as a hard face. She said he it had a tight mouth and cold eyes. She also said it was a face that could never love her or anyone. Because of this, Tamika became sad and worried that he might look at her that way one day. She tried to provoke him to see if he'd use that face on her. But he never did. His face always showed her love. And the book ended with her in awe admiring her grandpa's loving face.

                                                                                                                                                          Honestly, this book makes me think of my grandmother and her beautiful face. When I went back to New Jersey in spring of 2018, and my Mom Mom opened the door, I felt so happy, so much love and warmth. I love her face, her face makes me feel home.

This photo was taken in somewhere between April-July in 2012

MY INTERVIEW WITH FLOYD COOPER

Floyd Cooper is the Coretta Scott King award-winning illustrator of more than 60 books for children. Floyd started his career in illustration at Hallmark, after a successful career in the industrial side of art, he made the leap into picture books with Eloise Greenfield's Grandpa's Face.

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.   I Started drawing on the side of our house in Bixby, Oklahoma at 3 years old. Grew up in low income housing, the projects in Tulsa, OK. Attended all eleven elementary schools in North Tulsa.  Teacher's noticed my drawing, submitted my work to a scholarship committee. I attended University of Oklahoma on scholarship. Graduated and went to work for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. Moved to Manhattan, NYC.  After struggle, secured my first publishing contract with Penguin. 

2. How long have you been doing illustrations?  My first book was published in 1988.

3. How many books do you think you've illustrated up until now?  I have just finished illustrating my 109th book. I have written 5 books.

4. What do you enjoy most about doing this?  Being able to work in my PJ's. Getting treated like a star on Thursday's. (Hahaha I love this guy)

5.  Do you do freehand drawings, or do you have subjects?  For books I like to secure models, but that isn't always possible. Therefore, I free-style at every chance. Besides, I still love to draw.

6. What kind of tools do you use?  My work is distinctive in that I use something I call "oil erasure" whereby I erase shapes from a background to produce the images in my books.  There is no other illustrating books this way.  It is my voice.  My favorite eraser is the kneaded eraser, followed by the electric eraser.

7. What inspired you to become an Illustrator?  I believe that we are born with inclinations, things we like to do.  We do these things a lot because we enjoy them. That makes us better at these things. Some people call it talent. Some call it a gift.  If you do something all day, every day you will become "gifted".

8. Do you work with a publishing company or are you a freelancer?  I work with all of the major publishing companies and have contracts for the next 3 years. I try not to book to far in advance, you never know what might pop up.

9. Is there a piece that you're particularly proud of? If so, which piece and why?  I like the book on my drawing board because it's fresh.  My favorite book is MAX AND THE TAG-ALONG MOON because Dolly Parton added it to her Imagination Library last year and it has sold over 1.5 million copies.

10. Can you recommend me 3 new books to read, that you've Illustrated? 
MAX AND THE TAG ALONG MOON,

THE RINGBEARER

 

WHERE'S RODNEY

  

Thank You Floyd for such an amazing interview!!! I appreciate you and best believe I'll be getting every book you mentioned!

Thank you all for reading!!!

Please come back again!!!

Double Identity

Double Identity 

By: Margaret Peterson Haddix

This book is about a girl named Bethany who grew up completely sheltered and spoiled by her parents. Until suddenly...things changed.

Bethany noticed that her mom was crying a lot and her dad started getting depressed.

One day her parents dropped her off at a strangers house and left her there without warning, without reason. They even changed their number so Bethany could not get in contact with them.

As time goes on Bethany  began to find out dark things about her parents and past that she never knew or could even imagine to be real. She came to realize she didn't know them at all. She even found out that she might have had an older sister who died in a crash that apparently looked identical to her.

It turned out that her father was on the run from a criminal who had just been released from prison.
There is some suspicion that her father was a part of some extremely illegal and unethical activities with this man and her father framed him, putting him away for the majority of Bethany's life up until now.

What kind of trouble did her dad get into? Did he and his wife give Bethany away to save her? Read the book to find out

I got this book for my 6th Birthday from one of my mother's friends. I know it sounds crazy but its not so bad once you get the whole story. Yes, My mom began reading the book to me when we first got it, but we put the book on hold until recently. I finished this book in 2018. Margaret Haddix writes a lot of young adult fiction books and is part of the Scholastic Book Club. At some of your school book fairs, you may even spot some of Haddix's books like 39 Clues, (which is a book that is part of a larger series by a variety of authors), or Risked (which is part of The Missing Series). If you have a book written by Margaret Haddix, share and tell me what you think of her as an author.

Thanks for reading!!!

Scared of the Dark

Scared of the Dark,

A book written by Shannon Passe

Illustrated by: Craig Orback

Published by: Heinemann

Fountas & Pinnell LITERACY  

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Words: 1067 

Level:  N

This book is not that long because it is part of a collection which I don't have, but I was lucky enough to get this copy because I'm actually in it. I'll explain later.

Quinn, 

A city kid, was being dropped off for two weeks at his uncle TJ and auntie Ny's house. He was used to being in the city not a rural neighborhood. 
Quinn does not like rural areas because there are no street lights, just nature, making it easy for him to use the black night to create scary figures in the night.

One night, Quinn left his uncle's binoculars outside on a tree and just remember he did when it was super dark out. At first he planned on getting it the next day but he knew he would get in trouble from his uncle if it got messed up, so he went outside to get it but heard sounds in bushes that made him scared. When he grabbed the binoculars he hurried back to the house and his auntie and uncle was there waiting for him. Quinn admitted he was scared of the dark but his aunt told him it wasn't that bad and told him to look in the sky.
The sky was lit with stars everywhere. He never got to see the night like that in the city. He and his aunt and uncle spent the night put stargazing. 

Back to what I was saying about me in the book, its true, I'm the kid illustrated in this book. See for yourself!

Pretty cool huh? 

I actually got to work with Craig Orback! 

I was shy at first but he was nice so I really enjoyed myself.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to do something like this again in the future. 

*FINGERS CROSSED* Thank you for reading.

Erased

by Kei Sanbe

This book was crazy, like very crazy. My mom picked out this book just like the other ones, She didn't know it was going to be crazy. I think she just chose it because of the cover. The cover doesn't do a good job at giving you any clue to how the book is gonna turn out. 

This book is very dark, not dark literally cuz the book cover is white 😂. But the book is pretty disturbing.

It's about a twenty nine year old guy named Satoru Fujinuma, who has the ability to go back in time and correct mistakes. He calls it "Revival." He didn't really understand how to use his powers at first, it was just like deja vu. 

Satoru would usually go back hours or days but one day his mom gets murdered and it heightened his abilities making him go back in time eighteen years. 

Going back in time may save his mom but may also cost him his own life. Erased is an eight book series but was also turned into an anime cartoon. Like most series that hit the screen, the anime is told a little different. Even though this book was a little disturbing it kept me on my toes and was satisfyingly suspenseful and intriguing. I give this book a 5 star rating. 

Here is a trailer of the Erased anime:

If you decide to read the book or watch the anime, please comment and share your thoughts.

Thanks for reading.  

Peace out ✌✌✌

Too Much Magic

Too Much Magic,
by Betsy and Samuel Sterman
Eight year old Jeff finds a cube in a park that grants any wish and has unlimited wishes. Jeff and his older brother Bill, finds it fun and interesting to wish for anything. The brothers started wishing for things any kid their age would wish for.  But eventually, the cube will get Jeff and Bill in to trouble. They need to work together to get things back in order.

The cool thing about this book is that it was written in 1987, 3 years after my mother was born, and it was her first Chapter book. She told me this was the first book that inspired her to want to read more books.

Reading this book, really took my imagination for a ride. I thought about all the cool things I'd wish for if I ever was lucky enough to find a magic cube, but reading about the trouble that Jeff and Bill caused, made me rethink how I'd go about my wishes.

Let me ask you something, If you had a magic cube with unlimited powers, what would you wish for? Comment below.

Kaffir Boy

Kaffir Boy,
A book written by Mark Mathabane, was introduced to me by my mother this past spring. This book is about a child who survived the cruel and harsh realities of living in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Mark and his family were very poor and couldn't buy much things. His house was pretty much empty. Mark had to sleep on cardboard boxes. Cops always raided the town and broke into people's houses and arrested the parents for no reason. Mark's father got arrested a few times for no reason and then one day he got arrested for six months.
Mark and his mom spent christmas without him.
Mark's mother kept having babies. She had seven kids including Mark.

Mark started going to school at seven years old. He was one of the best and smartest kids in his school. He got hit with canes from his principle because he didn't wear the right clothes and didn't have books. As mark got older he started doing more things.

He went into a white town for the first time to work with his grandmother. She worked as a gardener for the Smiths. His grandmother gave him his first introductory to english books. One being, "Treasure Island." The book made Mark dream about escaping the law of Apartheid.  In reality, he found it hard to carry the burden of hostility around daily. He said he knew the consequences of that much anger. It was self defeating. 

There were times in the book where Mark would mention a troubled group of people known as Tsotsi's. Tsotsi means: a black street thug.
There was an incident where Mark was walking home from school and this random guy, carrying groceries, was approached by a group of Tsotsi's. They gutted him in the middle of the street for no reason at all. Mark ran and hid, fearing for his own life. 
As the man was getting stabbed he begged the Tsotsi's to stop and pleaded for his life, letting the men know he had nine children. But the men continued and eventually the man bled to death.

This book is very interesting but also extremely sad because I've seen movies about things like this and heard stories, but to read a true story from the actual victim of these circumstances was traumatizing. It made me afraid to think that I exist in a world where things like this really happen.

From this book,  I've learned alot about racism, poverty, perseverance and beating the odds. It helped me to self reflect, to realize my own blessings and to see how small my problems are compared to others.

I recommend this book and give it a 5 Star rating!!!

Thanks for reading!!!


*Notes
Kaffir-Disparaging and Offensive. (in South Africa) a contemptuous term used to refer to a black person: originally used of the Xhosa people only.

Tsotsi- A Black street thug or gang member; wide boy

Apartheid- (in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.

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