by Steven Engelfried<\/p>\n
I like a good story, and appreciate eloquent writing, but the element that I seem to respond to most strongly in books is characterizations.\u00a0 <\/span>And I think many kids respond that way too.\u00a0 <\/span>In a year\u2019s worth of children\u2019s books, we get to meet so many very interesting people (and animals).\u00a0 <\/span>My favorite 2007 characters include a girl who chases chickens (The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County <\/em>by Janice Harrington) <\/em>(I like Miss Hen a lot too), two boat-loving twins with a language of their own (Mokie and Bik<\/em> by Wendy Orr), a girl who masters a Neil Diamond song on an organ (A Crooked Kind of Perfect <\/em>by Linda Urban), and a dog who serves in the Vietnam War (Cracker <\/em>by Cynthia Kadohata).\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n My favorite character of the year is nine year old Lenny, from Kate Banks\u2019 Lenny\u2019s Space<\/em>.\u00a0 <\/span>On the outside, Lenny\u2019s a disturbance in class, a minor trial to his mother, either made fun of or ignored by his classmates, and a challenge to his therapist.\u00a0 But readers, and to some degree all of the others, get to know him better.\u00a0 <\/span>Banks does a marvelous job of getting us into Lenny\u2019s head so we understand the thought process behind his behaviors, and it really rings true.\u00a0 <\/span>He gets in trouble for yelling at a library book when he\u2019s supposed to know better.\u00a0 <\/span>But he yells because he’s angry at the red blood cells he\u2019s reading about\u2026the same kind of cells that are threatening the life of his best friend.\u00a0 <\/span>This is a marvelous book, and I think Lenny is a character they\u2019ll find interesting and memorable, as I did.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/font>\u00a0<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>The only thing is, it\u2019s a lot easier to describe plots than characters to kids who are looking for reading recommendations.\u00a0 <\/span>Lenny\u2019s Space <\/em>is about a misfit boy and the sad thing that happens to his friend, but there\u2019s really so much more to it.\u00a0 <\/span>In some other books, the plot summary alone can capture most of the essence of the story in just a few words. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Phyllis Naylor\u2019s \u201cBoys vs. Girls\u201d\u009d series is a breeze:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cA family of boys and a family of girls play practical jokes on each other\u201d\u009d pretty much sells it.\u00a0 <\/span>On the other hand, I\u2019ve had hardly any success in convincing kids to read Hilary McKay\u2019s \u201cExiles\u201d\u009d books.\u00a0 <\/span>I clearly remember trying to describe the scene in which Phoebe pretends to fish from a bucket, and why it\u2019s so funny, and noting a polite, but increasingly baffled expression on the face of the eleven year old girl, who really just wanted a good story.\u00a0 <\/span>It just didn\u2019t work; you needed to get to know Phoebe and her sisters for that scene to even make sense, let alone make you laugh.\u00a0 <\/span>I haven\u2019t figured out yet how I might present Lenny\u2019s Space <\/em>to a potential reader, but it will be challenging.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/span>\u00a0<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s okay, though.\u00a0 <\/span>Lenny will find readers.\u00a0 <\/span>After all, Hilary McKay\u2019s readership has grown quite a bit in this country since The Exiles <\/em>came out in the early 90\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>Some of her books have shown up as state children\u2019s choice award nominees.\u00a0 <\/span>Word of mouth among kids and adults must have helped.\u00a0 <\/span>And I also believe that youth librarians each play a small part in bringing excellent characters and worthy authors, every time we make that sometimes difficult attempt to introduce kids to unique characters, whether or not their story is instantly appealing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My favorite 2007 characters include a girl who chases chickens (I like Miss Hen a lot too)…, two boat-loving twins with a language of their own…, a girl who masters a Neil Diamond song on an organ…, and a dog who serves in the Vietnam War… (<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[22,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-literature","category-slice-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}