
The Girl Who Swallowed the Sun by Zetta Elliott. Illustrated by Bek Millhouse. Rosetta Press, 2014. Review copy. This one is a little more sad, and set in current history. Zoe and her daddy play a game each day, pretending that she swallowed the sun before he goes to work. He would tickle her until she laughed and let the sun back out to shine out from behind the clouds. "You're my sunshine and I love you," Daddy would always say." Then one day while daddy is at work in NYC the grownups at home start acting weird. Mama and Nana are listening to the news and the phone and crying SweetJesusSweetJesusSweetJesus. No one tells her what is wrong, they just tell her to go play. She thinks maybe she swallowed the sun for real. Her neighborhood is full of flags but no one is celebrating, and it is cloudy all the time. Daddy doesn't come home. At last her Mama pulls her into her lap and tells her the truth - about the terrible day thousands of people lost their lives, and Daddy was one of those people. They mourn together, and try to put the sun back in the sky. Mama says it is going to take a while, but everything will be alright. The story ends with comforting hugs between mother and child, and a hopeful note. A difficult subject but one that children need to bring us through and move us forward. Elliot shares on her blog her memories of hearing the news on 9/11, of the towers falling and the planes crashing. She stopped writing her dissertation and started reading stories for children. In the weeks that followed she wrote this story.
These three short early chapter books are perfect for primary and middle grade children, offering elements of fantasy and history with compelling characters and vivid descriptions of place and setting. Readers are quickly drawn into the story, the pacing is quick and the resolutions satisfying. Diverse characters are embraced in warm families as they work on building friendships and dealing with familiar challenges.
I nominated The Boy in the Bubble for a Cybils award in the Short Chapter Books category. The other two are still awaiting someone to nominate them!
Tomorrow, Oct. 15 2014 is the last day that Cybils nominations are open for the season. Have you checked to see if your favorites are on the lists? There are seven categories of the very best children's books published in the U.S. in 2014. This is your chance to make your nominations!! Round one judges (I am one!!) will select the top five to seven books in each category by Dec. 1, and then the Final judging selects just one winner in each, to be announced in February. Go check it out!
3 comments:
I loved the Boy in the Bubble and was thinking about nominating it myself, but you beat me to it. :) I haven't read the other two yet.
Lyn Miller beat me to another of Zetta's! But, I'm excited to see more than one of hers in the mix.
Thank you, Andi, for giving my books a chance! It means a lot that you took the time to read and review them--and even nominate one for a Cybil! Thanks to Sheila and Tanita, too, for your support.
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