Switching Sides

I'm really starting to feel like I'm on a roll with the weekly blog. In spite of the fact that I wind up reading most of my pages towards the deadline, I'm still finding it easier this time round than last time.

Last time it demanded a lot more of me emotionally. My casual, chill attitude has removed a lot of the stress: let's see if I'm still like this on week 52 (haha)!

This week's book was chosen due to its length: it was shorter than an average novel but not small enough to feel like I'm copping out. It's the ideal book for that year 3-4 age range who need something with a bit of a kick to keep them engaged.

Most people will know Anthony Horowitz by the Alex Rider book series. For me, spies and espionage in a book is really not my bag. I was aware however, of the fact that he'd written other, more scary texts (Granny springs to mind).

The Switch is a story of two boys from entirely different worlds, who accidentally switch bodies one night. The first boy, Tad has all the privaliges that money and wealth can afford. Bob on the other hand has had to grow up on the wrong side of the tracks. When one night a case of magic means they swap bodies, chaos ensues. The journey that the boys will undertake includes murder, burglary and genocide!
Will they make it back to themselves is the ultimate question.

The language in this book isn't overly complex, but every now and again you stumble across a beautiful gem of a word, like the word languid, which stood out so loudly in the sentence that all I could see was the word itself. I had to reread that sentence twice!

The best thing about this book though is it's portrayal of characters. It's a twisted version of Oliver Twist where even the heroes are villains. There are no real good guys in this book, save the two boys themselves. If you're looking for something with a happy ending, this really isn't it!
I'm very glad I got a chance to sample the Horowitz style of writing, and while I won't be cracking into Storm breaker any time soon, I would certainly be open to more Horowitz stories!
Book 9 of my 52 book list and a book published in the 20th Century.

Book Title: The Switch 

Author: Anthony Horowitz 

First Published: 1996 

Number of Pages: 180 

Suitable for: children ages 8 and up (older year 3 children and upwards) Interesting words: languid, genocide,  institute, juvenile

Coronavirus the children's version

It's May, it's 2020 and if you haven't heard the words pandemic, corona or lockdown at least a hundred times then you have achieved something incredible: it's everywhere. We have all been affected by it some way either directly or indirectly. It's affected our health, our wellbeing, our livelihoods, our ability to contact and communicate with others.
The fear of the disease and the hatred among people has spread faster than the disease itself. It has revealed the best in people, but also the absolute worst.

Books for children have spread exponentially over the past 30 years, it seems like the world and his wife have attempted writing a book for children. It's a fiercely competitive market, in some respects it's more fierce than the adult novel writing. According to recent statistics there are more than 80,000 children's books published every single year. But with covid-19 only in the public consciousness in the past 4 months, there surely couldn't be any children's books about it already could there?

Simple answer is yes.

I decided to give myself an easy-ish week this week, which is why my blog has returned to it's normal Tuesday slot instead of being doled out on a Wednesday or Thursday. With my adult list of books to read piling up and other obligations and needs taking precedence I thought 'surely there must be something out there to help kids who are younger understand more about what's going on'. 

A quick search on Love Reading For Kids helped me find it. Love Reading For Kids is an amazing site that has extracts from the latest children's books as well as previously established children's authors and well loved children's classics. 

You can download these extracts to read and decide which book is best for your child, better yet, it allows them (through it's easy to navigate interface) to choose books for themselves. There are readers' reviews and suitable age recommendations: it is the go to place to search for children's literature. 

Anyway, I found this book, 15 pages long, fully illustrated (by the legendary Axel Scheffler no less) and free to read (bonus). 

It explains about what coronavirus is, why lockdown is in place, how to catch the virus and how to keep from catching it as best as possible. The writing is simple enough for young children to wrap their head around and the illustrations help to disarm any fears, to soothe and to reassure children. 

I wish I'd come across it sooner as it was published in early April. No points for me for being a bit slow off the mark. 

But in spite of the fact that almost everybody everywhere in the world probably knows about it, there still may be some merit in sharing it out anyway. After all, it is something free to read and helpful for children who might be struggling with the concept of lockdown and the reasons behind it. 

Book 8 of my 52 book list and a book that can be read in a day. 

The link is here in case you find it useful: 

Coronavirus, a book for children.

Book Title: Coronavirus: a book for children
Authors: Elizabeth Jenner, Kate Wilson & Nia Roberts
Illustrator: Axel Scheffler
Number of pages: 15
First Published: April 2020
Suitable for: all children, it can be read to younger children.
Interesting words: vaccine, antibodies, ventilator

Do you know me? Really?

Autism, how many of you know someone, or work with someone or love someone with autistic tendencies?

I bet the answer would be most of you. But like issues of depression, anxiety, mental illness as a whole; the problem surrounding autism is one of understanding and empathy. It's not that we as people lack any of the two traits (understanding and empathy-though some people really do). Instead, we rush to feel too much of it. We all identify heavily and say 'oh yeah, I have a bit of ocd, I can't see the colour purple mixed with brown'.
Or, this one is a personal favourite, I have depression, I get days where I just feel so sad.
Already I know I'm having an emotional response to what I'm typing, because I've had people try and empathise with what is very much a chemical imbalance going on in my body. But I don't judge people harshly for doing what they do, they're being friendly, trying to help me and letting me know that I'm not alone with troubles.

And let's face it, I dabble in the occasional bit of hypocrisy as much as the next 'normal' human; so I'd be a liar if I didn't try to show that kind of empathy to others without knowing much about their conditions.

My genuine concern is that being on the spectrum is a real thing, people really live with these chemical and neurological differences. But the more the outside world dilutes them, the more we cheapen them and make them harder to understand. And nowhere is that subject more diluted at the moment, than in the area of children's fiction.

Every other book I've picked up focuses on a character who's parents have died or who is different from everybody else. What's the biggest way of showing them up as different? Give them autistic tendencies or a special educational need: just so we can REALLY see how the world doesn't get how different they are at the start of the book but learns by the end of the book.

It has become mundane to me as an educator to continually read generically written books that are so similar in terms of character development and plot points, that I was able to start predicting endings, as if I had a crystal ball in hand.

So this week's book has been more of a struggle to write about than read. I shall start with a brief bit of history. I have since fallen back into reading children's books for pleasure as part of my role, this most of my close friends and family know. What many don't know is a gorgeous little book club on Twitter called Primary School Book Club used to encourage me to read at least one book a month. This doesn't sound like much but it was easy for me to fit into my blog schedule and the books covered often featured in my list of challenge topics so it was a clear win/win. 

I got back to it at the start of  May and I was delighted to see how much it had grown in popularity and audience. I had a proud - as - punch moment thinking that I was there from it's early days and now there were authors clamouring to be chosen as the next month's book.

This choice was one that had me scratching my head from the word go. I thought it was going to be the same as all the rest. 

From the blurb and the snippets I'd managed to glean about the story's origins on the internet it was the sequel to the book 'Can You See Me' written by 12 year old Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott. The main character, Tally, has Pathological Demand Avoidance and struggles when the basic freedoms of choice are taken away, or unexpected stresses are thrown at her. She has sensory issues on top of this which make loud noises, such as shouting a problem. 

I am going to make an honest confession here both as an educator and a parent looking in from the outside. At the start of this story it was so hard for me not to judge! Maybe that shows that I really don't know the subject at all. 

Tally's character came across as very unsympathetic to me, particularly because the first chunk of the story shows her interactions with her family and they are the ones that are the most extreme. So no matter how hard she tried to refer to her meltdowns as being something she couldn't help, I found myself feeling more for her parents and the constant eggshells they would have had to have trodden around her. 

As the book progressed however, so did I. The mixture of third and first person perspective in the form narrative switched with a series of Tally's diary entries had me realising just how hard each struggle was. And she came out with very abrupt sayings at points that I actually found were just the things I'd say in her shoes as I've lacked a filter all my life. Does that mean I have autistic traits? Of course not, I wouldn't insult anyone who really had them by pretending I do. But it could help me empathise and therefore sympathise with her a little more. 

The story follows her on a week long residential trip where she winds up finding everything going wrong from the start. The friend who she was supposed to be paired up with gets put somewhere else. The only teacher from her year who could really understand her issues winds up pulling out at the last minute and then, to add the icing on the cake she has to share a room with a bully, who in a way doesn't get enough pity for the fact that her parents really don't seem to care about her. Maybe there's something of a story there too. 

Tally copes, as we all do when life throws curve balls our way. Her progress is painfully slow, but it is progress, and the innocence of the writing had me thinking more and more that I had judged her too harshly at the start. Her biggest fear, more than anything else in the world, is allowing her condition to hinder or embarrass her in front of others. It is that strength and pride that helps her through some of the toughest situations, that and a massive realisation at one point that really, doing what comes naturally to her is far more important than trying to fit in with the 'cool kids'. 

I devoured this book, reading three quarters of it in just one day. I found Tally's transformation thoroughly refreshing: this was an angle I'd never seen before, one where the person with the personality traits was allowed to shine, rather than just having a babied image of her which was shaped, but perhaps not understood by the people around her. And though, I had a wavering moment where I thought it was going to end a little predictably, I was pleasantly surprised to see it sticking to it's guns of originality. 

I want to hope I've grown with reading it, I will certainly think twice before being so quick to judge a book by it's topic again! 

Book 7 of my 52 books and a book about personal growth. 

Book Title: Do You Know Me
Authors: Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott
Number of Pages: 368
First Published: 2020
Suitable for: children aged 8 and up (year 3 onwards)
Interesting words: taut, crepuscular, scintillating, abject

Quick Tools and Treasures

This week I chose an easy to read book, after last week's mammoth challenge. But in a way, by reading my first non-fiction offering I've set myself up for a hard to review book.

It's kind of easy to review a story once you know it's components, things like character, plot development and vocabulary kinda of come naturally like that feeling when you've mastered a second language and can smoothly jump from one language to the other and back. But what elements are there in a non fiction book to review? How do you convey the effectiveness of an author's use of language? Do the pictures bring sky value to the text?

I thought very carefully once I spent my first hour reading my choice of book this week. I felt I owed it to myself to make this choice a positive one. 

China has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons sadly; so I thought the timing of this book couldn't be better. I've always had a fascination with Chinese history and culture and there is so much to like about the country that brought us map making, fireworks and the single largest man made structure in the world (the only one visible from space no less).

Tools and Treasures of Ancient China is part of a series of books by searchlight books which explores ancient civilisations. Written by Candice Ransom, yes that is actually her name, it tells us about Chinese history, Geography and culture. It is 38 pages long with each page containing 1 paragraph, 1 image and a caption. It is broken into 4 clear and concise chapters and contains a glossary at the back as well as an index and a set of online links with which you can study the subject further. 

The pictures are well laid out and the text is easy to read without being too babyish. Brightly coloured captions are easy to read and it tells us the basics about the lives of rulers and regular people.

Worth a read with some interesting nuggets of information about China's Dynasty rule, the building of the Great Wall and many other things besides, this book is ideal for any child who is a fairly secure reader. Year 1 children (5 year olds) might struggle with some of the tougher words but on the whole they could probably read and understand most of it.

Book 6 in my blog challenge and my easy to read non-fiction book!

Book Title: Tools and Treasures of Ancient China
Author: Candice Ransom
First Published: 2014
Pages: 38
Suitable for: children aged 5 (more able readers) and up.
Interesting words: civilisations, dynasties, ancient