The Summer Birds

The Summer Birds is an interesting tale about kids who meet a strange boy. When the boy teaches the kids to fly, some of the children question his talent and end up going into a full out war. The Summer Birds is written by Penelope Farmer.
Review by Alli

A Haitian Family

I am reading Tracy Kidder's book, Mountains Beyond Mountains about Paul Farmer, an amazing doctor who cures people in Haiti of infectious diseases. My women's book club was going to discuss the book and I wanted to know more about Haiti.
I found this book, A Haitian Family as part of a Journey Between Two Worlds series. The story part of the book focuses on nine year old Gregory who came to the United States as a refugee. That means he immigrated to our country because he was escaping persecution in his own country or rather his father was. Gregory's family arrived in New York by plane but that is not how they started their journey here. They left Haiti on a very crowded flimsy boat and ended up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after being picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. They lived in a refugee camp for several months awaiting for permission to continue on to the U.S.
This book also explains the history of Haiti. It begins the story in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, which is what the island was named before, and continues to 1996 when René Préval became president. Now Haiti occupies about one-third of the island on the west and the country of Dominican Republic is on the eastern side.
You'll find out why Gregory's family was being persecuted and learn a lot about the struggles and culture of the people who live very close to our southern state of Florida.

Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine?

Yeah, what's a zine? This arty book explains the art of making zines and mini-comics with contributions by more than 20 creators of Indie Comics and Magazines. Written by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson, this manual will get you motivated and off the ground running. I guarantee you will have your own zine started before you even finish this book. Actually you don't even have to finish the book at all - just read all the pictures and flip through the pages and you'll know what a zine is and how to make your own. Aren't you excited? I am, in fact I am going to stop blogging right now and start another zine. Bye.

Regarding the Trees

Did you ever read Regarding the Fountain or Regarding the Sink? This book by Kate Klise is just as clever as the others and has our favorite entrepreneur, Florence Waters assisting the Geyser Creek Middle School and principal Wally Russ again. This time she is called with a tree trimming proposal and now Mr N's class has a special interest in the trees. Goldie Fisch and Tad Poll and Walter Russ have new friends in this book, see if you can figure out their names. I especially like Jeannie Ologee. The illustrations by the author's sister, Sarah Klise contributes smartly to the book's unique format.