Does My Head Look Big in This?

If you've been following my blog over the past couple months, you may have noticed I've been on a young adult literature kick.

Because of my interest in travel and other cultures, the books I've been gravitating to stick to these themes. I've also been able to read through them more quickly as they are often shorter than adult novels.

But that's not to say they don't tackle heavy ideas. For example, I just finished reading a book called Does My Head Look Big in This written by Randa Abdel-Fatta.

The book takes place in suburban Melbourne (the author is Australian) and is about a high school gal dealing with some critical identity issues. Even though she is Australian, she is also Palestinian and Muslim. She attends a hoity-toity private school with a strict uniform policy and she has recently decided that she wants to wear a hijab, or head-scarf.

Will she be able to manage all the typical social pressures any normal high school girl must deal with while also managing the stereotypes and questions that come with the hijab? You'll have to read the book to find out.

This is Abdel-Fatta's first book, and I could kind of tell. Sometimes the main character got too preachy and high-strung. However, that wouldn't stop me from recommending it to a teen reader.

It does offer an interesting cultural perspective. The United States isn't the only country in the world where people deal with hyphenated ethnic labels, and this book clearly illustrates that. Plus, even for me, an adult reader, it was interesting to encounter the thoughts and feelings that a Muslim woman might go through in decided whether or not to don the hijab.

Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico

I've traveled off-the-beaten-path in Mexico, so I was curious when I came across this young adult novel called Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico.

The book, which I was wary of at first because it started off with some sexy, getting-drunk party scenes (it's a book for teens), turned out to be a good read.

It's about a high school girl named Sofi Mendoza who lives in LA. Her friends come up with this plan to tell all their parents they are sleeping over at each other's houses when really they are going to cross the border into Mexico and go to a party at a friend's weekend house in Rosarita.

What Sofi doesn't know is that she's not a U.S. citizen. She makes it into Mexico just fine, but when it's time to come home, she gets stopped by border patrol. She isn't allowed back into the United States and that's when her whole world gets turned upside down.

Via phone calls back to her mom and dad, she gets directed to relatives in Tijuana who she has never met. She must stay with them until her visa/residency/passport situation gets straightened out.

In the end, while I did think some of the boy-meets-girl themes were a bit too over-the-top and racy, as a whole, the descriptions of Tijuana and rural Mexico struck me as right. Plus, the observations Sofi makes about life between the two cultures and countries, and the lessons she learns about education, opportunity and family were wise and true.

Learn more about the author, Malin Alegria.

Sudanese Lost Boy Finds Home in Minnesota

Lately, I've been on a young adult literature kick.

Years ago, when I taught 8th grade, I used to read a lot of YA books, but since leaving the classroom behind, I'd kind of forgotten about the genre. But not anymore. I'm back into young adult and children's literature with a vengeance.

A friend, a former teacher herself, recommended I read Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate.

I'm so happy I did. It's a gentle, touching novel about a young Sudanese boy who immigrates to America.

He arrives alone. His father and brother were killed in his country's brutal civil war and his mother is missing, unaccounted for. He is placed in Minnesota to live with an aunt and a cousin already here.

The story is told all in poems. The language is precise and poignant and sparse. It's just lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you've got a young person in your life -- say middle school -- and you want to expose them to thoughtful prose and other cultures, this book is a winner.

Day of the Dead Picture Book

Halloween and Mexico's Day of the Dead are not the same thing. First of all, today is Halloween, but tomorrow -- November 1 -- is Day of the Dead.

Secondly, while Halloween seems to be all about scaring yourself silly and hoarding candy, the Day of the Dead is about peacefully welcoming back the departed souls of your loved ones and spending time remembering your good times together even though you're now separated by death.

This picture book, Calavera Abecedario: A Day of the Dead Alphabet Book, by Jeanette Winter, can help teach those differences.

It's an alphabet book with a cultural twist: Each letter of the alphabet depicts a skeleton all dolled-up for a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration.

The words associated with each letter are in Spanish, but the illustrations and glossary at the end make it easy to understand what all the words mean.

The happy skeletons offer a perfect opportunity to discuss the differences between Halloween and Day of the Dead and illustrate that even though skeletons are part of the Mexican holiday, they are about celebration and not fear.

And the pictures also show that both holidays are about sweet things to eat.

While the alphabet format suggests a younger audience, the book’s cultural element means it could be used with older students, too.

Carpe Diem -- YA Travel Novel

A friend told me about a book called Carpe Diem. It's a young adult novel, she said, about traveling in Asia.

Since she's a reader whose opinion I respect, I decided to take her advice and seek out this book written by Autumn Cornwell.

In it, a sixteen year-old girl named Vassar gets kidnapped to Southeast Asia. Well, she's not really kidnapped. But to her, it feels like it.

Her artist grandmother insists that Vassar get out of the country and away from her high-expectation parents for a summer. The grandma fears Vassar is in danger of becoming an over-focused planner with no ability to adapt to life's changes.

And of course, if you've been there, then you know that there is no better way to break someone of their love of planning than to take them on a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia.

I actually really liked the book. It didn't matter to me at all that the main character was a 16 year old kid. I identified with her journey, the places she was seeing and the feelings she was experiencing.

If you know a middle school/high school girl looking for a book, I say hand her a copy of Carpe Diem. And even if you're an adult -- so what? It's still worth a read!

Multi-Cultural Cinderlla Story

Glass Slipper Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella
By Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by Julie Paschkis

This isn’t just any old fairy tale. This is Cinderella with a global twist.

Glass Slipper Gold Sandal, by Paul Fleischman, weaves 17 different countries together in this story.

Each lends the words and images of their own Cinderella stories to the retelling of this classic tale.

In France, Cinderella wears glass slippers, but in India she wears diamond anklets and in Iraq she wears sandals of gold.

The various traditions and cultures weave together to create a story that is familiar but new.

Readers come to realize that while the details of our daily lives might differ on the surface, in the end, “happily ever after” means the same thing everywhere.

Easter Island in Picture Book Form

Children's author T.A. Barron was inspired to write this picture book, The Day the Stones Walked, after taking a trip to Easter Island.

A few years back, while traveling in Chile, Hubby and I contemplated a trip to Easter Island. The airfare, however, was a deterrent. Looking back, I wish we'd make the investment. I still think about going there.

In a way, this picture book allowed me to visit the island.

The illustrations (by William Low) are haunting, yet they perfectly fit with the story of Easter Island, which is one of the most remote places on Earth.

The story asks the question: How did those massive, stone faces -- the moai -- come to be and what is their purpose?

Pico, an island boy, doubts the power of the moai and even resents the faces as his father is a stone carver who spends all his time creating new heads.

But one day, Pico is unexpectedly caught in a tsunami and the moai come to his rescue.

Travel Guides for Kids by M. Sasek

It's that time of year. School is letting out and parents are starting to wonder how to channel their kids' energy into something productive.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some picture book titles this week that involve travel in some way. I strongly believe that travel is a great teacher. Even if you can't actually get out there and put your feet in another country, you can still travel through books.

First off, I'd recommend a series of books by author/illustrator M. Sasek. His books have been around for years so you should easily be able to find them in a library.

They are easy to recognize as they are all titled the same: This is Paris, This is London, This is Madrid, This is Rome, This is New York, etc.

Each one highlights common sights and daily activities you might see if you were to take a walking tour of that city. The text is sparse, allowing the illustrations to shine through.

Kids won't gain any sort of deep historical understanding about the world's greatest cities by reading M. Sasek's books.

Instead, by reading the illustrations, they will start to recognized some iconic structures like Big Ben and the Colosseum.

And they will also start to see that no matter where you go, people like to go to parks, play on swing sets, feed the squirrels and watch street artists.