From the Belly Button of the Moon

This book is full of poems about summer. Some poems are short and choppy, others are longer and include Latino heritage. Some poems rhyme and others do not. The poems describe the joys that can be found on this earth and the beauty it holds. The poems also describe nature and how it mirrors other things in nature. Each poem has the poem in English and then in Spanish.

The pictures are brightly colored and use colors from the Latino culture as well as designs that come from the culture. The pictures fill 2 pages per poem and usually tell more than just the poem explains. The illustrations look as if they are from a dream.

Alarcon, Francisco. (1998). From the belly button of the moon and other summer poems. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.

How to Heal a Broken Wing

A bird is flying through the city, hits a building, and falls to the ground. A young boy named Will is the only one to see the bird lying injured on the ground - it had a broken wing. Will took the bird home, nurtured it, and let it rest. Wills family hope all of their TLC will help the bird to fly again. His family takes the bird back to where he found it. They release the bird and the bird flies away.

The pictures in the story add more to the story than just the few words in the story tell. The pictures are cartoon-like but are very sweet and colorful. Some pages have a full two page picture spread, others are asymmetrical or laid out like the Sunday comics.

Graham, Bob. (2008). How to Heal a broken wing. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Pr.

Rosa

Rosa Parks was a seamstress and her boss let her out early one day and she made her way to the bus to go home. She paid her fair, went to the segregated entrance in the back of the bus and sat in the "neutral" section of the bus where blacks or whites could sit. The bus driver yelled for Mrs. Parks and some other riders to leave the seats - all did but Rosa. She was tired of segregation and didn't want to move so the driver called the police and she was arrested. The colored people in Alabama decided to boycott riding the bus and held a peaceful demonstration with the help Dr. Martin Luther King for about a year. The Supreme Court finally ruled that segregation was wrong and everyone was entitled to be equal.

The illustrator uses muted colors to establish the mood in this amazing story. The use of collage allows for a dynamic that reinforces the words written on the page. The pictures fill one and a half pages and are very realistic.

Giovanni, Nikki, & Collier, Bryan. (2005). Rosa. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR).

New Moon

After an accident at Bella's birthday party at the Cullen's house, Edward realizes that he only endangers Bella's life and leaves Forks and she is left crying in the forest calling his name. In her depression, she begins to hear Edward's voice talking to her only when she is in a dangerous situation. After she acquires two motorcycles, Bella befriends Jacob Black, a family friend, they repair the motorcycles and during that time he begins to feel stronger emotions towards Bella than she feels towards him as Bella also discovers that Jacob morphs into a werewolf. Bella endangers herself on the motorcycle and also cliff jumps in an attempt to hear Edward's voice again but Edward's sister Alice sees in a vision Bella's demise, informs Edward, and he travels to petition the Volturi in Rome in hopes they will end his existence. Bella and Alice fly to Rome and find Edward before he reveals himself as a vampire in public, but all three are escorted to the leaders of the Volturi where Bella's unknown talents are discovered and they learn that the Cullen's must turn Bella into a vampire or she will suffer the consequences of knowing the vampire life.

Understatement is rampant in this story because of Bella's depression and how she loses herself when Edward leaves her in Forks alone. The reader is left to infer and add their own life experiences into the story. Internal dialogue allows the reader to see how each character feels about situations and relationships during the story.

Meyer, Stephenie. (2008). New moon. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Twilight

Bella Swan moves to Forks to live with her father and she attends the local high school but unknown to the town, a vampire family lives there. Bella is drawn to this unusual family and boy named Edward who she finds out through a series of events is a vampire. Bella and Edward begin to date and discover there are limits to their love when Edward begins to bring her around his family and attends their baseball game. At the baseball game, three rogue vampires hear the game, want to play, and James smells her and wants her blood. The family tries to hide her and in a whirlwind of events she ends up in her hometown in Arizona where she is enticed to go to James alone after he compels her to believe that she is saving Edward. After she is bitten , Edward and the family save her from her ultimate demise.

Dialogue is very strong in this story because one of the best parts of the story is when Edward and Bella declare their love for each other without saying the words I love you.
This book has a lot of understatement because it is a teen story and the reader is left to let their imagination take them as far as their knowledge and inferring allows.

Meyer, Stephenie. (2006). Twilight. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.