We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins

This is a favorite in our house! 

A story about learning self-control, trying new things, and about how difficult it is to make friends if you are always eating potential friends. 

Little Penelope Rex is nervous about her first day at school. 

What if her classmates had more teeth than she had?! 

Her father packed her a filling and nutritional meal of three hundred tuna sandwiches and one apple juice. 

To Penelope's great shock, her classmates were CHILDREN.

You might not be able to see, but there is the cutest little double decker reading area over there in the top right hand corner. I covet one of those for my library. 

Penelope did what T-Rexes do and ate those children up.

Mrs. Noodleman wasn't standing for that nonsense. 

Everyone is covered in dinosaur spit which is not a particularly auspicious beginning. 

I adore the skinny little girl at the front there shaking her fist at Penelope. She is who I want to be when I grow up.

Penelope tries to make friends, but somehow, her efforts don't seem to inspire friendship in her classmates. 

She shares her friend difficulties with her father

"Penelope Rex," her father asked, "did you eat your classmates?"

"Well...maybe sort of just a little bit."

Penelope's father shares wisdom with her--

"Children are just like us on the inside. Just tastier." 

The next day, Penelope tried. But William Omoto was irresistibly delicious looking.  

Giving up on human, Penelope tries to make friends with Walter the classroom pet.

Walter tries to eat Penelope, giving her a taste of her own treatment. 

Penelope learns compassion through her own brush with someone trying to eat her.

She stopped eating her classmates....

(Even when Cece Woodman spilled BBQ sauce all over herlself)

And if she is ever tempted to forget, she can just look at Walter licking his lips and remember. 

Dreamers by Yuyi Morales

This book. 

I heard so much about this book in the lead up to the Caldecott awards. And being contrary and not particularly in love with the art in the past few Caldecott winners, I was pretty ambivalent about this one, assuming it wouldn't really be something I would love. 

BUT I DO. 

This gorgeous book is multilayered, detail oriented, and full of love for children and books. 

My heart! 

The illustrations are amazing. Just really, truly amazing. 

In this illustration, childhood drawings of the artist/author are overlaid with a perfectly adorable illustration of the artist as a child. 

These pictures are reminiscent of the intricate embroidery and flamboyant colors of Central American traditional clothing.

Everything in the illustrations is carefully thought out and meaningful. The pathway here is a photograph of the road in her hometown in Mexico. As she is moving across the border to be with the American father of her baby, she is followed by other famous Central American-American migrants: Monarch butterflies and swallows. 

This new land, with a new language was difficult to navigate and make sense of. 

But armed with a stroller and backpack, Yuyi and her baby explored their new world.

One day they stumbled upon a public library. 

They were told they could just take books home without paying. How could that be?! 

I ADORE that actual books are pictured here. 

Worlds and words began to open up to them through the books they brought home. 

Walking with loads of books. I feel like Yuyi and I are kindred spirits. 

When my first two kids were tiny and we were living near Lake Placid, I had a double stroller that I would push one mile to the public library and a nearby thrift store. The number of days I pushed that stroller uphill overflowing with books are hard to count. 

We are stories.

We are two languages.

We are lucha.

We are resilience.

We are hope.

We are dreamers, 

soñadores of the world. 

At the end of the book, Yuyi shares her and her son's story of coming to America. 

There is a list of books that were beloved by her and her son. 

I LOVE reading people's list of books that they love or care about. 

Tricky by Kari Rust

A good villain is so easy to be delightedly outraged by. 

Tricky, the dog, and his Duke a famous in their town.

Or rather, notorious. 

After all their bad behavior, they would go home and revel in their badness. 

Meeting the new baker, Duke and Tricky continued their devious behavior.

But for some reason, the new baker didn't know their reputation and repaid their badness with kindness. How could she? 

Her kindness confused things--it made tricky feel warm inside. 

When the Duke did his usual bad things at the bakery the next day, Duke did not approve. 

But he is just a dog, what can he do?

Besides stuff a loaf of bread in the toilet, oversoap the water and stuff dead fish under the furniture. 

Of course, Tricky had learned from the best, so he knew how to be wicked! 

The Duke had no mercy on his old pal.

But the mistreated baker did! 

The Duke found that badness wasn't possible or fun without Tricky. 

So he left town. To maybe turn over a new leaf in a new town. 

Meanwhile, Tricky and the baker got along beautifully! 

A Piece of Home by Jeri Watts & Illus by Hyewon Yum

This is a sweet, compassionate book about the heartache of pulling up roots and trying to settle in to a new place. 

In Korea, things were good. Grandma was a "wise and wonderful teacher. When students bowed, she held her shoulders erect, her eyes sparkled."

Even at home, my grandmother could find the extraordinary held within the ordinary.

His grandmother was pretty awesome. 

Friends and words were easy in Korea. 

And then.... his professor father took a job at a law school in West Virginia.

I found my world packed into three boxes and one suitcase. 

What to take, what not to take. How can you condense so much life into boxes?

West Virginia is strange. For all of them.

"...my grandmother stays at home, and she does not hold her shoulders erect and her eyes don't gleam--not at all."

In West Virginia, I am not ordinary--I am different.

My new classmates smile and talk, but it is a sharp noise. Their names sit like stones on my tongue: Steve. Tom. 

I love how this book illustrates the difference between your native habitat and a new habitat--I think it is important for children to understand that they would feel weird and odd in other cultures, just like immigrants feel a little separated from our American culture when they come to our country. 

The night is too dark, too quiet.

Even well meaning people get it wrong. 

His little sister, Se Ra does not suffer this treatment gladly. She gets so frustrated she bites the teacher.  The grandmother is ashamed and offers to accompany Se Ra to school to keep her under control. 

Such a come down from her place of respect in Korea. 

After a time, he can start to say American words. Things become a little more "normal."

He makes friends.

Grandma is learning in Se Ra's classroom as well. She makes a friend in Se Ra's teacher. 

Playing at his friend's house, Hee Jun sees the same plant his grandmother had in their garden in Korea. His friend's mother sends home a shoot and some blossoms to bring back to his grandmother. In Korea they were called mugunghwa, but in West Virginia they are called Rose of Sharon.

A little piece of home. 

This gets me because I have a fondness for familiar botanical things. After living in Alaska for four years, I was so delighted to come back here and see the wildflowers I grew up with. Whenever we visit Colorado now, I get excited to see the wildflowers I got to know living there. 

Pretty much I just like plants. But I like how plants are so connected to a place. 

Finally, finally, after a long time and a lot of work, things become ordinary in their new home. 

 I can say "Steve, come over," light like a bubble on my tongue. 

And that is ordinary in our new home.

It is interesting to think about the struggles this family felt and realize that they came here with relatively few problems. They weren't fleeing disaster, drug lords, or drought. They weren't worried that their family was being bombed back home. (Well with the state of things in North Korea, Koreans might have reason to be mildly concerned about that.) Can you imagine how much more difficult this all would be if you were stressing about all those other things? 

I love, love this book for illustrating the immigrant experience. Even though it is just from one perspective, it give kids a chance to start to think about how immigrants would feel and learn a little compassion for them.