Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"Goldilocks arrived home all bothered and hot.
Previously she had been running like mad in the dark woods.
Previously she had been climbing out of somebody else's window.
Previously she had been sleeping in somebody else's bed, eating somebody else's porridge, and breaking somebody else's chair!
Previously she had been humming a tune and having a little skip by herself in the dark woods.
Previously she had bumped into a hurtling and older boy named..."

Just the other day, the humanities teacher asked the wide-eyed sixth graders experiencing their first day of middle school, "What is history?" and "When you look at the word 'history,' what other word do you see?"

In PREVIOUSLY, Allan Ahlberg interweaves the tales of Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack and Jill, The Frog Prince, Cinderella, and The Gingerbread Boy to illustrate how there was something going on previously (before each story began) and how the people and places that make up history -- whether silly/make-believe or serious/real -- are all related and dependent upon one another. This is a vital and profound concept for middle school history scholars to synthesize in order to make sense of the waves of information in which they will be surrounded as they spend three years traveling from ancient civilizations to contemporary American history.

The tale of PREVIOUSLY, illustrated with Bruce Ingman's colorful acrylics, is made even more fun for older readers through inclusion in the antecedent portions of the traditional tales of such modern day twists as "the free gift in the cornflakes box," and the prince having previously been "traveling his kingdom in a milk-white Mercedes."

"And all the bears were cubs.
And all the frogs were tadpoles.
And all the buckets and chairs and ballroom floors were planks of wood.
And all the wood was trees in the dark woods."

And before I wrote this review I made myself a smoothie.
And before that, the UPS dude dropped off a padded mailer from Candlewick Press...

Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
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