Special Sunday Review: "Zeely" & "New Kids on the Block"

Time for another special throw-back Sunday review! As I said before, these were written for a college education class so they aren't the greatest, but I hope you still enjoy them! We have two reviews this time, because they were shorties. Hope I still got a good grade on them lol.

Zeely, by Virginia Hamilton, was published in 1967. It is about a young African-American girl and boy who go to visit their uncle in the country. They meet a girl whom they believe to be an African Watutsi queen. This book would probably be best for ages 9-12.

This book is good for teaching about diversity while not forcing the child to realize that they are learning. It tells an excellent story about judging people and becoming your own person. There was only one mention of their color, and otherwise you wouldn't know they were African, except for the pictures. It also teaches children to have pride in their backgrounds, especially young women. The girl had a very active imagination, which you don't usually see in older books. Overall it was well-written with a solid message.

New Kids in Town, written by Janet Bode, was published in 1989. This book is suitable for ages 10-15, but I think teens around 14 or 15 will appreciate it more. Many different cultures are discussed in this book, including Chinese, Mexican, Greek, and Indian.

This book is a collection teens' stories about coming to America. Each story is told in the teen's own words, so the emotions they felt coming to a strange country are conveyed quite well. These are obviously true stories, retold after usually several years in America. Some of the raw feelings, such as fear and anger, that they must have felt do not come across as well on paper as they might have when told to the author.

Some of the stories were interesting, like the one by the Vietnamese boy who came to America with his father and left the rest of his family back in Vietnam. The older teens, 18, 19, and 20 years old, seemed more interesting than the younger ones. I honestly don't think teens will like most of these stories, mostly because they are already so outdated. However, the book does do a good job of showing different cultures.

Special Sunday Review: "More Than Meets the Eye"

I dug out my box of children's books from my closet yesterday and found some of my old elementary education books and notes. It was kind of sad, because I didn't make it in becoming a teacher, but funny because I found a few assignments, including some book reviews. So how about a special throw-back Sunday review? Today's is a tad longer so I'll do it by itself and then next Sunday will have 2 in 1. And maybe after that, I'll find something new/old to post on Sunday! Some old, angsty poetry perhaps? :) Oh and I will say up front that the quality of writing is um, not good. Sorry!

More Than Meets the Eye by Jeanne Betancourt, was published in 1990. It is appropriate for ages 10-15, but probably closer to 12 or 13. The cultures described in the book are those of the Chinese, Cambodians, and whites.

The story is set in a high school where there is only one Asian American, Ben, who usually gets along great with everyone. Then, a young Cambodian girl who can't speak English moves to town, and everyone tries to put the two together, like they are from the same culture. Ben gets upset, more so when his friend, Elizabeth, starts helping the girl learn English. Elizabeth is going through her own struggles with her parents. She likes Ben as a boyfriend, and since she is Caucasian and he is Chinese, neither one's parents approve. The story climaxes with the entire town in an uproar about Asians taking over, and the boy who has been insulting Ben throughout finally realizes what a racist he is. Ben and Elizabeth get together in the end, and the town begins to accept the new Asian families.

This book is a little oversimplified, but it makes its point well. It's trying to show how racism works and how it hurts people. The Asians are depicted as very smart and as hard workers. "They give him [Ben] better grades because they expect him to do better than you." The boy who insults Ben finally learns that what he is doing is wrong, when he has to help a Korean family and loses his job. Most children will understand the message of this book, even though they may not enjoy reading it. The author is trying too hard to get her point across.