Another Mouse Book and More, Summer Reading Challenge Part Five

Henry Cole's A Nest for Celeste: A Story about Art, Inspiration, and the Meaning of Home (2010) falls in my "must-read" category simply for the appealing nature of its main character Celeste, a petite mouse looking for a home of her own.  However, I liked this book - and would recommend it - for reasons beyond its rodent-friendly focus.  Cole is both the author and illustrator, and his pencil drawings enhance the story beautifully.  The book itself, much like Pam Munoz Ryan's The Dreamer, is a lovely construction.  Moreover, the story goes beyond the expected sweet tale of a mouse in search of a home to fictionalize a stay by James Audubon and his assistant Joseph on a Lousiana plantation in 1824.  Young Celeste is befriended by Joseph, who was just thirteen when he left home to assist and study under Audubon.  At over 300 pages, A Nest for Celeste is thick, but the story moves quickly and illustrations occupy a good many pages.

Kirby Larson's Hattie Big Sky (2006) is a Newberry Honor book.  Part Little House on the Prairie, part Sarah Plain and Tall, Hattie's Big Sky tells the tale of a sixteen-year-old orphan who inherits her uncle's claim to a parcel of land in frontier Montana.  She has less than a year to meet the terms of the claim, which include erecting over a mile of fencing, and farming 160 acres.  Hattie is a sympathetic and likable main character, whom struggles mightily, but is supported by neighbors who become the family she has longed for.  Larson was inspired to write this book based on a story about her own great-grandmother who homesteaded by herself in eastern Montana. 

Andrew Clements' things hoped for (2006) is the middle book in a three part series.  I didn't realize this until after I had finished reading the novel, and I might have felt differently about things hoped for had I read the first book, THiNgS NOt SeeN, first.  There were aspects of things hoped for that I liked very much.  Gwen, the young protagonist, has moved to New York to live with her grandfather and study music.  Faced with a sudden crisis, Gwen must find the personal resources to hold things together, and still prepare for critical auditions.  I liked this part of the story, but I was completely befuddled by a side story involving a creepy invisible man who seems to be stalking Gwen and her new friend Bobby.  So, I did what any modern reader does when faced with serious questions about a book; I went to Amazon and read what other readers had to say.  This was when I realized that the first book in the series dealt with invisibility and its toll on a younger Bobby.  So, now I am going back to read the first book first.


Anita Diamant's Day After Night: A Novel (2009, audio book 2009), read by Dagmara Dominczyk, reveals a disturbing post WWII footnote.  A number of Jewish refugees, attempting to enter Palestine to start life anew after the Holocaust, were instead captured and held in a British-run internment camp.  They were treated humanely, but held against their will at Atlit.  Day After Night focuses on the lives of four women in the camp, their struggles to deal with the horrors of the preceding years, and their hopes for the future.  Narrator Dagmara Dominczyk's beautiful Polish-accented voice lends a realism to the story that serves to draw the listener in further.  For adult or older teen listeners/readers.