Literacy Matters - Winter 2020

New Favorites! A Children’s Literature Review Column for Teachers

Dr. Jonda C. McNair, with Hannah Basha, Emily Brinson, Hannah Burris, Katie Colavecchia, Ellie Corbin, Elizabeth Craig, Betsy Davis, Emma Sue Gabriel, Grace McClain, Kendall Mercer, Caroline Mulligan, and Laura Kate Reid

No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas Bolden, Tonya. (2018). Illus. by Don Tate. Unpaged. Alfred A. Knopf. 978-0-75276-3. $17.99. (Primary/Intermediate). —Ellie Corbin

One of my absolute favorite things to do is go through boxes of books that I receive from publishers to see what titles will mesmerize me and become my new favorites. The range of topics in recently published books—from people I have never heard of before to ordinary topics presented from a fresh perspective—always fascinates me. For example, in this column, there is No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas by Tonya Bolden, a picturebook biography of a man I had not known about before. Junius G. Groves was known as the Potato King because he purportedly grew more bushels of potatoes per acre than anyone else in the world. Although he was a former slave, in 1915, Groves’s wealth was estimated at around $300,000. He and his family lived in a 22-room red brick mansion with a ballroom, library, hot and cold running water in all of the bathrooms, electricity, and two telephones. What’s the Difference? 40+ Pairs of the Seemingly Similar by Emma Strack presents ordinary topics from a fresh perspective. Strack explains the subtle differences between lots of pairs that are frequently confused (or known to be closely related yet are different, though we may not able to articulate how), such as lightning and thunder, hurricanes and tornadoes, newspapers and magazines, Great Britain and England, white chocolate and dark chocolate, and butter and margarine. Other books in this column are about a range of topics including punctuation, reptiles, famous hoaxes, and immigration. As usual, I made sure to include books written by authors from a variety of backgrounds in hopes of making readers of this journal familiar with children’s literature that is representative of the culturally diverse world in which we live. There are also books from various genres, such as poetry, historical fiction, biography, informational text, and contemporary realistic fiction. I am pleased to have written this column with Clemson University students who participated in a Creative Inquiry project with me. Creative Inquiry is a program sponsored by the university that allows students and faculty to engage in activities and discovery across a range of disciplines. I welcome feedback about this column at jmcnair@clemson.edu . To readers of this column, I hope that you will enjoy the books as much as we have and that you, too, will find some new favorites!

Reading Matters Literature Matters

Another story about a kingdom where princes and princesses live happily ever after? No, not in this book! In this biography, Tonya Bolden takes us through the life of Junius G. Groves in his kingdom of...potatoes. He was born a slave in Kentucky and lived on a small plantation. Growing up, he knew he wanted more for his life. At the age of about 20, he was declared a free man “when America abolished slavery, in late 1865.” Junius headed for a better life by moving to Kansas, where he worked on a potato farm. There, he still faced hardships but was determined to find his place in the world. Little by little he began to earn higher wages, which meant he could finally rent land in order to begin farming for himself. With the help of his wife, Junius steadily saved his earnings and finally was able to purchase a whopping 80 acres! Just think of all the potatoes he could grow on this much land! Junius’s hardworking spirit and dreams pushed him to not give up. Throughout the story, Bolden focuses on the importance of striving through life’s hardships and pursuing our dreams. She uses a variety of word choices to emphasize this, such as the alliteration in “hearts hugging hope,” and she writes that Junius’s wife “didn’t hiccup and holler at the hint of hard work.”On every page, Don Tate’s illustrations exude determination and diligence by showing each character in movement while performing difficult tasks. Although the characters look drained, each turned page continues to show them at work once again without waver. So, with all this hard work, how many potatoes do you think Junius grew in his 80-acre kingdom? Read to find out! (The end of the book features a timeline of Junius’s life, a glossary with terms such as Exodusters , spud , and blister beetle , and source notes.)

A Bunch of Punctuation Hopkins, Lee Bennett (Ed.). (2018). Illus. by Serge Bloch. 32 pp. WordSong/Highlights. 978-1-59078-994-0. $17.95. (Primary/

Intermediate). —Betsy Davis

“The silent ellipsis... / replaces... words missed. / Three footprints... in quicksand. / A message withdrawn...” (p. 12). With poems selected about different types of

punctuation marks, readers can learn all about punctuation in a fun way. Because the poems were all written by different

Literacy Matters | Volume 20 • Winter 2020 | scira.org | 51

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS