The Hop Made a Good Read for My Second Bus Trip

On Monday I finished my second student trip to Boston.  I have to admit that doing two trips in a span of about 3 weeks was tiring, but it's nice to have them done with my whole summer ahead of me.  Well almost, Steven and I will be flying to Dallas on Friday for 5 days of playing volleyball in the Junior Nationals.  Anyway, the 14 hour bus ride gives me plenty of time to read and this time I chose the book The Hop by Sharelle Byars Moranville.

There's a lot going on in this book, a grandma with cancer, two parents who are busy with work, a young girl who wonders if her parents have time with her, and urban sprawl taking over a woods and wetlands.  The thing is, as I read it, even though I knew there was a lot going on, I never felt overwhelmed by so many plot lines, they all blended together so well that I think kids will enjoy it too.

The author goes back and forth between a toad named Tad and a girl named Taylor.  Both have similar things going on in their lives.  Tad discovers something special about himself when he wakes from his winter sleep.  He's not really comfortable with it and he tries to hide it from his little toad friends who live in Toadville-by-Tumbledown.  When he reveals the fact that he had dreams during his winter sleep to the Seer, a wise old toad who also dreams, Tad is identified as the toad to save Toadville-by-Tumbledown from The Rumbler.  When the earthmoving equipment known as The Rumbler shows up to destroy Toadville-by-Tumbledown, Tad sets out on a quest to find Reno and kiss the queen.

Taylor is a young girl who enjoys spending time with her grandma, Eva.  Eva lives in the country and plants gardens of flowers and vegetables.  Taylor adores her and her country place with the pond and the tumbledown shed.  Taylor and Eva spend so much time together because Taylor's parents are busy being successful.  They are tied up in meetings and on phone calls and answering texts so Taylor and Eva spend time planting and roaming the countryside.  It is revealed that Eva has cancer and isn't able to do as much as she once was due to the chemo treatments.  We also learn that for one week every summer, Taylor's parents go to Reno for the Old Time Rock and Roll Fest.  It turns out that they play in an oldies band and Taylor has never taken an interest in it, she prefers to spend that week with Eva every summer.  As the earthmoving equipment moves in to destroy the forest and pond by Eva's house, Taylor wants to protest and save the trees, but her parents and grandma inform her that this year she will be going to Reno because Evas will be in the hospital unable to care for her.

The two stories come together in Reno.  Even though I predicted what would happen in the end, Sharelle Byars Moranville does a wonderful job of keeping the reader in the story.  I wanted to keep reading to see how she was going get us to the end.  Part magic, part social awareness, part fairy tale, part family love, The Hop by Sharelle Byars Moranville will be enjoyed by readers 3rd and up and would make a great read aloud with cliff hangers and predictions and imagination.  I liked it.

A River Ran Wild

I've owned A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry almost since it was first published in 1992. It is the perfect book to help students understand how the introduction of other species, man, and pollution can affect an entire ecosystem or environment.

The environment in this book is the Nashua River in Massachusetts. The initial two-page illustration shows a beautiful, clean river winding its way through lush forests. The text tells us that many, many, many years ago this area was home to bears, moose, deer, hawks, owls, geese, beavers, turtles, and many schools of fish.

On the next pages, we watch as a Native American group of people looks down on the river from atop Mt. Wachusett. The native people went down to settle by the river, and they used the resources of the area, being careful only to take what they absolutely needed.

Then traders came, and they started trading posts. The traders were followed by settlers who started to claim the river as their own, ignoring the rights of the native people.

Then came the great Industrial Revolution when many factories and mills were built along the river, and dumped their debris into the river. This "progress" continued for years as more and more people and more and more industries came to the Nashua River valley. Finally, there came a point where no animals could survive in, or nearby, the Nashua River.

Eventually, an activist named Marion (an ancestor of the chief of the Native American group), started to bring attention to the horrible conditions of the Nashua River. Because of her efforts and grass roots movement, eventually laws were passed and people had to stop polluting.

When people stopped polluting, the river started to get healthy again.

Okay, that is the short synopsis, but the power of the story isn't in just the words and events, but also in the way Lynne Cherry organized and illustrated this book. Each two-page layout represents another period in the "life" of the Nashua River. On the right side, is a beautiful illustration that represents what was said in the text. On the left side, she makes a border of pictures around the text. Each of these pictures reflects another event in how the Nashua River was changed. You could spend a long time just sharing the borders and their importance with students. The life cycle of this river is just amazing!

Another wonderful section of this book is the front inside cover pages. There is a map of what Massachusetts looked like in the 1500's and another map of how it looked in the 1900's. In addition, there is a timeline of the events that happened in the book, starting 7,000 years ago when Indian peoples came through the Nashua River Valley to 1979, when "bass, pickerel, perch, trout, bald eagles, osprey, and great blue heron return to the Nashua."

A River Ran Wild will be a powerful book, both in text and visually, to help my students understand the effect of humans on the environment (both in a positive and negative way).