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*Middle-grade, contemporary fantasy
*Angel and elementary-school aged girl as main characters
*Rating: I fell in love with The Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech. Listening to the audio book in the car made drives enjoyable and fun! Sometimes, I was laughing out loud at the angel!

Short, short summary: One angel (neither a he or a she) lives in the ancient stone tower of the Casa Rosa, in a tiny village high in the Swiss Alps. Life has been the same as long as the angel can remember. The angel says: “Peoples are strange! The things they are doing and saying–sometimes they make no sense. Did their brains fall out of their heads?” The angel’s life is going along just fine, although she doesn’t really know her purpose and is often confused, until Zola moves in. Zola is a young girl who wears three skirts all at once and can see and talk to the angel. Zola is often telling the angel she needs to do something about the “hungry childrens” and neighbors who have been long time enemies. As the book cover states: “Zola is a girl with a mission. And our angel has been without one–till now. This hilarious and endearing novel by Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech reminds us that magic is found in the most ordinary acts of kindness.” And I totally agree with this book jacket copy writer!

So, what do I do with this book?

1. The Unfinished Angel is a perfect book for studying voice, one of the 6 +1 traits of writing. This book has an unusual, but delightful and captivating, voice. Once you have read a section out loud to students, ask them to give you examples of how the angel’s voice is unique. What are some of her speech patterns? What are some of the ways she makes words plural that don’t need to be: peoples and childrens? How does the angel’s personality come out in the narration? The answers to these questions will help students understand what VOICE is and how to write with a unique voice.

2. Where are the Swiss Alps? What is Casa Rosa? What are some of the different nationalities and languages people are speaking in this book? Throughout this book, questions such as these will arise when children are reading. You can ask students to do some research on the Internet or in the library to answer these questions and deepen their comprehension of the story. Children can share what they’ve learned about this culture with each other.

3. The village as a whole is a character in this book (just like in some books the setting can be a character). Many times, we study how characters change throughout a book and why. In The Unfinished Angel, students can discuss how the angel and the villagers as a whole change throughout the story and why. What makes them change? How do they change? Is it for the better? Students can answer questions like these in reading response journals and then discuss them in small groups or as a class.

I highly recommend this book! It would also be a great book club book choice for parent-child book clubs.

If you're a kid (or adult) who hasn't read Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (Newbery Honor for the second book, The Black Cauldron and Newbery Winning for the High King , a series starting with The Book of Three) do it. Sure, it's kind of a Lord of the Rings knockoff for kids, but Alexander's ear for poetry in prose is undeniable, and perfectly suited for children's literature. I loved those books as a kids, and as an adult, reread (sort of... I never really read it in the first place, but knew the plot of all three books since my sister told me the stories so many times I might as well have read them) the Westmark Trilogy, a fabulous trilogy about a revolution from the books up.
So when I found this odd title, The Wizard in the Tree, at my favorite used bookstore in the bay area (Dark Carnival, go guys go) I had to read it. And while it was not quite as good as some of Alexander's other, more famous work, it was still an incredibly enjoyable read, perfect for middle grade readers in the middle of the pack, ages 8 to 12. At times funny, others violent (there are some murders), this book creates a wonderful anti-Potter definition of the true nature of magic, with some clever environmentalist themes that make it timely, even if it is the silly story of a little girl who finds a wizard in a tree.
Complete with plucky heroine, curmudgeonly wizard, and eeeevil (yes, so evil he's eeeevil) squire, The Wizard in the Tree is a clever story from a very clever author, whose breadth of work I am just beginning to appreciate.

And seriously, read the Prydain Chronicles, and its awesome companion book of short stories, The Foundling. Awesome.

So the internet has been down at my house for the last week... but in that time I read three Newbery Winners that I would break into two categories: fun and edifying. While all three were well written, only one really caught my attention as the type of book that would be fun for kids. The other two I could see having more value for teachers, and would make the best kind of homework.

The first, the 1930 Newbery Winner, The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth, is essentially an introduction to Buddhism for children. It's the story of an artist in Japan who is commissioned by a temple to paint the death of Buddha, a scene which includes a wide variety of animals. When his housekeeper picks up a stray cat, despite the fact that household can hardly afford another mouth to feed, the artist unwittingly begins his journey to a new understanding of the Buddha. As he paints each animal, he considers the various traits they each represent, and searches to see honor in them all. Meanwhile, he becomes closer to his cat. And though cats did not visit the Buddha when he died, he ultimately decides to include one in the painting, causing his pet to die of happiness. Beautifully written, and pleasantly concise, The Cat Who Went to Heaven is a great book for parents who want their younger children to learn about Buddhism, though may not be a good choice for reluctant readers, or readers looking for adventure in their stories.

The Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pene DuBois, on the other hand is a fantastically fun read with enough hot air-balloon travel and explosions for any reader. It won the Newbery in 1948, and is the story of a San Francisco math teacher who decides to escape his boring life in lieu of a hot air balloon adventure. When he crash lands on the Pacific Island of Krakatoa, a paradise laden with diamonds, he encounters a strange, utopian society of former San Francisco residents. And though Krakatoa is a volatile volcano, the residents have an escape plan. A clever tale with humor to spare, The Twenty-One Balloons was a pleasure to read, with fantastic illustrations by the author. It would be well suited for a family read aloud with younger kids, as it's an entirely wholesome tale and all the air travel a reader can handle.

The 1996 Newbery Winner, The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman is a story of self-realization, packed with wonderful historical details. The realities of childbrith in
middle ages are hardly sugar-coated, and while it is an incredibly short book (128 pages) it is hardly suited for readers younger than maybe ten years old. (The book says ages 12 and up, but those ages always skew older than I necessarily think they need to.) While I found it an entirely edifying read, and was attached to the characters, I would still qualify this as the type of book best suited for classrooms, unless the child in question has a preexisting interest in historical fiction. Nonetheless, it is beautifully written, immaculately structured and fully deserving of its prize.