Stefan CzerneckiBesprekingen

Those time-tested attributes of a good student—listen quietly, watch carefully, practice persistently—get unforced cultivation in this tale, but it’s the lanterns that steal the show. Old Chen is coming to the end of his working days, but as yet he has no one to whom he can pass on his cut-paper lantern-making shop. His apprentices simply don’t have the magic in their fingers the way Old Chen has. When a young boy, Little Mouse, starts to visit the shop, enthralled by the lanterns, Old Chen sees the fire in his eyes as they rest upon the fine lanterns. Little Mouse follows the rules: he listens, he watches, he practices at home each night with scraps from the shop, where he has been taken on as a broom boy. Then comes the day when his skills are tested—a snowy day when Old Chen’s hands are too cold and brittle to work, but a big dragon lantern is due for the annual festival. The apprentices don’t have the right stuff, so Little Mouse pulls it off with flair, and the shop has found a new master. The low-key patter of the text supports some highly stylized, candy-bright artwork, with each of the text pages graced with a painted example of handmade cut-paper lanternwork. Enlightening. (Picture book. 3-8)

-Kirkus Review

In this retelling of an Australian folktale, Old Man challenges the animals to enter a singing contest. Snake, knowing that his voice will never win, swallows Lark and tricks her into singing through his mouth. Snake's ruse is discovered when Lark scratches his throat and escapes. Full color.

A beggar, disdained by the townspeople is befriended by the local baker and saves the day, which he actually, unwittingly, messed up to begin with. The book feels a little too predictable to me; even the surprise twist at the end seems predictable. This may be unfair of me; maybe I'm jus reading it on an off day. I liked the brightly colored illustrations.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book because of the story and the text layout. Each page was designed like a carpet. The illustrator effectively incorporated the importance of the carpet and how the characters interact throughout the story. The story of how Zorah got the magic carpet. The emphasis on Zorah and her decisions to make the carpet and the adventures she goes on are very intriguing. The book had a great story plot and I would strongly recommend this book.

This book takes place in Guatemala. It's setting brings out the diversity of the book. The story is about a baker who helps a beggar by giving him bread to eat everyday. When the town's festival is to occur, the towns-people want to banish the beggar so he will not scare of patrons. The beggar goes to say farewell to the baker and a single tear of his falls into the water jar the baker uses for baking. This tear causes the bread to be flat. With the village upset about the bread, the baker finds out from a dream that he must go get the beggar to find a solution to the flat bread. Reluctantly the towns people find the beggar and he offers his solution. The bread rises again and now the towns-people are thankful for the beggar. This story can be used as a lesson to teach us that there is more than appears to the eye. The beggar was of more use to the towns-people than they thought. The illustrations are bright and colorful. They honor Hispanic culture in their color scheme and depictions of Guatemala.

The singing snake is about a snake who wants to win a contest given by an old man. The old man wants to make an instrument modeling an animal on the island and snake wants to win. In order to win, he swallows a singing bird, and fools the old man. When the contest is over, and snake has won, the bird escapes. When everyone found out what he did, no one wanted to be friends with the snake. Now in Australia, if someone can not be trusted, they are considered to be a "snake in the grass".

The author used short sentences, and was very direct through the story. This story is the retelling of an old folk tale. The illustrator used paint to create color illustrations. The paintings weren't realistic, but were creatively done, and complemented the story well.

This book has Mexican flavour and many weird unexpected guys (masked wrestlers, demons, mandalas) popping their heads in around the edges of every page, which I like. And the basic story is really nice, in that coyote gets welcomed back into the community of creatures when he realizes he can live on huevos rancheros and not just flesh. I should have given it an extra half star but dude, I am starting to legitimately dread the day we have to explain that animals, including e.g. his grandparents, devour one another and sling each other's butchered carcasses on happy holiday occasions.

Genre: Traditional Literature
Reading level: grades 2-4
Summary:
Greedy Emperor decided that he must have the most beautiful towers in the entire world. So he tells his most trusted minister to come up with plans for such a place. They all try to please the Emperor but none of the plans that they come up with will suit the Emperor. He threatens his minister that if he doesn’t create the most beautiful towers in three days, then his head will be cut off. The man goes to the market depressed and buys a cricket that makes beautiful songs. The man tries again to create plans for a tower but he does not prevail. That night the cricket escapes from his cage a draws a picture of the cage that he wishes he would have. In the morning the man finds the plans and make the cage for the cricket but instead takes it to the emperor, who was very pleased. The cricket brought the minister very good fortune.

This is a very old tale but show the students that even the smallest creature can help in some way. The cricket helps calm down the minister, and even creates a plan for the emperor’s new towers.

This book taught me about a Christmas tradition that occurs in Mexico. It started off with a young boy who saved a star and had a great gift of happiness. Years later, he realized that he wanted to share his happiness and he made a pinata for all of the children in the village to take a swing at and get great gifts from him.½

SUMMARY: This book tells the tale of a man named Pancho who began the piñata tradition in San Miguel. On Christmas eve, people gather beside an old cactus in the square and swing at a piñata to get free gifts.

REVIEW: This book is informative and the central message is to provide the reader with the thought to be history of the piñata tradition that is celebrated on Christmas eve. The pictures were cartoons and it was written as a story, which young readers would enjoy. Information and Spanish words were provided with the text.

This is a tale of how dreams came to be that is based on Mexican folk art. The folk -style art used in the story is very beautiful and different from typical books that are usually available. The text is very lyrical, almost like a poem. The book is part of a series called “Libros del Alba” in honor of the International Day of Children's Books. The publisher, Artes de México, publishes folklore tales, poetry and literature based on traditional Mexican mythology and even publishes books in various indigenous languages of Mexico.

Author: Stefan Czernecki
Title: Ride 'Em Cowboy
Illustrator: Stefan Czernecki
Publisher: Simply Read Books Inc.
2004
28 pages
Literary Genre: Picture Book
Summary: Cowboys wake up in the morning get up cattle, ride bucking broncos and brand new born calves. Then at night time go to town and dance and spend their pay.
I think this is a cute short little book for a little boy. Every little boy at some point in his life always wants to be a cowboy. I think that they would be able to relate to this book.

The Cricket's Cage was about a Chinese man who could not come up with an idea for the Emperor's tower. The man bought a cricket, and the cricket ended designing a tower for the man which the Emperor loved. I enjoyed this story, it was definitely a fairy tale with the cricket helping the man out. I would read this to my students, and for an activity I would have them each build a tower out of different craft materials.

A very nice Chinese folktale. It's about a carpenter who has to design royal watchtowers for the emperor. He has no idea how to do it until one day a friend of him gives a cricket to him. This cricket designs the most beautiful towers for the carpenter and the emperor likes it a lot. A very nice illustrated folktale!½

Sanke wanted to win the singing contest on the island so badly, but he did not have the most beautiful voice. Hark had the most beautiful voice, and snake came up with a sneaky plan. Snake swallowed hark just enough so that when he opened his mouth, hark would sing a song of sorrow and it appeared that snake was singing. Snake won the singing contest, but whenever he was asked to do an oncore, hark scratched his throat instead of singing. Snake coughed up hark and was caught. Today this island is known as Australia, and someone who can not be trusted is called a 'snake in the grass.'

A family's struggles and how a hummingbird helps them.

This book tells the tale of the pinata and how the first one was made in a village in Mexico. One Christmas Eve a little boy helped a star that was stuck on the cactus and when the star flew away it dropped some magic dust on the little boy and when the little boy grew up he wanted to share that same magic to the kids of the village.½

I loved the message of this book – that persistence paid off for the boy who wanted to learn to make paper lanterns. I thought the illustrations could have been a little softer to give the characters more warmth, but the story more than made up for that.

This is a simple telling of the story of Siddhartha Gautama's life, with charming illustrations. A nice way to introduce a child to a basic description of Buddhism. The author's bio does not indicate that he is a Buddhist.

A beautifully illustrated book! This is a story that takes place in Mexico. A family deals with a drought and are only able to still feed the hummingbirds. The birds teach the family how to weave straw with their hands. They family is able to make baskets and sell them at the Day of the Dead Festival and survive until the next rains. This brings joy to the family and they name the village Tzintzuntzan, which means "the place of the hummingbirds."½

Second or Third grade reading level. This book is about crops and flowers dying because of a local drought. The lack of water is a problem for the hummingbirds and they have no where else to go, so they develop a plan to bring water and save the day! Beautiful pictures. This book could be used to teach about droughts (what are they? what causes them?), hummingbirds (what are they? what do they eat?) or teamwork.

Not a great book, it is about the crops and flowers dieing because there was a drought and the people thought of a plan to save the hummingbirds!

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