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Eagle Drums

July 19, 2023 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product for Eagle Drums through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so, and is so much appreciated. 🙂

A solitary family living up in the Artic. A people untrusting of strangers, with legends of their own, and suddenly the youngest one finds himself caught up in one. The question is: can this lad survive the experience? Will he learn what he needs to? How will it change life for him if he does? Throughout this story, told in a…. what seems to me a very native way… one is left wondering… will he survive til the end? (and I’m not going to tell you if he does).

The Basic Details of Eagle Drums

Title: Eagle Drums
Author and Illustrator: Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Pages: 256
Intended Audience: Middle School
Genre: Native American tales, American folk tales, Myths,
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books
Available formats: Audio, hardcover, Kindle,
Received: Advanced Reader Copy, softcover

About the Author and Book

The Author

Born and raised in the rural expanse of the North Slope of Alaska, Nasugraq Rainey Hopson grew up on fantastic tales from her unique and rich Indigenous Inupiaq culture. When she is not writing or creating art inspired by these stories, she is studying how to grow food in the arctic and is working at preserving traditional Inupiaq knowledge. She has a degree in Studio Art and has taught all levels of Art from kindergarten to college level. She lives in Anaktuvuk Pass Alaska with her husband and daughter, three dogs, and a small flock of arctic chickens where she lives off the land and the amazing bounty it provides like her ancestors did for thousands of years.

The Book

A magical realistic middle grade debut about the origin story of the Inupiaq Messenger Feast, a Native Alaskan tradition.

As his family prepares for winter, a young, skilled hunter must travel up the mountain to collect obsidian for knapping – the same mountain where his two older brothers died.

When he reaches the mountaintop, he is immediately confronted by a terrifying eagle god named Savik. Savik gives the boy a choice: follow me or die like your brothers.

What comes next is a harrowing journey to the home of the eagle gods and unexpected lessons on the natural world, the past that shapes us, and the community that binds us.

What do you get?

Scattered through the story you’ll discover artwork that helps tell the story. The drawings are indigenous in their make-up giving glimpses into various aspects of the folktale. They fit the story.

An easy to read text, told in a manner I’ve heard Native Americans tell stories before. Stories to show one’s history, and yet teach truths. The sights and sounds of the Alaskan wilderness are evident throughout. The story revolves around Pina and the things that he is learning. We see how sometimes he has to dig deep into himself in order to keep going, learning how to deal with difficult people and situations. As he survived the realized the wisdom of his parents and even his dead siblings.

Songs and words are highlighted in a different font and colour. Highlighting their importance and helping us to pay attention. His journey is not easy, but at the end of it, we know the importance of the songs, and we see his determination, and then the creation of the Messenger Feast.

My Recommendation?

If you are doing a unit study on Native Americans, or on myths and folklore from around the world, Eagle Drums would be a good one to add to your pile. Perhaps you want to understand the world of the Inuit more.

Understanding the stories of a people gives you insight into who they are. Since this story also includes insights into their faith system I would want my middle/high schooler to seek out where there are glimpses of God’s truth and then to think about where the faith system went wrong.

Don’t misunderstand me. Eagle Drums is a decent read on it’s own. And I don’t want to ruin it by suggesting options for digging into it or only using it to gain some insight into a culture you may know nothing about. I enjoyed the story and I think you might as well.

But I do like to see beyond the story sometimes and Eagle Drum’s lends itself to seeing beyond the story. So why not eh? 🙂 Killing two birds with one stone isn’t a bad thing is it?

Work It

July 15, 2023 By Annette1 8 Comments

It’s five minute Friday time (Well, actually it’s Saturday evening) but hey…. let’s not quibble on the details today eh? Miss Kate has given us the word prompt of work. I think about my job and how we encourage each other to do a good job or to have a good attitude toward our jobs. This active encouragement spills out into other areas of life including faith. Work It seeks to showcase that encouraging factor.

Poem: Work It

Work it baby, work it
I heard at my job this week
A gal with an encouragers heart
Smiling as I moved to the music
While I shifted ice cream from
A skid to a cart.
As she spoke she shimmied
herself across the floor.
Laughter ensued. 🙂

“I hope they work it out”
the statement I heard
more than once this week
as my lad books medical
appointments, updating me
along the way. The progress
seems mind-numblingly slow as
appointments seem so far away, and
the urgency in getting him help
seems to be ignored.

Work it out, in fear and
trembling, recognizing
always that my faith is weak and
that without God’s constant
invention my hold on the truth
would be less tenuous than it is.
Spending time with God
in his word and thinking more
on approaching his word with an
attitude of prayer.

God speaks to us

Romans 15:5

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.

Philippians 2:12-13

¹²Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

How to Catch a Daddysaurus

July 12, 2023 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product for How to Catch a Daddysaurus through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so, and is so much appreciated. 🙂

We all need a Daddysaurus in our lives! A man who cares about his family, playing with his children, loving his spouse, and providing for his family. Can such a Daddysaurus be found? In this story we have the fun of learning all about what a Daddysaurus does and watch his family work hard to catch him! The question is…. is success on the horizon?

The Basic Details of How to Catch a Daddysaurus

Title: How to Catch a Daddysaurus
Author: Alice Walstead
Illustrator: Andy Elkerton
Series: How to catch (part 2)
Publisher: sourcebooks wonderland
Pages: 40
Intended Audience: Kindergarten to Grade 5
Genre: picturebook, dinosaur, parenting, stories in verse, humour
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books
Available formats: Audio, hardcover, Kindle, paperback
Received: Hardcover

About the Author and Book

The Author

Alice Walstead has a goal of helping children smile when they read books. She writes children’s books.

AND…. she has succeeded with her second How to Catch book.

The Book

The How to Catch Kids are at it again! This time, they’re out to trap the Daddysaurus – a mystical creature capable of such amazing acts of kindness, bravery, brilliance and humor. However will they catch him? Perhaps they can use his favorite activities? This dinosaur picture book is filled with silly rhymes and illustrations sure to delight young readers and educators alike with STEAM concepts and classic hilarity and chaos.

Digging Deeper

Rhyming verse helps us dance from page to page following children seeking to catch their local daddysaurus. Will they be successful?

Follow their progress as we observe the wonderful things that a daddysaurus does. Watch the delight of the children as they problem-solve ways to meet their objective. The only question is what trap is the best one to use on a DADDYSAURUS?????

Bright, clear images help tell the story.

Bright and clear illustrations help to tell the story, clearly delineating the many attributes of a good Daddysaurus. Should they use all the tricks they know? Perhaps they might need help!

My Thoughts

This was actually a hard review to write! How does one tell you about a book that made me smile without telling the whole story?

You will find How to Catch a Daddysaurus to be a fun read with children loving up on their dad calling him a daddysaurus and extolling his virtues.

Your dinosaur loving child will delight in reading this story with their own Daddysaurus. Can you imagine the chuckles and laughter as they work together with the children in the story to make the capture.

What’s the Impulse?

July 7, 2023 By Annette1 6 Comments

So this was actually a harder word to write on than I expected. I thought Impulse…that will be easy. But as I’ve gone throughout my day, yesterday and today, I couldn’t find something to write on. Then, as my family has gone to bed, and I listen to a horse story on TV as I fight joining my family in their “Z’s” suddenly I recalled a co-workers impulse this week and how it had an end result different than intended. The hurt felt was hard to witness, and harder still, to talk it through. It’s hard to understand sometimes why gifts can be angrily rejected.

What’s the impulse?

What’s the impulse
Can you say?
Is it obvious to you
or do you need to search
your heart and soul?

Perhaps your intentions
are easy to discern
a desire to help, to
perhaps bring some healing
to another soul?

But sometimes, even
when our intentions are good,
the person receiving them
sees the impulse, or the
intention differently than
what was meant!

Even our intentions,
our impulses to do good,
are fractured by the evil that
resides so deeply within.
God’s word tells us that
people are evil all the time.

Nothing we do, even when
we are well-intentioned,
is seen, in the eyes of God
as good, unless he sees
the veil of Christ over us.

It doesn’t really change
though the hurt one feels
when the impulse to do good
is rejected by the receiver
of such action.

How do we understand
the why of such rejection
without taking it
deeply to heart and realizing
the rejection tells us about the
receiver NOT the giftee?

I think it encourages us
to look deeply within
to see if perhaps, somehow
in the giving, we suggested
something other than intended, or
perhaps, that examination,
will give a clue to why
the receivee became a rejectee.

That further gives a chance
to add that person to our
prayer list that God would
continue to mind them full-well
and that perhaps you can
be guided to something kind
that will suit better.

But I don’t know,

what do you think?

God’s word speaks

Romans 7:13-19

¹³Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Ecclesiastes 9:3

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

A Dupatta Is….

July 5, 2023 By Annette1 2 Comments

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product for A Dupatta Is….. through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so, and is so much appreciated. 🙂

Do you know what a Dupatta is? I hadn’t a clue. I might have been able to give you a definition of a cloth wrapped around the head… MAYBE…but what truly a dupetta is… no, in honesty I couldn’t have. Do you want to know? If so, come along for a bit, let’s go for a ride!

Basic Details for A Dupatta Is…

Title: A Dupatta Is …
Author: Marzieh Abbas
Illustrator: Anu Chouhan
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Pages: 32
Intended Audience: Ages 3-6
Genre: picturebook, fashion, South Asia, multicultural
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books
Available formats: Audio, hardcover
Received: Hardcover with fly

About the Author and Book

Marzieh Abbas is a children’s book author, she writes on multicultural and Muslim concerns. Living in Pakistan with her husband and children, her stories reflect her heritage. Did you know she used to be a baker? She uses that creativity to bring life to the books that she writes.

A Dupatta Is… takes a child’s curiousity about a brightly coloured scarf and explains it’s importance. Not just for it’s historical significance but also in how it affects the lives of those wearing them.

Digging Deeper

Can a dupatta be used as more than just a modesty robe or a colourful accessory? In 32 pages of bright hues and shades of different weaves. Smiling faces, quiet determination, regal beauty and so much more help spread the knowledge of just what a dupatta is.

Colour exploding from every page as questions and heartfelt answers keep filling the pages.

With the specific duties of a dupatta come feeling and function. Can a dupatta make you feel safe, helped, and comforted? Can a dupatta be used for fun? Building a fort, or being used for tug of war?

And is a dupatta part of one’s cultural heritage or exercise of faith? Discover all the different aspects of a dupatta and be surprised. Marzieh Abbas draws us deeply into the cultural identity of her people.

My Recommendation

I love the author’s spin on this colourful piece of fabric. It’s makes me wonder sometimes if we really know the significance of some of the things in our lives. For instance, a grandmother’s apron, a dad’s workclothes, or a ritual chocolate chip cookie after a day of school. Is it just an apron, shirt or cookie or something just a bit more?

A Dupatta Is…. can simply be a tale to help children understand another culture, or a way for us to look at the everyday bits of our lives and consider their true importance in our lives.

All in All, I would have zero issues sitting down with a child and reading this book with them, either to help them understand their own history, or to understand the history of another child. It’s a good thing yes?

Music Sung Badly

June 29, 2023 By Annette1 16 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like to listen to music sung badly, and really prefer that I am not the one doing the bad singing. If someone is trying hard to sing (not in a in front of people way) but as part of a group praising the Lord, or perhaps singing the national anthem as part of a crowd, I don’t mind. That’s more of a “they are trying hard” and I find that acceptable! I’m meandering a bit. What I’m trying to say is I don’t care to listen to people sing off-tune professionally, but someone just singing… even if they do it badly… I don’t much care. 🙂 Life happens eh?

Music is there to be sung, whether you do it well, or perhaps, like me… often not well. 🙂 Singing with me means one of two things. Either I’m bored and I’m entertaining myself, or I’m happy/Praising God. The assumption is that it’s the same for others. What is singing for you?

Music Sung Badly

Today I did it
Smoke in the air
Life crazy busy at work
A sick boy to worry on
Stepping outside to call
the doctor AGAIN trying to
get a today appointment.

Smoke makes my throat
tighten up and get
scratchy-sore, but FINALLY,
FINALLY I got through and
got an appointment for my lad.

But finally the appointment,
relief flooded this worried momma’s
heart and so, when a song
came on the radio that I not only
kinda know the lyrics too, but that
I liked… I sang along.

A co-worker, who loves music,
Stopped and stared at me
And I stopped and realized why
I was singing somewhat “off” today
Not my normal voice with music
and thusly, that coworker, who
loves music too… was startled.

Me who, honestly, isn’t the best
singer in the world,
today openly
Sung music badly,
and despite startling my
co-worker, today I didn’t care. 🙂

This afternoon, I was
simply too delighted that
my lad is going in to see
the doctor tonight and perhaps,
just perhaps, we’ll start to
get him the care that he needs.

We’ll get him healthy and eating again
and not coughing so harshly,
and not looking
so very very thin.
And this momma’s heart,
just perhaps, can stop worrying
over this her boy.

Warrior Girl Unearthed

June 28, 2023 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product for Warrior Girl Unearthed through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so, and is so much appreciated. 🙂

Indigenous women go missing every year. Many of them are never heard from and their disappearances are not solved. Many factors come into play for this lack of resolution in their cases. Warrior Girl Unearthed tells the story of one young lady and her indomitable spirit. Interning over the summer and discovering the need of her people to hold to their past while battling and living in the present. I found myself power reading as I wanted to see what resolution could be gained, at least momentarily, in the now, through the actions of Perry and her friends.

warrior girl unearthed, Angeline Boulley

The Details for Warrior Girl Unearthed

Title: Warrior Girl Unearthed
Author: Angeline Boulley
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Series: Firekeeper’s Daugther (pt 2)
Pages: 400
Intended Audience: Ages 14-18
Genre: thriller, young adult, teen, women’s issues, indigenous women, mystery, teenage interns
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books
Available formats: Audio, hardcover, Kindle, Paperback
Received: Hardcover with fly

About the book and author

Angeline Boulley is part of the Chippewa Indians of Sault Ste. Marie, MI. Ms. Boulley write about her Ojibwe community. Her first book Firekeeper’s Daughter was a New York Times bestseller. Currently she lives in SW Michigan as a full-time author. She has served in Indian education at the tribal, state, and national levels.

The book:

Set in the same community as Firekeeper’s Daughter, and featuring many of the same characters, Warrior Girl Unearthed is the story of an Ojibwe teen who, while working as a summer intern, discovers a plot to profit off robbed Indigenous graves.

A group of friends works with her to solve a mystery and to bring back the remains of her ancestors. In the process they need to deal with generational grudges, bureaucratic subterfuge, stories of missing women, family secrets, and painful realities about the legacy of colonialism.

Digging Deeper

You will find this a compelling story. Perry Firekeeper-Birch is a strong minded young lady who doesn’t easily fit a mould. She finds herself (due to some poor decision-making) compelled to work for the summer, her aunt helping her find a position as an intern.

From this point forward, Perry’s eyes are opened to bureaucratic nonsense for delaying the return of Native ancestorial remains to the people they belong to. She sees more deeply the lack of desire to deal with “yet another native woman” going missing. Instead of this beating her down, she discovers a burning desire to do something about it and to help fix the problems plaguing her people.

In this read, you’ll see her learning, developing new skills, and broadening her understanding, as we in turn, broaden our own understanding of the issues at hand.

This is not a book filled with illustrations, but rather with clearly written text and simple ornamentation for chapter headings. Divided into nine weeks, each week starts with a quote. 37 chapters and an epilogue round out the 400 pages.

You will find native american words used throughout. Most of the time the meaning of these words was found within context, but not always. The “not always part” let me feeling a bit frustrated, but overall didn’t affect the quality of the material written.

Scene breaks were acknowledged by little flowers, words read or messages given written in a different or darker font. Dreams were written in italics.

My thoughts?

I love it when stories well a deeper story. Granted I LOVE reading so a well-told story that is written strictly for entertainment value is appreciated too! But sometimes you need a story to be more than entertaining right? And this story is well-told, drawing us into the life of a young Native American girl who is starting to grow up. She’s not an easy-going, highly compliant child, but a young lady with a warrior’s heart, who wants to fight for what’s important.

In Warrior Girl Unearthed, Perry learns how some of that fighting needs to be done within the strictures of today’s society. Realizing how she needs to learn some new skills, and discovering potential within herself hitherto unknown.

Do note there is some bad language used in conversation. Nothing horrible. Difficult topics of missing women, and sexual assault are addressed. These are scattered throughout the story, but do not make up the WHOLE of the story. If studying Native Americans in history, this book will bring to life some of the ramifications are of what happened in the past.

Overall, a well recommended read.

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Eagle Drums

The Basic Details of Eagle Drums