Polar Bear Island (Lindsay Bonilla)

 

Super cute. 

Someone should send this book to the ICE agents and Trump administration.

Goodreads says:

When Kirby, a fun-loving penguin, arrives on Polar Bear Island, she shakes things up—much to the dismay of Parker, the mayor. Will Parker learn to see how great it is to make new friends? Or will he chase Kirby away . . . forever? 
 
“Welcome to Polar Bear Island. NO OTHERS ALLOWED!” Parker is the mayor of this peaceful, predictable island, and he wants to keep it just the way it is. But Kirby, a penguin, thinks the place is paradise, and she wants to stay. Parker says no, but the other polar bears love Kirby —and soon they’re begging Parker to let Kirby (and her family) move in. Will Parker agree . . . and make the island fun for EVERYONE? With its gentle message of inclusivity, this playful and lighthearted story will delight children.

The Anxious Generation (Jonathan Haidt)

 

Sometimes I hear people talk negatively about this book....that he doesn't really offer any real solutions or that he's catastrophizing. I, however, think he has a pretty compelling argument. I think I subconsciously keep choosing books like this because I want to be on my phone less. 

I should probably do something to deal with the guilt about all the things I did wrong with my own kids and cell phones.....

Some of his suggestions:
1. No cell phones until middle school. (A basic phone watch should suffice until then, if necessary.)
2. No SMART phones until high school.
3. No social media until 16 (18 would be better, but the author acknowledges that might be hard to do.)
4. More outside and free play.
5. Parents should supervise their kids more vigilantly online, but way less in the real world. (Helicoptering and over-controlling are also affecting our kids' development in negative ways.)
6. Schools should be entirely phone-free and provide phone lockers where kids can park their phones at the start of the day and pick them up at the end. There is plenty of evidence to suggest this can drastically improve focus during class as well as school culture. It's not enough to say kids can't have phones during class. Studies have shown that even having it put away in their bag to look at between classes still decreases attention and focus, and contributes to a toxic school culture.

Goodreads says:

A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.” —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

Mustafa (Marie-Louise Gay)

 

...a little glimpse into what it might be like for a child to leave their country and come to a new one. This story makes it so relatable and real.

Goodreads says:

Mustafa and his family traveled a long way to reach their new home. Some nights Mustafa dreams about the country he used to live in, and he wakes up not knowing where he is. Then his mother takes him out to the balcony to see the moon — the same moon as in their old country. In the park, Mustafa sees ants and caterpillars and bees — they are the same, too. He encounters a “girl-with-a-cat,” who says something in a language that he can’t understand. He watches an old lady feeding birds and other children playing, but he is always looking in from the outside and he feels that he is invisible. But one day, the girl-with-the-cat beckons to him, and Mustafa begins to become part of his new world.

Pocket Bear (Katherine Applegate)

 

I'm currently reading this book aloud to my class and I read it on my own for my Children's Lit Book Club. It is beautiful! It could be a great introduction to the hard topic of war. I'm finding it's a bit of a challenging read aloud for my class because the vocabulary is very rich. However, it makes for some great discussions.  We thought the vocabulary level might be better for around a grade 5 or 6 student - but felt like it would be unlikely they'd pick it up on their own because the cover makes it look like a book for younger students. It would be a great novel study though!

When we read that the girl and her mother are from Ukraine, that the father died and the family home was bombed....we had to pause and marvel. "Wow. Imagine. It's just the girl and her mom!"

A good follow up project might be to bring in our own loved toys, have a "spa day" to get them all cleaned up and then donate them. We could even write a letter to the new owner and explain what we'd like them to know about this boy. 

I think I will give each of my students a bear for Christmas. Maybe we can make scarves for them or something...and write their bear's biography.

Goodreads says:
Thimble-born from tip to toe, Pocket Bear remembers every moment of his "becoming": the glimmering needle, the silken thread, the tender hands as each careful stitch brought him closer to himself. Born during the throes of WWI, he was designed to fit into the pocket of a soldier’s jacket, eyes sewn a bit higher than normal so that he always gazed upward. That way, glancing at his pocket, a soldier would see an endearing token of love from someone back home, and, hopefully, a good luck charm.

Now, over a century later, Pocket serves as unofficial mayor of Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured, where stuffed toy animals are refurbished and given a fresh opportunity to be loved. He and his best feline friend Zephyrina, known far and wide as “The Cat Burglar,” have seen it all, and then some.

An unforgettable tale of bravery, loyalty, and kindness, Pocket Bearreminds us all that love comes in many forms (sometimes filled with fluff), and that second chances are always possible.

The Only Woman In The Room (Marie Benedict)

 

I didn't know about Hedy Lamar before reading this book. I enjoyed reading about her. I have liked some of Marie Benedict's other books. I found this one a little forced though. The dialogue was weird....no one talks like that.

Goodreads says:

Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side and understood more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.

But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage: she was a scientist. And she had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis and revolutionize modern communication...if anyone would listen to her.

A novel based on the true story of the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication.

Dopamine Nation (Anna Lembke, MD)

 

I've been trying to understand why some people don't or seem to be unable to change. This has a lot of good answers to that question.

Notes:

Lessons of the Balance

1. The relentless pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, leads to pain.

2. Recovery begins with abstinence.

3. Abstinence resets the brain's reward pathway, and with it our capacity to take joy in simple pleasures.

4. Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a literal necessity in our dopamine overloaded world

5. Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.

6. Pressing on the pain side re-sets our balance to the side of pleasure.

7. Beware of getting addicted to pain.

8. Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy and enhances a plenty mindset.

9. Pro-social shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe.

10. Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing ourselves in it.

Goodreads says:

This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We're living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting... The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we've all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain...and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

Smiley (MC Ross)

 

There are three sections to this book. The first one is centered around a boy wanting to adopt Smiley. He has to get approval because of the rules for their rental - but Smiley is super well trained, so despite people judging her, it all works out. I almost didn't make it past the first third though. There was a ton of dialogue and Spanish words and references dropped everywhere that I had no clue what they were. 

The middle section of the book has the main character making friends with a boy who attends a fancy school and is on the rowing team. He invites Carlito and of course, Carlito is a natural and makes the team.

In the third part there is drama on the team. Luckily, everything turns out (literally, that easily). 

I picked this for a grade 3 book club book mostly because it was available in Scholastic. No one ordered though. Boo. 

I didn't read it ahead of time either. If I had, I probably wouldn't have picked it. It has some great lessons - and just in case you miss them it totally lays them out...something a little too didactic for me.

Another weird thing about this book is that the dogs talk. They're very self aware dogs too:

p. 225 (Smiley and Boris are dogs that belong to the two main characters. Boris isn't well trained, even though he belongs to a fancy rich kid. Smiley belongs to the poor kid but is much better trained) "Why do you get to scared when someone comes between us?" Smiley asked at one point, after a whine had threatened to turn into a growl. "I'm right here! Nothing's going to happen to me, I promise."
"I know," Boris sighed. "I just...I guess it just reminds me of my pals back at the shelter. The closer I got to someone there, the more it hurt when they went away. That dog I told you about, who never judged me? I think he was so nice to me cuz he could see I'd been hurt - and he'd been hurt, too, so he knew what that was like. His face had gotten all tore up in some kinda street fight - he never wanted to talk about it. But I could relate, cuz my first family clipped my ears, and it hurt real bad, and it made me feel sad, too, just like him. And normally I don't like feeling sad. But around him, it was okay. He understood me."

(Spoiler...in the second last chapter it turns out this dog, named Nugly, just happens to be at the race they win in the biggest race of all....picture dogs running in slow motion to greet each other and they just can't believe it....oh brother....oh, and there's another book by this author named Nugly. I think I'll skip it)

If you don't quite get what the author is putting down, he lays it out explicitly:

p. 232 (they're sneaking Smiley on to their rowing boat in a big competition because she seems to bring them good luck...rowing crews, apparently, are very superstitious) In response, Smiley swing her tail back and forth exactly once, just enough to whap into the insides of both of Carlito's thighs. She didn't dare move much more. Even though it was a whole week later and thus a whole week colder than that fateful Saturday morning practice, Carlito had taken off his windbreaker and dumped it over Smiley. To anyone outside the boat, it would look like Carlito had gotten overheated during warmups and decided to drape his windbreaker over his regulation deadweight. Only Cooper could see the hooded pitbull smiling up at him like a cubical little granny in a nylon shawl. And only Carlito could see the very tip of the tail that now signaled Smiley's excitement.
"Great," Carlito said. "Sorry about the cover-up. I just figured it's better safe than sorry. I'll put my windbreaker back on after they've given us the countdown."
Smiley heard the unspoken words in that sentence:  "Hey, who let them have a dog on their boat?!"

Carlito is a poor kid who gets into a rich kid's school because he makes it on the rowing team. He becomes this super wise and seemingly super experienced coxswain...it's so happy and Harlequin movie-esque, I could hardly stand it:

p. 249 "You are not going to stop rowing!" Carlito bellowed, his words coming up with hypnotic pacing and certainty. "You are going to follow my rhythm! You are going to trust me! And you are going to trust Boris! Because Boris has been putting in the work! Old dogs absolutely can learn new tricks! And you can't take on everybody's worries all the time! Sometimes the best thing you can do is just focus on doing what you need to do and putting in your work! And right now, you need to work to turn this boat so we can finish this race and you can go get your dog!"

The main lesson in the book is not to judge. People judge Smiley because he's a pitbull. Thayer judges Carlito because he's poor. People judge Boris because he's poorly trained. Smiley also has an encounter with a porcupine who, despite being a porcupine, was "had cared more deeply than he wanted to admit about those who society treated as different" (p. 254). Everything gets wrapped up perfectly with a bow with the porcupine reference visited again.

The author's website says he's sold a million books worldwide. I don't believe it. There are very few reviews on Goodreads and most of them are gushingly positive. Meh. I'd give it one star, but dogs don't deserve that.

Goodreads says:

Meet Smiley, a young Pit bull with the world's most infectious smile, in this companion novel to M. C. Ross's beloved Nugly!

If there's one thing Smiley, a young Pit bull, knows how to do, it's, well ... smile! She's had her infectious smile since she can remember, and it brings everyone around her -- including herself! -- joy.

So when she's adopted by a lovely family in Boston, Smiley doesn't expect anyone to dislike her. But she quickly learns that, sadly, Pit bulls have a reputation for being mean, and even Smiley's characteristic smile won't be enough to make everyone love her, and her smile begins to fade ...

As Smiley learns to navigate a world where she's judged by her appearance, she'll find a way to change the hearts and minds of those around her. And maybe --just maybe -- she'll find a reason to smile once more.