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With the flip of a calendar page, we welcome a New Year, and “Right on Cue,” your bee buddy Clover announces “Books for 2022,” a trio of must-reads that focus on friendship, facing challenges and finding your way despite deflating setbacks.
Clover hopes young readers will find her January Picks just as bee-guiling as the drones and the hive queen. They’re sweet on books and love getting lost in stories just like you.
The Community Literacy Foundation, with support from it's sponsors, provides these books to 38 school and public libraries in Washington, Union, Pacific, St. Clair and surrounding communities. Learn more at CommunityLiteracyFoundation.org.
Youngest Read
A caring pair of brothers who call the forest home do their best to keep all manner of woodland animals comfortable and safe in “The Little Forest Keepers,” a charmer written and illustrated by Mary Lundquist.
The bitty brothers, Ash and Pudd, reside in the trunk of a tree, an abode they’ve decked out with all the comforts of home. Day in and day out the brothers use their knitting skills to create cozy hats and scarves for birds, squirrels, chipmunks and field mice who frolic on the wintery landscape that’s dotted with evergreens.
When Ash and Pudd come across a huge, white monstrosity that towers skyward, they are perplexed, having never seen anything so gigantic and roly-poly before. The brothers’ curiosity gets the best of them. Using their courage and ingenuity, they climb to the tippy-top of the rotund object only to lose their balance and slide down, right past the whats-its carrot nose and coal eyes.
“The Little Forest Keepers” has whimsical art and a story to match that just might spawn a wintery walk in the woods.
Middle Read
Everyone wishes to live safe from harm—so do Anna and Finn, the main characters in the inspiring, old-world read “The Impossible Mountain,” by David Soman.
Throughout her young life, Anna has been assured that the wall surrounding her small European city will keep her safe, as it will everyone in the village. But from their home, Anna and Finn can see a mountain in the distance, its peak so tall it’s nearly lost in the clouds. The mountain “… was always in Anna’s thoughts, a song she couldn’t stop hearing.”
The mountain so intrigues Anna that she has to see it. “And so, she thought, should Finn.” The siblings set off to visit the mountain and scale its heights. This is an “impossible” task the townspeople tell them. There’s the river to stop them and the “Great and Terrible Bear,” and “the Woods,” the Falls,” and other impediments sure to throw them off course, still the sibling’s journey on.
Their grit in attempting a task that makes others quake in their boots is impressive in this gorgeous book about a brother and sister whose courage knows no bounds. Soman tells their tale in words and pictures, one gorgeous spread giving way to yet another.
Oldest Read
“Hope Springs,” by Jamie Berry, introduces us to Jubilee, a sixth-grader with pluck. Jubilee has suffered her share of heartache—fortunately she’s got a loving Gran named Nan who’d do anything of her.
Jubilee has lived with Nan since Jubilee’s mother, grief-stricken at the loss of her husband, leaves Jubilee to pursue a career as a country western singer. This desertion left its mark on Jubilee and Gran; neither of them want much to do with Jubilee’s mother, her letters remaining in an unopened stack that accumulates with the years.
When Jubilee turns 7, Nan begins her search for the perfect place for the two of them to live. They move time and again, but as soon as a locale gets problematic, Nan pulls up stakes. That is until the pair lands in Hope Springs, a small town in Texas. Jubilee grows to love Hope Springs, where she makes friends and is the hometown of her television idol Arletta Paisley—a crafter with her own show, “The Queen of Neat.”
Jubilee never misses the show and is impressed to be living in the town where Arletta is from—a woman the girl admires because she loves to craft herself and views the Home Network star as a fitting substitute for her mother. But is she?
Readers will root for Jubilee as she faces challenges and spearheads a festival to benefit the town she wants more than anything to call her permanent home.
Written by Chris Stuckenschneider. Copyright 2022, Community Literacy Foundation. Reprinted with permission.