Fleischman, Paul Books

Seedfolks (Joanna Colter Books)

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Almost certain to make my best reads of the year list. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks (Harper Collins, 1997)

I've read a lot of books in the past few weeks, as I often do right around the new year for some reason. The best of them this year was Seedfolks, a kids' book about a community garden in Cleveland and how it came to be. (For the record, yahoo's map doesn't locate a Gibb Street anywhere in Cleveland; if this is based on a true story, Fleischman has masked the location of the garden in question.)

The story begins with Kim, a Vietnamese girl living in a Cleveland slum. In order to connect with a father she never knew, she plants a few lima beans in a junk-filled lot across the street from her tenement building. From this small act grows a community garden, complete with activist residents getting the city to come clean up the vacant lot, social workers using a plot to teach their charges about life, and, of course, a teacher who takes it upon herself to educate the entire surrounding community.

Sometimes, however, what makes a book great is not its overarching message, but how much latitude the author gives his characters in subverting that message. While the subject of the book is a good one, and it is presented in a novel way, where this book passes from the good to the great is when one of the gardeners notices the way the plots in the garden are panning out, and how everyone self-segregates. When fences start to go up around plots, he notes sadly that what was once Paradise is turning into Cleveland again. It's a passage that stands in direct contrast to the message of the rest of the book; Fleischman, who's been feeding us a steady stream of "wow, this garden has changed my life" stories, pulls the rug out from under us by subverting his own utopia. He doesn't do it again at any time in the book, though from this point on, we do get tougher stories about the various gardeners; still, that one moment of disillusionment colors the entire book, and makes it far deeper and more thought-provoking than it otherwise would be.

A wonderful, wonderful book. **** ½

Editorial Review:

Sometimes, even in the middle of ugliness and neglect, a little bit of beauty will bloom. Award-winning writer Paul Fleischman dazzles us with this truth in Seedfolks--a slim novel that bursts with hope. Wasting not a single word, Fleischman unfolds a story of a blighted neighborhood transformed when a young girl plants a few lima beans in an abandoned lot. Slowly, one by one, neighbors are touched and stirred to action as they see tendrils poke through the dirt. Hispanics, Haitians, Koreans, young, and old begin to turn the littered lot into a garden for the whole community. A gift for hearts of all ages, this gentle, timeless story will delight anyone in need of a sprig of inspiration.

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent Resource for Poetry Exposure in the Classroom 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

"Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices" can be enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in poetry, but I believe it will be a wonderful classroom resource. Literature involves not only novels, but also poetry." Joyful Noise" can be read by the entire class, allowing everyone to participate. The verses can be challenging (and the vocabulary is suited for older students), but it is fun and entertaining to attempt to read them correctly. "Joyful Noise" can also be used across the curriculum. The poems are about insects (I especially love the poem 'Fireflies'), and they would be ideal for integration into science lessons, with children researching an insect from the book. Students could do art after reading one of these poems, creating pictures to describe what they've read. Writing skills could be built by allowing students to create their own poems for two voices. Vocabulary could be strengthened by, as a class, looking up the more difficult words and clarifiying everyone's understanding. All in all, this is a very special book, whether it's kept for personal enjoyment or is shared with children!

Editorial Review:

Winner of the 1989 Newbery Award, Joyful Noise is a children's book of poetry about insects that was designed for two readers to enjoy together. On each page are two columns of verse for children to alternate reading aloud about the lives of six-legged creatures ranging from fireflies writing in the sky to a love affair between two lice, crickets eating pie crumbs and the single day in the life of a mayfly. Charming large scale soft-pencil illustrations enhance the comical, easy-to-read text.

Bull Run

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Civil War drama told in sixteen voices, this `is a heartbreaking and remarkably vivid portrait of a war that remains our nation's bloodiest conflict.… Fleischman's artistry is nothing short of astounding.' —Publishers Weekly. `Fleischman has done what he does best—create a unique piece of fiction with echoes of his poetry throughout.' —H. `Outstanding… unforgettable as historical fiction… an important book for every library.' —SLJ.

Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA)
1994 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)
1994 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)
Best Books of 1993 (SLJ)
1993 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)

1994 Teachers' Choices (IRA)
Notable 1994 Childrens' Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)
1994 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)
1994 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for Children
1993 Choices: The Year's Best Books (Publishers Weekly)
Children's Books of 1993 (Library of Congress)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
100 Books for Reading and Sharing 1994 (NY Public Library)

1994 Silver Medal for Literature (Commonwealth Club of California)
1994 Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award Winner (Westchester, NY Library System)

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Glass Slipper, Golden Sandal: A worldwide Cinderella 2 out of 5 stars.
9 of 15 people found this review helpful.

This is a hodgepodge book, with each page representing a different culture but the storyline changes with each culture so there really isn't a story line that's followable. Most children would find this very confusing. An interesting idea that just doesn't work.

Glass Slipper 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Fleischman, Paul. Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. Henry Holt and Company. 2007.

This is a unique and lovely presentation of the Cinderella story that incorporates distinct elements from many different cultures into one cohesive version. The mean stepmother is first a nice widow who gives the Cinderella character various treats like "pan dulce and sugarcane. The beautiful double spread that accompanies this plot element is full of yellow folk art figures that are presented on a bright orange background and in the left corner, is the name of the culture that is represented, in this case Mexico. The daughter who is never named encourages her father to marry this nice woman but later she recalls her action and says, " I picked up the scorpion with my own hand", this insightful comment is part of the Iraqi Cinderella story. In a series of three panels, the story connects how a Russian cow gives the girl some honey, an Iranian fairy gives "her figs and apricots", and an Indian "Godfather Snake" gives her rice. The distinctive gouache illustrations blend harmoniously, often a richly colored inset stands out from a muted background that is filled with cultural symbols. The inside cover pages display landmass outlines with the locations of the countries that are represented, and an author's note not only mentions that the first Cinderella story likely appeared in "ninth-century China but also acknowledges his use of Judy Sierra's book, Cinderella (Oryx Press, 1992)." All libraries will want a copy of this innovative version of a universal tale. Recommended for ages 8 and up.

Editorial Review:

Once upon a time, in Mexico . . . in Ireland . . . in Zimbabwe . . . there lived a girl who worked all day in the rice fields . . . then spent the night by the hearth, sleeping among the cinders.

Her name is Ashpet, Sootface, Cendrillon . . . Cinderella. Her story has been passed down the centuries and across continents. Now Paul Fleischman and Julie Paschkis craft its many versions into one hymn to the rich variety and the enduring constants of our cultures.

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Weslandia

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What do the children you know usually do when school is out for the summer? Go crazy with boredom? Head poolside with friends? Plan a self-sufficient civilization with its own staple food crop? That is precisely how Wesley decides to spend his summer vacation. Wesley is not an ordinary boy: "He alone in his town disliked pizza and soda, alarming his mother and the school nurse. He found professional football stupid. He'd refused to shave half his head, the hairstyle worn by all the other boys, despite his father's bribe of five dollars." It all starts (the civilization, that is) when Wesley overturns a plot of ground in his yard to see what new and unknown seeds might blow into it. Curiously, just one kind of plant grows--an unusual, flowering, fruit-bearing plant that tastes of "peach, strawberry, pumpkin pie, and flavors he had no name for." Soon, Wesley is literally reaping the fruits of his labors--using the fruit rind to make a cup for the juice he squeezes, barbecuing the root tubers, and weaving the bark into a hat to keep off the sun.

In Wesley's new world, he no longer needs a watch because he uses a flower stalk as a sundial, dividing the day into 8 segments, one for each of the flower's petals. A new language (based on an 80-letter alphabet) and counting system (based on the number 8) soon follow. Ah, Weslandia. Slowly but surely his once-tormenting classmates become curious. And soon enough, Wesley allows them to help him crush seeds for oil, which "had a tangy scent and served him both as suntan lotion and mosquito repellent." He also invents sports that are less distasteful to him than football--"games rich with strategy and complex scoring systems," and watches patiently as his classmates blunder. Wesley's parents say that he looks happy for the first time in years. And when he returns to school in September? "He had no shortage of friends." Newbery Medal winner and onetime alternate-world creator Paul Fleischman shines in this deadpan-but-hilarious picture book, and illustrator Kevin Hawkes's splendid paintings will delight young readers with the explosion of colorful, comical details. Kids young and old will love the once-outcast hero Wesley and his Robinson Crusoe-style triumphs. (Ages 8 to 11, or for reading aloud to younger children) --Karin Snelson

I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Delightful 4 out of 5 stars.
17 of 18 people found this review helpful.

The poems in this book are meant to be read aloud by two different people. Each person reads one of the two columns aloud and lines written on the same line are said simultaneously. This volume contains poems about birds.

My 9 year old son, who doesn't like to read out loud, loves to say these poems with me. It takes a couple of readings to get the cadence right, so this becomes a wonderful way to work on diction while having a tremendous amount of fun.

Editorial Review:

At first light the finches
are flitting about the trees

Flittering
fluttering
flit
purple finches
flit
Fluttering
flittering
fly
painted finches
fly.

In this companion volume to JOYFUL NOISE: POEMS FOR TWO VOICES, the winner of the 1989 Newbery Medal, Paul Fleischman celebrates the sound, the sense, the essence of birds. Written to be spoken aloud by two voices, sometimes alternating, sometimes simultaneous, these poems perfectly capture the beauty of birds in their singing, soaring, and rejoicing.

Sidewalk Circus (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards))

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Baby cried the day the circus came to town 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Huh. That's weird. I'm a pretty easy person to influence. If I read a glowing review of a picture book, I'm far more likely to love it instantaneously upon reading it than, say, view it with a suspicious eye. And the advance word on "Sidewalk Circus" could only be described in one way: glowing. Every reputable children's publication, from Horn Book and Publisher's Weekly to School Library Journal and Bulletin For the Center of Children's Books could only gush and clamor over the beauty that was "Sidewalk Circus". With such remarkably good things said about it, I looked forward to viewing my own copy with quite a bit of anticipation. Maybe I was just setting myself up for disappointment. But when I finally read through this reportedly glorious book I found that it was not the genius work of picture book art I'd come to expect. It's an interesting concept and perhaps a plummy idea. But it's not particularly winning. After I read it I could really only think one thing: Huh. That's weird.

This book is all but wordless, making the action take place entirely in the deft acrylics of illustrator Kevin Hawkes. If you've ever seen Hawkes' fabulous, "Weslandia" then you're familiar with his talents. In the beginning a marquee promotes the following: "COMING SOON...WORLD-RENOWNED...GARIBALDI CIRCUS!!!!....". Across the street from the marquee sits a girl, waiting for the bus. Beneath her eyes, even the most ordinary human being are transformed into circus-related creatures. That construction worker balancing two heavy buckets high above the ground? A tightrope walker, of course. The cook tossing early morning pancakes on a grill? A juggler of highest renown. And what about those window washers that accidentally swing high off the ground? Trapeze artists. In the end the girl gets on her bus, still entranced by her thoughts and a boy takes her place on the bench, creating whole new imaginings of his own.

The idea is very good. And since author Paul Fleischman didn't actually write many words for this tale, he must have closely collaborated with Mr. Hawkes. The ways in which the girl sees everyday people as circus performers is through their shadows. The shadow of an old man posting flyers turns into a magnificent image of a circus ringleader announcing the next act. The problem is, the book's a little messy. The shadow idea appears here and there, then drops off without explanation. It's a little difficult to make out some of the images as well. For example, unless you look very closely, you may not notice the shadow of a big top splayed against a building across from the fascinated girl. There's also an odd sequence involving two clumsy skateboarding youths, a painter, and some window washers that doesn't flow together particularly well. I kept feeling like I was missing something. Sometimes the shadows work splendidly (like the one on the cover) but other times they're actually a little hard to separate from the real life action. Only a kid with a deep-seated conviction that he or she was going to figure out every shot in this book would take much pleasure in the story.

I feel terrible saying this. I mean, everyone and their mother seems to like it. I've heard it bandied about for certain awards and many many people think it's worthwhile reading. And I did attempt to like it. I did. I tried everything in my power to do so. But why on earth are the shadows of the pigeons shaped like toucans? Why do the window washers have difficulties with their rig anyway? Why did the youths' skateboards disappear in one two page spread then reappear all over again on the next? Maybe kids won't notice these inconsistencies but they're bound to be a little puzzled by the story's haphazard action. Take it from me... I wanted to like this book and it certainly had a lot going for it. It just didn't live up to its potential. As picture books go, it's so-so. Not very good. Not very bad. Not very anything. Read it if you like, but consider giving it a glance before making any purchases.

Editorial Review:

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls! The Garibaldi Circus is coming soon - though for some, with enough imagination, it's here already. See an astounding assemblage of tightrope-walkers, strong men, sword-swallowers, and clowns.

The Half-a-Moon Inn

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Half A Moon Inn 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

What 11 year old boy wouldn't want to stay home alone. I thought. Aaron has a difficult life because he is mute, and wouldn't want to be home alone.
Aaron is scared to be left alone because he is mute, and it could be dangerous for him.
I felt like if I was inside Aarons shoes because I felt sad for him when his mom didn't come back. When we read this book I thought it was a wonderful and sad novel because at the end Aaron found his mom.
I recommend this novel to everyone that will like to enjoy Paul Fleischman's stories/novels.I think that people who likes sad novels would like Paul Fleischman's stories because of his feelings.

Editorial Review:

A twelve-year-old mute boy sets off to find his mother in a blizzard, and becomes the captive of an evil woman in the Half-a-Moon Inn. `A suspenseful tale with archetypal characters and a haunting atmosphere. . . . The brisk pace and steady accumulation of events build tension, while Fleischman's fine writing begs to be read aloud." —BL.

1980 Children's Reviewers' Choices (BL)
Notable Books of the Year 1980 (NYT)
1980 Golden Kite Award Honor Book for Fiction (SCBW)
Children's Books of 1980 (Library of Congress)
1980 Silver Medal for Literature (Commonwealth Club of California)

The Birthday Tree

Paul Fleischman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A UNIQUE, IMAGINATIVE TALE 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

The words "Illustrated by Barry Root" on a dust jacket immediately tell me that young eyes will find some very special pictures accompanying a story. That is certainly true of The Birthday Tree, a mythic tale filled with birds, landscapes, and billowy clouds all rendered in Root's warm watercolors.

As the story opens a sailor and his wife had "lost three sons to the waves," so they are leaving the sea far behind. When at last they reach a green valley where the sailor can no longer hear the sea, smell it or even see it with his spyglass, they build a little house.

In time they have another son whom they call Jack, and they plant an apple seedling to commemorate his birth. Jack and the tree grow tall and strong together. In fact, they almost seem as one because "the branches of the tree hung heavy when was Jack sad. When he was happy, the limbs stood out straight and proud...."

Although the sailor and his wife never spoke of the sea to Jack they sensed he was curious about it, and one morning Jack was gone. There was a meadowlark sitting atop the apple tree which they took as a sign that Jack was traveling over land. Then one day a white gull took the meadowlark's place and they knew Jack had gone to sea. Of course, they were worried and lonely without him.

Their fears were realized one night when a storm came up and lightning struck the tree cracking a limb that fell to the ground - they knew Jack had been in a shipwreck. They could only watch and wait as the branches of the tree drooped and its leaves curled.

Finally they couldn't bear to look at the tree any longer and decided to move to a place where people had never even heard of the sea. At this point author Fleischman has a surprise in store for them and for readers as well.

The Birthday Tree is a unique, imaginative tale that both youngsters and parents will enjoy.

- Gail Cooke

Editorial Review:

Planting a birthday tree has enduring effects in this poignant tale of a roving boy’s link to nature — and the roots of his family’s love.

When baby Jack arrives, his father and mother plant an apple seedling to honor his birth. As Jack grows taller, so does the tree. When Jack is happy, the tree limbs stand straight and proud. When he is cold, the leaves tremble on their stems. But one day Jack’s parents awake to find his bed empty. When they see a gull perched atop the tree, they realize that their Jack has run away to sea. Paul Fleischman’s lyrical prose and Barry Root’s magical illustrations tell the story of a boy’s powerful connection to his family despite distance — and adds new meaning to the old custom of planting a birthday tree.

Rondo in C

Paul Fleischman

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Editorial Review:

As a young piano student plays Beethoven's Rondo in C at her recital, each member of the audience is stirred by memories.