The Man with the Violin by Kathy Stinson

I absolutely loved The Man with the Violin.  I did everything I could to drum up votes for this book in my school for the Forest of Reading.  Sadly, it only received a few.  How can you compete with The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten.

The Man with the Violin by Kathy Stinson is based on a true story.  Joshua Bell an extremely talented and established violinist performed in a Washington, DC. subway station to see how many people would stop and watch him perform.  He had one of the most expensive violins in the world.  Joshua Bell gave an outstanding performance (you can watch it on YouTube).  Only 7 people stopped over 43 minutes.  He said that often times children wanted to stop but parents were too rushed.

I played a video of Joshua Bell performing Ava Maria for a class of grade 1/2's and they were mesmerized.  I hoped that they would listen to a minute or two.  They listened for the whole 4 minutes.  I saw a young boy get up to dance and my first reaction was that he was being silly.  He wasn't.  He was moved.  A little girl told me it sounded like a sad love song.  I was so impressed with their reactions.

So although this wasn't the Blue Spruce winner at my school I know that the book really struck a chord with them.  There were just too many choices.

Kenta and The Big Wave by Ruth Ohi

Kenta and the Big Wave is the story of a boy in Japan that is playing soccer when he hears the alarm that he needs to run for higher ground.  He loses his ball in the commotion.  When he gets to the school he finds his mom and dad.  Soon after though he discovers that his home is gone.  Meanwhile, his ball makes it's way across the ocean where another boy finds the ball and sends it back to Kenta.

First off, I quite like Ruth Ohi.  I had the chance to meet her this past winter.  I thought she was quite sweet as she sat signing autographs and personalizing them all with special little drawings.

However, I would have preferred to see this book with a bit more detail.  The story was quite short.  I think the story could have been a bit more developed and it would have made a fantastic nominee for the Silver Birch Express category in the Forest of Reading.

I think that would be one of my biggest complaints about the Blue Spruce/Forest of Reading.  There are ten books in each category that we librarians work quite hard at promoting to the students.  But I feel those ten books should be something that I could recommend to everyone in the targeted age group.  With Kenta and the Big Wave I really hesitated to read this to my Kindergarten to Grade 3 classes.  It felt like too deep of a topic to tackle in a short library period.  In the end, I did read it but only because there was another title that I felt I didn't want to tackle with the kids.  I know the kids will call me out for skipping one and I would never get away with skipping two.  This book just felt too serious for that age group but yet too simple for older grades.