Review - Sing Freedom!

Sing Freedom!
by Vanita Oelschlager
illustrated by Mike DeSantis
Date: 2015
Publisher: Vanita Books
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 36
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Sing Freedom! captures the essence of this successful nonviolent revolution in a format highly accessible to children. The conflict that eventually won the Estonians their freedom could have had a very violent outcome. This story tells the history of the oppression of the Estonian people and how they gained their freedom through non-violent means.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Interested in Estonian history? No? Well, you might be after you read this simple little picture book about the Singing Revolution.

When the Soviets came to power, they pretty much tried to obliterate any other cultures in the area. But Estonians held tight to their folk songs, and eventually used them as a form of civil disobedience. This book covers a period of history from roughly World War II until the present day. I hadn't heard about the Singing Revolution before; I'm glad I was able to read this book to find out a little bit about it.

The glossary at the back is helpful, but the terms aren't in alphabetical order (which is a bit odd). And did you know that Skype is an Estonian invention? I don't know why that little factoid was included, but it's kind of cool.

This could be a nice addition to a classroom library to help teach kids about an interesting little country that seems to fly under the radar (at least here in North America).

Thank you to NetGalley and Vanita Books for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 4/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 4/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.5 out of 5

Review - Don't Dangle Your Participle

Don't Dangle Your Participle
by Vanita Oelschlager
illustrated by Mike DeSantis
Date: 2014
Publisher: Vanita Books
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 22
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Words and pictures show children what a dangling participle is all about. Young readers are shown an incorrect sentence that has in it a dangling participle. They are then taught how to make the sentence read correctly. It is done in a cute and humorous way. The dangling participle loses its way and the children learns how to help it find its way back to the correct spot in the sentence. This is followed by some comical examples of sentences with dangling participles and their funny illustrations, followed by an illustration of the corrected sentence. Young readers will have fun recognizing this problem in sentence construction and learning how to fix it.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I'm not sure how much the target audience will get out of this, considering I've seen the dreaded dangling participle in published novels (obviously, it's a tricky concept, even for adults). I think the explanation pages at the beginning might be a little bit confusing for kids; things are explained clearly, but with an unfortunate side effect of sounding a bit like a textbook. Once the book gets into the silly illustrated examples, things are much better. You can clearly see how the dangling participle changes the meaning of the sentence. (I did think a couple of the examples--Susie and her balloons and Ida and her ice cream--might've been a little confusing, though, as they could've been fantasy or simply figurative language, and not necessarily dangling participles in certain contexts.)

I probably would've liked this book when I was a kid (more than I did as an adult), but then I've always been interested in how languages are put together. I'm not sure if it would have a broad appeal for the general population of young readers, though.

Quotable moment:

Thank you to NetGalley and Vanita Books for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3 out of 5