Another delightful book from Patricia Polacco

Who can resist a story from Patricia Polacco?  While most of her stories are based off her or her families' lives, this one is slightly different.  Here, Patricia is retelling someone else's true story -- the story of Johnnie Wallen, a WWII veteran,and his experiences during the war while in the Philippines.  Patricia learned of Johnnie's story when she was on the road doing school visits and was invited to join in a reunion of WWII solders.  She tells Johnnie's story in first person voice, paying close attention to recording the exact words that Johnnie spoke.

"Tucky Jo and Little Heart" by Patricia Polacco
Accelerated Reading Level:  4.6

This remarkable story is about Kentucky-born Johnnie who convinced his parents to lie about his age so that he could join the military after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  He was only 15 at the time, and, of course, much smaller than most of his platoon.  He was part of a a special unit in the Pacific theater that was tasked with finding and destroying machine gun or enemy outposts and building an airstrip.  They fought 219 straight days in the bug infested jungles of the Pacific.  His entire body was covered in massive welts from bug bites.  Johnnie was sent ahead to clear brush when he heard rushing water and noticed a small village below with women trying to catch fish with their bare hands.  Suddenly, he heard a sound and noticed a small girl in the bush.  Neither of them spoke the others' language, but the little girl bent down and picked a leaf off a plant and applied its' sap to Johnnie's bug bites.  Immediately, the itch stopped.  He  shared a bit of his chocolate ration with her and tried to introduce himself as Kentucky Johnnie.  She renamed him "Kentucky Jo."  Jo named her "Little Heart" because of a heart shaped birthmark on her arm.  After she ran off, Jo collected as many of the leaves as he could to bring back to camp to help others.

         Over the next several days, Jo built a friendship with the silent girl and discovered that the only remaining people in her village were women and children, all of whom were starving.  Using some of the army's dynamite, Jo set off an explosion in the river causing it to "rain fish."  He then helped hunt for the villagers.   Friendships continued to grow between Jo, his troop and the villagers.  One day enemy soldiers were advancing, killing everyone and everything in its path.  Jo was instrumental in saving the entire village.  But that was the last he saw of "Little Heart" until a strange twist of fate brings them back together many years later at the end of Jo's life.

          This book doesn't avoid the horrors of war, but it does present it in a manageable way for children .  This book would be a wonderful addition to Random Acts of Kindness of Week in early March or if you are doing something with "pay it forward."

A Wordless Wonder

"Sidewalk Flowers" by Jon Arno Lawson

This is a wordless story of a father and daughter walking home on evening through a busy city.  It is laid out in a comic book fashion with most of the book in black and white ink.  The little girl and flowers are colored.  The little girl is very observant of the interesting people and surroundings of her city.  As they walk, she stops and gathers flowers, many of which would be considered weeds by adults.  After gathering a fist full of flowers, the girl discreetly begins random acts of kindness by leaving some of the flowers she has collected with others, including a dead bird and a homeless man.   She has enough flowers left over to gift to her mother and brothers and still have one left for herself.

      When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure I liked it.   But the more I read, the more engaged I became. I liked how observant the girl was to find the various floral treasures in the city and the variety of people they encountered.  I was touched by the girl’s thoughtfulness.  

       I don’t think this would be a good read aloud, but it might be an interesting addition to a writing center where a group of students could work together to create a narrative for the story. I think you might want to compare the father-daughter relationships between this book and “Ask Me” by Bernard Waber that I previously reviewed.  Students might be able to relate times when their parents were distracted by work and times when they had their undivided attention.