Embracing Change with Lantern Fiction
Oh boy! It’s autumn! Most of us know someone who LOVES this time of year. Maybe that person is you! And what’s not to love? There are leaves to peep and apples to pick, corn mazes to navigate and pumpkins to carve. The days get shorter, and the nights feel chilly! Welcome to the season that has us wiggling into fuzzy socks and heavy sweaters! There’s also something else to love about fall. It’s THE perfect time to stay home and slip quietly under a blanket with a good book. Or a great one. With this in mind, I welcome you back to the book corner and invite you to cozy up and hunker down while we take another peek into the PVB library.
Since embracing fall is all about embracing change, we will be exploring books that recount big changes characters are facing. While every change is not always as dazzling and beautiful as a tree’s leaves floating to the ground like a thousand golden flags, the changes characters go through in stories do capture our imagination and make us think about what we might be capable of and how wonderfully dynamic and adaptable we all can be.
Odin’s Firefly Goodbye tops the list. The story centers on Odin on the eve of his family’s move from the house he has lived in for years. Odin reflects on the house, how much it has given him, and how painful it is to leave it behind. Kate Boyer is a writer who expertly weaves Odin’s melancholy into the story with carefully chosen vocabulary. Slumping shoulders, darkening skies! We get the idea easily: Odin is bummed. How will he manage this enormous change? His respite comes in the form of a firefly outside the window. The inspiration it lends him is unexpected and magical.
The Flying Test is another great example of a book that has its main character contemplating change. Antrik, a boy from an interstellar world of the future, has more on his mind than simple cosmovision and insta-cook machines. He’s got a flying test to pass and his dad’s return from a five-year interplanetary mission to consider. What a day! How will he find a way to overcome his angsty insecurities? All Antrik wants is to be a worthy son and astronaut. Read the book to see if he can find it in himself to orbit into his own new season of victory.
The opportunities to read about characters handling change are numerous. Melissa must endure the betrayal of friends in A Cure for the Plague. Paloma is devastated by the heartache of her father’s death and the recent deployment of her mom in Scaredy Dog and Me. Hazel cannot believe she has been assigned the lowly role of hedgehog in the school play in Hazel Down the Rabbit Hole.
Studies have shown that reading literary fiction brings out the best in us. In her article entitled The Case for Reading Fiction, author Christine Siefert argues that reading fiction helps people develop critical thinking skills and empathy. Want to teach your students how to keep an open mind and act with kindness? Then send them straight to your fiction book closet!
The books mentioned here are all found in the Pioneer Valley Books Lantern Fiction sets (there are eight sets in all). These sets are a treasure trove of characters, action, and dialogue, with countless opportunities to make inferences, consider motives, and develop opinions. Aside from that, they are just plain fun, which means reading them is as amazing as jumping into a giant pile of leaves—and a great way to spend an autumn afternoon.
