Congratulations to the following MyBrownBaby readers—winners of “Testing the Ice,” the beautiful new book by Sharon Robinson and illustrator Kadir Nelson.

FROM RANDOM.ORG
Here are your random numbers:
1
3
10
14
17
Timestamp: 2009-10-16 13:09:57 UTC

Congratulations Terri Potter! You win the grand prize pack, which includes a copy of the book and a Kidorable hat, glove and scarf set.

Each of the following MyBrownBaby readers win one copy of the book:

Miss Lori of MissLoriTV
Alice Anne
Ashlee
Future Mama of BabyMakin(g) Machine

Please email me your contact information so that Scholastic can send you your prizes.

THE REVIEW

He was the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball and so Jackie Robinson’s eyes and ears saw and heard unspeakable truths about the hatred some whites had for people who looked like him. For sure, he had to be exceptionally brave to walk out onto the fields of America’s baseball stadiums, where nasty words and physical violence against black and brown players was as American as hot dogs and apple pie. But when the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first World Series against the New York Yankees, buoyed by Robinson’s home run steal, the Dodgers, and especially the Robinsons, celebrated like nobody’s business. “That,” Robinson’s daughter writers in “Testing the Ice,” (Scholastic Books) her new picture book about winters with her father, “was a sweet victory.”

Indeed, so is “Testing the Ice,” for its sweet, revelatory look into the personal life of the sports icon. Graced by the stunningly rich and bountiful illustrations of the artistic genius Kadir Nelson—honest to goodness, Nelson, of “Dancing in the Wings,” and “Henry’s Freedom Box,” fame really outdid himself with his colorful, 3-D-like images—Robinson recounts life as a child in her family’s grand Connecticut home, where her dad regaled her and the neighborhood children with stories about his baseball fame. The book is full of surprising facts about Robinson that a child may not necessarily know—his involvement in the Civil Rights movement, for instance, and his work as an author. But what’s sweetest is the life Robinson led when no one was watching—as a gentle, attentive Dad who enjoyed watching his kids fish, row, and witness “frog eggs hatch into tadpoles.”

But as accomplished and athletic and strong Jackie Robinson was, he had one weakness: He couldn’t swim and was scared to death of water—especially the grand lake that stretched across his property. When his children talk him into taking them ice skating, Robinson shows a different kind of bravery—one that his daughter Sharon will never forget.

Words can’t express how touching and beautiful this book is. I adore it for its poignant messages—bravery and fear aren’t mutually exclusive, black fathers can become heroes in their children’s eyes in the simplest of ways—and especially for Nelson’s sweeping renderings, all chocolate and rich and bold. For sure, this will be a favorite in our house, where, even though my girls devour chapter books like a fat kid does cake, picture books still rule.

To enhance your child’s reading experience:
• Have your child look up the word “hero,” discuss it’s meaning, then draw a picture of her hero.
• Discuss the concept of “bravery” and “fear” with your child, then let him list all the ways he thinks he’s brave and the things he fears most, then discuss with him how he can be more brave and, of course, overcome his fears.
• Let them read more about Jackie Robinson on his official website HERE.

THE CONTEST:

MyBrownBaby will be giving away “Testing the Ice” to FIVE LUCKY READERS; one will win a prize pack that includes a copy of “Testing the Ice,” as well as one Kidorable hat, glove, and scarf set, (an estimated $48 value) as seen above. Four other winners will receive a copy of this incredible book (a $17 value).

Here’s how you enter: Check out this video of Sharon Robinson and Kadir Nelson talking about their experience writing “Testing the Ice,” and leave a comment about something you learned about their process by 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, October 15, 2009.

Want to enter more than once? Boost your chances of winning by completing one or more of the following:

:: If you haven’t already, sign up for MyBrownBaby’s email updates by 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, October 15, 2009. To be eligible, you must verify your email subscription when Feedburner sends you a verification email. Your entry will be invalid if you do not verify. If you would prefer to get MyBrownBaby updates via an MBB RSS feed, please leave a comment letting me know you’ve done so, and include an email address, as RSS subscribers are anonymous.

:: Become a MyBrownBaby follower.

:: Blog or Tweet about this giveaway, and post a link to your work here.

:: Purchase a copy of “Testing the Ice,” (it’s been added to the MyBrownBaby Bookshelf in the righthand sidebar) and then send a copy of your “confirmation” email to mybrownbabycontests at gmail dot com.

:: Fave MyBrownBaby on Technorati. After you do this, come back to MyBrownBaby to leave a comment with your Technorati user name so that I can verify it.

See? That means each of you can receive up to 6 entries. A winner will be chosen via Random.org, and announced here at MyBrownBaby on October 16, 2009. This contest is available to U.S. mailing addresses only; all prizes will be sent to winners by the book’s sponsor.

Good luck—and happy weekend!

I didn’t mean to offend—I promise you this. It’s just that he’s a sweet boy and incredibly bright and engaging, and really, the book didn’t cost that much.

This is what I’d planned to say to the mother of my daughter’s classmate—a little boy who I’ve come to adore. I’d seen him in her class before, but I talked to him one-on-one for the first time at our school’s Scholastic Book Fair last year. My first conversation with King (I’m using a description of little man instead of his name, to protect the innocent) went a little something like this:

Me: Do you need help finding a book?

King: I’m not going to buy a book.

Me: Well, why not?

King: I don’t like to read.

Me: *I play-clutch my heart and die 2,000 deaths* What?! You don’t like to read? That’s the craziest thing I’ve EVER heard—a kid who doesn’t like to read! Do you know what you’re missing out on? Do you know how many great stories you don’t get to hear because you won’t pick up a book? Have you any idea…

Ten minutes and 40 great-books-I-know-a-kid-your-age-would-just-love suggestions later, King agreed to read with me the back covers of a few offerings to see if they kinda sounded like something he might slip and read if forced. He giggled at the first few pages of “The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid,” and wondered aloud how hard it would be to go a whole day without saying a word, like the kids in Andrew Clement’s “No Talking.” He even thought it would be cool to work on a school newspaper, like the lead character in Walter Dean Meyers’ “Darnell Rock Reporting.” By the time we finished talking and laughing and exploring, he was reasonably convinced that maybe, just maybe, reading wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Small problem, though: His mom, he said, hadn’t given him money to buy a book. “No problem,” I said simply. “Pick out one book, and I’ll buy it for you. All you have to do is promise me that the next time you see me, you’ll tell whether you liked it or not.”

Well let me tell you: Every time I see that little boy now, which is often because I’m always up there at that school, he’s got something to say about yet another book he’s reading. He’s into fantasy and mystery and humor books—loves the magic of the stories and how they make him laugh out loud. This child, a beautiful little 4th grade black boy, is officially in love with the written word.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I met up with King at this year’s Scholastic Book Fair and he told me he wasn’t going to purchase a book.

Me: Well why not? There’s lots of wonderful books here today.

King: My mother didn’t give me money.

Me: Well, you know the drill—go on ahead and pick out something and Ms. Denene will get it for you.

King: I can’t. My mom will get really mad if I let you do that.

He was so stiff when he said it—and he had tears in his eyes. Turns out his mom was pissed that some lady bought her kid something without her permission.

The hell? I was undone when I heard this madness; what in the world kind of mother, I fumed (on the inside, of course), would get mad at her son for accepting the gift of a book? In this day and age, when little black boys who’d much rather play Madden and watch Lil’ Wayne videos outnumber damn near 1,000 to one little black boys who get pleasure from reading?

I really had to fix my face on this one, and, at the same time, say something encouraging to King, who, by this point, was tearily watching his classmates skip out of the fair, book purchases in hand.

Me: “I’ll talk to your mom, okay?” I blurted out.

King: Really? You promise?

Me: Sure.

Yup, that was me and my big mouth in action. I’d just told the boy I was going to step to his mother and make her let me buy him a book.

Later, when I recounted the story to Nick, he was quiet for a moment. “Maybe,” he said simply, “you need to think about how you’d feel if somebody bought books for the girls without your permission after you told them you didn’t have any money to buy them. Pride, babe.”

Yup. As usual, I didn’t think of it that way. I was so focused on the high of getting a boy hooked on books that I hadn’t considered how my actions could have been misinterpreted by his mom—and how she may have thought they made her look in her son’s eyes. And for that, I was deeply sorry.

This is what I told her a few nights ago, when our kids’ class met for an evening activity. I introduced myself and told her how amazing I thought her son was, and asked her if it would be okay if I talked to him about books and, from time to time, slipped him an age-appropriate novel or two just to see what, in a 4th grade black boy’s mind, constitutes a good book. “No pressure,” I insisted. “I won’t go crazy. Just a book or two that we can discuss whenever I see him here at the school.”

“Of course you can give him books,” she said, smiling. “How could I argue with free books?”

Exactly. Who can argue with free books?

Both of us looked at King; his grin was infectious—worth every cent of the cost of his new book, times a million.

Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation
By Andrea Pinkney and Brian Pinkney (illustrator)
Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins

This story begins with shoes.

This story is all for true.

This story walks.
And walks.
And walks.

To the blues.

So begins this poignant retelling of Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks’s stand against Jim Crow, as recounted by a guitar-strumming, blues-playing hound named Dog Tired. He tells in a beautiful rhythmic style how Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, AL, on December 1, 1955—a peaceful rebellion that led to the boycott that ultimately dismantled America’s segregation laws. As Dog Tired spins his bluesy tale about the perseverance of the hundreds of men and women who car-pooled, taxied, and walked rather than pay to ride on a segregated bus system, a foreboding bird named Jim Crow swirls menacingly over the heads of the righteous, giving the people the blues as they work to change the world.

My daughters know the story of Rosa Parks, but this amazing book, with its rich, swirling illustrations dancing across the pages, breathed new life into the incredible narrative in a way that connected for my daughters. They instinctively understood that the dark, stormy streaks and swirls that enveloped Jim Crow represented hard times for our people—the blues—but that joy came in the bright yellows and sky blues and reds that marked the emergence of our people from a most dark time in American history. What’s more, they really enjoyed the story’s poetic tempo, which makes it a stand-out read-aloud book. Though written for kids ages 5 to 8, the story is sophisticated enough for tweens to enjoy.

To enhance your child’s reading experience:
• Have your child look up the word “hero,” discuss it’s meaning, then draw a picture of her hero.
• Discuss the concept of rules with your child, then let him list rules he thinks are unfair, and ways he would change them.
• Let them check out Rosa talk about her experience in her own words in an exclusive interview on Scholastic.com.

THE CONTEST:

Win four incredible autographed books penned and illustrated by the prolific husband and wife duo, Andrea and Brian Pinkney. The Pinkneys, who come from a long line of children’s book authors and illustrators, are my hereos—they’ve long been passionate about the value of books featuring characters and stories that speak to the African American experience. Indeed, when I went searching for picture books to stock in my then-newborn baby’s library, works by the Pinkneys were some of only a handful of published books that were being written for and about black children.

The Pinkneys have graciously agreed to give one winner four (!) books from their incredible collection of children’s picture books. Included in this package are: Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation; Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince & His Orchestra; Peggony Po: A Whale Of a Tale, and; Mim’s Christmas Jam. Imagine that: Four books featuring characters and stories that your child will flip for, with the personalized autograph of the author and illustrator! This is a $70 value, but the Pinkneys’s authographs are priceless.

Here’s how you enter: Check out the Library of Congress’s fab interview with Andrea Pinkney, then come back to MyBrownBaby and leave a comment about something you learned about her by 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, November 30, 2008.

Want to enter more than once? Boost your chances of winning by completing one or more tasks on this list:

If you haven’t already, sign up for MyBrownBaby’s email updates by 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, November 30, 2008. To be eligible, you must verify your email subscription when Feedburner sends you a verification email. Your entry will be invalid if you do not verify. If you would prefer to get MyBrownBaby updates via an MBB RSS feed, please leave a comment letting me know you’ve done so, and include an email address, as RSS subscribers are anonymous.

Buy Boycott Blues, and email a copy of your confirmation order to mybrownbabycontests@gmail.com.

Blog about MyBrownBaby and post a link to your blog entry here.

Fave MyBrownBaby on Technorati. After you do this, come back to MyBrownBaby to leave a comment with your Technorati user name so that I can verify it.

See? That means each of you can receive up to 5 entries. A winner will be chosen via Random.org, and contacted via email. This contest is available to U.S. mailing addresses only.

Well… what are you waiting for? Go ahead—Dog Tired is waiting!