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It's a busy, busy, busy at the construction site. Dozer, Crane, and Digger are pushing, hoisting, and digging to build tall buildings for working, roads for driving, and bridges for crossing. One day Digger comes across a small, blue flower growing amidst all the construction. As the other construction vehicles keep building up the city, Digger visits the flower each day to nurture it's growth. Soon, the space where the lone little flower is growing is the only place that's not built up, and the Crane insists that they need to put a building there too. Will Digger be able to stop them, and if not, what will become of the last little flower in the city?
The Digger and the Flower, simply yet poignantly written and illustrated by Joseph Kuefler, is a deceptively quiet picture book that packs a huge emotional punch. Just when things seem devastating, hope peeks through the darkness, and we readers are reminded of the triumph and resilience of the human spirit. Have your tissues handy, parents, because this book might make you cry--first from sadness, but then ultimately from the beauty of hope.
This is not your typical construction vehicle book--it's a deeply touching read to share with preschoolers through second graders.
Frankie Joe is a total misfit within his new family. His mom will be in jail for awhile. He's being sent to live with a dad he barely knows all the way in Illinois, far far away from his trailer park home on the border of the Chihuahua Desert in Laredo, Texas. His half-brothers are not very welcoming, especially the oldest, who is now bumped to the second place and boy does he hate that. There's nothing more important to Matt than being number one. Come the first day of school and Frankie Joe finds out he hasn't been going to school enough to put him in the sixth-grade, so he's going to be demoted and be in the same class as Matt! Arrrghhh! The injustice and loneliness sets him on a path to scheme and plot his way back to Laredo.
Frankie Joe is trapped in a small town with all kinds of rules not suited to a young free spirit like himself. All he wants is to be reunited with his mom and go back to the trailer park and hang out with his retired friends just like before. Life just threw him a curve ball and all he can do is be Freaky Fast Frankie Joe and make a new start for himself.
An endearing coming of age story by Lutricia Clifton for readers in grades 6-8th.
