Petersburg book, due in January '06), THE SUMMER OF THE WAR (due in summer of '06), and (in '07) two more picture books for Sleeping Bear Press, one for the 50th anniversary of the Mackinac Bridge and the other set in Mali, West Africa. Whelan says she has several more upcoming books in the works - THE TURNING (the 4th and final St. While I have enjoyed all of Whelan's children's books (I still haven't read the three adult books - they're finally getting close to the top of my reading shelves), my favorite Whelan books would be HOMELESS BIRD (National Book Award winner), FRUITLANDS, THE WANIGAN, GOODBYE VIETNAM, MIRANDA'S LAST STAND, HANNAH, the 'Mackinac Island Trilogy,' LISTENING FOR LIONS, and the rare but wonderful picture book BRINGING THE FARMHOUSE HOME. For this reason, I can only give the book a 4 instead of a 5 - if I was a new reader of Whelan's books, this would be a definite 5. There is some variation of this story arc in her recent books, but while all of Whelan's books are great if taken on their own, readers of several of her recent works (most of her longer books since HOMELESS BIRD) may feel they are reading a slight rehash of others. Eventually she breaks free of their domination, stands on her own, and makes new bonds with new friends / family who truly care about her, and gains the means to provide for herself with a bright future. At some point, she falls under the control of a villainous character (or duo) who tries to make her believe they are looking out for her best interests (out of pity) while they are actually taking advantage of her and her situation for their own gain while they belittle her and keep her down.

Nevertheless, many of the same story elements are here as in Whelan's other recent novels:Ī strong heroine in an international setting loses her loving family and goes on a long, harrowing journey. PETERSBURG #3 / BURYING THE SUN) were starting to sound the same, LISTENING FOR LIONS seemed much fresher in comparison.

While some of Whelan's recent books (i.e., CHU JU'S HOUSE and ST. At the end of the book, my students even broke into spontaneous applause!

The book was (as many of Whelan's books are) great at illustrating for students the use of symbolism in writing (see also Whelan's HOMELESS BIRD and MIRANDA'S LAST STAND, among others, for examples of symbolism that students can grasp). While I am not usually wild about books without much 'action,' my students and I were really hooked into this book, due to Whelan's character development and interplay. I read LISTENING FOR LIONS, Gloria Whelan's 38th book, as a read-aloud to my fourth graders from the newly released galley of the book (I wrote this review on April 8, but Amazon wasn't taking reviews for it at that point).

Listening for lions by gloria whelan