Delray Beach Public Library

Today I went to the public library in our community and they are amazing! Today was the first day that many of the summer camps started and they were ROCKING it. They had at least three groups of kids doing lessons, getting books, reading, working on the computers, WOW! I was impressed! Thank goodness our community supports reading in this way!

I was looking for books on some lists I've been looking at and although  I couldn't find any of the books that I was looking for (MAN!!),I did find several really great ones that I hadn't read before. I read two by Mo Willems, who you know is a big favorite of mine. I got to read "Listen to my trumpet" which is hilarious. Piggie has a new trumpet and she wants Gerald the Elephant to listen to her. She is making loud noises and Gerald tries hard to be positive. It has a really great ending. I also read "Time to say please" which we don't have at our media center, but I think we really need to get it. It's all about using good manners and even if it's kind of like a lesson, Mo Willems makes it funny.

I also got to read some more great biographies.  The first one is called "The Boy who drew birds" and it's about John James Audubon and it's by Jacqueline Davies and Melissa Sweet.  I liked all the details about his life and I LOVED the art work.  Melissa Sweet is an amazing artist!  If you are interested at all in birds or Audubon's work, you'll really like this one.

The other biography I read was about Clara Barton, who I've read a lot about.  This one, "Clara and Davie" by Patricia Polacco,  is a lot about her early life and that was a part I hadn't really heard about.  I learned that her mom was tired a lot when she was a little girl and so her older brother helped take care of her.  Clara struggled with speaking clearly and so she was home schooled and Davie really tried to protect and take care of her.  Clara loved animals and was really good at taking care of animals and when Davie was badly hurt, she took care of him, which lead to her career as a nurse.  I was really surprised as I read the very end of the book that Patricia Polacco is distantly related to Clara Barton and I love how she uses her own family history to tell a very interesting story. 

I also read two books about math.  I've been looking for this new one about fractals that I haven't been able to put my hands on but since I've been looking in the math section, I did find one I really liked.  It was called "Probably Penny" by Loreen Leedy.  Loreen Leedy writes great books about math.  My favorite (before today) was called "Measuring Penny" but I think I might like "Probably Penny" even better.  It's about a girl who has a dog named Penny and a math teacher who makes his students think and write about math.  This one is about probability and Leedy does a great job of showing the difference between impossible and possible and likely and unlikely.   Here's a video of the whole book!