The Book Search

There are several mysteries afoot this week!  The first one is called "Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard" by Jonathan Auxier.  I'm just going to tell you straight up that I think Jonathan Auxier is a genius.  His writing is so clear and so specific.  It's just perfect.  I'm pretty sure I'd love even an obituary written by him.  I loved "The Night Gardener" and "Peter Nimble" so I was DELIGHTED to read "Sophie Quire" and it did not disappoint.  The story is about Sophie.  She and her dad run a book store and Sophie loves books, especially story books.  (Sophie's mother was tragically murdered when Sophie was a little girl).  She is a talented book mender and so even if the bookstore is not making a lot of money, people are still bringing her books to mend.  However, there is a terrible thing happening in her town, Inquisitor Prigg is trying to rid the town of Nonsense and his strategy for doing that is burning all the story ...

Netgalley has some great new picture books that I've had an opportunity to preview.  Some of these are going to be great in my school library. One of the big themes of library collection development is diversity-it turns out not all kids are white and middle class (I KNOW!!!  I was surprised too!  Oh, wait, maybe not so much.  My school doesn't look like that!)  It turns out that kids like to read about people who look like them and so since our populations are diverse, our collections better be too!  This first one fits that bill perfectly.  It's called "Joseph's Big Ride" by Terry Farish and illustrated by Ken Daley.  It's about Joseph who has been growing up in a refugee camp in Sudan.  He idolizes one of the bigger boys who has a bike and dreams of a day when he will be able to ride.  He does learn to fix bikes and hen he and his mom move to America, he finds many new things but one his new neighbors has a bike!  He goes to sc...

I started a project with my students this week called "March Book Madness" which is a twitter project. (#2016MBM).  I work in a Montessori school and if you didn't know this about the Montessori philosophy, they do not believe in competition.  The feeling is that if there is one winner, there are many, many losers and so just say no to competition.  Except that the kids are completely out of their minds for any kind of competition.  So ok, in this competition, the books are the winners (and really, so are the kids for reading all the books).  I introduced some of the books this week but especially with the picture books, there were lots of them I hadn't read.  So here are a few that I read this week. My new favorite picture book is called "Wolfie the Bunny" by Ame Dyckman.  I'd read a lot of rave reviews about this one but somehow we'd never connected until today.  I'm really sorry I waited so long because this one is awesome.  It's abou...

It's so exciting to get to read new books.  Although the hard part about reading great advanced readers copies is waiting for them to actually get published.  These are some you definitely want to keep an eye out for. The first one is called "Towers Falling" by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  It's about 11 year old Deja who has grown up in Brooklyn.  Her family has always struggled financially but this year, they've had to move into a homeless shelter.  It's not awesome.  She has to take a lot of responsibility for her younger sister and brother but she feels angry a lot.  She's angry that she's had to change schools (even though her new school is much better than the old one), she's angry that she has to wear clothes that don't fit properly and that aren't fashionable, she's angry that the new kids don't understand what it's like to be homeless, she's angry that they have to share a small place and eat in the shelter's dining ...

It's surprising to me sometimes how big a message can come through in a little picture book.  As teachers, we can get caught up in making sure the kids are building stamina or that the books are on an appropriate level, but sometimes, a picture book can bring home a message in such a clear and concise way. This first one is a book like that.  My big kids do a unit on social issues in the spring and this book is going to be perfect for that.  It's called "I Come From the Water" by Vanita Oelschlager.  It's about a boy named Moses who is found after a terrible flood in Haiti.  He is found floating in a basket and taken to children's village with other kids who lost their parents.  The children's village is run by a church and Moses has friends and can go to school so even though he doesn't have parents, he's happy.  The book has lovely, warm, inviting art work and the author emphasizes again and again how  Moses is happy.  It also has some ph...

I've been diving back into middle grade fiction after a bit of respite.  I found several on Netgalley that have been languishing in my To Be Read pile so it's great to be able to dig up a few gems!  Here's what I've been reading! The first one is called "Behind the Canvas" by Alexander Vance.  It's his second book (although I didn't read the first) and I really love his voice.  This story is about a girl named Claudia who feels like she doesn't fit in.  She really likes art and all her classmates think she's weird.  The weirdness comes to the forefront when her class is on a trip to the Florence Museum of Arts and Culture and she notices a boy with vivid blue eyes in one of the paintings.  Except no one else can see him.  She sets forth on a quest to free the boy from an evil sorceress and ends up walking through some of the most famous paintings in the world.  It's a super fun and thrilling adventure but what I really liked were the foot...

I FINALLY got to read "Last Stop on Market Street" by Matt de la Pena.  In case you haven't heard, it won the Newbery award as well as a Caldecott honor.  That's pretty unusual but one look at this book and you'll see why everyone was putting it up for awards.  The story is about CJ who lives in a big city.  CJ is leaving church with his grandmother and wants to go play, but they have somewhere else they need to go.  CJ sees a lot of negative things as they ride the bus but his grandmother only sees positives.  The language in this one is terrific and will go a long way with the little kids and oral language.  The pictures are flat, folk lore kinds of pictures that still manage to look modern and up to date.  It's also terrific to see the kind of multiculturalism infused in this book so it doesn't feel put on or forced-it's about a community of different kinds of people and lots of different kinds of people are present.  This one would be gre...