The Book Search

I got some new books today, YAY!  I suppose it's a sign of my madness that when I get a box of new books, it always feels like Christmas.  So of course,  I hauled several of them home to read.  There were three gorgeous picture book biographies that I had been reading about on other blogs that I FINALLY got for our library. The first one is called "The Right Word" by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet.  These two have teamed up before to write some awesome biographies about people you might never have heard of (like Tony Sarg, who invented the Macy's parade balloons-"Balloons Over Broadway").  This one is about Peter Mark Roget, of the thesaurus.  It gives nice background information about the life of Dr. Roget, including the amazing number of things he invented, besides the thesaurus, but in my opinion, what really brings this one to life is the art work of Melissa Sweet.  There is so much energy in these pictures, they practically leap off the page....

I've been reading biographies this week.  I got a few new ones in the media center and found a few more in the Ebook section of my local library (free books!  Delivered to my ipad!  What a deal!). The first one is called "On a Beam of Light" by Jennifer Berne is a picture book biography of Albert Einstein.  The pictures are exuberant and kind of primitive (in a good way) and it makes the life of Albert Einstein accessible to little kids (and bigger kids who might have thought that Albert Einstein was too smart for them to read about).  It explains some of Einstein's theories in very simple terms but it also talks about his persistence and his questioning attitude as well as his love of reading that took him to the places he wanted to go. The second biography I read was about Jane Goodall.  It's called "The Watcher: Jane Goodall's life with the chimps" by Jeanette Winter.  I'm a big fan of Jane Goodall, having heard her speak at a loca...