The Book Search

I love picture books.  I think some of the most talented artists are illustrating children's books instead of creating masterpieces that hang in museums and I think that's just wonderful.  Here are two awesome new books that are going to have book birthdays tomorrow! The first one is a sequel to one of my favorite books ever-The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires.  This new one is called The Most Magnificent Idea, also written and illustrated by Ashley Spires and it's as wonderful as the first one.  This one is also about a girl who has a wonderful (dog) assistant who helps her make things.  She makes things all the time!  Until one day, she doesn't have any new ideas.  She tries some of her former idea generating strategies.  Nothing.  She tries some new idea generating strategies with some fairly large consequences.  Still nothing.  And then she is inspired.  It's a super fun book for thinking about the whole design proc...

 One of the things that's been great about reading books for kids is reading picture books.  Picture books tap into a part of brain that's completely different from text so yeah, comic books read differently from text books, but they are no less reading than reading text.  I'll also tell you that if you haven't picked up a picture book or a graphic novel lately, you're going to be surprised at the quality of the art work.  These artists are putting out some amazing, awe inspiring work.  Here are two that you might consider.  The first one is a based on a Chinese folktale and it's called Kuan Yin written by Maya van der Meer and illustrated by Wen Hsu.  This story is based on possibly the most revered Buddhist saint and has connections to Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Indian culture.  It's about two sisters, Miao Shan and Ling.  Miao Shan likes to spend time with animals is filled with love.  She wants to be able to spread love and happ...

I LOVE picture books.  I love the directness of the language and how the pictures add to each layer of the story.  These are two new ones that I think will be great in my library. The first one is called The Golden Acorn by Katy Hudson.  Katy Hudson has written and illustrated some terrific books like Too Many Carrots or Runaway Baby Brother, but I think this one is my favorite.  It's about Squirrel, the fastest animal in the forest.  She loves being the fastest and has a room full of trophies to prove it.  There is a competition every year for the Golden Acorn and she always wins!  Except that this year, they've changed the rules.  This year, all the animals must compete with a team.  Squirrel is dismayed and first she tries to get her friends in shape and then she  gets mad that they aren't keeping up.  She eventually figures out that her friends are the most important part of the race and it's a happy cooperative ending.  ...

There are some amazing new non-fiction picture books that have just been released.  What a great way to start your summer reading! The first one is called "Voices from the Underground Railroad" by Kay Winters.  It's poems about the experiences of two slaves running away from a master who is planning to sell them south to pay off his gambling debts.  What's great about this one is that it has ALL the voices-so there are poems from the point of view of the master's wife and the slave catchers and the people who are station masters on the Underground Railroad.  Larry Day's pictures are lovely pen and ink with water color and help the reader understand the urgency and the immediacy of the action of the story.  I thought this one was terrific. The second one is called "Girl Running" by Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrated by Micha Archer.  It's about a young woman named Bobbi Gibb who liked to run.  She lived in a time before Title Nine spo...

I'm always surprised when kids think that picture books are just for little kids.  Many of the picture books that are coming out have complicated story lines and big vocabulary, which may or may not be appropriate for really little kids.  The ones in this review are meant for really little kids. The first one is by one of my favorite authors, Henry Cole.  We had an author's visit from Henry back in April and my students talked about it for weeks.  He is very engaging and so much fun.  His latest picture book is called "Spot, the cat".  It's a wordless picture book and tells the story of a day when boy leaves the window open and his cat goes out for walk.  The pictures are black and white pen and ink drawings and are so detailed that this book probably won't make a good read aloud, you need to be able to take your time and examine the pictures closely so you can see every little thing.  I suspect this one will want to be read several times, over ...

I got to read some very interesting picture books this week from Netgalley.  YAY for advanced readers copies! The first one is the second in what is apparently going to be a series about a little cat named Max by Ed Vere.  This one is called "Max at Night".  I loved the first one, called "Max the Brave" about a little kitten named Max who is out to hunt mice.  Except he doesn't know what a mouse is.  He goes out into the big world and finds many creatures that are not mice, until a furry little monster (with a long tail and big ears) tells him where to find the mouse.  The kids loved that one and I think they are going to love this one too. In "Max at Night", we find Max getting ready to go to bed.  He has a whole night time routine that he goes through, but on this particular night, he wants to say good night to the moon, so he keeps trying to get closer and closer to the moon.  The pictures are the same as in the first Max book-the pictures ar...

I've been wallowing in so much middle grade fiction that I forgot that I can read picture books!  And they go fast!  What a treat!  And wow, were there some great ones in the Netgalley list this week. This first one really knocked me out.  It's called "Saved by the Boats" by Julie Gassman and illustrated by Steve Moore.  It's a short picture book about September 11 in NY.  It's not about the terrorists or even about the people who were killed, it's about a group of people who wanted to help (and if you can remember that day as clearly as I do, just about everybody wanted to help, but there just wasn't much to do from a distance).  This group of people were boat captains.  It turns out that when the planes crashed into the buildings, the debris falling completely closed car traffic in the area and the public transportation was also closed.  So how would all the people in the area get home safely?  It turns out that since NY is an island...

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'm still digging through all the new titles in my library and not to brag, but boy, did I make some great choices! The first one is a picture book called "Egg Nature's Perfect Package" by Steve Jenkins.  I think Steve Jenkins is a genius.  His other books (like "What do you do with a tail like this?" or "Eye to Eye") have impressed me and my students for quite some time, but I picked this one up today during our free reading time during my fourth grade book club (I need to model for them, which is how I justify reading during the school day!).  I started reading and I don't think I even got to the second page before I started looking around for someone to show it to.  You have to know that this kind of behavior makes me insane when the kids do it (Look!  Look at this!  Oh my gosh, you have to see this!  Wow, can you believe this?) and I COULD NOT STOP MYSELF.  By the third or fourth page (when he's comparing the size of giant squid egg, ...

Wow, are these some good ones and you'll have to keep an eye out for them, because I just tried to order them and they haven't hit the stores yet.  They are totally worth waiting for.  Check these out! The first one is called Build Beaver Build by Sandra Markle.  The art work in this one is amazing.  The pictures are very detailed and so pretty!  It's about a young male beaver living in a dam with his family.  It shows how he grows and changes, how he gets food, how he avoids predators, how he plays with his sisters.  It's really a very thorough story of the life cycle and habits of a beaver.  Here in south Florida, we don't have beavers so I think my kids will be super interested to read about them in such an inviting and lovely book.  It's set to be replaced at the end of January, which should be an awesome time of year to get this one on the shelves, when the beavers are really having their babies and starting to be more active. ...

So I've been completely underwater with the books from CYBILS over the last few weeks.  I've had over 40 books laying on my coffee table, waiting patiently for me to pick them up (or if you are thinking negatively about it, having been sitting there in a surly silence waiting for me to pick them up, but I prefer the positive).  My students are shocked that I can usually get through one chapter book in a day, but they are easily impressed.  I am, however, feeling a little tired of the middle grade genre.  Too much death, too much drama, I needed a break.  So this afternoon, I started reading picture books.  The ones I picked are just terrific.  Just what I needed for a little literary pick me up. The first one is called "A Tower of Giraffes" by Anna Wright.  It's basically a list of unusual collective nouns with some facts about the animals thrown in.  The text is interesting and kids will like it, but what's really awesome about this book i...

School started last week and I just love this time of year... so full of possibilities and potential... the kids are so excited to see their friends and to consider all the promise a new year holds.  Books are like that too.  When you pick one up, you wonder "Am I going to completely fall in love with these characters and their situations?"  "Is this author going to take me places I didn't even know I wanted to go?"  These new picture books do just that. The first one is called "Lazy Cat Hero- The Rise of the Nap".  It's a folk tale about the laziest cat ever and it is hilarious.  If you've ever owned a cat, you know that they can certainly out-lazy any other animal on the planet.  My own cat, for example was too lazy to respond to her own name (although, in fairness, maybe we called her the wrong name).  The cat in THIS book is called Bubastis who calls himself Bub or sometimes just B, because really, Bubastis is SUCH a long name.  Bub sta...