The Book Search

Yesterday I got to go to the Miami Book Fair and wow, was it terrific.  In case you didn't know, there is a completely AMAZING book fair in Miami every year in November.  The down side is that the weather in November can be a bit dodgy.  It's Miami, so what that translates into is pretty much a range of choices... either it's sunny, quite warm and muggy or we get a cold front and it can be quite cool and windy.  This weekend we had the remarkable combination of lots of wind, muggy, rainy and not too hot.  Although it was not picture perfect weather, the event was as usual, just wonderful. The first thing that's awesome about the Miami book fair is that they invite authors from all over the place to come and speak.  Miami is a bilingual kind of town so there are many Hispanic as well and English speaking authors.  There is also an amazing range of authors from chefs to political commentators to fiction, poetry, non fiction, murder mysteries and kids ...

I've been reading a big mix of things this week.  I finished another one on the short list for the National Book award for young people.  This one was called Noggin by John Corey Whaley.  It's about a 16 year old boy who had been dying of leukemia, had his head cryogenically frozen, then five years later his head was reattached to a new body (of a boy of a similar age who had died of a brain tumor) and he wakes up.  The author's voice on this was amazing... a strong clear voice of this young man who is 16 and trying to cope with not only being gone for 5 years but living with a body that's different from the one he left behind.  Parts of it are funny and parts are heart rending.  It was a great mix of social issues and humor.  Here's a book trailer about it. I also read on called The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey.  It's the continuation of a book that came out last year called The Fifth Wave about an alien invasion of the earth.  I really...

This week I've been reading award winning books.  My local library JUST got in the books that are on the short list for the National Book award for young people so I totally SCORED.  I'd read three of them already, so I had two left.  This week I read one of them called "Threatened" by Eliot Schrefer.  He also wrote Endangered which was also on the short list for the National Book award last year and I can totally see why.  "Threatened" was such an interesting story with very compelling characters and very topical situations.  It's about a boy named Luc who lives in Gabon.  He is so ignorant that as he starts to tell his story, I was bit confused about how he had come to live in a boarding house (essentially a share cropper kind of situation where he owed a lot of money from his mother's and sister's extended hospital stay so he was working off the debt, which sounded like it would probably take forever).  Luc is serving drinks at a local bar whe...

I read two new books on Netgalley this week and I think they were a lot of fun. The first one is called Witherwood Reform School by Obert Skye.  You might have heard of Obert Skye from his other series about a kid who's closet is a mess and morphs literary characters in to one terrible character, like Harry Potter and Chewbacca, who become "Potterwookie".  They are pretty hilarious and my students like them a lot.  The Witherwood Reform School is a departure from those characters and situations and a leap in a series of unfortunate events.   Two perfectly charming children, Tobias and Charlotte, have been living with their dad (a distracted and overworked but loving parent) and a completely horrible nanny (and how they can afford the nanny when their dad is driving a cab is a bit of a mystery).  Tobias and Charlotte play a trick on the nanny so to punish them, their dad drives them to a deserted place and drops them off.  He drives away but almost immedia...

This week I've been reading some of the young people's books that are on the list for possibilities for the National Book Award.  I find that I'm not such a good judge of great literature because I sometimes don't care for the award winners (like last year's pick-That Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata, which I didn't really like) but I like to read (a lot) and so when someone smarts says "Wow, that's a really great book" it feels like I OUGHT to pay attention. Of the five that are on the short list for the book award, I've read three of them and believe it or not, I really liked all three.  The other two I've never heard of so I guess I need to get to the library (or more likely, to Amazon!).  Even more surprising, two of the selections this year are non fiction and one of the non fiction one is also poetry.  Holy cow, what diversity!  So here are the three I've read. "Revolution" by Debroah Wiles is a story about three...

I've been reading some advanced readers copies on Netgalley.  If you haven't heard of Netgalley, it's a website where you can sign up for FREE and read advanced readers copies of books.  I think the hope is that people like us will help generate buzz for the books.  Win-win!  Awesome!  Anyway, this morning I read a really awesome one called Daisy to the Rescue by Jeff Campbell.  It should be out this week and it's wonderful.  It starts off explaining about the mythology of animal rescue and goes into some detail of verifying sources (which would make for a great lesson about fantasy vs. reality). The stories are sorted into groups and before each story there is a sort of a fact sheet with a lovely pen and ink drawing of the animal.  The stories are quite short and the author's voice is strong, which I think the kids will really connect to.  I think this is one that's really going to be worth looking for. I also read Tucci's Table by Sta...

If you don't live in Florida, you probably don't know about this award sponsored through the librarians association of Florida (FAME).  The committee picks 15 books for grades 3-5 and grades 6-8 from a list of about 250.  The limits are that the books have to be for pleasure reading, they have to be written within the last 4 years and they have to be written by an American author.  The kids of Florida read the books and vote on which one is their favorite.  So, since I'm a school librarian in Florida, I've been reading the new SSYRA books and like even a really great box of chocolates, there are some you like better than others. One that completely took me by surprise was 8 class pets + 1 squirrel divided by 1 dog = chaos by Vivian Vande Velde.  It's a pretty skinny little chapter book and has a funny cover but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it (really?  Judging a book by it's cover?  Shame on you!).  Well, wow, was I wrong. ...