The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter without the illustrations? Heresy! What were they thinking? I think of the Beatrix Potter books as the perfect integration of illustration and text. Having one without the other just doesn't cut it. And the book itself is an expanse of white with black print. There is no explanation of why it contains just the text for all her books. It totally drains the life out of her stories. Bad, bad, bad idea!

Invention of Hugo Cabret

This is a book you really have to sit down to read. At 533 pages it is heavy and awkard to hold in one hand. Though it is not a graphic novel the story is told in word and drawing alternately. There are pages of pictures followed by pages of words followed by pages of pictures. The drawings which are only in shades of black, white and grey, fully evoke the enormity and the scariness of the huge railroad station where Hugo hides/lives. Most interestingly, it is based on an actual historical event - the invention of an automaton which could draw and write.
Check it out. I think the Children's Lit world will be talking about it for some time.

Middle School Books?

Hi,
I know everyone has been reading Book Bash Authors. Has anyone read any
titles that they would recommend for middle school readers. It seems that
there is a preponderance of High School Titles. It would be helpful to have a list
of authors and titles to recommend to our younger reading zealots. The following authors
seem to fit the bill so far: Ann Rinaldi, David Lubar, Wendy Mass, Maureen Johnson's
Little Blue Envelopes. Any other suggestions?
Ann

Illustrations

Reading though the new picture books I found one with lovey illustrations. Half a World Away is by Libby Gleeson and illustrated by Freya Blackwood. It is a simple, sweet story about the power of friendship. The illustrations are water colors -- fairly monocromatic and simple but the use of red on each page focuses one on the important detail. The children's faces are sweet and a tad melancholy -- appropriate to the story line.

New Picture Books

Of the current new batch of picture books I found a few I thought were worth noting.

1) The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan tells the story of Dodsworth. Dodsworth spends his days doing as little as possible -- running his trift shop, visiting the junkyard to find new things for his store, napping, and watching TV. One day he finds a pink refrigerator with a note clamped to the front with a powerful magnet. The note contains a mysterious message. Soon Dodsworth is living a very different, far more interesting life. Great message about living life to the fullest.

2) Wolf! Wolf! by John Rocco is the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" from the perspective of the hungry old wolf. Nice resolution. The illustrations have a Japanese quality (-- and I don't mean anime.)

3) Silly Billy by Anthony Browne is about a boy with too many worries. The solution proposed by his grandma? Worry dolls! Soon that poses a new problem. But a stronger Billy finds a solution to this new problem on his own.

Checking Blog Status

This is a trial post to see whether we have publishing capability again.
Ann

Frog, Toad and Pooh?

Sheep and Goat. by M. Westara. A warm, fuzzy book that is reminiscent of Frog

and Toad in its tone. "Goat is talkative, impulsive, curious and full of energy, while

Sheep tends to be quiet, sensible, pensive and sedentary, but the two have more

in common than it initially appears.Together, these two young females share a comfortable meadow on a sleepy farm." The two friends quarrel, however they also get along. Through the year they experience storms, birthdays, accidents, visitors, adventures, and in the process we grow and learn with them. It is a comforting book with Pooh-like subtle philosophy throughout. A sweet choice for ages 7-10 that would make a wonderful read aloud for bedtime or anytime!

A Moving Memoir

It's not new , but I highly recommend this small yet powerful book that does a great job taking the reader back to 1949 when the author contracted polio at the age of 12. In Small steps : the year I got polio, Peg Kehret uses fictionalized dialogue and tender scenes to draw you into her world as she copes with her seven month ordeal. Her description of the onset of the illness is gripping, her account of being quarantined and her subsequent long hospitalization is fascinating. It's funny, sad, poignant and inspiring... and, of course, educational as we get to learn about all aspects of the disease. I used it with a group of 10-12 year olds and they all enjoyed it.

Gossamer by Lois Lowry

I really enjoyed this little book about the power of dreams -- for good and for evil. This is a sweet tale about a little boy who has been abused and abandoned by his father and taken from his mother. He comes under the foster care of a lonely retired teacher. But the "heroine" of the story is a dream giver named Littlest who is just learning her craft from a kindly more experienced dream giver. They battle the Sinisteens for the heart and mind of this little boy. I recommended the book to one of our preteen patrons who is a voracious reader and she stopped by a day or two later to tell me she loved it.

Bridge to Terabithia

The ads for the movie version of The Bridge to Terabithia by Katerine Patterson pushed me into "reading" the audiobook. The book was wonderful, satisfying and real. I am now convinced that the movie completely misses the main point which is the friendship and acceptance between two children who feel outside the norm. Katherine Patterson's characters are so thoughtfully drawn. The movie seems to be about the fantasy world they create -- an important part of the story but not one that is described in much detail in the book.

I am guessing the movie industry is reluctant to move too far from the Harry Potter fantasy formula. What a wasted opportunity to do something different.

Ghostly page-turner

I just finished another YA novel: A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb. The narrator, Helen, has been dead for 150 years and is haunting her current "host," a high school English teacher, when she notices that a boy in the teacher's class can see her. Helen hasn't been "seen" by living eyes until now, and the feeling unsettles and then excites her. An intense relationship develops between these two troubled "souls" as they discover the stories behind their lives and the lives of the bodies in which they dwell. Thoroughly enjoyable, this book was a page-turner! Although it is a tale told by a "ghost," it is more of a romance/mystery than a scary story. There is sextual and drug-related content, so recommended for muture teens and adult fans of YA literature.

Martha

Recent YA reads

I recently read a few 2005 Young Adult titles that merit recommendations if you haven't already read them: Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue by Julius Lester; Every Man for Himself: Ten Short Stories About Being a Guy edited by Nancy E. Mercado; Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX by Karen Blumenthal.

Day of Tears is a work of historical fiction set around the real event of the largest slave auction in American history --held in Savannah, GA on March 2 and 3, 1859. Lester uses historical accounts from the sale of approximately 430 slaves from the plantation of Pierce Butler. It reads very much like a play, complete with a list of characters at the beginning, and I easily pictured this story being told on stage. I found it to be a wonderful source of accessible reading of this painful and important piece of shameful history. It reads fast as you're drawn into the beautifully balanced perspectives of the various people involved: the slaves, the masters, the slave sellers, the abolishonists, etc.

Every Man for Himself is a collection of short stories focused on the "guy experience" written by prominent, male young adult authors. My favorites were Shockers by David Lubar, Strange Powers by Craig Thompson (graphic novel style), The Prom Prize by Walter Dean Myers, and No More Birds Will Die Today by Paul Acampora. A great way to get a taste for all of these writers...

I had first heard about Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, the Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America as a young adult book talk at NJLA last April and had been meaning to read it ever since. Because it's a 2005 GSBA contender, I finally got around to it (nonfiction books are so easy to overlook in all the fiction there is to take up my reading time!). Boy, I'm glad I did read it at long last! Being a "Title IX baby" (born around the same time as the law), I, like so many others who don't know what it was like to be a girl growing up before it, tend to take the opportunities girls and women are given in education these days for granted. Blumenthal notes that in writing this book she was attempting to keep the history of Title IX from disappearing. An important and valuble read for understanding women's rights and keeping those rights alive and thriving today and in the future. A well-worth-it break from reading novels!

JU READS

When a young patron came in asking for Gathering Blue and Messenger by Lois Lowry I decided it was time to read these "sequels" to The Giver. Calling them sequels is a bit of a stretch. Gathering Blue and Messenger are more clearly connected. The Leader from Messenger is the the young Jonah from The Giver but it is not explicitly stated. I found these books interesting but not as compelling as the first. (Sometimes it is a mistake to mess with a masterpiece. ) But the books have strong messages about the value of individuals, the meaning of community, the importance of finding and using one's talents, and more. They also present interesting ideas about what the future might look like.

I love the Cassons!

As you probably may already know, I absolutely adore Hilary McCay's books about the eccentric, lovable Casson family: Saffy's Angel; Indigo's Star and Permanent Rose. Therefore, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the latest (and perhaps last): Caddy Ever After (2006, ages 9 and up). I had wondered if McCay would indeed write a book for Caddy, the oldest of the Casson kids, in fact, not a kid at all, but a young woman off in London at university during the last two books. But even though the title bears her name, this book is mostly Rose's, the youngest Casson, now 10 years old. Rose's narrative opens the book and closes it, although we hear from Indigo, Saffy and Caddy in between. I think that's what I liked best, hearing from them all, perhaps because I feel so attached to each character. The climax centers around Caddy's wedding (not to Darling Michael!), but it is Rose who pushes forward the action of the story. To attest whether or not I enjoyed this book, I read it in one sitting --ever sad to have it end and let the Cassons go! Recommended, of course!

Monkey town : a story of the Scopes trial by Ronald Kidd.

Monkey Town is historical fiction that should be required reading for everyone in the current climate of debate over "intelligent design" and "evolution". The story of the Scopes trial, begun as a publicity stunt, is told through the eyes of 15 year old Frances, who, by the end has questioned her beliefs in her father, her God, and her known way of life. The book seems to be well researched and accurate within fictional limits. The writing is a tad stiff at times, but I recommend the novel nonetheless. It does what good fiction should do -- makes one stop and think about preconceived notions.

Catching up

This is a copy of an email I sent earlier this month. I decided I want it included in the BLOG after all.

I just finished Karen Cushman’s The Long Silence of Francine Green which in true Cushman style is historical fiction, but much closer to us than usual. It is set in Hollywood CA in 1949-1950, and I think she nails the loss of innocence, the confusion and the fear of the early McCarthy years by telling of the gradual awareness of these things from the point of view of an admitted good girl who wants more than anything to stay out of trouble at home and at her Catholic school. Francine as naïve observer of the world is totally believable, and her new friend Sophie who delights in the attention of being a thorn in the nuns’ side, is just as credible as the outspoken daughter of an unsuccessful widowed Hollywood screen-writer. Blacklists, naming names, sadistic teaching nuns all conspire to force Francine to find her voice. The only complaint I have about the book is that it ended. I wasn’t ready to stop being part of Francine’s life just yet.

I also recently read M.T. Anderson’s The Clue in the Linoleum Lederhosen which is goofy, clever, fast moving and I think, deeper than one assumes. Anderson is spoofing all the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Happy Hollisters, and other mystery series as the characters each represent a type of child crime solver with sometimes hilarious results (what happens if a series is cancelled before the hero is ready to be “done”?) The zany writing style will keep kids who have graduated from Time Warp Trio and Captain Underpants coming back to see what else Anderson wrote.

Just before I went on vacation I read The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin

Kladstrup which is a fantasy on the order of Funke’s Inkheart. It involves a notebook

in which young aspiring writers begin stories only to have to live them out somehow.

Tension is caused when stories begun more than 70 years apart become entwined

and the solution to the more recent must not affect the ending of the first, or somehow, the latter story cannot happen… I know, I know, such unlikely juxtapositions are only possible in fantasy, but for once I didn’t find it a problem. I liked Lucy and Oscar. I didn’t quite believe Lucy’s father’s character, but I enjoyed the book and think that it will be a handy suggestion to make to children who enjoy Funke or Micheal Ende’s Neverending Story.

I also managed to read Jennifer Weiner’s Goodnight Nobody (adult chick lit) which

was perfect airplane reading but I found not as engrossing or interesting as her previous books.

The Borrowers

Two things recently led me to reading The Borrowers by Mary Norton (ages 8-12).

First, the series and its tiny characters were the subject of a NPR This American Life

story broadcast this summer. And second, Courtney had recommended them to a

young girl who enjoys Enid Blyton books. I was intrigued. As a child, myself, I had

often fantasized that there were little people living behind the elaborately pastoral wallpaper that covered the foyer and staircase walls of my home. I had spent many hours sitting on those stairs, waiting patiently for the 18th century clad people to get up from their reclining poses and walk right out of their tree groves and into my big, modern world. So, I found it a little upsetting that I had never discovered these books when I was young --they were certainly around and have been since the 1950s. Well, better late than never, and after reading the first book, I've fallen in love. These stories of a family of tiny people who live in the walls and floorboards of an old house with a colorful past and later a "badger's set" out in the nearby fields are for any child who adores all things minature (think dollhouses) and has a tendancy to image secret worlds just beyond our everyday routines...

Martha

Stay With Me

I just finished reading the new young adult novel Stay With Me by Garret

Freymann-Weyr. Set in New York City in the year following 9/11, it is the

story of sixteen-turning-seventeen year old Leila trying to discover all of

the stories that make up her family after the sudden suicide of her much older half sister. Because she is dyslexic, she is perhaps more capable than most to take the nessecary time to understand things before coming to quick conclusions. Although it was hard to always relate to Leila with her being one of those tall, beautiful, uppercrust Manhattan types, I genuinely liked her because of her thoughtfulness and keen perception of the people and circumstances around her. Presenting a wealthy, gorgeous, well-traveled and fabulously complicated network of characters, the book could have easily become pretentious. But because of Leila it escapes this --things happen subtley and the characters are essentailly all good, likable people. Ultimately, as the dust jacket states, Stay With Me "is about how impossible and important love is." Recommended, especially when looking for fiction that deals with dyslexia, suicide, NYC after 9/11, and teen relationships with older love interests.

Re: Mrs. Mike

I recently reread Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman. I had read it as a

teenager and loved it for the adventure, romance and resiliency of the lives of

Katherine Mary Flanagan and her Mountie. I wondered if it would hold up to

my expectations after so many years. I was not disappointed. In our era of luxury, technology and instant gratification reading this book will remind one of the value of family, friendship, committment and character in the face of tragedy, loss, and hardship. I think this book would be great for early high school and up.

7to8 book club reads

These are two newer books that I came across while preparing for last month's 7to8 Book Club and rather liked.
The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin (ages 8-11).
A 99% autobiographical account of one year (yup, you

guessed it, the year of dog from the lunar calendar) in the life of a Twainese-American girl growing up in a small upstate NY town. Pacy, as she's known at home while called Grace at school, shares her experiences of what it's like to be culturally different from most of the other kids in her community and how confusing this can often be. It's year of self-dicovery, finding hidden talents, and making a special new friend. A delightful read, especailly for learning about Asian-American culture.
Down Girl and Sit: Smarter Than Squirrels by Lucy Nolan

(ages 7-10)
What would we do without dogs to save the world from menacing squirrels and pesky birds? Lucky for humans, there are dogs like Down Girl and Sit to protect us! Told from the point of view of Down Girl, this funny book offers four chapters of their neighborhood adventures, including protecting garbage cans full of treasures from Here Kitty, Kitty and avoiding the dreadful creature who lurks behind the backyard fence (the little girl next door who is known to dress pets up in humilating doll clothes). Recommended for young dog lovers!
Martha