Silly Suzy Goose by Petr Horacek.

Suzy is a goose just like all the others in her gaggle.  How she longs to be different!  So she imagines what it would be like to be different animals.  She could go underwater if she was a seal; she could jump if she was a kangaroo.  And if she was a lion, she could ROAR!  But Suzy’s roar comes out more as a Roooaarrrhonk!  When she tries a second time, she awakens the nearby lion who comes chasing after her.  As she flees, she jumps like a kangaroo, runs like an ostrich, and acts like all of the animals she imagined herself being.  She finally returns to the safety of her gaggle, hidden among them.  The lion leaves and Suzy realizes that while it is good to fit in, she is fine with being different too. 

This is a great read-aloud, especially for a group of antsy children.  The book is fast paced, colorful and very child friendly.  Best of all, it has a lot of action words.  If I was reading this to a group of kids, I would save it for the very end of the storytime and encourage the kids to move along with the book.  Should make for a fun time for all.

Moose Tracks! by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jack E. Davis.

I shared this very funny book with a storytime this morning and had an absolute blast.  Any adult reading the book will see the joke coming immediately.  There are moose tracks all over the house, in the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom.  Who could have put them there?  The speaker in the story is of course never pictured until the end where he is shown to be a moose himself.  The preschoolers I shared the book with never, never saw it coming.  So it was a joy to read it.  I just got bigger and bigger in my reading of the WHO?  WHO?  And the kids ate it up and started doing the chorus with me.  Then when the joke was revealed, there was even that split second of stunned silence and then they all broke into laughter.  A perfect book to share!  What fun!

The Horn Book has a FAQ about Graphic Novels.  If you have questions about graphic novels and manga this is the place to go.  They even correct common misconceptions about graphic novels. 

Nutmeg and Barley: a Budding Friendship by Janie Bynum. 

Nutmeg is a chatty, active squirrel who happens to live next to Barley, a shy and quiet mouse.  They make some little steps toward friendship, but many of them go awry.  It isn’t until Barley gets very ill and Nutmeg worries that she hasn’t seen him that the friendship is firmly started.  The illustrations of this story are wonderful.  They beautifully capture the world that these two animals live in.  The story is also the perfect length to share with children in a story time. 

Add this one to your list of great friendship books!

The Valley of the Wolves by Laura Gallego Garcia is an intriguing fantasy novel.  When Dana was a young girl she met Kai, a boy, who soon became her best friend.  She found that others could not see him and wondered if he was a figment of her imagination.  But then the Maestro, a magician, took Dana as his pupil in a far away tower.  There is only one other student at the tower, a strange elf who is far more advanced than Dana in his studies.  Her life is solitary and filled with her studies, though she does befriend Maritta the dwarf who works in the kitchen.  Eventually Dana is forced because of her ability to see Kai, to face what has happened in the tower and what the strange wolves that surround the tower really mean.

Recommend this one to those who enjoy fantasy sprinkled with werewolves and mystery.  Readers are drawn into the strangeness of the story, carried by the simple prose, and will be rewarded by a satisfying ending. 

HarperCollins and TokyoPop have made a deal that will have HarperCollins doing the North American distribution for TokyoPop and a new collection of  manga that will debut in 2007. 

For You Are a Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane, illustrated by Ana Juan. 

This is one of those barrier-crashing books that make reading picture books to children so very, very rewarding.  It will take American children straight into Kenya directly from a child’s perspective.  Through the poetic language and vivid illustrations, children get to really experience Africa.  The author includes colors, smells, food, animals, sounds, and language. 

Take this one to your storytimes filled with children who have never heard of Africa, and they will be experience it with you.  This will make a great start to conversations about different countries and regions of the world.  It also is just the perfect window to share with children.  Open this window for them, it is one that they will thoroughly enjoy!

The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks is a dark, violent story.   It is the story of Ruben, a teen boy who is half Traveler or gypsy.  He has special mental powers, so when his sister is murdered, he knows immediately.  His brother Cole decides to travel to the remote village where their sister was killed to help find the killer and get his sister’s body returned to the family faster.  The two brothers travel from London out onto the moors together, discovering a village where there are secrets everywhere and people who are not afraid to kill to protect them. 

The book is very violent, filled with a grim quality from the beginning, the book ends awash in blood.  But the violence is written with a kind of poetic style that lends it a strange beauty as well.  So here we have a gorgeously written book that is impossible to put down, but it is amazingly dark.  I believe that many teen boys will enjoy this book.  It captures the fear and uncertainty of their age and combines it with the explosive anger that many teens carry.