Month: June 2007

Augustus and His Smile

| Tasha

Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner. 

Augustus the tiger was sad.  So he went off to find his smile.  On his way, he found shiny insects, birds, mountains, fish, and gets caught in a rain storm.  And finally, there in a puddle, he finds his smile.  He learns that his smile is always with him as long as he takes the time to explore and find happiness wherever he is.

This book has marvelous illustrations that are a great mix of brilliant art and child-friendly subjects.  I also enjoyed the way that the words on many of the pages suit the subject.  They are zigzagging with the mountain tops, waving in the water, and falling with the rain.  The entire book is well designed and well written.

I love a book that presents feelings as things that are under your control.  It offers an empowering look at emotions.  Use this with preschoolers and kindergartners for both tiger stories and for stories on feelings.

Shrinking Sam

| Tasha

Shrinking Sam by Miriam Latimer.

As Sam begins his morning, he realizes he is shrinking.  When he tries to tell his parents about it, they are too busy to listen to him.  The dog sneezes on him and blows him up the stairs where he takes a bath in the sink floating on the soap.  He is then sucked down the drain to find himself outside near another child who has also shrunk down.  She helps Sam get back home through the drier vent.  The dog finds him there and gives him a friendly lick and Sam finds himself growing larger again.  He grows bigger and bigger as his family gathers around him.

I liked that the parents in the book were not cruel or awful, just busy.  As parents we have all had mornings (or afternoons) where we don’t lavish enough attention on our children.  This allowed the story to be about a normal family rather than a dysfunctional one.  The illustrations are bright and friendly and will work well with a group. 

This book is a great gateway to a conversation with children about the times when they feel small or lonely or ignored. 

Filling the Library Gap

| Tasha

The Mail Tribune of Southern Oregon has an article about the new program starting in Jackson County to share books community wide.  It’s called Books for Kids.  Children can come each weekday as well as on Saturdays to either exchange books or borrow them.  It will be done on the honor system with no formal check out.  Sounds great huh?

Well, that’s only until you realize that this is the same Jackson County that just voted to NOT support its public library system and decided to close their libraries.  In that light, this is pretty freakin’ pathetic compared to a full-service library that was just voted into extinction. 

What about older children?  Those who read independently?  What about teens?  Computers?  Magazines?  Life long learning?  Large print?  DVDs?  Newspapers?  What about all of those things that make a library so much more than a shelf of books for little children!  For heaven sakes, what about programming?  What about skilled librarians to work with children?  What about reader advisory?  Reference? 

What makes me furious are the quotes:

Sue McKenna, Medford Parks and Recreation supervisor, said she thinks it’s a “great idea.” “It’s actually something we wanted to get started,” she said. “It’s a perfect fit at a perfect time.”

Perfect now that the library is gone?  Perfect??!  Excuse me while I weep quietly in the corner.

Hathaway said she came up with the idea because when she had been a
single mother, she could not afford to buy enough books to keep up with
her daughter’s reading needs and depended on libraries.

Did you get that?  DEPENDED ON LIBRARIES.  And now she has “several dozen” books for children to replace that.  Yeah, this is progress…  But heck, it saved a few tax dollars, so it has to be an improvement!  Right?

Dexter Bexley and the Big Blue Beastie

| Tasha

Dexter Bexley and the Big Blue Beastie by Joel Stewart. 

Stewart’s art is the winner in this story of a boy who bumps into a Big Blue Beastie who wants to eat him up.  Dexter comes up with a series of adventures that they could go on together instead of the Beastie eating him.  They ride scooters, form a company, solve mysteries, eat large amounts of ice cream, and more.  The ending is sweet but not saccharine.

I love that the author has really thought outside of the norm when coming up with ideas of what the boy could tempt the Beastie with.  Often it is just food, perhaps a game, but here it is the formation of a flower delivery business, scooter rides and mysteries.  I think that almost anyone would be tempted away from hunger with those options.  I particularly liked the montage of mysteries that they solved together with all of the zany names each like a small glimpse of a complete story. 

This would make a nice readaloud, but I would particularly recommend it for reading to a few kids in an intimate setting.  It is that type of warm, cozy book that should be shared along with a hug.

The Plain Janes

| Tasha

The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg.

This is a graphic novel featuring Jane whose life changes when she is in Metro City and a bomb falls.  She is scraped up from the incident, but profoundly affected.  Her parents move with her to the suburbs for safety.  But Jane finds it hard to fit in and continues writing to a man who was found next to her on the sidewalk when the bomb fell.  He is in a coma and no one has identified him.  Jane pours her heart out to him in letters as she slowly makes a group of friends who become the Plain Janes, and perform guerrilla art throughout their suburban community. 

This is a great book.  It has so many dimensions working together.  First, the fear of attack and the search for safey.  The finding of real friends and peers in a high school.  The need to express one’s self through art.  And it ties them all up into a very digestible and friendly bundle. 

The entire book rocks with great writing and wonderful art.  It is a graphic novel that is purely American but has the feel of manga.  I can see it being a gateway book to manga and the graphic novel genre for many teen girls. 

This one definitely deserves a place on library shelves across the country. 

Rutka's Notebook

| Tasha

Today is Anne Frank’s birthday.  Here on Earth, a program on Wisconsin Public Radio, offers a program on Rutka Laskier’s diary.  Ruska’s diary has just been discovered and published.  She was a 14-year-old Polish Jew killed in Auschwitz who is being called the Polish Anne Frank. 

Just the story of her half sister discovering that her father had previous children who were killed in the Holocaust is enough to cause chills. 

The program will be available to listen to in the next day or so. 

Children's EBooks

| Tasha

Scholastic and Disney are venturing into the world of ebooks for children.  Targeting schools and libraries, Scholastic’s BookFlix pairs nonfiction ebooks with short online movies.  Disney is aiming straight for families and will allow downloads of books for a fee.  Should be interesting to see if either of the plans works with consumers.  It will all depend on cost for both companies. 

I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean

| Tasha

I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry.

There is something so very approachable and wonderful about this book.  Children will see the cover and just have to take it home with them.  Mine wouldn’t let it rest on our pile of books to read once they spotted it.

It is the story of a giant shrimp who is very sure that he is the biggest thing in the entire ocean.  Bigger than shrimp, bigger than jellyfish, crabs, turtles.  But he might just be wrong!  The illustrations are simple, wonderfully big and bright, and are perfect to read to a very large crowd because they will project well across a room.  The story is perfectly simple and short with a nice twist.

Recommended for any age of story time.  This book is also a great read for emergent readers who will like the short sentences on each page and the repetition.  It reads like a very basic reader, but has the marvelous illustrations that take it to another level. 

Bob and Otto

| Tasha

Bob and Otto by Robert O. Bruel, illustrated by Nick Bruel. 

Bob, a caterpillar, and Otto, a worm, were very good friends.  They both liked digging in the ground, eating leaves, and playing in the grass under a big tree.  But then Bob feels the need to go up into the tree and Otto disagrees, deciding to go down under the tree into the ground.  While they are apart, Bob turns into a butterfly but nothing happens to Otto.  How will Otto feel when they are reunited?

This is a sweet story that is strengthened by the repetition of the prose when the characters are climbing or digging.  The book’s illustrations are also strong, focusing on life up in the tree and deep below the ground.  The parallel frames are very effective. 

This book will be great with two different age groups.  First, for storytimes with toddlers, this book is ideal.  Add it to your butterfly story pile or for a great addition to insect storytimes.  But wait!  It will also work well for emergent readers.  Even the most early of readers will be able to read the repetitious parts and it may encourage them to read on beyond those sections.  Read on!