Month: March 2008

Not a Stick

| Tasha

Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis.

Portis returns with a second book following her winning Not a Box.  This time readers experience the joy and play that a stick can create.  A piglet finds a stick and begins to play with it.  The adult voice cautions throughout how a stick should be handled, but the pig is just happily caught up in imaginative play. 

The illustrations here are thick line drawings that echo childhood and the text is short and wonderfully supports the spirit of the illustrations.  The sense of freedom and play here is captured to perfection, just as it was with the first book. 

Very toddler friendly, this book can be shared with a wide range of children from ages 3-6.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

| Tasha

Won't You Be My Neighbor Days_1205851898658

Won’t You Be My Neighbor Days are being celebrated in Pittsburgh this week in honor of Mister Rogers.  You can participate too by wearing a sweater on March 20th in honor of Fred Rogers and his incandescent approach to children’s television and children themselves. 

All together now:

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day
Since we're together we might as well say
Would you be mine, could you be mine
Won't you be my neighbor
Won't you please, won't you please
Please won't you be my neighbor

			

	


				
					


	

			
Spatulatta
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
Spatulatta is a cooking site for children that has recipes for foods that are real.  So the recipes are child-friendly and so is the food, but adults will want to eat it as well.  


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


They have a great cookbook out right now too:


 


 


 


Check out the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs recipe to get your kids loving turkey meatballs with their spaghetti.  Even better, they get to smush the mixture together with their hands, something my 6-year-old considers the essence of culinary skills.

			

	


				
					


	

			
Red Truck
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
 


Red Truck by Kersten Hamilton, illustrated by Valeria Petrone.


Red Truck is a hard-working tow truck, especially on a rainy, slushy day when the school bus is stuck on a slippery hill.  Red Truck zooms, pulls, and roars its way through the puddles and ice to save the day.


A perfect book for toddlers and young preschoolers, this book reads aloud like a dream.  So many truck books for small children are just a list of parts and noises, but this book has a story, action and will be popular from the moment it gets into children’s hands.  It is the red truck on the cover and the bright vehicles that pop on the grey background that will have small hands reaching for it.  The pictures are very child-friendly and marvelously bold and simple.  Perfection for reading to a large group.


Zooooom over and pick this one out.  It’s a guaranteed hit with the preschool set.  Recommended for ages 2-4.

			

	


				
					


	

			
A Curse Dark as Gold
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
 


A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.


Drawn in immediately by the cover image, I found myself captured by the intricate world I entered and the strength of the characterizations.


Charlotte Miller’s father has just died and she finds herself as a young woman with a younger sister caring for the family’s woolen mill.  Without a male running the business, she fights for respect among the other millers and within the textile industry.  Threatened with ruin when a mortgage on the mill is discovered, she turns to a strange man who simply appears and offers to spin straw into golden thread in return for her deceased mother’s ring.  Charlotte fights to ignore the strangeness of the mill, the string of deaths of boys in her family, and her own growing knowledge that something dark and horrible happened in her family’s past.  


I am often not a fan of retellings of tales like Rumplestiltskin as teen novels, but this one really works, primarily because the setting of a woolen mill is so vibrant and moves the story along a different line.  Bunce has created not only one strong heroine, but the younger sister serves as a foil for Charlotte, allowing readers a second strong female character to enjoy.  But neither girl is a saint.  They both have their own problems, personality quirks, and their own responses to desperate times.  It is their humanity that breathes such life into them.


This book engulfs the reader, spinning such a tale of curses, death, courage, cunning and strength.  Bunce has created one of the best fantasies of the year with her first book.  I look forward to seeing what her next one will bring us.


Highly recommended for lovers of fantasy and dark tales.  Don’t sell this as a retelling of Rumplestiltskin, rather let the cover speak for the treats that await inside.

			

	


				
					


	

			
Stephen King Graphic Novel
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
 


NPR has a fairly lengthy piece on the latest installment on the newest Dark Tower graphic novel The Long Road Home.  There are simply gorgeous images from the book on the NPR site, nice and large, bright but dark.  


If you are a King fan, you can also follow links to other conversations with King on NPR.  

			

	


				
					


	

			
Golden Kite Award Winners
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators have announced the winners of the 2007 Golden Kite Awards:


  


  


Fiction


Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate (on my to-be-read pile)


Nonfiction


Muckrakers by Ann Bausum


Picture Book Text


Pierre in Love by Sara Pennypacker


Picture Book Illustration


Little Night by Yuyi Morales


 


Honor Books:


Fiction


Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauran Tarshis (Wonderful!  A great read.)


Nonfiction


1607: A New Look at Jamestown by Karen Lange


Picture Book Text


The End by David LaRochelle (Hurrah!  A wonderful book!)


Picture Book Illustration


Who Put the B in Ballyhoo? by Carlyn Beccia

			

	


				
					


	

			
Harry Potter Movie #8
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
 


The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the final Harry Potter book will be made into two films.  The first half is due to be released in November 2010 and the second part in May 2011.  


I think this is a great decision and have long wondered why they haven’t done this with other Harry Potter books.  They seem so very condensed in film form and a lot of the extra moments that make Harry Potter so popular are necessarily trimmed.

			

	


				
					


	

			
Monarch and Milkweed
		

				

						 | Tasha					

				

		
 


Monarch and Milkweed by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore.


I know that you probably have read many books about monarchs and have plenty on your library shelves, but you must make room for this one.  


This book about the intertwined lives of monarch butterflies and the milkweed plant is simply marvelous.  It follows the growth of the milkweed plant in spring and the monarchs’ flight northward through to the fall when the monarchs return south and the milkweed pods burst open and the flying seeds emerge.


Both the illustrations and text work in partnership here.  Frost’s words are poetic and simply lovely.  Her vocabulary is very child-friendly, but the result will have children reaching higher to understand the way she frames her thoughts and creates images with words alone.  Adding to the grace and poetry of the book are the illustrations which are at the same time ethereal and yet realistic.  They shine with an inner light and the colors draw readers in.  This is a glorious marriage that creates a book far beyond what either could be alone.


Highly recommended for all libraries and for parents looking for a great nonfiction book that offers amazing writing.  For ages 6-9.