Month: November 2013

Hunger Games Catches Fire Online

| Tasha

If you have looked at almost any news today or yesterday, you will see reviews and commentary on the new Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie.  Here are some links to learn more about this second film:

From Salon: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Whose revolution is it?

There’s a naiveté to the politics of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” the second movie chapter, that’s simultaneously appealing and troubling.

From USA Today: Hunger Games: Catching Fire gets spark from Lawrence

Whether on the runway or shooting an arrow, Lawrence is powerfully convincing.

From the LA Times: Review: Hunger Games: Catching Fire burns bright with fiery Katniss

Jennifer Lawrence gives her all as the fight-to-the-death teen, elevating the thrills in the ‘Hunger Games’ sequel

From Slate: A Textual Analysis of The Hunger Games

Why might a reader take a shine to one series and not the other? The content, of course, differs considerably: Twilight is filled with fantasy romance, Hunger Games with fantasy violence. But what about the authors’ approach to writing?

And finally, something funny!

From The Week: The Hunger Games: Watch the 11 funniest parodies

…there are plenty of good spoofs of the dystopian teen franchise to be found — and we’ve collected some of the best for your perusal.

2013 National Book Award Winner

| Tasha

The National Book Awards were announced last night.  The winner for Young People’s Literature is one of my favorites of the year:

The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata.  Hurrah!

Geography Club – The Movie

| Tasha

Thanks to Lee Wind for sharing the trailer of The Geography Club based on the book by the same title by Brent Hartinger.  Looks amazing!

Review: Little Fish by Ramsey Beyer

| Tasha

little fish

Little Fish: A Memoir from a Different Kind of Year by Ramsey Beyer

This graphic novel takes real journals, collages, lists and drawings to show the author’s transitional first year of college.  Ramsey grew up in very small Paw Paw, Michigan.  She was an artist from a young age and worked very hard at it, earning a spot in one of the top art schools in the country.  This meant moving to Baltimore and making new friends for the first time since she was a young child.  It also meant that she would no longer be the best artist around, she would be challenged as an artist in her classes, and she would have to find her own way in this new setting.  Beyer’s novel shows the difficulties and triumphs of a freshman year of college, and is sure to encourage other little fish to try their luck in the big city.

Beyer’s use of her own personal real-life work that comes directly from that time in her life makes this entire novel work.  It carries a weight that it would not have without that honest voice of youth at its core.  The mixed media format also makes the entire book compulsively readable.  Since you never know what is on the next page or what format it might be in, there is a constant desire to find out more and read longer.

Beyer’s art is done entirely in black and white in the book.  She plays with light and dark throughout, capturing both the loneliness of the first days at college and also the dynamic friendships and love interests that come later.  Her work is humorous and yet poignant.

This is a very strong, dynamic look at the first year of college.  Teens will enjoy looking into their own future plans with a little laughter and lots of optimism.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from library copy.

Charlotte Zolotow Dies

| Tasha

Charlotte Zolotow has died at age 98.  She was an author and editor of children’s books.  She wrote more than 70 picture books, including Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present and William’s Doll.  She worked as an editor at Harper & Row with her own imprint, Charlotte Zolotow Books.  The New York Times has details of her life and work.

Review: Wild Berries by Julie Flett

| Tasha

wild-berries

Wild Berries by Julie Flett

Clarence has gone berry picking with his grandmother since he was a baby.  Now he is big enough to carry his own bucket as they walk and sing.  The two of them pick the berries, Grandma looking for the sweet ones and Clarence for the bigger, sour ones that pop.  They pick the berries and eat the berries.  Then Clarence looks around the woods and sees different insects, spiders, and a fox.  It is time to go home, they say thank you and walk back home together.

This book weaves Cree into the story, separating the words out and providing pronunciation information at the end of the book.  Even these few Cree words evoke a different feeling, a new rhythm that is powerful.  Flett tells a very simple story here about going out to pick berries in the forest.  Yet it is a timeless story, one the embraces wildlife, the environment, and giving thanks for the bounty of nature. 

Flett’s art is a beautiful mix of cut paper collage, texture and painting.  She manages to show the depth of the woods without darkness.  She uses bright colors that pop on Grandma’s red skirt and the red sun in the sky.  The grass is drawn in individual blades and the tree bark varies from paper art to marker lines.  Put together, it is a rich and beautiful book.

Simple, powerful and honest, this picture book celebrates Cree and nature together.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: How Big Were Dinosaurs? by Lita Judge

| Tasha

how big were dinosaurs

How Big Were Dinosaurs? by Lita Judge

Whenever you think of dinosaurs, they are like the one on the cover of the book.  Huge, green and either placid plant eaters or ferocious meat eaters.  This nonfiction picture book takes a look at dinosaurs that are quite different.  There is the microraptor who is the size of a chicken.  The long-named Leaellynasaura stood as tall as an emperor penguin and lived in that same climate.  Of course there were bigger dinosaurs too.  The akylosaurus stood as tall as an SUV.  There were dinosaurs with huge claws that ate plants, ones with armor and still others with odd parts of the body that no one understands yet. 

Judge carefully chooses her dinosaurs in this book.  Understanding that the littlest dinosaurs lack the vibrant punch of the huge ones, the book quickly changes to the more imposing creatures.  She shares just enough about each dinosaur to make the book readable.  In fact, this is one nonfiction picture book about dinosaurs that could be shared at a storytime or aloud in a unit.  Judge packs lots of fascinating facts into the book.  It ends with the science behind figuring out what dinosaurs used to look like and a fold-out page with all of the dinosaurs in the book shown next to each other with lots of numbers and facts.

Judge’s playful illustrations are great fun.  Throughout the book, she uses humans to show the scale of the dinosaurs as well as other animals.  The humans don’t just stand next to the dinosaurs, they interact and react to them.  I particularly enjoyed the image of the woman batting at a dinosaur with a broom.  It’s those little touches of humor that suit this book so well.

Readable, fun and filled with science, this book on dinosaurs will be a welcome addition to those crowded shelves.  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Winter 2013-2014 Kids’ Indie Next List Top Ten

| Tasha

The American Booksellers Association is offering a preview of their next Kids’ Indie Next List.  Their website offers not only the top ten, but also an additional 42 titles listed by age range.  The lists are created by nominations from independent booksellers across the US.  Here is the Winter 2013-2014 Top Ten:

All the Truth That's In Me Bits & Pieces The Carpet People

All the Truth That’s In Me by Julie Berry

Bits and Pieces by Judy Schachner

The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett

The Impossible Knife of Memory 18085495

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

Love Is Real by Janet Lawler, illustrated by Anna Brown

Paul Meets Bernadette The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit Reality Boy

Paul Meets Bernadette by Rosy Lamb

Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective: The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit by Octavia Spencer, illustrated by Vivienne To

Reality Boy by A. S. King

The Scar Boys Seven Stories Up

The Scar Boys by Len Vlahos

Seven Stories Up by Laurel Snyder

Review: Sorrow’s Knot by Erin Bow

| Tasha

sorrows knot

Sorrow’s Knot by Erin Bow

The dead live in every shadow.  There are small dead and larger dead, but they are all dangerous.  That’s why the women of the Shadowed People have binders, members of their tribe who are able to use knotted string to turn the dead away and even destroy them.  Otter is a binder, daughter of Willow, one of the strongest binders ever.  As she spends the last of her childhood playing with her two best friends, Cricket and Kestrel, she is almost entirely carefree.  Then Cricket is attacked by one of the dead, and suddenly life is not so simple.  The wards around the town seem weaker, and Willow is slowly becoming insane as her power to bind turns inside out.  As one of the strongest dead, a White Hand, stalks the village, Otter’s must find her own role not only as binder but as a woman of the Shadowed People.

This is the second YA book by Bow and it is a stunner.  First, you have the fact that it is entirely unique.  It’s a horror novel set in the distant past and populated by aboriginal tribes.  The entire world that Bow has created is well developed and manages to be familiar yet profoundly different from anything you have read of before.  Then you have the characters, who are strong and amazing.  There is Otter, the brave and proud girl who transforms into a woman before your eyes, but not before facing the horrors that are plaguing her world.  Kestrel, the ranger, who is also brave but loves deeply and ferociously too.  And Cricket, the storyteller, quick-witted and one of the few boys in the village of women. 

It is Bow’s writing that really sings throughout the novel.  It is her writing that shows us the world she has built, lets us love these characters so deeply, and allows us understand the danger and horror as well.  Here is a quote from page four, early in the book, that shows her skill in creating a place:

So Otter was born, and so she came to girlhood, among Shadowed People, the free women of the forest, in the embrace of mountains so old they were soft-backed, so dark with pine that they were black in summer.  A river came out of those mountains, young and quick, shallow and bone-cold.  Where it washed into a low meadow, the people had cleared the birch saplings and scrub pines and built a stronghold of sunlight.

Her voice is that of a story teller, filled with rhythm and intention.  She captures the setting she has created in just the style of her writing.

Unique and amazing, this book offers a fresh take on horror and an incredible teen heroine who faces death in many ways.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.