Month: May 2015

This Week’s Tweets, Pins & Tumbls

| Tasha

Here are the links I shared on my Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr accounts this week that I think are cool:

These also seem very doable--the arrangement of the shelves creates the caves.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Berkeley author Marissa Moss says goodby to Amelia, a character that has delighted readers for 20 years http://buff.ly/1JUzayC #kidlit

Gay-themed children’s book challenged in North Carolina school http://buff.ly/1II8KTL #kidlit #lgbt

How We Talk (or Don’t Talk) About Diversity When We Read with Our Kids | Brightly http://buff.ly/1Af1w6U #diversity #reading

Kids Need Queer Books: On the Challenging of LGBTQ Books in Schools http://buff.ly/1cQo3vR #kidlit #lgbt

New Harry Potter illustrated editions spell rising sales for Bloomsbury http://buff.ly/1Se0OfC #kidlit

The Official SCBWI Blog: It’s The 2015 Crystal Kite Award Winners! http://buff.ly/1AjQpcK #kidlit #yalit

vintagelibraries: Library of Virginia, Welcome to the BookMobile, year unknown.

READING

Grant Snider’s latest lovely tribute to reading – http://buff.ly/1FuDtmw #reading

Why Are Children Reading Books? Don’t They Know It’s Digital First? http://buff.ly/1AksqtP #kidlit #ebooks #reading

TEEN READS

10 Literary Characters Tween and Teen Girls Can Look Up To | Brightly http://buff.ly/1Hhg3Mq #yalit

Jodi Picoult On Her New Book, Writing YA, and Feuding With Jonathan Franzen: "What remains are the facts" http://buff.ly/1S2KOgC #yalit

MTV Adapting Kirsten Smith’s YA Novel ‘Trinkets’ (Exclusive) http://buff.ly/1Ho2Sfh #yalit

Triple Play: Little, Brown Inks YA Author Laini Taylor for Three-Book Deal http://buff.ly/1LmpKNi #yalit

Review: A Chicken Followed Me Home by Robin Page

| Tasha

A Chicken Followed Me Home by Robin Page

A Chicken Followed Me Home!: Questions and Answers about a Familiar Fowl by Robin Page

What do you do when a chicken follows you home? All of the answers you need are in this nonfiction picture book that tells you facts about chickens. First, you will need to know what to feed your chicken. You may also want to know what kind of chicken you now have and whether it is a boy or a girl. You will need a chicken coop to keep your chicken safe from predators and give it somewhere to live. Then there is the question of eggs and if you want fertile eggs you will need both a hen and a rooster. Then the eggs have to hatch successfully. If they do, you will have lots of chickens instead of just two. Maybe they will follow someone else home!

Page is the author of several popular books about animals and she captures the joy of keeping chickens in this picture book. Using the framework of someone suddenly having to care for a chicken makes the book very approachable and readable. The facts are presented rather like a guidebook and offer matter-of-fact information for the new chicken owner or readers interested in chickens. This book will make a great addition to school and public libraries since it is information just at the right level for early report writers.

Page’s illustrations are spectacular. Done in collage and cut paper, she manages to create feathers out of patterned paper that look real and textured. Fuzzy baby chicks are almost touchable on the page as they struggled free from their eggs. The illustrations are large and bold, making this a book good for using with a class.

No need to be chicken, add this one to your library collection! Even children who haven’t found their own hens will delight in this book. Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Beach Lane Books.

Wonderstruck – The Movie

| Tasha

EarlyWord has the news that Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick is being turned into a film. Celebrated director Todd Haynes is looking to direct and are looking at casting.

This would be the second of Selznick’s novels to be made into a film, following Hugo, based on Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was directed by Martin Scorsese.

2015 CBI Book of the Year Awards

| Tasha

Once Upon an Alphabet: Short Stories for All the Letters

Oliver Jeffers has become only the third person to ever win both the Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year and their Children’s Choice Award for the same book. Jeffers took both awards for his Once Upon an Alphabet.

Here are the other CBI Awards:

Honour Award for Illustration

Chris Haughton for Shh! We Have a Plan

Honour Award for Fiction

Áine Ní Ghlinn for Daideo

Judges’ Special Award

Gabriel Rosenstock and Brian Fitzgerald for Haiku Más é do thoil é!

Eilís Dillon Award for a first children’s book:

Louise O’Neill for Only Ever Yours

Review: I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

| Tasha

I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

Released May 26, 2015.

This is the first YA novel by Priest, a well-known fantasy author for adults, and it’s a treat. May and Libby have been friends for years, the best of friends after meeting in fifth grade on a playground. The two of them wrote comics together about Princess X, a katana-wielding heroine. But then one day, Libby was gone, dead after a car crash from a bridge. Three years later, May has returned to their hometown and notices an image of a princess holding a katana on a sticker, a sticker that is brand new. May tracks down the image to a web comic where she realizes there are real similarities to the story that she and Libby had created. How can that be? And how strange is it that some of the stories seem to have messages only May could understand hidden inside of them?

There is a real joy in finding a book that does digital life so very well. The online elements of the story and the web comic are clear and make perfect sense. The hacking and dark net also work well in the way they are portrayed where there is information to be found but often it’s not legal to access it. That aspect alone, so often mismanaged in novels, is worth this read. But add to that a determined friend who quickly believes that her dead friend is still alive, an online and real life quest for information, horrible bad guys, and the exploration of Seattle both above and underground. It’s a book that is a searing fast read thanks to its pacing and the need to find out the truth.

The online comics are shared as comic inserts in the book, and were not completed in the galley that I have. The first couple of comics were available and add to the drama of the book. The mix of words and images works very well here with Priest using it both to move the story forward and to show the drama and appeal of the comic itself.

Smartly written with great characters and an amazing quest for the truth, this book is satisfying, surprising and impressive. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.

The Scorch Trials – Movie Trailer

| Tasha

Here’s the first trailer for the second Maze Runner book, The Scorch Trials:

Review: Luna & Me by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

| Tasha

Luna and Me by Jenny Sue Kostecki Shaw

Luna & Me: The True Story of a Girl Who Lived in a Tree to Save a Forest by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

This is a picture book version of the real-life heroism of Julia Butterfly Hill, a woman who lived for two years in the branches of Luna, a great redwood tree in order to save the grove from logging. In this picture book, Butterfly is shown as a girl rather than an adult. She spends many of her days exploring nature and then discovers Luna and climbs up into her branches. When she realizes that Luna is going to be chopped down, she stays in the branches. That starts her adventure high in the canopy where she has to withstand storms and cold. Butterfly stayed up in Luna for two years, figuring out how to make a home high in a tree and sharing Luna’s story with whomever she could. Until finally Luna and her entire grove her saved and made into The Luna Preserve.

As Kostecki-Shaw notes in her Author’s Note, she has simplified the political situation that the real Julia Butterfly Hill was dealing with as well as the initial response that included a group of environmental activists taking turns sleeping in Luna’s branches. This makes for a picture book that is easily understood by young readers and that hints at larger issues happening. It will serve to inspire young readers that they can individually make a difference in the world around them and protect what is invaluable to all of us.

The illustrations in this book are done in a variety of media including acrylics, watercolor and pencil. They capture the beauty of nature with dappled light through leaves, the texture of tree bark, and the dwarfed size of Butterfly against the world. They also delightfully show the other animals and creatures living in Luna with one magical page displaying a space inside her trunk.

A very special book about an environmental heroine, this picture book will be inspiring for young readers. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt & Co.

Review: Spots in a Box by Helen Ward

| Tasha

Spots in a Box by Helen Ward

Spots in a Box by Helen Ward

A guinea fowl is worried about his lack of plumage design, so he sends off for spots in the mail. They come wrapped in brown paper and string, something that always makes a package more intriguing. But inside, they are not the spots he expected. They are too big for his taste. Luckily though, more spots arrive. Some are too small, others too sparkly. Still others glow in the dark! But eventually after looking at lots of different options, our protagonist picks out some spots that are just perfect and they may not be what you may have expected. Yet they are just right for him.

Ward has written a winning book. Written in rhyme that is never forced but feel very natural, this book is a pleasure to share aloud. The real focus here are the illustrations and those are what make the book so interesting. A large part of the joy here is the silliness of a bird shopping for spots. That is made all the more fascinating because our guinea fowl hero is drawn very lifelike and reacts like a bird would. It is a delightful mix of reality and the rather farcical humor of shopping for dots and spots.

This book is about design and personal style without it being about pink things and tulle. So it’s a very refreshing addition to book shelves where children who have different tastes will find themselves imagining what spots would suit them in life. The design of the book itself is lovely with nods to leopard print and playful die cut pieces at times.

Very young readers will find lots to love here with pages that sparkly and some that have raised spots. It’s also a great book to inspire drawing or discussions of style. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Small Wonders by Matthew Clark Smith

| Tasha

Small Wonders by Matthew Clark Smith

Small Wonders: Jean-Henri Fabre and His World of Insects by Matthew Clark Smith, illustrated by Giuliano Ferri (InfoSoup)

In a small French village lives a strange man who is interested in the smallest of creatures, the insects around us. He lures flies with dead animals that he pays the children in the village to find. His home is filled with specimens. No one realized that he was one of the greatest naturalists of his time. Jean-Henri Fabre grew up in the countryside where he was fascinated by the natural world around him. No one else seemed interested in the same things that he was, but that didn’t deter him from investigating them. Henri became a teacher and studied hard, but not about insects. It was not until a book rekindled his interest that he started to study them in a serious way as an adult. He discovered things about insects that no one else had ever seen and he documented them fully. So when scientists in France nominated one of their own for a tremendous national honor, they voted for Fabre.

Smith writes with a gentle tone throughout, documenting Fabre’s entire life from his childhood to the great honor he received from his peers and his nation. The story starts with the arrival of the president of France for the award and then shows how Fabre’s fascination with insects started as a boy. The period of time when insects were not a focus is clear but also brief and then the book grows almost merry as it documents the many accomplishments of this humble man who followed his own interests in science.

The illustrations are pastoral and lovely. They capture the beauty of the French countryside and also the wonder of the insects, showing them in great detail. There is a playfulness to the illustrations that also reflects the childlike joy that Fabre found in his wonder about insects.

A lovely book about a scientist who followed his own dreams and interests to great acclaim. Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from library copy.