Month: January 2016

Two Is Enough by Janna Matthies

| Tasha

KidsLogoORIGINALFILE

Two Is Enough by Janna Matthies, illustrated by Tuesday Mourning (InfoSoup)

This picture book shows how one-parent families thrive with lots of attention to the child. It speaks to two being a great number, just right for snowball fights and ice skating. Two is perfect in spring too when planting seeds or picking bouquets. In the summer, two is just right for ice cream cones, building sand castles, and riding tandem bikes. When fall arrives, two is right for playing in leaves, carving pumpkins and marshmallow roasts. Two is just right the whole year long.

Matthies has written a bouncy rhyme here that lends a lot of dash to this picture book. The rhyme bounds along, encouraging children in one-parent families to see themselves as having something entire special. The book can also offer encouragement for children who have a parent who is away often too. As Matthies runs through the seasons and the joy of doing things with one another, she makes sure to show how two people can have a great time doing all of the things you may see as group activities. In fact, they are all the more special when done one-on-one.

Mourning offers a multicultural look at these families as well. Parents of different races appear throughout the book with three families forming the heart of the story. There are mothers with a child and fathers with a child. Grandparents also make an appearance, taking care of grandchildren in much the same way.

This engaging picture book offers a cheery look at small families and the joy that they bring throughout the seasons. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

 

The Goblin’s Puzzle by Andrew S. Chilton

| Tasha

The Goblins Puzzle by Andrew S Chilton

The Goblin’s Puzzle: Being the Adventures of a Boy with No Name and Two Girls Called Alice by Andrew S. Chilton (InfoSoup)

The boy had never had a name, since he had been a slave as long as he could remember. He tried to be the best slave possible, but all of the rules of slavery ran together and often contradicted one another too. When he is sent on a journey with the prince, the boy witnesses a murder and is suddenly free. Soon he finds himself in the company of a goblin who knows all of the answers about the boys’ past but is unwilling to part easily with them. The goblin agrees to answer one question a day truthfully, but goblins are tricky and can’t really be trusted. Meanwhile, Plain Alice has been mistakenly kidnapped by a dragon who meant to kidnap Princess Alice. These characters all find themselves facing issues of logic, dragons, ogres and other horrible deeds on their way to unraveling who they really are.

This novel is a cunning and complicated novel for children. It takes logic and loops it, confuses it and then shows how it actually all works out. It’s a puzzle and a delightful one. Young readers will enjoy the twists and turns, groan at the folly of some of the characters, cheer as others exceed their expectations, and those who love puzzles and logic will find a book to adore here.

The characters are well drawn and interesting. I particularly enjoyed the goblin, who twists and turns but also has a hand in making sure that things turn out right. The boy is a great protagonist, often confused and always seeing the world as new, he explores and learns as he goes. Plain Alice is a strong female protagonist, using her brains to solve problems and even charming a dragon as she does so. The entire book is woven with mystical creatures but magic does not save the day here. Instead, deep thinking and logic are the winners.

A puzzle of a book that twists and turns in the best possible way, this adventure is one for smart children who can use their wits to save themselves. Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from copy received from Knopf Books for Young Readers.

 

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:

My policy, exactly:

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

19 Sad Quotes From Your Favorite Children’s Books

Alan Rickman, Actor Known for ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Die Hard,’ Dies at 69

Dan Santat Lands 4-Book Deal With Macmillan

Five questions for Barbara McClintock – The Horn Book

Message from , LOC’s Special Ambassador for Young People’s Literature: “what you do is a work of love”

New Caldecott honor a historic win for Madison author Kevin Henkes

A Picture Book for Newbery! (REJOICE!)

‘Roll of Thunder’ Publishing Contest For BAME Children’s Fiction Writers To Be Run In 2016

Thank you for featuring the new Newbery & Caldcott winners on air today

Top 10 feminist heroes in fiction

Top 10 terrifying teachers in children’s books – The Guardian –

When They Got the Call: PW Speaks with the 2016 Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Winners

Why do so many children’s books treat diversity as a black and white issue?

“Wisconsin Children’s Book Author Wins Caldecott Honor Award” – WPR interview with Kevin Henkes –

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LIBRARIES

Check It Out: Libraries Offer More Than Just Books These Days

Hands-on Projects and Titles that Celebrate Maker and Latino Cultures | Libro por libro

Whiteness, social justice and the future of libraries via Anyone know similar stats for UK?

You are not what you read: librarians purge user data to protect privacy

The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library-Albert Einstein:

TEEN READS

HarperCollins Has Big Plans for Lauren Oliver

Here’s how found out that she’d received a Printz honor:

Yes, ‘Between the World and Me’ is a Young Adult book

2016 Rainbow Book List

| Tasha

The Rainbow List celebrates the best books for youth aged birth through 18 that have significant LGBTQ content. Books must have been published between July 2014 and December 2015. Here are their Top Ten books:

Breakthrough: How One Teen Innovator Is Changing the World Cut Both Ways

Breakthrough by Jack Andraka with Matthew Lysiak

Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Fans of the Impossible Life Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before by Karelia Stetz-Waters

Gracefully Grayson The Marvels

Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

The Marvels by Brian Selznick

Sex is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and YOU Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings and YOU by Cory Silverberg, illustrated by Fiona Smyth

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

SuperMutant Magic Academy When Everything Feels Like the Movies

SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid

 

2016 Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award

| Tasha

Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award

The winners of the 2016 Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award have been announced. The award is given by The Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children in collaboration with the Special Needs Project. The award recognizes “effective, enlightened portrayals of individuals with developmental disabilities in children’s books.” The award is presented in even years only. Here are the winners:

CHAPTER BOOK AWARD

Rain Reign

Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin

 

PICTURE BOOK AWARD

My Friend Suhana

My Friend Suhana by Shaila Abdullah and Aanyah Abdullah

 

 

Bunches of Board Books!

| Tasha

Here is a new crop of great board books to share with the littlest ones:

Duck and Goose Lets Dance by Tad Hills

Duck & Goose: Let’s Dance by Tad Hills

The bestselling Duck and Goose are back this time with an original song all their own. The board book reads aloud as a straight book, but the song adds a lot to the experience. Though you may fight to get the catchy tune out of your head, particularly if your child wants a repeat performance, again and again. You can take a listen to the song here.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House Children’s Books.

Love You Hug You Read to You by Tish Rabe Te amo, te abrazo, leo contigo

Love You, Hug You, Read to You! by Tish Rabe, illustrated by Frank Endersby

Available in both English and Spanish, this board book has different animal parents promising to read to their small critters in a variety of different circumstances. The rhyme is just right, rollicking and fun. A delightful bonus is available here too. There are prompts on each page that cue parents how to use a board book with a small child. Text offers questions to ask small children about the pictures and the story, making this ideal to use with parents just learning to be their child’s first teacher.

Reviewed from copies received from Random House Children’s Books.

Shhh This Book Is Sleeping by Cedric Ramadier

Shhh! This Book Is Sleeping by Cedric Ramadier and Vincent Bourgeau

A little pink mouse invites young readers to interact with a very sleepy little book. They get to go through an entire bedtime ritual with the book, who has already brushed its teeth and gone potty. Read the book a little story and tuck it in cozy and warm. Give it a hug and a kiss and it’s all set for you to close the book very gently and tiptoe away. Good night!

Reviewed from copy received from Random House Children’s Books.

Triangles by Yusuke Yonezu

Triangles by Yusuke Yonezu

Triangles can be all sorts of things as this clever board book demonstrates again and again. There are flags, sails, trees, animals, and even a wedge of cheese. Children will delight in the final page which can be lifted to a little face as a mask. There will be lots of fun in guessing what the triangle has become as well as naming colors and animals too.

Reviewed from library copy.

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

| Tasha

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

Released January 26, 2016.

From the outside, Vicky’s life looks perfect. Her father is wealthy, her step mother loves to take her shopping, and her sister is a high achiever. But Vicky can’t get over the loss of her beloved mother, whom she cared for during her last months. So Vicky turns to the only solution she can see and tries to commit suicide. When she wakes up in a mental disorders ward, she starts the process of putting her life back together. She meets three other teens who have lived very different lives from her and yet they all are part of each others recovery. Slowly Vicky starts to see that she suffers from depression and what it will mean to return to her life after her time in the hospital.

Stork has once again created a book for teens that will speak directly to them. He takes on mental illness here in a forthright way, showing the way that depression can creep up on a person and change the way they perceive things. He also shows how a person’s life can be glamorous and yet stifling and not fulfilling. It is a book that speaks to the importance of support from a therapist, of medication and of creating a group of people who understand you in your life. It’s a brilliant novel that is complex and deep with plenty to explore and feel.

Vicky could have been a very different character in a lesser writer’s hands. With Stork’s skill, he hints at a superficial look at Vicky’s wealthy life and then goes much more deeply into why she is experiencing life in the way she is. She is a poetic soul caught in a capitalistic family, driven by high achievement but in ways that she cannot relate to. With the loss of her mother, her father changed, her sister distanced herself, and Vicky had no one to turn to for support any more.

Organic and real, this novel has a diverse heroine and cast of characters that will appeal to a wide range of readers and deals with a serious subject in an uplifting way. Appropriate for ages 13-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.

 

The Story I’ll Tell by Nancy Tupper Ling

| Tasha

The Story Ill Tell by Nancy Tupper Ling

The Story I’ll Tell by Nancy Tupper Ling, illustrated by Jessica Lanan (InfoSoup)

An adoptive mother knows that her son will eventually ask her where he came from. She dreams of what she will tell him. Perhaps that he floated down from a hot-air balloon. Or that he was delivered by horseback by a man in a cape. Or that she found him in the garden among the tiger lilies. Or that she rescued him from a dragon queen. But the story of where he really came from is special enough, filled with joy and tears, with winged flight over the ocean. That is the story to tell.

Each of the stories that the boy’s mother creates contains a touch of truth. Throughout there is a tie to China, there is flight, crossing long distances, and a story of rescue. This imaginative look at the power of international adoption and the formation of a family is endearing and magical. The stories create a beautiful rhythm among themselves, dancing and weaving a tale that invites children to see their adoption as something particularly special.

Lanan’s art evokes that same special magical feel. Throughout the book, there are creatures in the clouds, dragons rising into the sun, roosters summoning dawn. Each shows a future part of the story, the tiger lilies gracing the garden gate long before they are mentioned in the book. Fish float on walls, ribbons tie each experience to the next. It is a rich tapestry of illustration filled with Chinese symbols.

A gem of a book for adoptive families, this picture book conveys the joy of adoption and the wonder of finding one another and forming a family. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from e-galley received from Lee & Low Books and Edelweiss.

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

| Tasha

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban

Manami loves her home on Bainbridge Island where she can walk with her grandfather and his dog on the beach. Everything changes when Pearl Harbor is bombed in 1941. Manami and her family along with the other Japanese Americans are gathered up and forced to move to internment camps far from the sea. Manami’s grandfather has arranged for someone to care for his dog, but Manami cannot bear to leave him behind so she hides him in her coat. But she is not allowed to bring the dog with them. Heartbroken, when they reach the camp, Manami stops speaking entirely, unable to force words past her dusty throat. Manami keeps hoping that their dog will find them, sending pictures on the wind to him.

Told in spare and elegant prose, Sephaban captures the devastating impact of World War II policies on Japanese Americans. Losing all of their property and belongings except what they can fit into one suitcase each, the families work to put together a semblance of a life for themselves and their children. Sepahban sets this story in a prison camp that had a riot break out and one can feel the tension building. This novel manages to show the impact of loss of civil rights and also be a voice for moving forward to embracing diversity and differences.

Manami is an amazing character. Her pain is palpable on the page, her voice buried under guilt and compounded by their internment in the camp. Everything changes for her in one moment, taken from the place she loves, removed from the life she has been living. Manami has to find a way to make a new life, but it is devastating for her as she is unable to forgive herself for what she has done.

Beautiful writing, a complex heroine and a powerful story make this short historical novel worth reading and sharing. Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from e-galley received from Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Edelweiss.