Month: March 2016

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:

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

16 Children’s Books That Will Make You See The World Differently

Behind Our Favorite Children’s Books, a Woman Who Championed Them

Books on Film: In the Studio with Marla Frazee — 100 Scope Notes

Has Harry Potter made the trend for longer children’s books fly?

NPR – More Color In Kids’ Lit: Your Best Picks

LIBRARIES

Dennis Walcott gets hands-on as Queens Library CEO

Ep. 19 “Fish! Fish! Fish!” | Library Stories from NYPL

San Jose library amnesty weighed as unpaid fines near $7 million

Books have a way of making you homesick for a place you've never been to.:

TEEN READS

Books I Wish I’d Read as an LGBTQ Teenager

‘Gossip Girl’ Author Cecily von Ziegesar Has A New YA Book Deal

Lauren Myracle Talks To ‘Little White Lies’ Co-Authors About Race, Power, & Their New YA Book

Top 10 invented worlds in teen books

Tree by Britta Teckentrup

| Tasha

Tree by Britta Teckentrup

Tree by Britta Teckentrup (InfoSoup)

The seasons pass as an owl looks out of a hole in a tree in this engaging picture book. Beginning in winter, owl is alone in the cold landscape. When spring comes, the snow melts and buds form on the tree. Baby bears play and climb the tree’s trunk. Leaves and blossoms form and squirrels, birds and fox cubs arrive. With summer, the apples start to form on the tree and the tree spends long warm nights swaying in the breeze. Autumn comes with colder temperatures and the animals start to leave. Apples fall to the ground and the tree’s leaves turn red and fold. Snow comes and winter arrives. Soon everyone is gone, even the owl. But he is peeking out again soon as spring comes once again.

Teckentrup uses simple rhymes to tell the story of one large tree and the ways that it supports the ecosystem around it. The seasons are clearly noted in the rhymes, the changes explained and each one is celebrated for how unique it is. The various animals too change what they are doing as the weather shifts. This is a dynamic book about weather and seasons.

It is the illustrations that make this book so noteworthy. Teckentrup’s cut out designs allow each page turn to show the owl for most of the book but also to add the other animals as they appear in the story. Then as the story reverses and the animals leave, the cut outs play out that way too.

A clever and striking look at one tree, one ecosystem and many seasons. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House.

What This Story Needs Is a Hush and a Shush by Emma J. Virjan

| Tasha

What This Story Needs Is a Hush and a Shush by Emma J Virjan

What This Story Needs Is a Hush and a Shush by Emma J. Virjan (InfoSoup)

This second book in the A Pig in a Wig series keeps up the zany silliness of the first even though it’s a bedtime story. Pig is getting ready for bed still in her wig, brushing her teeth and combing her hair. She’s all settled into bed with her teddy bear when other animals start showing up and making noise. They all climb into the bed with Pig, but soon it is too much to take and Pig shushes them all and sends them back to the barn. Soon all is silent again until the owl outside Pig’s window starts to hoot. Where will she find a quiet place to sleep?

Just as with the first book, this book is written in a jaunty and bouncy rhyme that sets a brisk pace. Despite the silliness and the rhyme though, the book does slow down at the end in a natural way, becoming downright dozy by the end. The illustrations are simple and funny, particularly when all of the animals are piled high on the bed.

A great addition to beginning reader collections, this book had just the right mix of silly and sleepy. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from HarperCollins.

Allie, First at Last by Angela Cervantes

| Tasha

Allie First at Last by Angela Cervantes

Allie, First at Last by Angela Cervantes

Released March 29, 2016.

Allie has never won anything in her life. Her entire family though has a shelf of trophies. Her older sister is a national debate champion. Her brother is a star soccer player. Even her little sister is a rising star as an actress. Allie is almost certain she is going to win the science fair, but it ends up a disaster instead of a win. That’s thanks to “help” from Victor, a new boy at school. When another opportunity to win an award comes up, Allie knows that she has to try hard. She decides to do a photo essay on her great-grandfather who is a decorated World War II veteran. But her ex-best friend who won at the science fair has also decided to use Allie’s grandfather as the subject of her entry. When is it going to be Allie’s turn to shine?

This is a very accessible book, written with a light hand and a friendly tone. That lightness allows this book to deal with deeper truths without getting caught up in darkness. It is a book that speaks to the importance of doing well, healthy competitiveness and the pleasure of a job well done. It also looks deeply at how that healthy competition can twist and become something that is no longer positive in one’s life. Allie’s entire family tries to teach her this in different ways, some by being more competitive and others speaking to her intrinsic worth whether she has trophies or not.

While Allie was a great protagonist, two secondary characters really stand out in this book. First is Victor, a boy who is from a poor family and someone that Allie assumes is being tutored. It turns out that Victor is incredibly smart and is doing the tutoring. Victor though is less concerned with acclaim than with his future. Allie’s great-grandfather is another amazing character. He offers sage advice and a point of view that is particularly filled with grace and compassion. The fact that almost all of the characters in the novel are Hispanic and offer a wide array of points of view about life makes this book all the more winning.

A charming story with strong characters and a clear message that winning is not everything. Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic.

Rose and the Wish Thing by

| Tasha

Rose and the WIsh Thing by Caroline Magerl

Rose and the Wish Thing: A Journey of Friendship by Caroline Magerl (InfoSoup)

This gentle picture book tells the story of a girl who has moved to a new home. When she looked out her window one night, she made wish. But the wish thing did not come. Rose could not be comforted when the wish thing did not respond. Nothing worked to calm her. Her entire family searched for the wish until they came to the sea. That is when they saw the box floating on the water. In that box, was the wish thing: a thing of tiny stitches and a red glass heart. And that is what let Rose head outside of her new house and make friends.

This Australian import has a gorgeous softness to it in both images and text. The story is warm and nurturing with a large family trying to comfort Rose, a rambling house with a garden, and a big furry dog. It is also a lovely strange tale that is not straight forward, but meanders a bit, travels a lot, and finds something special along the way. Magerl’s language is noteworthy too:

The evening tide came with gentle fingers to roll over the crabs and rock the stones.

The illustrations are soft and detailed. The fine ink lines are colored with watercolors which makes them both detailed and gorgeously nuanced in color. Pages of Rose and her family are alternated with illustrations of the wish thing’s journey to Rose. There is plenty of drama along the way.

A warm and gentle look at loneliness and how it can be transformed. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from e-galley received from Penguin Random House and Edelweiss.

Irish Children’s Book Shortlist Announced

| Tasha

The shortlist for the CBI Book of the Year Awards 2016 has been announced. The awards are given to the best in children’s literature and illustration written or illustrated by people born or resident in Ireland. Winners will be announced on May 23. Here is the shortlist:

Asking For It The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

Asking for It by Louise O’Neill

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne

The Day the Crayons Came Home Gulliver

The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Gulliver by Jonathan Swift, retold by Mary Webb, illustrated by Lauren O’Neill

Imaginary Fred Irelandopedia: A Compendium of Maps, Facts and Knowledge

Imaginary Fred by Eoin Colfer, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Irelandopedia by John Burke, illustrated by Fatti Burke

Ná Gabh ar Scoil by Máire Zepf, illustrated by Tarsila Krüse

One The Wordsmith

One by Sarah Crossan

The Wordsmith by Patricia Forde

Abracadabra, It’s Spring by Anne Sibley O’Brien

| Tasha

Abracadabra Its Spring by Anne Sibley OBrien

Abracadabra, It’s Spring by Anne Sibley O’Brien, illustrated by Susan Gal (InfoSoup)

Through a series of large flaps, this picture book demonstrates the transformation from late winter into spring. From the very first page, snow melts away to show bare ground as rabbits watch in wonder. Green shoots become crocuses. Bare branches burst into soft pussy willows. Birds fly, nests are built, eggs hatch. Even children change their clothes and head outside into the warm day. This is a magical way to introduce small children to the wonder of seasonal change.

The gatefold flaps in this book are sturdily built and are the size of the full page, thus less likely to rip and tear. The entire book focuses on magical words, each one leading to opening the flap and revealing an amazing transformation as spring arrives. The effect works really well with the poetic wording of the book also adding to the wonder on the page. The rhyming is done well and the vocabulary while child friendly will also allow some growth for small children.

The illustrations by Gal have a gorgeous natural feel to them. They were done with charcoal and digital collage which keeps the roughness of the paper and charcoal and adds the feeling of watercolor or other paints. It’s very effective and captures the ethereal nature of spring as it passes.

Bright and engaging, this picture book will be a great pick for springtime story times. Appropriate for ages 1-3.

Reviewed from library copy.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life – The Movie

| Tasha

In theaters in October 2016:

The Land of Forgotten Girls by Erin Entrada Kelly

| Tasha

The Land of Forgotten Girls by Erin Entrada Kelly

The Land of Forgotten Girls by Erin Entrada Kelly (InfoSoup)

When Sol and her little sister Ming moved from the Philippines to the United States, they knew their lives were going to change. But they didn’t realize that they would be abandoned by their father and stuck living with Vea, their mean stepmother in a tiny apartment in Louisiana. Now five years later, Sol manages to escape her stepmother’s cruelty by escaping into stories, particularly when she is sent to the closet when she has done something wrong. She shares the stories with her little sister and Ming has now started to believe in their mythical Aunt Jove and expects her to arrive to rescue them. As Ming’s hope grows, Sol despairs of their lives ever improving at all, but friendship comes from unexpected places and may be the answer to their hopes and dreams.

Kelly, author of Blackbird Fly, has created another great novel for children. In this book, she beautifully captures the complexity of the lives of some children where their families have been turned upside down through death and abandonment and they are left with those who don’t love them at all. It is a book about hope as well, about the power of stories to create new realities and the radiance of hope even in the bleakest of times.

Particularly notable in this novel is Kelly’s willingness to tell a very sad story, one filled with loss and betrayal and still one that is very appropriate for children. Sol herself reflects on the sadness of her story and her new friend:

What gloomy tales we had, I thought. I wondered what we’d look like to someone passing by. Two twelve-year-old girls – one so white she looked like a ghost and the other so dark she looked like the fields – sitting on milk crates and telling sad, sad stories in the hot, hot sun.

These are stories of poverty, of spending time on the streets to get out of the misery of your home. The novel dazzles with its truth and honesty of children who shine despite the darkness in their lives.

A powerful novel of stories and hope and how they can be used to overcome the darkness that life contains. Appropriate for ages 10-12.

Reviewed from copy received from HarperCollins.