Imagine my surprise as I was happily paging through my new volume of School Library Journal and found my KidsLit blog featured as part of the “Blograrian” Book Reviews column! The kind words said about my blog literally made me do a happy dance around my office. What a wonderful way to perk up a Wednesday lunch hour. I am still grinning ear to ear and probably will be all day long.
So welcome to any of you who visiting because of the SLJ article. Hope you find lots of love of children’s literature and the children themselves.
Author: Tasha
Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs
The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty G. Birney is a book with an old-fashioned, folk-tale feel. Eben is fascinated by the seven wonders of the world, and his father challenges him to find seven wonders right in his small, rural home town of Sassafras Springs. Eben doubts that it is possible, but his father says that he can travel to Colorado if he manages to find all seven wonders in seven days. The reader is carried along with Eben and his faithful dog as they search the entire town for wonders, meeting all sorts of characters along the way.
The writing and subject are perfectly matched. The writing is as unadorned as Sassafras Springs but leads to the same sort of joy as the wonders. Unfortunately, the brown cover of the book will not draw children to reading it. This one will take some hand selling or direct sharing to find its audience.
This is a perfect book to read aloud to third or fourth graders, especially those living in small towns. It will inspire children to see their own communities in a different way, celebrating the small things that make us all unique and learning about the tale tales and ghost stories that may be right under their own noses.
Student Blogs
USATODAY.com – Schools grapple with policing students’ online journals is an article from The Christian Science Monitor. It nicely covers the problems schools are facing with students doing inappropriate and questionable things on their personal blogs. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to the problems, but the article does give some insight into what other schools are doing and where the legality gets shaky.
School Librarian Blog
School Librarian in Action is a very active blog from a school librarian in Manila, Philippines. She wirtes essays from her own perspective as a Filipino librarian, but many of them translate well to school librarianship world wide.
YALit
Tana Hoban Dies
Tana Hoban has died at age 88. Her obituary is in the New York Times. She has written, designed and illustrated over 100 books for children, and she did it with photographs that were vivid even when black and white. Her books are marvelous for sharing with very young children, because they get kids talking and involved in books. Consider them especially for children who don’t want to sit through stories, because they are concept books of the finest quality.
Carnival of Children's Literature
I had Here in the Bonny Glen on the list to include here, but now they are doing a Carnival of Children’s Literature, so I will move them to the top of the list. You can submit any posting from your blog that has to do with children’s literature. It can be an interview, review, story about books in your life, anything that has to do with children’s literature!
Super Fly Guy
Super Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold.
This is the sequel to the Geisel Honor Book, Hi Fly Guy. It contains the trademark Tedd Arnold humor and style. In this book, Fly Guy goes to school with Buzz and discovers the lunch room. He makes friends with the lunch lady by saying her name, Roz. But the principal is not happy and when he discovers Fly Guy, he fires Roz for allowing the lunchroom to have flies. They hire Miss Muzzle who can’t cook at all, burning everything into piles of brown glop. But Buzz and Fly Guy come to the rescue and find a way to get rid of Miss Muzzle and get Roz back.
I think I enjoyed this sequel more than the first book. It has a great rhythm to the writing, the story is funny, and the book just carries the reader along. This kind of momentum in an early reader is wonderful to see, because early readers need books that will grab them and make them want to see what will happen next. The humor is also crucial because then the reader gets the joke and understands that the book is there for their enjoyment. And perhaps best of all, this is a very boy-friendly book with gross humor that will not bother the adults.
This is a necessary purchase. If you are a librarian, get a copy for your library. If you are a parent, find this at your library. And make sure you read the first book too!
Super Fly Guy is being released in March.
Do Not Open This Book!
Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean, illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre.
As a child, I always adored The Monster at the End of This Book with Grover frantically trying to stop the reader from turning the pages. Do Not Open This Book has the same feel as a little pig tries to stop the reader from reading the book because it isn’t finished. He can’t figure out what kind of story to write, scary or bedtime. He does try hanging word after word, but then the reader turns the page and scrambles them around. Some of the jokes are straight out of the Grover book with the pig taking a Very Heavy Rock and putting it in the way of page turning.
That said, this book does cause laughs of its own. It contains a nasty letter to get the reader to leave where for every blank, you put in your own name. This caused a lot of laughter with my two sons, and we had to read it over several times using each person’s name in the blanks.
And on top of it, the book is really about the power of words, the writing process, and humor. It is a great book to read one-on-one with an emerging reader. They will be able to see how words go together to form sentences, gain clues to words from the way they are written, and have fun doing it.
