The Wildest Brother by Cornelia Funke, illustrated by Kerstin Meyer.

Due out in May 2006.

Ben is a boy who sometimes wakes up as a knight, or a wolf, or a monster.  When he is a monster, he paints scars on his body with his older sister’s makeup.  Though you expect her to be furious, she gets revenge by tickling him.  He sometimes has to protect her from a man-eating monster.  She has to hide in the wardrobe without giggling, so that he can save her.  Ben fights all sorts of fearsome creatures throughout the day, protecting his sister.  But guess who is his protector when he is scared at night! 

This is a charming story of a brother and sister relationship.  Best of all is the twist at the end where the sister is the strong and brave one.  The illustrations are cartoon-like and add to the fun, showing Ben’s vivid imagination at work.  Funke’s text is just the right length for the audience of preschoolers and kindergarteners who have vivid imaginations of their own.  Put this one on your list for both sibling storytimes and ones on imaginations. 

Where’s My Sock? by Joyce Dunbar, illustrated by Sanja Rescek.

This bright-colored and vibrant book captures the frantic search for a lost piece of clothing, in this case a yellow sock with clocks on it.  Pippin can’t find his sock, so his friend Tog helps him look.  They try all sorts of drawers, baskets, pockets, shoes, and find a huge pile of socks, but when they are sorted into pairs, there is no yellow sock with clocks on it.  When Pippin finally decides to wear mismatched socks, they discover the yellow sock in the one place they didn’t look.   The pictures in this book are done in bright tutti-fruity colors that add to the fun, fresh feeling of the text.  A large part of the book are the wild color combinations and patterns of the many socks that are found.  This is a perfect book for preschool storytimes with the right kind of humor, a familiar situation taken to the extreme, and exactly the right amount of text on each page.  Add this one to your clothing storytime or shoes and socks storytime. 

YALSA is once again gathering nominees for the Best Books for Young Adults list.  Enjoy the short list that is currently there and anticipate many more great titles to come. 

Dinosaur Dinosaur by Kevin Lewis, illustrated by Dan Kirk. 

This is the great author, illustrator team that created My Truck Is Stuck!  Here the reader meets a little boy dinosaur who is filled with spunk and action.  From the minute he gets up he is roaring and stomping.  The book follows him through his day from breakfast to bedtime.  Kids will see their own lives reflected right back at them but with dinosaur characters that they will love.  Lewis’ rhymes add fun to the reading and Kirk’s illustrations are as bright and bold as ever.  This one is a winner to share with young dinosaur lovers. 

The Night Pirates by Peter Harris, illustrated by Deborah Allwright.

The night pirates is a refreshing take on pirate stories where a little boy is in bed and seeing strange shadows.  The shadows are actually “tough little girl pirates” who take the little boy on their sailing house to an island where the rough adult pirates guard their treasure chest.  The approaching house and the yelling children scare the pirates away and the children sail off in a golden house filled with treasure.  The little twist at the end is lovely as is the slow change from an adventure story to a bedtime story.  Share this one with pirate girls and boys. 

Corydon & the Island of Monsters by Tobias Druitt (a mother and son writing team) is one of my favorite books of the year so far.  Corydon is a boy who was born with one goat’s leg, complete with hair and hoof.  Because of this, he is considered a monster and driven from his village, tied to a stake where he is left to be a sacrifice.  He is saved from dying by two Gorgons who realize that he has a larger destiny in the world.  Corydon lives in the hills outside of the village with a flock of sheep and goats that he has stolen from the village, playing songs on his pipe.  But then he is kidnapped by a gang of pirates who have a zoo of monsters.  There he meets the Minotaur, Medusa, and the Sphinx among other monsters.  After a time, he is able to escape and free the other monsters with the help of the same Gorgons that saved him.  The monsters go off into the island to live separately, except for Corydon and Medusa who move into the Gorgons’ cave.  But while life is blissful for awhile, there is trouble brewing when the sole surviving pirate reports to the king what happened.  The king’s son, Perseus, is a vain and stupid man who decides that taking revenge on the monsters is a great way to become the hero he has always thought he was.  Of course, Perseus is not really the king’s son, but rather the son of Zeus, so he asks his real father for help.  Given gifts and finally able to round up a huge but ragtag army, Perseus heads off to kill the monsters on the island.

I will leave it there because this is an incredible book whose twists and turns are amazing and gripping.  I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun of the journey for anyone.  Let me just say that the fact that the monsters are the heroes in the book and that the heroes are the villains is lovely.  I also enjoyed the fact that Zeus is rather distant and forgetful, while other gods vary in their level of understanding and involvement.  You never really know what a god is going to do, which lends a level of complexity to the story.

Give this one to any kid who enjoys mythology, but be prepared to discuss it with them later because this book will turn everything they have ever read on its head.  Even while doing that, it makes Greek myths more alive than any novel I have ever read. 

BookLetters lets you sign up for free book-related newsletters.  They have ones for adult books and bestsellers, and they also have newsletters for picture books, chapter books, teens and children’s authors.  The newsletters are very short and filled with new titles that may be of interest.  This is a quick and easy way to find out about more new books.

Tell Me What You See by Zoran Drvenkar is a strange book, in a good way.  In the middle of a Christmas snowstorm, Alissa and her best friend, Evelin make the pilgrimage to her father’s grave.  Alissa falls down a hole into a crypt where she finds a child’s casket with a strange plant growing out of it.  When she opens the casket, she finds that the plant is coming straight from the child’s heart.  She pulls out the plant and against her will, eats it.  Evelin runs to get her father and they recue Alissa from the crypt.  But Alissa starts to act strangely after eating the plant.  She can see people who no one else can see, her abusive boyfriend has become even more obsessive after kissing her, and she breathes life into a tiny kitten. 

Written by a German author and set in modern-day Berlin, this is a modern gothic teen novel.  The book is a puzzle, a strange ride of a novel that is impossible to put down until the puzzle is solved.  And unlike some puzzling books, the ending is very satisfying. 

Share this with teens who like dark books filled with mystery and don’t mind a lot of strange things going on in their books. 

The CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center) has announced the 2006 Charlotte Zolotow Award that is given each year to the most outstanding writing in a picture book published in the USA in the previous year.

This year’s winner is My Best Friend by Mary Ann Rodman. 

The Honor Books are:

Patricia McKissack and Onawumi Jean Moss for Precious and the Boo Hag.
Jon J. Muth for Zen Shorts.

Highly Commended Books are:

Leslie Patricelli for Binky.
Sandy Turner for Cool Cat, Hot Dog.
Norton Juster for The Hello, Goodbye Window.
Mo WIllems for Leonardo the Terrible Monster.
Stephen Michael King for Mutt Dog!
Elivia Savadier for No Haircut Today!
Bob Graham for Oscar’s Half Birthday.
Mara Berman for Snip, Snap!  What’s That?
William Bee for Whatever.