2015 Costa Children’s Book Award Winner

| Tasha

The Lie Tree

Frances Hardinge has won the 2015 Costa Children’s Book Award with her book, The Lie Tree.

My Top Children’s Nonfiction Picks for 2015

| Tasha

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The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage by Selina Alko, illustrations by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko

Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson, illustrated by Sean Qualls

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Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings by Margarita Engle

Enormous Smallness: A Story of E.E. Cummings by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo

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Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick, illustrated by Sophie Blackall

Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh

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Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Jamey Christoph

The House That Jane Built: A Story about Jane Addams by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Kathryn Brown

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Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Raul Colon

Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Iacopo Bruno

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My Name Is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth by Ann Turner, illustrated by James Ransome

Over the Hills and Far Away: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes by Elizabeth Hammill and various illustrators

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Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton by Don Tate

The Sky Painter: Louis Fuertes, Bird Artist by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Aliona Bereghici

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

Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Julie Morstad

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Tricky Vic: The Impossible True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower by Greg Pizzoli

Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews, illustrated by Bryan Collier

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Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer:The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Bostone Weatherford, illustrated by Ekua Holmes

Water Is Water: A Book about the Water Cycle by Miranda Paul, illustrated by Jason Chin

What in the World? by Nancy Raines Day

| Tasha

What in the World by Nancy Raines Day

What in the World?: Numbers in Nature by Nancy Raines Day, illustrated by Kurt Cyrus (InfoSoup)

In this rhyming counting book, the concept of numerical sets is introduced. The book opens asking “What in the world comes one by one?” It then answers, explaining that the moon, your nose and your mouth come in singles. Then the book counts upwards, each time asking the question of what comes in that set and answering it. The book ends by looking up at the stars and the infinity of them. It invites young readers to start to think about the patterns in the natural world around them.

Day has created a rhyme that makes this book an engaging mix of poetry and science. As the rhyme dances along, the book will inspire conversation and thinking of more things that come in that type of set. The book is wisely limited to a coastal area where a young boy plays, dangling his toes and fingers in the water, sets of ten.

The art is simple enough to allow this book to be both a counting book and a book about sets. Smaller children will merrily count the nine spines on the back of a fish while older children will start to think about other things in their world that match the set. The digital art is bright colored, and cheery.

An engaging math book that can be read at different levels, this rhyming science book will be enjoyed by several ages of child. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Beach Lane Books.

Review: Ruby Lee and Me by Shannon Hitchcock

| Tasha

Ruby Lee and Me by Shannon Hitchcock

Ruby Lee and Me by Shannon Hitchcock

Sarah knows that she is responsible for her little sister being hit by a car. Their entire summer has changed now with Robin in the hospital and her prognosis unclear. Sarah has moved to live with her grandparents on their remote farm, which is usually one of her favorite places but even that has changed. Her best friend, Ruby Lee, is changing too because the color of their skin has become all the more important in North Carolina as the school desegregate. When it looks like the girls will be going to school together, they struggle with their friendship under the rules of their parents and grandparents and their own high expectations. Sarah has a lot to navigate in this summer before middle school.

Based on the author’s family history with a car accident and a sibling, this book’s real heart is the family itself. The warmth of the grandparents’ love and care during the tragedy are palpable as they feed Sarah all sorts of good homemade cooking and teach her skills in the kitchen too. Sarah discovers that she is surrounded by people who care, but even that is not enough to assuage her guilt at what has happened to her sister as well as her guilt about how she treats Ruby Lee.

As this guilt builds, it becomes almost another character in the book, unspoken and real. It traps the real Sarah beneath it, unable to speak of what she needs to say most desperately. This is an honest depiction of what it is to feel this level of responsibility and not be able to communicate that at all. The book embraces these large feelings, gives them space to come out and be revealed, and also shows how these emotions play into civil rights in a larger scale where guilt, tradition and societal expectations come together and stop forward momentum.

A powerful mix of personal story and Civil Rights history, this book shows how important change is at every level. Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic Press.

 

My Top Picture Book Picks for 2015

| Tasha

22718714 Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music

Boats for Papa by Jessixa Bagley

Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael Lopez

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Float by Daniel Miyares

Hoot Owl, Master of Disguise by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Jean Jullien

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I Don’t Like Koala by Sean Ferrell, illustrated by Charles Santoso

In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van, illustrated by April Chu

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It’s Only Stanley by Jon Agee

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Christian Robinson

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Lenny & Lucy by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead

Lillian’s Right to Vote by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Shane W. Evans

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The Little Gardener by Emily Hughes

Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat, illustrated by Leslie Staub

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The Moon Is Going to Addy’s House by Ida Pearle

The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein

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Out of the Woods: A True Story of an Unforgettable Event by Rebecca Bond

Pool by JiHyeon Lee

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The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton

Sidewalk Flowers by JoArno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith

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The Skunk by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Patrick McDonnell

Sweep Up the Sun by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder

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The Tea Party in the Woods by Akiko Miyakoshi

The Tiger Who Would Be King by James Thurber, illustrated by Joohee Yoon

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Waiting by Kevin Henkes

Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Zachariah OHora

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Yard Sale by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Lauren Castillo

Happy Holidays!

| Tasha

christmas-316448_1280

I hope everyone has a happy holidays! I’ll be taking a little blogging break until January 4th and hoping that we get just a touch of snow here in Wisconsin.

I will return with my top picks for 2015, sneaking them in just before the announcements of the ALA awards. See you then!

When I Am Happiest by Rose Lagercrantz

| Tasha

When I Am Happiest by Rose Lagercrantz

When I Am Happiest by Rose Lagercrantz, illustrated by Eva Eriksson (InfoSoup)

The third in the charming series about Dani, this book has school ending. Dani has now managed to finish the school year after her best friend moved away. She has a project to finish, a book about how happy she is. But then her father is hit by a car on his bicycle, and suddenly Dani is not happy at all. Dani is taken home by her grandparents where they wait for updates on her her father is doing. How can Dani ever finish her book now? And what will happen if her father never wakes up again?

Translated from the Swedish, this series is one of my favorites. Lagercrantz captures the emotions of having your best friend move away and then the long process of recovering from that. In this novel, she shows how a sudden accident can sweep the air out of your life as a child. Lagercrantz never lectures about being positive, but that’s exactly what her books embrace. Through Dani’s reactions to adversity, readers can see the power of positive thinking and how the good outweighs the bad even when you don’t realize it.

Eriksson’s art is done in line drawings that help break the text up, making this book just right for elementary readers who may still find large paragraphs overwhelming. The art is done with a sense of humor, such as the image of Dani getting her ears pierced with her father unable to look but bravely holding her hand anyway. When Dani is overwhelmed by the news of her father, you can see it in every bone of her body as it curves protectively inward.

Another winner in this great series, get these into the hands of fans of Clementine for another amazing young heroine. Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

The Thing about Yetis by Vin Vogel

| Tasha

The Thing about Yetis by Vin Vogel

The Thing about Yetis by Vin Vogel (InfoSoup)

The one thing you should know about yetis is that they love winter. They love playing in the snow, sliding down hills, ice skating in their own unique way, making the best snowballs, and building snow castles. But even yetis can get too cold and have to head inside to warm up. When winter gets a bit too rough, yetis can also get crabby, particularly when they run out of cocoa. They also love summer, you see. They miss playing outside in the sun, sliding down slippery slides, swimming, sleeping in tents, and building sand castles. There’s just one thing for a grumpy winter yeti to do, make their own summer day!

This book has such an appeal about it. It’s the googly-eyed yetis throughout the book, the ones who delight in both cold and warm weather. The ones who get grouchy when they are too cold, poofy when their fur dries, and who sometimes need to be cozy inside on a blustery winter day. Vogel captures these elusive yetis with a cartoon feel that has universal appeal for readers.

The story is brief but cleverly done. Rather than just an ode to winter and all that it brings in terms of snowy fun, this is also a book that will appeal to any of us who live in the north and know that snow and cold can get very old after awhile. Children will relate to longing for summer.

Read this one as February is getting brutal and be prepared to have your own summer day inside. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Dial Books.

Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann

| Tasha

Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann

Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann (InfoSoup)

With just a few words at the beginning and ending of the book, this nearly wordless picture book looks at progress. It begins with one lone mole moving into a green meadow. He was soon joined by more moles and each dug out space of their very own. Soon there was electricity, plumbing and heat. The shaft got larger and deeper and then large machinery was used to dig the tunnels. The meadow was dotted with mounds. Public transport was added, cities grew up, apartments were jammed closely together, traffic was awful, and the lush green meadow disappeared. But not quite.

Kuhlmann shows human progress but with a mole point of view. His gorgeous illustrations show the wheels of change, the machinery of digging, the way that progress takes over and has a speed all of its own. It is a story that is dark and sad, one that shows that starting with a lone mole and freedom to make choices can quickly turn into a society bound by the machines that once built it. Much like our own, perhaps exactly like our own.

As I mentioned, it is Kuhlmann’s illustrations that show all of this without words. Each illustration is detailed and lush. The little mole homes are cleverly depicted from the happiness of the early days to the jammed apartments at the end. I particularly enjoyed the page filled with paperwork and records with one bored mole at a desk. All of these work together to show what loss was suffered with progress.

A book to start discussions or to pore over on your own, this picture book takes a mole-eye view of what we humans are doing to ourselves. Appropriate for ages 5-7.

Reviewed from library copy.