My Homage to EC!

This Had Me at the Cover

Printz winner, Myers (Monster), delivers another excellent character-driven novel, this time focusing on the strength and encouragement that come from a trusted friendship. 

Harlem teenager, Darius, a writer, wants to get out of his neighborhood and make it to college, but his grades aren't good enough. He's hoping that if he can get a story published, he might nab a college scholarship. His best friend Twig is a track star, and sees athletics as his escape. Both are skeptical of the hype they are fed about how hard work pays off, and they face obstacles ranging from school bullies and unsupportive parents to indifferent educators and classmates who don't want others "to get away from the crappy little universes they had created for themselves." 

Myers homes in on the intimacy between Twig and Darius and their struggles at writing and racing, without letting the oppressiveness of their neighborhood or their home lives either fade to the background or into cliché. Ages 13–up.

-Publishers Weekly

The Challenge of Reading to Children on a Daily Basis

  Books All Around!

Reading to children on a daily basis is important. The challenge is to find the time. This can be overcome by having books within reach. Having books everywhere leads to reading everyday.
Weekly Challenge:

• Establish a reading corner with at least two books per child on a child accessible shelf.
• Make sure every child has a library card.

Suggestions:

• Place books on a low shelf.
• Have books in every classroom.
• Create a reading corner.
• Have at least two books per child.
• Designate a place to store library books (a shelf, a basket, or a bag).
• Keep books everywhere (car, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom).
• Have a book bag for each child.
• Schedule library visits.
• Check library events for book festivals, storytimes, and more!

-from Richland County Public Library.  For more information click HERE .

Reading With Dad

In honor of Father's Day (Sunday, June 16), here's a link to a list of children's lit featuring dads.  Scroll to the bottom of the page for a complete, printer-friendly list.

Happy Birthday, Maurice Sendak!

 

Happy Birthday, Maurice Sendak!

June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012

 

Maurice was never interested in supplying children with momentary distractions or reliable soporifics; he wanted to make rich, complex, even dangerous art for them. He risked everything and dared anything, even failure, to uncover truth. He pushed at the boundaries of his form to expand its expressive capabilities, its capacity for generating meaning. He was protean, and over the years, his books became stranger, darker, more complex and more magnificent. He was a very serious artist. With a depth of feeling and intensity that might seem odd in an author and illustrator of children's books, Maurice believed in art.

His grateful readers and adoring friends loved him because he told us the truth; he warned us, in book after book, that death divides the living from the loved, and also, impossibly, that love lasts even when life doesn't. Do we believe him? Somehow, through some potent magic he possessed, we do.

-from an article by Tony Kushner

published in The Guardian, December 22, 2012

Nancy Drew Books

Remember these?  How many do you have?

Liar & Spy

Short chapters make for a fast read until the middle of the novel.  That's when I started wondering if anything was actually going to happen.

Like a story.

Stead's novel feels like the shadow of something instead of something:  an only child moves to a new apartment, makes a friend, navigates middle school, spies on a neighbor, finds out things may not be what they appear to be, takes it all in stride.

I really liked Stead's Newbery winner, "When You Reach Me".  This low-key, lightweight narrative was melancholy and dissatisfying.  

Oh well.

12 Books on Parenting for New Moms

-from hpb.com

Ways a Parent Can Help with Reading

24 Awesome Short Stories for Middle School

20 Chapter Books To Read With Your Kids

Share the love!

On My Honor – By Marion Dane Bauer
The Boxcar Children – By Gertrude Chandler Warner
Bridge to Terabithia – By Katherine Paterson
Tuck Everlasting – By Natalie Babbitt
The Chocolate Touch – By Patrick Skene Catling
Snow Treasure – By Marie McSwigan
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh – By Robert C. O’Brien
The War With Grandpa – By Robert Kimmel Smith
The City of Ember – By Jeanne DuPrau
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing – By Judy Blume
Maniac Magee – By Jerry Spinelli
Superfudge – By Judy Blume
The Indian in the Cupboard – By Lynne Reid Banks
Freckle Juice – By Judy Blume
Holes – By Louis Sachar
A Wrinkle in Time – By Madeleine L’Engle
Where the Red Fern Grows – By Wilson Rawls
Wayside School Is Falling Down – By Louis Sachar
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 – By Beverly Cleary
The Mouse and the Motorcycle – By Beverly Clearly

Oz Books: How Many Do You Have?

"There are a good many roads here," observed the shaggy man, turning slowly around, like a human windmill. "Seems to me a person could go 'most anywhere, from this place."

—The Road to Oz (1909)

 

 

Beautiful Books, #3

Looking for Great Picture Books?

here's the link:

100 Best Picture Books of All-Time

Wonderful Resource for Teen/YA Reads

Thank you, Rapid City Library!

http://pinterest.com/rapidcitylib/teen-reads/

Summer Reading Starts Here

Started my summer reading with this. Halfway through and enjoying it. Jack's a great kid up against some crappy odds. I'm rooting for him to make it. 

Here's the summary from Amazon:

Jack’s mom is gone, leaving him all alone on a campsite in Maine. Can he find his way back to Boston before the authorities realize what happened?

Ever since Jack can remember, his mom has been unpredictable, sometimes loving and fun, other times caught in a whirlwind of energy and "spinning" wildly until it’s over. But Jack never thought his mom would take off during the night and leave him at a campground in Acadia National Park, with no way to reach her and barely enough money for food. Any other kid would report his mom gone, but Jack knows by now that he needs to figure things out for himself - starting with how to get from the backwoods of Maine to his home in Boston before DSS catches on. With nothing but a small toy elephant to keep him company, Jack begins the long journey south, a journey that will test his wits and his loyalties - and his trust that he may be part of a larger herd after all.

Beautiful Books, #2

2013 Newbery Award Winner

The 2013 Newbery Medal winner is The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, published by HarperCollins Children's Books.

Ivan’s transformative emergence from the “Ape at Exit 8” to “The One and Only Ivan, Mighty Silverback,” comes to life through the gorilla’s own distinct narrative voice, which is filled with wry humor, deep emotion and thought-provoking insights into the nature of friendship, hope and humanity.

“Katherine Applegate gives readers a unique and unforgettable gorilla’s-eye-view of the world that challenges the way we look at animals and at ourselves,” said Newbery Medal Committee Chair Steven Engelfried.

from:

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberymedal

Love My Library Card!

Today's Picks:

Beautiful Books

A RIVER OF WORDS

The Story of William Carlos Williams

By Jen Bryant. Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

(Ages 7 and up)

Easter Favorites/Tales of Peter Rabbit and His Friends

Beatrix Potter's lovely illustrations, seen here in both color and black and white, grace this collection of thirteen tales that have enchanted young children for decades. As they introduce these stories to a new generation of youngsters, adults can themselves revisit Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, Jemima Puddle-duck, Miss Moppet, Tom Kitten and Potter's many other classic creations.

-from the inside flap

Easter Favorites/The Easter Egg

Brett's finely detailed watercolor and gouache art is a showstopper, spotlighting lifelike—though nattily clad—rabbits decorating eggs in hopes of winning the role of the Easter Rabbit's helper. Hoppi is awed by bunnies' creations, which include an ornate chocolate egg and a “whirling, twirling mechanical egg.” But when an egg tumbles out of a robin's nest, he keeps it safe until the baby bird hatches. Borders of twigs, pussy willows, daffodils, and ferns add greatly to the warm, visually sumptuous setting of this gentle spring story. Ages 3–5.

-from Publisher's Weekly

Easter Favorites/Happy Easter, Mouse!

(3-5 years)

Join Mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie as he tries to figure out who's leaving Easter eggs all over his house! 

-from back cover

Easter Favorites/The Velveteen Rabbit

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." The story of the Velveteen Rabbit who longs to be real has charmed and captivated readers for over half a century.

-from the back cover

Easter Favorites/The Country Bunny

The country bunny attains the exalted position of Easter Bunny in spite of her responsibilities as the mother of twenty-one children. "It is difficult to believe that this very modern feminist tale was originally written in 1939. A gem of a fantasy in which kindness and cleverness win out over size and brawn."  

 -Learning Magazine

Happy Birthday Amelia Bedelia!

 Remember this series?  Amelia Bedelia turns fifty this year!  Peggy Parish's nephew, Herman, continues to write the books.  I'm so glad this fun character and her wacky stories are still around.  Who knew?