Friday Fun

I was helping a boy and his mother find a biography and when the mother asked the boy if he knew who Houdini was the boy replied, "Duuuuuh. I've read, like, a hundred books on Houdini."

(incident happened earlier but I'm saving this for Friday fun. Because Friday is VACATION!)

What they're reading now

Pippa loves books and for the first time ever she's showing book preference. It warms my librarian heart! The main object of her affections is Baby Dance by Ann Taylor. I love this book - it's to the tune of Hush Little Baby and any book I get to sing makes me happy. And the story is so perfect for our family - the mama is lying on the couch while the daddy is throwing the baby in the air. I don't know how Brandon always has so much energy after dinner but while I'm begging the girls to play board games or do puzzles with me, Brandon can muster the umpf to throw them in the air or play our favorite game of tick-tock. I love this book! Pips also shows a strong preference toward this gorgeous rendition of Pat-a-cake by R. A. Herman. I always have trouble reading this because it's got the traditional chant going along the top and a story of a baker baking along the bottom - it throws me off to read them both at once so I have to read it twice.

Kaylee cried when I left for work today. Did she cry because she was going to miss me? No. She was crying because I was returning Hat by Paul Hoffe. We're going on vacation tomorrow for a week and I wanted all library books returned before then. I'm thinking this one will either be re-checked out immidiately upon return and/or eventually bought for Kinsie. The story is very reminicent of New Socks - one of my absolute favorite books. A boy finds a hat on a park bench and he imagines all the wonderful things he could do with that hat! But then his mother reminds him of whoever the hat belongs to - who would need that hat to do all those wonderful things. It's adorable and great fun and I am sad I didn't know about it for the hat storytime I did 2 weeks ago! It's one of those books that I put on hold for the storytime but came in the day after - so Kaylee got it instead! And she is very grateful.

Bless this Mouse by Lois Lowry

Title: Bless This Mouse
Author: Lois Lowry
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pub Date: 03/21/2011
Reviewed from: Galley from Netgalley

I have a bit of a strange relationship with Lois Lowry. For the most part I adore her books, and then every once in awhile I read a book that either doesn't excite me or that I completely hate and I don't know what to do with myself. How can I dislike a book by LL?

Fortunately I am exceptionally pleased to share that Bless This Mouse is fantastic. Beautiful! Fun! Heartwarming! Perhaps it's because of a childhood addiction to Brian Jacques, but Animal Fantasies will always have a special place in my heart and to see them done really well makes me beyond happy.

Hildegarde is the leader of a large group of mice that live in the church and she takes care of them well. She organizes how they will stay safe when the church celebrates the Feast of St. Francis and all the parishioners bring in their animals (including the cats!), she helps the families find places to stay together and hidden, and most importantly, she keeps a watch out for The Great X.

Despite the drama of the exterminators coming and the feast of St. Francis being moved inside, this was a quiet book - it almost seemed more like an extended character study of this group of mice - Hildegarde in particular. Lowry tiptoes into this world and writes what is there and who is there and how they behave and then just as quietly* she tiptoes out and leaves this world to continue revolving without her observation.

*For those of you who've read this book: yes, I know that final scene was dramatic and gorgeous but wasn't it also beautiful and quiet in it's own way?

This book was short and I feel like writing more about what happened will give away what little plot there is - so I'm just going to leave this with a hearty recommendation for anyone who is a fan of Brian Jaques, Edward Tulane, or who just wants a beautiful, gentle read.

Linkedy linkedy links, links, links

I'm starting to understand the appeal of the link-round-ups that everyone does. There are lots of things I want to mention but I don't know that I have enough to say about any of them to merit a whole post! So here is my first link-round-up.

So the YA book blogosphere is angry about James Frey. I talked about it to some friends yesterday and was all set to write something long and involved about what an arse James Frey is and how he's taking advantage of writers - demeaning his own profession - and he's showing complete disregard to young adults in general. Then I come around today and see that Maureen Johnson has once again said it first and said it best. A Chair, a fireplace, and a tea cozy also has a lovely take-down of Mr. Frey.

I've been using goodreads so much more lately for organizing my life. I've made a shelf of my favorite story-time books and have spent way too much time looking at the communal storytime shelf. The babies shelf is too full of praenting books and what to expect books to be much use for lapsit so I've started a shelf called lapsit and so far I'm the only one using that shelf so come and join me! I'm going to branch out into more specific genres for chapter books and such soon. Mel made this brilliant List of Picture books for Boys that I'm going to stick on a shelf soon for me to remember (and add too) because that's a question I get alot. What shelves do y'all use on goodreads? What is your favorite librarian-ey way to use goodreads?

I lent my friend Anna one of my favorite books ever and she LOVED IT! Life is wonderful.

I am also over the moon about ALA adding a Stonewall Children's and YA Literature award. People who think that kids of any age are too young to read about characters who are a part of the QUILTBAG community maybe shouldn't let their kids read books where anyone loves or gets married or has any sort of passionate feelings at all. (judgey LP is judgey)

The New York Times has released their list of the Best Picture Books of 2010. I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR! From now until Marchish is just list after list of good books and award after award for great books and it all makes me happy. And I'm going to be linking to a lot of lists in the future. Because I love them.

I had Hush, Hush checked out and I'd just barely started it - and the whole thing was making me feel icky so I did some googling to make sure I wasn't the only one aaaaand I am definitely not. So that book when on my goodreads Abandoned shelf. Because sometimes I just don't want to finish something.

When I was in library school, Michael Gorman was still president of the ALA and a common refrain in one of my classes was “WOW Michael Gorman is SUCH A curmudgeon! I love him!” Seriously. I just want to pat him on the head and tell him how adorable he is. That isn’t to say I agree with him about, pretty much, anything - but he is an adorable curmudgeon. This article about libraries reinventing themselves just reinforced that for me.

I've never read any Eva Ibbotson but Laura Amy Schlitz has inspired me. As soon as I'm done with The Amaranth Enchantment, she's up next for audiobooks.

There was one of those memes going around awhile back where you had to write a haiku to the item sitting on your right. I was rather proud of mine:

Boxcar children book
Missing many pages
Goodbye, cruel lib’ry

I've found that weeding is much more fun (and oh, it gets super fun if you're in the right mood) if you take the book that is to be weeded and say, "you ARE the weakest link! Goodbye!"

I'm sure there's more I want to comment on but I'll leave that for another post. In the meanwhile here is a picture my brother took of Kaylee and Pippa last week. They're getting SO BIG and I love them.

Friday Fun

One of my favorite 3 year old patrons (excluding, of course, my own personal 3 year old patron) just came up to me with her hands in her pockets.

“I HAVE POCKETHS!” She yelled.

I put my hands in my pockets. “I have pockets too!” I said, a little louder than usual (the occasion seemed to call for noise).

Three year old looked at my coworker expectantly. “I have pockets too,” she hurriedly said.

“WE ALL HAVE POCKETS!” said my patron.

“It’s POCKET party!” I agreed.

The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable by Dan Gutman

Title: The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable
Author: Dan Gutman
Publisher: HarperCollins (HarperCollins Children's)
Pub Date: 01/25/2011
Reviewed from: Galley from Netgalley

Dan Gutman was our City Reads author* two years ago and while he was always popular, since then our patrons have been insatiable for him. When Netgalley gave me the opportunity to read the first book in his next series, of course I jumped at the chance! This will help me be a better librarian give me MAJOR bragging rights with all the Dan Gutman fans I see on a daily basis!

*our version of one book/one community. We pick an author (preferably one who can show up and visit schools) and everyone reads that author instead of just one book)

Twins Coke and Pepsi* find out that they are part of a super secret government project called The Genius Files only when people start trying to kill them. They embark on a cross country road trip with their eccentric (and awesome) parents, try to survive, and try to figure out what the Genius Files are all about anyhow. The Genius Files isn't going to win itself a Newbery award and I'm doubt that it's going to stand the test of time and be a classic for decades to come - but that is part of what makes this book so much fun. The book encourages you to go to google maps or mapquest to track Coke and Pep's progress on their road trip, the twins google things they need to find out, and get excited about places on their trip with free wi-fi. This book has serious kid appeal and I can't wait to introduce it to my patrons!

*Yes, they know. And they've heard that joke. And that one.

Their names don't make it terribly obvious but Coke is a boy and Pepsi is a girl. Coke has a photographic memory but Pepsi has the wherewithal to be able to take all the clues they've been given and synthesize them into a working theory or crack the code or get them out of the situation. If you know me you know how much I love books where girls get to shine. Have you ever noticed how even when there's a female action hero she never gets to save the male? Either the male dies tragically or saves himself or if she does manage to save him it's not after some serious damage to him? Well Pepsi definitely gets to save Coke a few times in this book - and Coke gets to save Pep.

The writing is pure Gutman. Funny and personal and insightful. He draws you in on the first page and keeps you hanging on until the end. While not all the characters are completely fleshed out, this is the first book in what promises to be a substantial series and there are hints of fleshing out to come.

Overall I'd say your library would want this one - and you should read it yourself if you get a chance between all the holds it'll have. It'll only take you a day.

A story, by Kinsie Beth EE

The following story was narrated to Brandon by Kaylee yesterday morning while She, Patricia and him lounged in bed

The Story of the Three Four Orange Birds
By Kaylee Elizabeth EE


Once upon a time, there were three orange birds, and they were in their nest and they were very happy. There was a Kid bird a Baby bird and a Daddy bird. But then a Halloween witch came and cast a spell on them, and turned them into toys. She turned the kid bird into a jack-in-the-box and she turned the baby bird into a jack-in-the-box and she turned the daddy bird in to … a jack-in-the-box too! But then, they changed back, because they loved each other sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much. And then the princess named Susan came and helped them climb back into the nest in the top of the tree. And then, the mommy bird came home from work at the library, and she brought the kid bird three library books! and she brought the baby bird one too.
The end ever after.

All Hallows Read

Being the Neil Gaiman Fangirl that I am, when NG declared Halloween a book giving holiday I decided to jump right in. My local thrift store sells used children's books 15 for a dollar so Kaylee and I went down there and had the absolute best time picking out 105 children's books which I then organized on one of our bookcases (top row: board books then picture books then readers. Bottom row: chapterbooks then nonfiction). Pippa the tiger here does her very best Vanna. We moved in March and our new neighborhood is HUGE and full of families with children so we figured we'd get a ton of kids! Tragically our house is on a little side road in the neighborhood so we only got 30ish kids. But they all enjoyed the books!

(also I know I'm a slacker and should have typed this up 2 weeks ago. If I tell blogger to publish it a week and a half ago can I bend the space/time continuum and be forgiven?)

Happy Banned Books Week!

As Banned Books Week starts the blogosphere is full of banned books posts. Some of my favorites so far?

Why are Parents Banning Books from the BBC

A Tribute to my Favorite Banned Book of all Time from The Olive Reader asks what your favorite banned book is. I just reread the Harry Potter series and am in full on fangirl love (look for a post in the near future about this) but I also adored Annie on my Mind. It's always hard to pick a favorite any sort of book, isn't it?

My good friend Anna has a post about the Pentagon banning a book as it gets published. Scary stuff - I want to support national security and all that but sometimes the power our government has gives me chills.

My favorite banned book post so far comes from Mundie Moms. Author Saundra Mitchell gives a beautiful look at why banned books were so important to her growing up. I have to admit I've never read anything by her before but you have to believe I put some on hold at the library after reading this post!

Library Outsourcing

So - the lovely Anna asked me what I thought about the whole outsourcing libraries thing that's all a kerfuffle right now and I ended up ranting and I feel like rambling in my blog now. Does anybody mind? I hope not. Here's what I said to her:

As Maureen Johnson said, how will outsourcers deal with book banning requests? I worry that outsourcing will have people worrying more about the bottom line and the library's image instead of the greater good. Sanitized libraries. We do so many programs that don't necessarily raise our circs (which would probably be the bottom line for a library?) but benefit the community.

having a preschool fair in a week or so - We've invited local preschools to come and set up booths in our huge room over on 95th street to educate the locals about what their options are. Does this help the library? Not really, but it helps our patrons. Why would a for profit company have a fair that tells parents, basically, instead of bringing your kids to storytime every day why not send them to preschool? That's not what we're doing, obvs, but I could see some corporate muckity muck thinking that way.

Also - collection development. I weed my collection fairy regularly. My goal is that each collection will have an average of 12 circs per item per year. Some books (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc.) will always have holds on them and thus will have 20 or more circs per year. Those books make it possible for me to keep books in the collection that only circ 4 or 5 times per year - and even some pet books that circ maybe once per year. But they're good books! And a kid is going to benefit from those books! So I will keep them until they fall apart - and maybe not reorder them, but not necessarily get rid of them, ya know?

I can see a for-profit library looking at, say, El Lector and say, "This book rarely circs. Why is it in the collection? GET RID OF IT!" But I think it has value. I think some kid is going to need that book. So I'm going to let it circ until it falls apart.

And that's what I think about library outsourcing.

Cute overload

So ... There is this other song I sing to Kaylee every night. Goodnight by Laurie Berkner. I sang it to her a lot and then I stopped singing it for awhile and that led to a rash of Kaylee getting up in the middle of the night and telling her that the animals were keeping her awake and I had to had to had to come sing to her. This has led to a goodnight ritual where I ask her which animals are keeping her awake then I sing the song to that animal. Tonight after I sang the song to the "cheek deer" (a kind of deer, apparently, that says, " cheek cheek cheek") she asked me which animal was keeping me awake. Since I'm in the middle of my epic rereading of the Harry Potter books the only animal I could think of that would top the cheek deer was the Crumple Horned Snorkak. So Kaylee sang to me, "I'm a little Snorkak and my Mommy loves me. I'm a little Snorkak and my Kaylee loves me. When they tuck me in to say goodnight they say, 'crumple crumple crumple' goodnight. Goodnight, goodnight! Goodnight little Snorkak goodnight. Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight goodnight goodnight."

I want to die from cute.

Brontorina by James Howe

OH MAH GOODNESS! The lovely and amazing Abby the Librarian pointed me in the direction of Brontorina by James Howe with illustrations by Randy Cecil after my post the other day about Dinosaur Ballerinas. Apparently not only has dinosaur ballerinas been done, it has been done absurdly recently (this book is still on our "new books for staff to look through" shelf - my only excuse for not having seen it before is that coworker M is in charge of picture books and I'm in charge of chapter books so if I only have a few moments I look through the new chapter books first!), and it has been done absurdly well.

Brontorina is about a dinosaur who wants to join the ballet class but there are no shoes her size and she keeps bonking her head on the ceiling. She keeps trying, though, and her teacher and classmates are on her side.

While on the one hand I'm embarrassed that I wrote something so cringe-worthy when it had just been done I'm glad I hadn't read Brontorina already. I wouldn't have written my awful poetry then and I don't need one more excuse not to write!

Brontorina would be awesome in an older storytime - a 4,5,K or a school-age storytime. Check it out and enjoy!

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost

Speaking of award books do you know which book should have won ALL THE AWARDS* and actually won none** of the awards? Diamond Willow by Helen Frost. I recommended it for the Battle of the Books that my library helps with and it got chosen for this year so I get to spend extra time with it which makes me beyond happy! Diamond Willow is a beautiful book - I wanted to spend forever in this world with these characters! Lucky for me despite how short this book is, it is an easy book to savor. It invites the reader to go back over every page and really let that poem sink in.

*Ok, not all of the awards - Diamond Willow came out in 2008 and y'all know how I feel about The Graveyard Book, but if I can't use hyperbole in my own blog then where can I?

**actually while writing this review I've realized that it did win some awards - but it should have won MORE!

I didn't think I would like Diamond Willow when I first picked it up. Books written in poetry tend to be gimmicky (and yes, I know there are obvious and lovely exceptions to this) but Diamond Willow is anything but gimmicky and should not be disregarded because of the poetry. When Willow (the main character and main narrator) is narrating the book, each page is a poem. Hidden within each poem is a set of words in bold that creates another found sentence. It's hard to explain but if you see it you'll understand. Go check out the first 16 pages on FSG's website and you'll see. The hidden sentence explains more - the hidden meaning that Diamond is unwilling to say outright.

Very simply, Diamond Willow is about a 12 year old girl, Willow, who takes the sled dogs out in a storm to see her grandparents without her parent's permission and she gets caught in a storm. Willow is part Athabascan and her heritage comes into play as other narrators take over the book briefly because she is being watched over by the animals that are her ancestors. Can I tell you about how much I love that? There are so few books out there where Native people are shown living modern lives that are still rich in their cultural heritage. Diamond Willow neither shuffles the Athabascans off into the history books nor does it make Willow's heritage just a quirk - it is still a very real part of her life, her traditions, who she is.

I will never do this book justice in my review. You need to go read it. Now, please.

Diamond Willow will work especially well for girls in 4th grade and up who like thoughtful books, adventure books, nature books, books about dogs, books about snow - or really just good books.

Mock Newbery

Mock Newbery season is here! I've found 3 lists so far - Early Words, Allen County Public Library (which will add more soon) and Anderson's Bookshop (note: their list isn't online yet).

I have compiled all the lists into one big Mock Newbery List on Goodreads. Note - since you have to go into Anderson's store to get their list I'm not going to tag their books with Anderson's, but I have added them to the list. Once they put their list online I'll link to it and tag all those books but since they're purposefully keeping it small for the moment I'm not going to expose their list too badly! (:

I love award season and Mock award season always makes me giddy with what is to come. I've successfully predicted the Newbery 2 years in a row (although I don't think that was much of a stretch. The Graveyard Book and When You Reach Me were both phenomenal and somewhat obvious?) so I feel the need to start reading all these books and seeing what I think! So far my favorite book that I've read this year is One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia, so that's my current pick. I'll review that one soon and let y'all know what I think about the rest of the books on these lists!

So what about you? What books are you rooting for? Have you found any other Mock Newbery lists yet? Are you excited for award season?

Why I will never be a childrens' book author

I have this (not so) secret dream of writing picture books. My 3 year old loves princesses and ballerinas as well as dragons and aliens and dinosaurs and robots. It's hard to find many books that combine stereotypically girly motifs with stereotypical boy motifs (stupid mean Patriarchy and the gender binary!). Yes, there are some awesome books out there but for every Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots there are tons of regularly gendered books. Anyway - I spend a lot of time making up stories for Kaylee at night and someday I'm going to get them all written down - at the very least for my girls but my narcissism likes to tell me that the wider world needs more books about Robot Princesses and such.

Anyway today I found myself in need of a good brain doodle earlier so I started writing out the story of the dinosaur ballerinas.


As you can tell from the T-Rex in a tutu above, I will need an illustrator. An illustrator who isn't me. You know what else I will need? To stay away from my radical feminist dogma when writing a ridiculously awesome story about dinosaur ballerinas. It started out well enough with Prehistoric Prima Donnas Prancing Prettily. Then it became all about body issues and how dance magnifies every little flaw. The Apatosorus has a beautiful and graceful look neck but oh that posture. Stand up straight, Appy! The Tyrannosaurus Rex has beautiful posture but when she tries to hold her arms up in fifth position they were much to stubby for proper grace.

Teacher always comments
On Apatasaurous's graceful neck
"but such posture, Mon Cherie!
Stand up straight, your spine's a wreak!"

Now Tyranosaurous's posture
Makes Madam clap with glee
"But those arms, Mmselle Rex," she glowers,
"Elongate, please!"

It rhymes! Ish.

Don't think the publishers are going to jump on this one!

Family Friday

What am I doing creating another meme just for me that will probably be abandoned after one or two weeks? I was having so much fun with early literacy mondays and then I abandoned them. I have plans for screen-time Saturdays but don't know how far that will go if I even get that far.

The babies themselves and not just their reading choices have not been on my real live blog in far too long and I feel a need to share their brilliance with the whole world so please indulge me. I am a mother and therefore I am a bit narcissistic about my babies. They are brilliant and wonderful and they make me happy beyond all imagining.

Kaylee is three and wonderful. She's got this wild imagination and is always making up stories and demanding that I make up stories to tell her. She loves acting out fairy tales (especially the three little pigs) with her stuffed animals or truing to convince me to be the evil witch in some involved story she's made up about a princess and a dragon and a witch and "cackle mommy! Cackle more! And lock me in the tower! And then the Princess Kaylee ESCAPED from the evil witch and now look sad Mommy!"

Pippa is 16 months old and so affectionate. Her vocabulary is only a few words but she understands so much more. We were going to run errands the other day and I asked her where her shoes were. She brought me one green shoe. I said, "thank you, Pips, but this is only one shoe. We need two." (Here I held up 2 fingers). "can you find me the OTHER shoe?" Pippa nodded and ran off and came back with both of her brown shoes. She held them both up and said, "ooo?" She may have just found the matching pair before the other green one and "ooo" may have just been a random sound but in my head she can count at least to two. Yes? Yes.

What the girls are reading now

Babybug is one of those magazines I have been meaning to subscribe the girls to forever. Now that we've bought a house and will not be randomly moving anymore I have no excuse! I do check them out from the library periodically - It had been while but I was inspired again when my coworker recently wrote on her blog that March 2010 was her baby's favorite Babybug ever so of course I had to check it out. Tragically someone had gotten to it first so I grabbed June 2010.

OH MAH GEE I am in love again! It has reinspired me to subscribe the girls to Babybug (as soon as I stop procrastinating). Kaylee's favorite part was a poem at the end called "Little Bug" that I think would be perfect for use during a 2s storytime* that is like a full body fingerplay. An Action poem! The minute I started reading it Kaylee jumped up and started doing the actions "Up on your toes, / In for a kiss! / Up on your toes, / and I hug you like this." It's absolutely way too much fun.

*2s have to come with their parents or guardians unlike 3s so the 2s have built-in hugging partners

My same wonderful coworker pointed me toward The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson and Marcellus Hall. It was on our new books cart and she encouraged me to take it home for the girls - one of the best suggestions ever! The Cow Loves Cookies is an absolute hit with both girls. Rhyming text brings you through a farmer's morning as he brings the animals their usual foods all the way through to his snack at the end with the cow. The farmer brings the cookies and the cow brings the milk! The rhyming is rhythmical and made Kins want to dance. The story repeats every animal it's gone through without being repetitive and stands up well to rereadings (which is key in a well-loved picture book). Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Baby Colors is another New Books cart find that I am beyond tickled about. Baby Colors is one of those rare lift-the-flap board books that will actually stand up to a baby's use. I can't tell you how many flaps have been pulled off or bent wrong in my household but these flaps are just as stury as the rest of the book - and the whole book in general is sturdier than the average board book. The words are basic but Pippa loves the colors and with her language skills just starting to bud it's fun to see her latch on to concepts and try to learn these colors.

And that is ... what they're reading now. (Saying that phrase puts Garth Brooks's song "What She's Doing Now" in my head. "What they're reading now ... is tons of awesome books. Filling up my shelves and emptying the lib'ry. I can hear them giggle each time I open this one and I wonder if they know ... what they're readin' now." Sorry - I am insane.)

Favorite storybooks of the moment

When preparing for a Fairy Tales storytime awhile back a coworker introduced me to The End by David LaRochelle and Richard Egielski. I love it so much I'm going to use it agian in our GIANT TIME program in a few weeks! The story begins with "And they lived happily ever after. They lived happily ever after because ..." and it tells the story of the soggy knight falling in love with the clever princess backwards. I love it - I absolutely love it. At the end when everything comes together, kids as young as 3 were getting it as the their eyes lit up and they realized what happened to the lemons! So wonderful! And it is a perfect tie in for multiple early literacy points - Narrative Skills (most stories are told moving forward in time! Lets read one that moves BACKWARDS!), Print Motivation (books can be arranged so many ways! How do you feel about books that read like this?), Print Awareness (what was different about how that book was set up?). The storytime I read this in was huge - 87 kids! But I can't wait to use this in a more intimate setting - one of our age specific storytimes, a 3s or a 4,5,K where I can more easily start up a discussion about the book. I want to see if the kids can then tell the story back to me forward! Kaylee can, but one-on-one storytimes are different.

I pulled A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C Stead and Erin E Stead off the new books cart somewhat on a whim and I'm so glad I did. The book is a story about a zookeeper who befriends all the animals and when he wakes up sick one day his animal friends take the bus to see him. It's beautiful and adorable and somewhat perfect. Kaylee is definitely not reading yet, but on our way home from the library (husband had dropped her off just as I got off of work) Kaylee started acting a bit like a 3 year old (every once in awhile she remembers that 3 year olds are traditionally obnoxious) so I handed her the top book in the pile and she was enchanted the entire drive. She recounted the entire story to me as we drove ("look! He's playing checkers with his friend the elephant! Look, he's chasing after the turtle! ... Oh, he's in bed and he looks sad. Is he sick? ... His friends are sad. Why isn't he playing with his friends, Mommy? Look! The penguin is bringing him a balloon! He's playing checkers with his friend again!" etc.), and I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart that the pictures in this book are so beautiful and expressive that the Kins could get everything out of the book without me having ever read it to her before.

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Ok, so I've got things that need cleaned and other things that need organized and I have the cutest baby ever trying to crawl up into my lap (seriously - CUTEST BABY EVER. What, you don't believe me? Let me grab my phone and take a picture to prove it.

CUTEST BABY EVER! Pippa, meet the blog. Blog, meet Pippa. She's much bigger now.)

Anyway - I have very little time before my mother comes over with the elder daughter who she stole last night for a hotel sleepover, but I am trying to get in the habit of writing about books again! Which is to say, this one will be short, but this time I really am trying to be back!

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Delphine and her sisters are sent by their father and Big Ma to spend the summer in California with their mother who they haven't seen since Fern the littlest "still needed her milk." Their mother wants little to do with them, shes so focused on her poetry, and sends them to the Black Panther's summer camp to keep them out of her hair.

This book is historical fiction, set in Oakland in the summer if 1968, and the time and place shine through, but this book is especially beautiful because of the characters. Everyone has a rich and complex history that makes you never want to put this book down. Fern, the youngest, is my favorite. She starts as a shy baby-doll carrying girl who can't stand up for herself and how she ends up? Amazing. And the language! I especially remember Delphine thinking about how her mother prays over her printing press.

There's the door! Gotta go. Seriously - Don't trust this super short and not good enough review. Read this book. It'll take you 2 lunch hours.

Random Links

When is a whitewashed cover not a whitewashed cover? When a publisher gives itself a reason to pretend that it isn't whitewashed. This article infuriated me, especially the quote, "When Cindy Pon was first trying to find a home for Silver Phoenix, she was told by an editor that 'Asian fantasy doesn't sell.' I'm sure people will look at the sales figures of Silver Phoenix and draw that same conclusion." WHATEVER. Kids LOVE being able to see themselves as the hero to a story and Asian kids read fantasy just as much as anybody else. I wish I had more in my RA head. (Do you know any more? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave them in the comments. My patrons are obsessed and I need more ideas!) (found via Notemily.)

My friend Nerdgasms linked to this interesting article about the possibilities that ebooks bring in terms of multimedia in ways that couldn't be done before.

I agree that the possibilities for the future of books are endless, but don't discount the old fashioned print version of the book as being incabable of multimedia! There are multimedia books out there. From the basic such as Stephanie Meyer posting track lists of what she thinks of as the soundtrack to her books. There are multiple poetry anthologies for kids that come with CDs of the authors (or other if the author isn’t available) reading the poems aloud. When I was a teen librarian I remember a mystery book with clues in the books as well as on webpages referenced in the book that really existed on the web. The Septimus Heap hardcover books all come with a CD-ROM that I haven’t checked out but I know kids get disappointed if the only book on shelf is the one with the missing CD-ROM.

Heck, Eric Carle. The Very Lonely Firefly. At the end, all the fireflies light up! The Very Quiet Cricket! When you turn the last page after (spoiler alert) the cricket learns to chirp, THE BOOK CHIRPS AT YOU!


So yes, I'm excited for what's coming, but I love what's here.