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No two book giveaways a created the same. This one? This is a good one. Indeed, a first. Not one, but two *Recommended* books are up for the procuring. How can you get your hot, peanut butter M&Ms-smudged hands on one? Send an email to scopenotes@gmail.com or “hit me up” on Twitter (I’m working hard to insert “hip” phrases such as this into my writing). Be sure to name the book you’re interested in. If I get your entry by 11:59pm on Monday night, your name is in the hat, friend. Since my hat is a hand-crafted felt stovepipe, I can accommodate many, many entries (translation: don’t be shy). Now that the ins and outs have been covered, let’s take a look at the books:
The Potato Chip Puzzles by Eric Berlin. ARC. 100 Scope Notes Review.
Toby Alone by Timothee de Fombelle. 100 Scope Notes Review.
Best of luck!
(Top Image: ‘weekend book binding‘
www.flickr.com/photos/44124484443@N01)
I began this post with a humble question:
Which books are being bought?
Below, courtesy of Reading Radar (who pulls from the New York Times Best Seller list), are my findings. Let’s start with picture books.
(Click anywhere on the image to view the entire top ten)
Listen to the Wind has been residin’ in the top spot for a bit now, with the new Fancy Nancy and Freckleface Strawberry titles making their way into the top five. The Curious Garden makes an appearance, which I approve of (100 Scope Notes Review), and Gallop! (100 Scope Notes Review) continues to make itself comfortable, kicking its feet up on the top five coffee table.
Now, the books with chapters:
Not a whole lot to say here, other than it’s good to see The Graveyard Book still in the top five.
There’s something about big machines that captures the imagination of kids. I can identify. When I was a youngster, my county fair held a monster truck show and parked all of the massively-tired vehicles in the church parking lot across from my house. I almost lost it. I mean Bigfoot? Come on.
Two recent titles featuring various forms of trucks, diggers, and other construction-related machines struck me as similar. Eerily so. First up, one that you’ve been seeing a lot of in these pages of late:
Roadwork by Sally Sutton. (100 Scope Notes Review)
And now, its match:
Machines Go to Work by William Low.
Side by side:
I’m not making things up here, right? The middle of the page placement of the vehicle, the full-on profile view, the massively bold font work – the resemblence is pretty clear. As an added bonus, they are also similarly awesome books.
On a related note, if you are interested in seeing how William Low created the amazing digital art for Machines Go to Work, click here to head over to A Fuse #8 Production, where you’ll find an outstanding video of the process and get the down Low (pun 101% intended) on the author/illustrator’s appearance at the New York Public Library.
There are a number of things I could say about this photo, but I’ll just let it speak for itself (click to see full size):
A Wild Thing and Curious George coming to visit my school.
Do you ever wish you had a cool backstory? You know, like how Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider or how how Superman was… born super (bad example). I wish I had a better school librarian backstory, other than “I really enjoyed reading and hanging out in my high school media center”. I want it to read something more like “Friend, it all began when I decided to run an illegal banned-books library out of my locker. The rest, as they say, is history”. Unfortunately, I’ve been beaten to the punch. The outstanding Boing Boing blog has the story of high school student Javier *UPDATE* This story may be a hoax (I’ll keep you posted):
[M]y locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker… I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything.
I am predicting big things from you, young man. Click here to read the whole story at Boing Boing.
(To Image: ‘inland empire‘
www.flickr.com/photos/34606192@N00/447617517)
Have you had enough of all these “good” books? You know, the ones that are all well written, nicely illustrated, and up to date? Because everywhere I go and in everything I read, that’s what I see. Best Books of the Year, Recommended Books, Starred Books, it’s about time we started tipping the scales back in the other direction. With books like this:
That’s a scale tipper, folks. With the new, appropriately titled, Awful Library Books, two Michigan librarians are bringing the old and outdated to light. From the site:
Awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com is a collection of the worst of public library holdings. The items featured here are so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information.
This blog contains actual public library holdings. No specific libraries or librarians are named to protect the guilty. Check your shelves, it could be you.
If you read this post on my weeding project, you know I can relate. Click here (or the image below) to head on over and view the other awesomely bad selections. Thanks to the outstanding blog librarian.net for the link!
One of the best parts of my job is selection. I get to choose and purchase the books for four elementary schools serving Pre-K up to 6th grade. Indeed, I’ve learned to always have a big list going.
Today, our last book order of the school year came in to my K-4 building, and looking through the stacks, here are some that I am especially excited about:
Twelve Terrible Things by Marty Kelly.
I first heard about this one from the first-rate children’s lit blog Literate Lives. You know how you see the cover of a book a bunch of times, and start to build a wildly off-base concept of what’s inside? That happened to me with this book. I was expecting a story about a boy who goes through a day and experiences 12 bad things. Not so. It’s not a story as much as an insanely well-illustrated list of 12 terrible things that can happen to kids. Dentist, over-affectionate grandma, you get the idea. It’s very funny and very cool – kids will love this.
One Voice, Please by Sam McBratney.
I think the wonderful children’s lit blog MotherReader clued me in to this one. I am a huge fan of the story collection. They can be such a great read-aloud resource when you have limited time, since the stories usually move quickly and pull kids in right away. For this reason I love books like Betsy Byars’ The SOS File. This collection of very short (one to two page) stories looks like another good one for any library to have on their shelf or teacher to have in their desk.
Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight.
Ever since I saw it in the Simon & Schuster Spring catalog, I’ve been looking forward to this one. This was another title I misjudged. I thought it was going to be a straight up 741.5 (graphic novel), but it is definitely more of an illustrated novel (or whatever the kids are calling books with lots of pictures these days) either way, I’m excited to read it.
Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli.
The blog Bookends turned me on to this one, and Lynn and Cindy certainly know how to call ‘em. It’s great. This book nails the child’s perspective. When you were little, did you ever think you could swing hard enough so that you would do a complete rotation around the bar? Just me, heh, heh? Never mind. This book doesn’t actually cover that particular feat, but it does present the childhood feeling of being able to reach impossible heights while on the swing set.
Click here to look inside the book. A classic “going into the book” story with a bit of a twist – it’s nonfiction. I can see this title working wonders in a classroom setting since it has plenty of facts but presents them in a picture book format that reads as a story. When I was looking at Spring/Summer upcoming titles, this one from Roaring Brook Press stood out.
I don’t want to say too much about this one because I love it and I’m planning on reviewing it ASAP. I just wanted to give it an extra plug here.
I’m going to give voice (I mean text) to what you are thinking and say “Enough already!” Friends, I’ve got some cataloging to do.
(Top Image: ‘02_cardboard_surface_vertical_stripe_01‘
www.flickr.com/photos/31288116@N02/3066494856)
Nic Bishop is quickly becoming a household name in the world of children’s lit. A bio:
- Photographer
- Author
- PHD-level biologist
- Sibert Honor recipient
- New Zeelander
- Current Michigan resident
I’m especially pleased with that last one. Bishop is a master of visually mesmerizing, factually outstanding nonfiction for children. The man is dedicated (more on that later), the man is knowledgeable, the man has a new book on the shelves titled Butterflies and Moths. If you don’t already own a copy, be sure to add it to your wanted list.
If you’ve read Bishop’s previous work (Frogs, Spiders) then you’re familiar with the style on display here. The text, written in basic terms, describes the characteristics, habitat, diet, and life cycle of his subjects. The uniqueness of butterflies and moths is emphasized, with pages devoted to metamorphosis and the species’ use of camouflage.
Not surprisingly, the headliner here are the visuals. The photographs, highly-detailed and close up, give the reader a vibrant and intimate perspective. Bishop also presents the caterpillars that will eventually become these winged insects. Time-lapse and image-combining techniques are also utilized with successful results, showing flight and the transformation to pupa in step-by-step detail.
Bishop is nothing if not dedicated. One shot in the book, showing a rare caterpillar that puffs up its body to look like a snake, is an example of this. As described in the afterword, Bishop waited years for the opportunity to photograph this extraordinary creature, flying to Costa Rica at the drop of a hat when he received word of its whereabouts. That’s commitment, y’all.
Butterflies and Moths will surprise, amaze, and inform young readers of all shapes and sizes. Be sure to add this highly recommended title to your collection.
Check out the Nonfiction Monday roundup at ACPL Mock Sibert blog.
Also reviewed by Kids Lit, I.N.K.
Find this book at your local library with WorldCat.
If you’ve got piles of card catalog cards sitting around since the switch to computers, it’s craft time:
Card catalog shade.
(Thanks to Boing Boing for the link)
