An Island Grows, by Lola M. Schafer

An Island Grows by Lola M. Schafer, illustrated by Cathie Flestead (Greenwillow Books 2006)

I picked this up last week in the library's new book section--it seemed to fall nicely into the non-fiction that will appeal to both boys (6 and 3) category, and I liked the cover. It was a good choice.

"Deep, deep beneath the sea" the earth splits apart, and an island begins . The journey from a crack in the ocean floor to a tropical paradise is pleasantly told in rhyming couplets and simple but very satisfying pictures. The text was easy enough for 6 yr old to read, although sometimes rhyme was given more weight than simplicity-"Rocks appear, black and sheer." But heck, sheer is a fine word. My 3 yr old was very taken with the underwater buildup of magma. We all liked the dense page of factual information at the end; I, for instance, was able to share with my co-workers today the fun fact that the earth's plates move at the rate our fingernails grow, which is a lot faster than I would have thought.

The book gets a tad strange when people come into the picture--it appears to be an island of racial utopia, with people of all skin tones living and working side by side. This is lovely, and it looked unremarkable to the children (and of course in an ideal world this scenario should look "normal"). However, one of my main professional interests is the history and archaeology of European colonization, and I was a more than a bit jarred by the happiness of the island's integration into the capitalist world system, and I had to bite back a diatribe. But that aside, it was a very pleasant and instructive read-out-loud experience, and I'll be happy to read it to them again.

P.S. (added 4/15/07) My 3 year old has asked for this book at bedtime every night since we got it out of the library, and I have not particularly minded, which shows how appealing it is!

ee cummings for Poetry Friday

Yesterday I posted a brief review of the video Sea Nasties. After a half hour or so of Leslie Nielsen's dark humor, the video ends on a completely different note, with Nielsen speaking, very movingly, this ee cummings poem:

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,

and milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:

and may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Apart from my anxiety about poor molly, I think this is a lovely poem.

I had another Cummings quote in my head --"an instrument to measure Spring with," and looking for that on line I found this genuine article:

A 1613 pocket sundial from the Harvard Collection of Scientific Instruments, featured in the Harvard Magazine March April 2002 issue as part of an enthralling collection of Spring Miscellanies.

The Poetry Friday round-up is at Big A little a today.

Non-Fiction Videos we like: Sea Nasties

In our house, many non-fiction videos are watched (perhaps because the guilt is less extreme when the children are being "educated" by the television). It all started back when 6yrold was a 3 yr old, and I got him an animally National Geographic to watch. From then on there was no looking back. He explored the non-fiction video holdings of our library, developing some odd favorites--"Oh Mama! Let's get out Avalanche, the White Death! And Asteroid, Deadly Impact!" he would plead in his sweet baby voice. (I did draw the line at Killer Bees: When Swarms Attack. We don't live in the shadow of snowy mountains, and asteroid devastation is not that frequent around here either, but we do have bees. I also drew the line at Quicksands: deadly life engulfing pools of horror, or something like that, just because).

So I thought that to add Structure here at my blog, each Thursday I might review one or two non-fiction videos that are perhaps off the beaten child track (the beaten track of children? the child's beaten track?). But to get things started, I picked a video aimed specifically at children--Sea Nasties, a National Geographic video narrated by Leslie Nielsen.

Do you think the seaside is a nice place to take the kids? Wrong! It is full of deadly creatures, such as box jellies, sea snakes, and lion fish, all out to get Nielsen! A friendly mermaid takes Nielsen on tour of these "sea nasties," clarifying the facts (lots of them are darn toxic) and providing a corrective to his wacky hysteria (lots of them aren't all that bad, if you just leave them alone). There is considerable great footage of the nasties, and my kids enjoy the dark humor. At the end of Nielsen's sojurn with the mermaid, he has come to accept that not all dangerous sea creatures are monsters. The video ends with a visit to Sting Ray City, where tourists swim with rays. (Although thinking about it, after what happened to the Crocodile Hunter, I wonder if this still works as a peaceful human/deadly animals happy together scenario). Added bonus: this video is a great source of future cocktail party conversation: "Did you know that the venom of a sea snake is so deadly that one drop can kill 60 elephants?" etc. etc. (or something like that. I haven't watched it enough to keep my venom doses straight). Highly recommended for kids who do not already have Ocean Anxieties!

The Doubtful Guest on Screen

I just read that a movie is being made of Edward Gorey's classic (to mind at least) story "The Doubtful Guest." This is one of E.G.'s most hauntingly lovely (?) works; at least, it was one of my favorites. It is to be a live action movie, which gives me pause...

A link worth linking on

Here's a link to a speech given by author Julius Lester a few days ago. Powerful stuff! (thanks to Tricia of The Miss Rumphius Effect for steering me to it). It's words like these that make the effort of book sales worthwhile.

The book fairy came!

Yesterday the book fairy, disguised as two guys with a pickup truck, showed up at my library and took all the books left over from the book sale! When I trudged over to the library after work for more unending book moving toil, the room was empty. I was stunned. Even the ex-library health pamphlets from the 1970s were gone (although perhaps those have become collectors' items). So now I have room to start gathering more books, for next time. Only 14000 to go before we can buy solar pannels.

More on ya books for boys

Here's a column by Colleen Mondor reviewing a handful of ya books for boys. Specifically, she was looking for books in which growing from boy to man was a central theme, and she laments the fact that such books are thin on the ground compared to the dazzling displays of similar books for girls.

Now, I am not a boy, and never was, so it may be a tad pointless to say that none of these books appeal to me(with the exception of Time Bomb, by Nigel Hinton, because Danger: UXB was such a great PBS program). Why do so many books about boys have to be about team sports??? Why aren't there more books for boys along the lines of An Abundance of Katherines, featuring the eccentric intelligensia, with only a faint whiff of sport? Are there in fact any teen aged boys who like An Abundance of Katherines, or do they feel cheated?

I am very interested in what teen aged boys want to read, because I buy books for my library. A lot of them are books that the libarians ask me to buy, but I like to shop a bit on my own. It is easy to buy books I want to read myself, but I don't know what special books to get that might interest the one teenaged boy I've seen in our y.a. section. Our librarian has put a bulletin board soliciting suggestions, but none have come. I went to google, and found this article on the subject--a few years old, but interesting none the less, and I've decided that more graphic novels are the way to go.

When my boys are older, unless, god forbid, they have fallen into the pit of reluctant young male readers, I will give them Rosemary Sutcliffe to read--great historical fiction, from Bronze Age England to 18th-century Scotland, featuring a fine array of boys growing into men. There is also violence (wolves, Picts, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, etc, although not all in the same book), young men dealing with physical handicaps, and the development of emotional maturity.

Nobody does heroic, lovable,and believable historic boys growing up better than this author. I will also give them Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander, another great coming of age story that also introduces very nicely the techniques of blacksmithing, weaving, and pottery. And there is my favorite book of 2006, The King of Attolia, which is the third of a series about a teen aged boy growing up, although I am not quite sure what lessons might be drawn from it...

When our first son was born, we were still building the book cases for his room. This were mainly to give me a place to put my own children's books, many of which feature girls. I hope that reading books with a female point of view will help him grow up to be the non-gender-stereotypical male type person (it's too hard to think of my baby as a man) I want him to be. I did draw the line, however, with A Little Princess, which is still in my room. There are limits.

Books for their baskets

I was just visiting at A Wrung Sponge, who was writing about what books her boys would be getting at Easter. I give my boys books at Easter too, since neither of them likes jelly beans or chocolate and I have to give them something or else they will be warped. My 3 yr old will be getting A Seed is Sleepy (can't get much more seasonally appropriate than that); I don't know what my 6 yr old will get. There are so many good picture books about gardens and flowers out there (and more just reviewed in the NY Times ), but there's not much for 6 year olds. All I can think of is The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds, which we have already. There are, of course, various Usbourne and DK books about plants and nature, and although informative and attractive, they aren't really the kind of books you hold to your heart.

Goodness, the internet is remarkable. In the last two minutes I have found this cool botany for kids website that has links all over the place. But still no book. Perhaps poetry.

As basket fillers, they are also getting seed packets...and I will make an effort this spring and we will actually take the microscope out, and press flowers, and peer at things with magnifying glasses, and do watercolors/pen and ink drawings of flowers (with their Latin names) etc etc instead of just reading about these things.

After the book sale is over

My most recent library book sale is over, in a sense; the money has been counted (about 900) and I am very tired of books. But I still have 2000 books left over, most of which I do not want to burden the Salvation Army with. Sometimes at night I sneak off into the woods and bury old hardcovers--it is a strange little graveyard of old encyclopedias (with volumes missing) and ex- library books that maybe have some interest to someone, but the someone and the book were fated never to meet. Today they are being offered free to as many of the general public as I could reach through craig's list and freecycle...tonight I must clear them away to make room for the animal shelter committee meeting.

However. A considerable part of the money we make gets spent on books, so I have the pleasure of making a new list of books to buy, based primarily on what I'm reading about on other blogs, to run past our children's librarian. Today I added Reaching for Sun, recently reviewed by Mother Reader.

What libraries look like

Now, my library will never win any accolades for style or aesthetics. It's an old red brick school, and that's just fine.


Here is a large blobby sea creature:


Just kidding! It's actually Prague's new library.

Nonsense Snakes for Poetry Friday

I am still thinking about snakes in children's literature (see post below), and for poetry Friday I went looking for poems. I had a dim memory of Edward Lear writing "s was a silly snake" for one of his nonsense alphabets, but he doesn't seem to have done so. However, here is R for Rattlesnake:


R was a rattlesnake,
Rolled up so tight,
Those who saw him ran quickly,
For fear he should bite.
r!
Rattlesnake bite!

Here is another Edward Lear snake:


"The Scroobious Snake,who always wore a Hat on his Head, for fear he should bite anybody."

There is a lovely Edward Lear website here with a very handy index. I highly recommend his botanical nonsense.

For those who want more adult snake poems, here is a collection of snake poems with commentary...

The poetry Friday roundup is at Chicken Spaghetti this week

Mabel Esther Allan--some are worth reading!

Our library has been slowly revamping its juvenile fiction, and some books by an English author named Mabel Esther Allan have bitten the dust. We are not alone in deaccessioning her, as indicated by the high volume and low price of her books (mostly exlibrary) on line. It seems that in the 1960s and 1970s those of her books that made it into American editions were standard fare--I bet there are still many libraries out there, like mine, which are a bit behind the deaccessioning times, and still have, perhaps, The View Beyond My Father and A Lovely Tomorrow, and a variety of titles that include Danger and Mystery (words I personally find incredibly off putting in a title).

Mabel Esther Allan was an incredibly prolific writer. Some of her books (most of the danger and mystery ones, are sort of silly--Mary Stewart light). But some of her books are well worth giving library shelf too. A Strange Enchantment is a lovely book about a girl in the English Land Army during WW II--fascinating historical information, character development, and a dash of romance. A Time to Go Back is a classic time slip story about the bombing of Liverpool in WWII; it is very well known and liked over in England by fans of time travel stories (has the term "time slip" made it into American English?). She also wrote some good ballet stories--The Ballet Family and The Ballet Family Again, for instance.

Some of ME Allan's more hard to find books are being republished by Fidra Books, a small press in Scotland; they have a full bibliography up on their website (well worth exploring in detail).

So if your library still has some Mabel Esther Allan's, do try them, before they are gone, especially A Strange Enchantment (which, being about farming and gardening, is (almost) seasonally appropriate).

Link to Megan Whalen Turner interview

The sci fi channel has an interview with Megan Whalen Turner up here, talking about one of my most favorite books ever, The King of Attolia. It's one of the nominees for the Andre Norton YA Sci fi and fantasy award. I am still not entirely sure why I love this book so much, but it was one of only a few books I read as an adult that I started re-reading within a week, and a few weeks after for a total of 3 times in one month. Which, when you realize what a hard time I have finding time to do my other reading (there are still bills I haven't opened that came a few weeks ago), is remarkable.

Also nominated is Life as We Knew It, which truly has a brilliantly believable catastrophe. But I still think the author should have moved to Maine for a winter in an unheated house before writing it, so as to make the survival aspects of it all more realistic.

Two YA books about WW I: boy book vs. girl book

I recently finished reading The Foreshadowing, by Marcus Sedgewick, a ya novel about World War I. Alexandra sees when people will die. After foretelling the death of her oldest brother, Alexandra becomes desperate to forestall the death she sees happening to her other brother. With minimal training as a nurse in the hospital where her father is a doctor, she heads off to France to find and save him.

This book was recently described in the Guardian as a book "that could help boys read" -- these books, apparently, should be "action packed" and "attention grabbing," which The Foreshadowing certainly is. I enjoyed it, although I might not have checked it out of the library if I had known it was a boy's book. I was tricked by the female-ness of the narrator into thinking I was getting a girl's book. So much for superficial snap judgements, because I quickly came to the conclusion that The Foreshadowing was indeed more a "boy" book.

[nb: although the Guardian started the "boy book" labeling, I am now going to become equally culpable. My definitions of girl's book vs boy's book are my own idiosyncratic ones, and I feel guilty about using these categories, believing strongly that gender stereotypes are bad bad bad. So I am using the terms with tongue firmly in cheek, as a conceptual device to talk about the books I like (girl) vs books I don't so much (boy). And in the process I continue to worry about my own boys, and whether they will be permitted/inclined to enjoy many of my favorite books that aren't boy books. My six year old is ashamed that he likes Angelina Ballerina. I hope to heck he didn't pick up on that bit of gender stereotyping from me. But of course even when you say, "It's just fine for boys to like ballet," the act of saying it makes it clear that it's not the normative viewpoint].

But anyway. What The Foreshadowing doesn't have, that a good girl's book should have, is introspective inaction. Alexandra is certainly thinking a lot, but the Cassandra theme of her narrative is so great that she doesn't have space to be anything else. The other thing a good girl's book has are powerful relationships. Alexandra is pretty much alone throughout the book, and the author's tight focus on her mental distress keep her isolated. Her reactions to non-dying people (such as the wounded soldiers all around her) are not particularly deep and thoughtful. And a girl's book would have put in more romantic frisson between Alexandra and a man she meets in France, who also can see when people are marked for death.


A girl's book about wounded WW I veterans that I love to pieces is After the Dancing Days, by Margaret Rostkowski (first published 1986, still available in paperback, but with a much more "modern" cover than this old one). This book is also narrated by a teenage girl--Annie visits the veterans' hospital where her father works and makes friends with Andrew, a horribly scarred young solder. It is not actioned packed--not much happens on the outside. But inside, Annie is growing up, Andrew is healing, and Annie's family is regrouping.


After the Dancing Days is a book I re-read every other year or so, whereas, although I certainly liked it, and would recommend it to those who lean toward action, I will probably not be re-reading The Foreshadowing. (Do girls re-read more than boys, establishing close relationships with their favorite books and brooding over them? Do boys leap actively from book to book?)

And then there's my favorite WW I girl's book of all, Rilla of Ingleside, by LM Montgomery...

Library book sale-ing

The first weekend of my March library booksale has ended, and I've tidied the books away, ready to bring them out again next weekend. It was a pretty low quality booksale, but it can't be helped. Well, it could be helped by me leaving valuable books in the sale instead of taking them to book stores to trade. But at any even, I have cash in hand again to go book shopping, although I am pretty sick of books right now. Library egg hunt comes next...

My first meme

I've been tagged with my very first meme by Kelly at Big A, Little A-- I have to name five non kidlit blogs I read. This is a bit of a problem, because the only one I've ever looked at on purpose, as opposed to following random links, is Shrinking Violet Promotions, a marketing site for introverts.

I only recently discovered the kid lit blogs. I lurk at Sounis, the discussion group for Megan Whalen Turner's books, because I loved the King of Attolia so much I had to have company, and that led me to Fuse # 8, and then on and on to other blogs, until finally I wanted to join the party too. And although I still feel like a new kid at school, the older kids have been very friendly. There is much less wondering if l will have to eat lunch alone feel to the whole thing than I had thought there might be. I also happily have met an old friend from college again through my blog--she commented not knowing it was me-- which is an added bonus!

But anyway, I'm sorry I can't fulfill my meme obligation! Nor do I know enough bloggers well enough to pass it on...What happens to me now????

The reading out loud challenge

Last month, I signed up to take part in a Reading Out Loud Challenge, organized by Jennifer at her blog, Snapshot. The idea of the challenge was to set specific goals that would spur us all on. My first goal was to begin reading chapter books to my now almost four year old boy, with the specific hope of introducing him to my favorite book of Greek mythology (D'Aulaire's book of Greek Mythology--it has supurb illustrations that are based on real works of classical and rennaisance art, leading to shocks of recognigtion in college art history class). My second goal was to continue pushing my 6 year old son up the hill to independent reading while making time to read him the books he really wants to be reading--generally, non-fiction.

I like goals, because I enjoy daydreaming about meeting them. It is a very hopeful feeling, but sadly, reality happens. I might have met these goals if we had a third grownup around the house, to do the dishes and laundry, cook supper, etc. But one parent had to do those things, while the other had the two boys to read to, so the one-on-one time for reading complicated non-fiction didn't happen (except a little bit at bedtime). Instead, I fell back on non-fiction books they could both enjoy. My three year old does not want to read chapter books yet, and isn't interested in Greek mythology, and the moral of that story is that even though I was, and his brother was, he isn't and that's fine. However, we did read more wordy books than we have been (Winnie the Pooh, some of the longer Beatrix Potter's, etc.).

So the upshot of it was--I thought a lot more about reading aloud, I felt somewhat guiltier about not reading aloud more, and I think I did read more to them...and I really must find more time to "study" with my six year old, which he wants to do so badly.

Actually, the last few days what he has really wanted were craft books. So I have been reading aloud to him gems such as "Toy boats and cars you can make at home." Scintillating.

Finally, thanks Jennifer for organizing the challenge!

(This really is the best book of Greek mythology ever)

A new book by Michelle Magorian is on its way!

I just found out that Just Henry, a new book by one of my favorite authors, English writer Michelle Magorian, is going to be released in 2008! I don't really know how well known she is over here--for the most part, I bought her books while visiting family in England before they were released over here. But I imagine that Goodnight, Mr. Tom is pretty well known??? Fortunately for me, one book that I read the American edition of first was Not a Swan (English title A Little Love Song -- much ickyer).

The American edition is a most excellent book about a girl coming of age in WWII England, featuring a used book store. In this edition, three sisters must fend for themselves when their mother goes overseas to entertain the troops. In the English edition, the plot is the same, but there are only two sisters, and the book is much weaker in consequence. It's the most major change from English book to American I've ever come across.

But anyway. Here is Michelle Magorian's website.

libary book sale time

It is library book sale time at my library, and since many of the other friends of the library are a. unable to come help set up b. unable to lift heavy things by the time the sale is set up I will have picked up around 4000 books two times each (give or take). Mostly not very appealing books at that. However, the point of the book sale is to get more money to buy appealing books, many of which were recommended on other blogs, so it is all worthwhile in the end (?).

At one support group meeting from Friends organizations, one FOL president said that they didn't buy books, because that was the responsibility of the library. I thought this was strange. Our library has so much ground to catch up in j. and ya fiction that it needs all the help it can get (they seem to have stopped buying more than an utter minimum around 1970). The Librarians are busily purging (Over the Alps with Hannibal bit the dust yesterday), and we are all busily buying, and soon, I hope, more and more children will be leaving the library with fiction, and not just school report books. Our librarian is being careful not to throw books of value out, and anyway, they all come to me in the end for the book sale. The books that I like best, however, I checked out before I became a Friend of the Library, thus ensuring that they'll stay on the library's shelves and not make it to mine just yet.

Naming of Parts

Note to reader: Despite the title, this poem has nothing to do with The Higher Power of Lucky, nor with any other children's book. It has to do with Spring and War. It was written by English poet Henry Reed in 1942.


NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

At the Henry Reed website there are links that clarify and illustrate the text. Up above is one type of Japonica, at left is another.
Visit A Chair, a Fireplace & a Tea Cozy for more Poetry Friday offerings!

"Boys' Books" --good thing, bad thing, or whatever

There's an article in the Guardian today, in which the British Secretary for Education proposes that every secondary school have a "'boys' bookshelf' stacked with contemporary authors such as Melvyn Burgess and Anthony Horowitz to provide 'positive, modern, relevant role models' for boys who are reluctant to read or nervous about being bullied..." At the end of the article is a short list of books that might qualify, including one I just checked out of my library --The Foreshadowing, by Marcus Sedgwick.

I'm not sure I like this idea. I suppose (tongue in check) that once the boys start reading they will naturally learn to love it and not care anymore if they are carrying around books with strong female characters, or books with pink covers and sparkles, and I suppose that boys who like old fashioned fantasy or gentle character driven books are a. doomed anyway b. strong readers who don't need a boys' bookshelf. And I realize that girls aren't the point of this, but I for one am utterly put off by books labeled as "boys' books" and have probably refused to read many good books in consequence.

This article struck a chord in me. I just read my 6 year old's report card, and one area where progress is needed is in "choosing appropriate books." Apparently he has been choosing inappropriate ones left and right. What this means beats me. Has he begged to cross the lines of gender stereotypes? Has he begged for books that name body parts? Or has he simply asked for books he can't read yet (which includes most of the books in the world)?

The idea of Official "Books for Boys" Pickers telling my children what books to read is not a comfortable one.

Here's The Foreshadowing. A book for boys.

Fiction books about women's suffrage

This being Women's History Month, I have been musing about children's fiction books about women's suffrage. It was not a long muse, because I could only think of one-- Miss Rivers and Miss Bridges, by Geraldine Symons (MacMillan, 1971). We are the only library in Rhode Island that still has a copy, which is a shame as it is a great book (I was the first person to check it out in 15 years, saving it from the discard pile by a hair). 13 year old Pansy sets of for London at the beginning of last century, little knowing that her friend Atalanta is going to get them arrested for their enthusiastic participation in the Suffragette movement. There are several books about Pansy and Atalanta, all good reads.

Even when I tried to widen my mental book search to "good fiction directly about women's rights" (not including the "women have careers" or "go to college" genres) I came up with very little. There's The Mills Down Below, by Mabel Esther Allan, which is also dated, out-of-print, and English. Sure, there are lots of books with references -- one I like is Jean Thesman's The Ornament Tree (in print and American)--but I couldn't even find much on line. Maybe my heart just wasn't in the googling, or maybe America has been satisfied with those dry sort-of-dull-cereal type biographies that children across the country seem forced to check out of the library when they are in third grade or thereabouts -- "I Am Susan B. Anthony" etc. Or maybe there are really good fiction books out there that I don't know about or have forgotten.

Blow out the Moon and other boarding school stories

Among the books I recently picked up for my library was Blow out the Moon, by Libby Koponen (2004). I was at my local independent bookstore, which was having a clearance sale, when I should have been at work, so I was scooping up books based on their covers--Blow out the Moon has just come out in paperback, but I like the hc cover (at left) much better! I was pleased to see, once I unpacked everything, that I had come home with a book about an American girl who goes to an English boarding school in the 1950s, when her family moves to England.

It is based on the true experiences of the author, and it is filled with little sidebar snippets of old photographs, notes, letters etc. from the life of the narrator (but not necessarily the author--I am a bit confused on this point. Anyway, they look real). All this extra stuff distracted me, but I bet a lot of the 10 year old girls who are, after all, the intended audience, liked this aspect of the book. Things started off strong, with the exciting move to England, and Libby's first dismal experience of English school life, but once Libby was sent to boarding school (at the shocking age of 8), everything was so idyllic I was not quite as interested. But again, girls younger than me may well find that half of the book incredibly appealing for its fantastical otherness.

Libby Koponen has a great web site: http://www.ifyoulovetoread.com/ with lots of pictures!

I'm a hard core fan of English boarding school stories, and this was an interesting comparison. My fondness for English school stories began with my extensive reading of Enid Blyton's school stories as a child. I found myself at the age of five at a British school in Portugal, being told in rather unfriendly tones--"You stand there with her--she's another American." So, like the Libby who narrates this book, I found myself becoming more fiercely American than I had been before (like Libby, I wouldn't sing the British national anthem). Enid Blyton was about the only author available in English in northern Portugal at the time, so I devoured her St. Claires and Mallory Towers books. About 10 years ago I discovered, through the yahoo group Girlsown that there are many other wonderful school stories out there -- by authors such as Antonia Forest, Evelyn Smith, Josephine Elder, and Margaret Biggs. My husband has built more bookcases.

Here's a basic guide to some of the better known writers: http://www.gatewaymonthly.com/girlauthorb.html

Reading non-fiction aloud

I have two boys, 6 and 3. They must be read to, they must learn to read, I must help their young minds unfold like the petals of beautiful flowers (ha ha ha). I must find decent non-fiction to read to them, in order to do all of the above. They also happen to like non-fiction.

Non fiction for 6 year olds these days seems to be divided into two groups --the banal learning to read books, about which I will say no more, and the lavishly illustrated, lots of information in clumps all over the page, style (ala the D.K. "Look Closer" series).
Now, I am a good reader out loud. I can even handle Magic School bus books with grace and aplomb (including reading all the dialogue bits and random thingies). But I am getting really tired of these non-fiction books that break up the text into info. bits. They are hard to read, and because they aren't written for reading out loud, the prose is often stilted. Even when the prose is just fine, it can be tough going (The Way Things Work. Heavy going, pun intended). So I find myself editing, altering, explaining and expanding, to keep their interest up as we bounce through the books. Not very relaxing, even with a beautiful and informative book (like Tide Pools).

So I got out my own non-fiction books, read repeatedly during my well-spent youth - the Fish/Birds/Reptiles/etc do the Strangest Things series (Random House Step Up Books Nature Library, mostly 1966). They are not beautifully illustrated, they are not at the cutting edge of information transmittal to the young, and somethings are even wrong. But darn it, they have large pieces of text that can be read aloud, not quite by my six-year old, but almost, they use straightforward language, and they keep the interest of both boys, even though the interesting facts are contained in the text and not floating around the page.

Just another small grievance with the banal You Can Read Non-Fiction book genre -- what's all this 1st person business? "I am a shark" "I am a snowflake" "I am a wolf" (it could be just my library's fault). I've never been a fan of first person narratives. Are publishers somehow trying to connect readers to words by making it as personal as possible? Is it part of some hideous self-actualization process that they think young readers have to go through to Master the Text? Or is it simply that "I" is easier to read than "you"?

In very poor taste--"book titles you'll never see"

I found this, lifted from one of the Guardian's bookblogs, rather funny...

The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones

A new book by a favorite author is always a happy thing, and The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones, made my weekend much happier. It is a fast paced tale of orphaned Hayley, raised by a strict grandmother and much more friendly grandfather, who gets unceremoniously dumped into an enormous house in Ireland, full of strange cousins and aunts (no uncles).

DWJ can be a twisty writer, and she made me a tad nervous a few pages into the book with a throw-away reference to something us readers had no clue about, but it was soon explained.  All is not as it seems in Hayley's family, and "the game" her cousins play turns out to be rollicking, sometimes alarming, excursions through the (primarily Greek) mythosphere.

There's a lot of action, Haley's a likable character, and it's a good read. But there isn't a whole lot of numinosity (the sort of thing that makes you hold your breath with the wonder and enchantment of it all and the hairs on the back of your neck rise). It's only 192 pages; I wish DWJ had made it longer and deeper. Oh well.

Poems that would make great books #1- Cargoes

Here's a poem for mad March days that we like very much --Cargoes, by John Masefield. There's something about the emphatic downbeat, especially in the last verse, that has great appeal to my boys (perhaps because emphatic downbeats are such a natural part of their lives). And the words are magical. Even if you don't know, for instance, what exactly gold moidores are, it doesn't mater.

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

Wouldn't this be a great picture book? I see each verse on its own page,with a lavish double page illustration, followed by a page, or several pages, of non-fiction gloss, explaining it all, with maps of trade routes and cut away pictures of the ships and explanations of the cargoes etc. etc.

John Masefield was also the author of two great children's books published in the 1930s-The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights. They are both stories of the magical adventures of orphaned Kay Harker as he tries to foil the evil intentions of a local coven of witches (one of whom is his governess, Sylvia Daisy Pouncer), find the great treasure his ancestor lost in The Midnight Folk and keep the Box of Delights from falling into their hands in the second book. There is a very charming cat featured, lots of action,talking pictures, mysterious journeys. How could one not warm to a book that opens with a mysterious stranger approaching on a snowy night, to tell you that "the Wolves are Running!" (first chapter of B. of D.). Sadly, they aren't in print anymore, but if your library has them, or you see a cheap copy, go for it!



Here's one cover for a paperback edition of The Midnight Folk.

Cygnet

Ace books has just released two of Patricia McKillip's ya fantasy novels in one volume, titled CYGNET. I love both these books--The Sorceress and the Cygnet (1991) and The Cygnet and the Firebird (1993), and I am very very happy that they have been re-released because maybe that means there will be a third book coming! I am sure that many others who know how it ends agree with me that there has to be more to the story...

Patricia McKillip is a writer of beautifully crafted words. She is a story teller who does not write for her readers, but for the sake of the story, if that makes any sense. And because the story has such a life of its own, sometimes the reader gets a tad confused (ie, a lot of her books have confused the heck out of me, although not as much as Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock). But the rich, dense, imaginings she offers are worth the confusion. I especially love The Cygnet and the Firebird, which I think is much the stronger of the two books, possibly because I was less confused. This one should perhaps be read first if the reader is Doubtful about the whole thing. It has some of the most beautiful descriptions of dragons I know of, and my favorite two pages of romance in a fantasy book (so much nicer to read than all the torid romance in the recently read fourth book of the travelling pants (see below)).

children's non-fiction -- not just for kids

I have learned a ton from reading non-fiction to my boys (including how much I don't know about electricity and chemistry. And isn't it amazing how many new species of dinosaurs have been discovered since I was young back in the 70s? My favorites are an Australian sauropod named Elliot, and the cloying-ly sweet Bambiraptor). But anyway. Today I discovered that adults all over the world have secretly been using quality children's non fiction, with disguised covers, to keep up with the young folks: http://dswindell.members.beeb.net/aFame.htm (still haven't found out how to do nifty links yet).

Life As We Knew It

A shipment of books I ordered for the library came last night (based mainly on mentions and recommendation from various blogs), which was fortuitous, as I needed something to read. I picked Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, in which an asteroid knocks the moon closer to earth, wrecking havoc---floods, volcanoes (with their cold-inducing dust clouds), sickness, and a gradual diminution of the trappings of modern civilization. This book, in form of a teenage girl's diary, records the first 9 months of post-asteroid life for Miranda and her family as their world collapses.

This is the sort of book that provides much fodder for daydreaming. Musing about catastrophe is something I have done a lot of, and as I was reading this book I began to feel a bit, not exactly competitive, but full of ideas for survival that they hadn't thought of. True, they had food issues, but why didn't they fish? trap squirrels? Go the library and check out copies of My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George, and put the ideas in that to work? Read historical fiction for accounts of how people coped without washing machines and managed to live in freezing places before central heat (such as the bit in The Year of Jubilo by Ruth Sawyer where the family seals their house in Maine in preparation for winter)? Read Mrs. Beeton for household management tips in the pre-electric days? Of course, they were a bit upset, so not thinking clearly. And perhaps, unlike me, the family in the book hadn't spent much time worrying about post-apocalyptic survival, so they weren't prepared. Also, I think they could have tried harder to enjoy life stuck with each other in a winter bound house. Again, historical fiction is full of bright ideas in this regard. But all this aside, I'm glad I bought the book. I like books that make me think...and perhaps this year we will can tomatoes and make pickles. Just in case.

New books coming!

Robin McKinley has a new book coming out this September! Hooray! The only thing dampening my enthusiasm is that it is not a Damar book, but still, I'm happy to take what I can get. There is a nice description of it at her website http://www.robinmckinley.com/ (someday I will find out how to do those cunning little links that everyone else seems to have mastered...)

On a related note, Shannon Hale has just posted the tentative title of the fourth book in her Bayern series (Goose Girl et al.); here's the link to that: http://oinks.squeetus.com/2007/03/mild_spoiling.html

It is always a relief to know that more books are coming down the pipeline. Since I began reading the kidlit blogs, and buying the books recommended therein for my local library, I have felt a little safer, but the fear of not having anything to read is always in the background of my mind (even though I am a voracious re-reader as well).

Rules, by Cynthia Lord

Yesterday morning I read Rules, by Cynthia Lord, in one sitting. I was expecting it to be good, since it won a Newbery Honor, but it surprised me that I never looked up once. Of course, I had selfishly plugged the dear children into the television (Walking with Dinosaurs = education = a slightly diminished sense of guilt), so there were no distractions, which always enhances the reading experience.

Rules is about 12 year old Catherine, who has an eight year old brother, David, who is autistic. One lonely summer, she meets a boy her own age(ish), Jason, who uses a wheelchair, and communicates by pointing to words.

What I liked about this book, while I was reading, it was that it grabbed me and pulled me in without ever jarring me back to reality with sloppy writing. What I liked about this book thinking about afterwards was its theme of communication. Catherine makes words (with pictures, drawn on individual cards) ostensibly as gifts to Jason; she is at first shy about talking to him/acknowledging his existence as a person, but the gift of words melts the ice. Her autistic brother David communicates by reciting the Rules she has written for him, and by borrowing the words of Frog and Toad. How will he ever learn to speak for himself, their mother asks, if you encourage him to borrow words?

Catherine herself is trying to find her own words to communicate to her parents, and to herself, her own frustrations and emotions--many of the words she writes for Jason are words she is suppressing inside herself, many of the rules she writes for her brother are rules that have acquired an inflated importance for her in her quest to make life work as it should. She has not quite found her own voice either-- just about the only times she speaks kindly to her brother, she uses Frog's words, not her own; and in her developing friendship with Jason, she sometimes uses his words cards to talk to him. So it was a relief when, toward the end of the book, she picked up the phone, called her father and said what she needed to say, in her own words.

One last thing that struck me as interesting-- because of course a reader communicates with people in a book by reading words, Jason's communication with written words within a written text puts him on a much more equal footing communication-wise with the other characters than he would have in real life. I could hear his voice just as well as the voices of other people in the book. It irked me just now, reading reviews of this book over at Amazon where I went to get the picture, that the School Library Journal says that Jason "uses a book of pictures to communicate." Just because he can't talk doesn't mean he can't read.

Earlier the same day I finished Forever in Blue, the fourth traveling pants book. I guess I have grown too old and cynical to be interested in rather mundane teen romance. And, in contrast to Rules, there were annoyances of sloppy writing, like this one: if Lena is so broke coming up with $8 is a big deal, where does she get the money to hop down from Providence to NY at a moments notice (at least $34 if you buy your bus ticket in advance)???

Earthshake -- Poems from the Ground Up

We've been reading a lot of poetry in my house recently. There aren't enough parents around to read to each child individually in the evenings after we get home from work and school, what with having to feed them (and us) and provide them with a reasonably clean habitat. Poetry seems to be working well--more challenging for both (3 and 6 year old) than picture books, and holding the attention of 3 year old more firmly than chapter books. And when the poetry also lends itself to Teaching Moments, so much the better. Yesterday's find was Earthshake -- Poems from the Ground Up by Lisa Westberg Peters, illustrated by Cathie Fetstead (Greenwillow 2003). It was greatly enjoyed.

Being older and more cynical than my boys, which is the way it should be (?), I found the poems somewhat uneven, although all are interesting and lend themselves to Educational Discussions about geology, which is always a good thing. Here is my favorite poem:

The Yellowstone Whale

Deep beneath
the bubbling pools
lives a big whale.

When it breaths,
we snap pictures
of its spout.

When it flicks its tail,
the ground shakes
beneath our feet.

Stay down deep
whale.
Stay down.

I liked this image very much.

Books I wish would be translated -- Dikkie Dik

For 25 years, Dikkie Dik (the orange cat under the hat) has been a feature of Sesame Street in Holland, and Jan Boeke, his creator, has published many lovely books about him. My three year old loves the handful of Dikkie Dik books that we are fortunate enough to have, and demands/asks sweetly and politely to have them read to him often. Trouble is, they're in Dutch, which we don't know. Dutch is a tricksy language--it looks so friendly to English readers, but them, bam, communication breaks down. And three year olds being what they often are, there are tense moments when the "translation" deviates from what he remembers from last time. But these are such charming, funny books that they are worth reading even in linguistically massacred form. Would that they were translated, but the Sesame Street tie-in apparently means that there are insurmountable copyright issues. In the meantime, if anyone wants Dikkie Dik "kleurplaten", visit this website: http://www.pszdikkiedik.nl/kleurplaten/kleurplaten.htm

Hooray for Independent Bookstores and other people's money

I just spent $350 of Friends of the Library money at an independent bookstore--they were having a pre-inventory sale. The pleasure of walking along the shelves and saying--"I'll have that one, and that one, and that one...." And how nice that it wasn't at a large chain bookstore. I followed this up by trading in some of the better books donated to our book sale at an adjacent used bookstore, for ten more books. It makes the sometimes miserable effort of running library booksales worth it. My dream for the library, though, is solar panels. Only $9,000 more to go before the library can stop spending money on electricity that could be used for books...

Traction Man is Here!

As my boys and I were preparing to leave the library on Saturday, our dear librarian picked up Traction Man is Here!, by Mini Grey (2005), and put it on top of our stack. I am glad she did; I wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole myself--picture books about militaristic action figures are not my cup of tea (being one of those parents determined to shield their sensitive Young from guns etc--oh the shock and horror when I realized there was gun violence in The Cat and the Hat Comes Back).

My husband and I have now read Traction Man is Here to our boys 8 times (4 in a row, then at intervals), and we still find it funny ourselves. It is brilliant. The first half of the book is straightforward imaginative play--Traction Man arrives in a box, equipped for various rescue environments, and, thanks to the wonderful imagination of the boy he now belongs to, he goes forth and rescues.

It is very well done. My favorite adventure was the descent into the deep waters of the Bath to search for the Mysterious Toes. But the brilliant part kicks in when Traction Man gets his own present from Granny. And what a present it is!

Recommended for those who like Toy Story II, Scaredy Squirrel, and Ten Minutes till Bedtime.

Learning to read

My six year old is not an independent reader. He reads a few pages, grudgingly, and wants to quit. Has he been told too often he is smart, which this New York Times article suggests might be the culprit: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index.html Or is there a factor the NYT doesn't mention--perhaps I, having fixed on the idea that he is smart, expect him to just read for crying out loud.

Last night I read him Discover Magazine's top 100 science stories of the year; he read to me One Fish Two Fish.

Oyate -- books by and about Native Peoples for children

Following a trail of links, I came to the site of Oyate, and left with a long list of books to look for. When I do book buying for my library, I tend to do it on the cheap, and buy what is there; I leave it to our children's librarian to do Collections Development. But next time I see here, I will show her this website, for the quite selfish reason of wanting my children to have good books available to them.

Reading and reading and reading

Inspired by the book challenge discussed in my previous post, I approached the Reading Sofa last night with Determination. In my hands were a. a Level 1 book about Scamper the Squirrel b. a junior high level book about asteroids c. Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant d. Moominland Midwinter. Scamper was for my 6 year old to read to me. He is having trouble becoming an independent reader; I think I read to him too much when he was younger, instead of weaning him, as it were--I made little effort to encourage him to read by himself, because I was so busy catering to his intellectual interests. So now we are wallowing in a sea of Scamper type books. There is little at "Level 1" that interests the Egyptologist/paleontologist/geologist, but he refuses to try anything harder. It was with great relief on both our parts that we abandoned Scamper and read the asteroid book.

All was going as planned--both boys were interested in the asteroids, until one blew up the earth in chapter 2 and my 3 year old decided he wanted no part of it.

We next turned to Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, by Jack Prelutskey.The premise is quite amusing--I especially liked the Ballpoint Penguins and the Clocktopus, but I found the poetry a tad clunky. Sometimes the author seemed to be stretching too far for his rhymes. My 3 year old was vexed that the clocks in the picture of the Clocktopus didn't all tell the same time, directly contradicting the text. But all in all, we enjoyed it. Not as much as we did Omnibeasts, by Douglas Florian. Who could forget the crashing conclusion to his poem about the monarch butterfly (even though it, too, stretches a bit for the rhyme):

He is a Monarch, he is a Duke.

Swallows that swallow him

frequently puke.

Much hilarity ensues, and with the addition of a few well chosen words from the reader, they actually learn something...

Moominland Midwinter progresses, albeit slowly.

Reading out loud

I have two boys, 6 and 3--just enough age difference so that reading out loud to both of them at the same time often ends up with neither being quite happy. My older boy and I are currently reading The Battle for Castle Cockatrice (original English title The Talking Parcel; it was republished over here a few years ago) by Gerald Durrell (of My Family and Other Animals fame). It's a book I loved as a child when I read it to myself--brave children, including a strong girl character, saving a mythological world from domination by Cockatrices. Lots of humor, lots of action, and lots of description. I am finding myself editing the later, because I am afraid of loosing momentum, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not all books with lots of description seem to require this--The Trumpet of the Swan, for instance, I felt no urge to abridge. But with some books, I feel I'm loosing my reader when I read long descriptions...

Jennifer at http://jennifersnapshot.blogspot.com/ (I am still new at this and cannot get links to work neatly yet--sorry) has set up the Read to Me 2007 Challenge, urging us reading out loud (ROL) to our children types to set goals for our ROL in the coming few weeks. My general goals are at least three books a day for my little one/one or two chapters a day for my older one. But for the ROL challenge, we're asked to be more specific. So I'm going to up the ante for my three year old, and in the next two weeks I'll read him D'Aulaire's book of Greek Mythology. I loved it at that age, his brother loved it, so now it's his turn (most excellent illustrations). I will also read him his first chapter book--Moominland MidWinter, by Tove Janson (who could resist Moomintroll?). It is time for him to have more to chew on.

My goals for my older boy are trickier, because I want him to read out loud to me...He is resisting because the books he can read are not books he wants to read. He wants to study ancient history, geology, paleontology, etc. So, here are my goals for him: 50 books read by him to me, 20 non-fiction books read by me to him... we shall see.

In case anyone out there has never met the moomins--they are a family of very charming trolls who live in Finland. In Moominland Midwinter, the boy of the family, Moomintroll, wakes up in the middle of winter, while all his family are still hibernating. He finds himself in a world of dark and cold and strange lonely creatures...I like to start with this moomin book, even though it is not technically the first (which is Comet in Moominland), because it has fewer characters competing for the reader's attention, and you really get to know and love Moomintroll.

I Am Not Esther

If I were running a teen book discussion group, one of my picks would be I am not Esther (2002--but new to our library) by Fleur Beale.

Kirby is left by her mother with relatives who belong to a fundamentalist Christian cult, where living by the Rules is everything. To them she is Esther; her old life no longer exists. Kirby's horror at being thrust into this community, and her revulsion at the rules that govern life within it, are balanced by her love for individuals within her new family. There are many things that could be discussed: the author presents the Community of Faith from Kirby's point of view-she finds it repellent. Is this fair? Would you rebel more or less than Kirby? Should Kirby have tried more actively to enlighten others about the world outside The Rules? In a society that values tolerance, how much should we tolerate such a community? Is it believable that she feels in danger of becoming Esther?

In many ways, this book reminded me of a time slip story--stranger in a strange time, adapting to/fighting differences. And this genre is one of the best to inspire daydreams in the reader, of the "what would I do in these circumstances" variety. So all in all, a thought-provoking and enjoyable (albeit in a disturbing way) read.

I had one small reservation. Perhaps because the book is so focused on the situation that Kirby/Esther finds herself in, Kirby never quite became a person to me; she is Modern Girl vs the Cult. However, I will definitely be on the lookout for Fleur Beale's latest release- A Respectable Girl, when it finally gets released over here.

The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs

The Seven Wonders of Sassafas Springs

Our "new books" shelf in the children's room is quite often a tad behind the times viz. the latest releases. The books are new to us, but not the world. I just checked out "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs," by Betty G. Birney, illustrated by Matt Phelan (Simon & Schuster, 2008, 224 pages Ages 8 and up).

It took a big effort to check it out, because I was so unimpressed by the mustard brown cover with its minimalist picture. Why did they do this to this book? It is about Wonders of the World, both ancient and Sassafrasian, so there was lots of artistic inspiration waiting to happen!

It is the early 20th century. Eben MacAllister, a 10 year-ish old boy, wants desperately to see the world beyond Sassafras Springs, Missouri. His father remembers how Eben's mother had wanted badly to visit her family in Silver Peak, Colorado, but had never had the chance before her death a few years ago. So he makes a bargain with Eben: "You find yourself Seven Wonders right here in Sassafras Springs and I'll buy you a ticket to go see Molly and Eli and that mountain!" Eben has seven days for seven wonders. He finds them, and he, and the reader, are left with an appreciation for a place and people (and book--again, why mustard brown??? is it supposed to evoke the pyramids?) that looked mundane.

Each Wonder that Eben finds comes with its own story, told by its owner. Often I find it jarring to have intrusive narrators telling stories, but it works in this book. This book is an epic quest, and the patterning of the stories is reminiscent of mythological and epic tales (labors of Hercules etc). The structure of the book, its unpretentious, flowing prose, and its gently detailed black and white drawings, make it very well suited, I think, for reading out loud. I shall be doing so.

The Seven Wonders of Sassafrass Springs has just been released in paperback. The cover is marginally better, but still does not do this lovely book justice. Eben is supposed to be on a Quest--he has energy, purpose, enthusiasm. The boy in the painting looks kind of bored.

More from Meg Cabot--girl - world domination???

I never wear pink, but I am an avid reader (but not yet a re-reader) of the Princess Diaries, and rush out and spend FOL money (not my own) on each new book. And I've quite enjoyed her other girl type books (especially All American Girl).

So I was pleased-ish to see the following press release from Scholastic:

"Meg Cabot, who took the publishing world by storm with her phenomenally successful Princess Diaries books, heads off in a dazzling new direction with the launch of three brand-new series. As part of its "Meg Cabot Girl-World Domination" campaign, Scholastic will publish Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls, a smart, funny series for readers ages 8-12 launching in spring 2008. In addition to the Allie Finkle books, two new trilogies for teens, Airhead and Abandon, will be published in 2008 and 2009. Airhead is daring, highly entertaining and a new direction for Meg Cabot, and Abandon is a dramatic modern retelling of the myth of Persephone."

I feel a tad nervous about the last one...daring indeed. And female though I am, I do not actually want to live in a girl-world. Some of my best friends, as it were, in books are boys....

Douglas Florian and Ted Hughes

The animal poems of Douglas Florian are funny on purpose--many are written with a punchline in mind. For example, The Walrus (p. 63 of Omnibeasts, 2004):

The pounding spatter
Of salty sea
Makes the Walrus
Walrusty.

And one says Ha ha and moves on (which isn't to say I don't like his work--see below).

A similar package of poems accompanied by drawings is The Mermaid's Purse, by Ted Hughes, illustrated by Flora McDonnelll (Knopf Young Readers, 2000). Hughes' poems, however, are much richer in metaphor, and are much more likely to sink deep into the mind and stew poetically there. I myself am a big fan of metaphors, and get a kick out of throwing them, as it were, at my own children. I'd quote one of the poems, but don't have the book with me...

I haven't seen the anthology of Hughes poems "Collected Poems for Children," which came out in 2005. I am curious to see which the editors found most Child Appropriate, and if this matches the choices my children would make.

Scaredy Squirrel is getting a friend!

"Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend" (sequel to the truly excellent Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt) is coming out on Feb. 15...I'm so glad, because even though Scaredy Squirrel's life had improved by the end of the first book, it was still a sad and lonely one. And will the first aid kit be saved?

Omnibeasts are beautiful

My six-year old and I just read Omnibeasts-- by Douglas Florian. It's his collection of his favorite animal poems and paintings, published in 2004 but new to our library. It is a beautiful book, and laugh out loud funny, and educational too. It worked very well for my son-the poems were short enough to hold his attention, and he laughed at all the punchlines; the drawings were detailed enough to engage his attention without being overwhelming.

We will be looking for more Florian books!

Harry Potter #7 release day!

JK Rowling has announced that the new Harry Potter book will be released on July 21...I hope she is giving herself enough time to edit it, but judging by some of the earlier books, probably not.

Nostalgia and Children's Literature

There will be a conference this November in Atlanta, Georgia on "Past Pleasures: Nostalgia and Children's Literature"
South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Conference
"In order to examine children's literature through the lens of nostalgia, possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following options:
*Updating comics, cartoons, or toys for a new generation of children
*Children's literature and/or cultural objects as souvenirs
*Nostalgic longing for aspects of childhood
*Recapturing or re-imagining childhood
*Historical toys/books translated into new mediums
*Selective cultural memory and amnesia
*Ascribing value to collected objects, children's museums, the role of the collector
Please submit questions, one-page abstracts, or eight-page papers by March13, 2007 to Julie A. Sinn at julie.sinn@gmail.com.

I wonder how many people each year make a pilgrimage to the New York central library to visit the Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals? The aspect of childhood I personally am most nostalgic for is the endless hours in which I could read peacefully while eating cookies...

Hi

One reason I bought my house was its location 4 doors away from the local library. When I first visited it six years ago, there was no children's librarian, and the children's books were a stunning collection of 1950s and 1960s fiction. Since then, a great librarian has come on board, and the Friends of the Library (I'm the president) has helped buy hundreds of new books. Because I want to, I get to buy lots of the books. This is a good thing for me personally, because otherwise I would be spending my own money buying books. So in this blog I am planning to talk about what we're buying for the library, what my children and I are reading, and interesting book related news items that I encounter.