Little Kids

Coffelt, Nancy     Big, Bigger, Biggest

Bright, simple, cartoon portraits full of personality of critters who use wonderful synonyms to describe themselves as the fastest ("I'm fleet. I'm meteoric. I'm hypersonic!") or slimiest ("I'm viscous. I'm slippery. I'm slick.") or hungriest... etc. The book concludes with "This book is over. Finished. Ended. Completed. Concluded. Through. Done." Great for building vocabulary.

Damm, Antje   What is this?

Antje Damm transforms the ordinary (ball of yarn, clothespin, wooden spoons) into the surprising (sheep, alligator, chickens chatting) with the addition of simple details made of paper and markers or clay.  The question repeats for every spread: "What is this?" in wildly different mediums (scribbled into sand; squirted out in ketchup cursive; graffiti'd on a tile wall) and is never answered in words, allowing the reader to conclude that nothing is necessarily as it seems.  A terrific book to inspire conversations and art in its readers.

Gravett Emily    The Odd Egg

Haas, Irene    The Maggie B.

Delightful story of Margaret and her baby brother who spend a day on the sweetest little boat you can imagine.  Lush paintings, coziness and yummy foods (a blue-green lobster for their stew, roasted peaches) - lots of sensory detail in word and illustration.

Henkes, Kevin    Old Bear  Very sweet, lush tale of bear's seasonal dreams and awakening into spring.

McLerran, Alice     Roxaboxen (1991)

Morales, Yuyi          Just in Case: a Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book

The alphabet a...more Senor Calavera (Mister Skeleton) has put on cologne, dusted his hat, ironed his best tie, and pumped the tires of his bike. He's ready for Grandma Beetle's birthday party! But Zelmiro the Ghost suggests he may have forgotten something, so Sr. Calavera searches for an appropriate gift for Grandma Beetle, beginning with Acordeon (accordion) and Bigotes ("a mustache because she had none") and making it to Yerbabuena (mint) before something surprising happens... 

     The alphabet and the gifts are Mexican, and the art and sensibility draw on the slightly dark and oh-so-human whimsy of Mexican skeleton art, like that of Dia de los Muertos.

     A young cousin to Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.

Perkins, Lynne Rae          Pictures from our Vacation  (2007)

Wonderfully captures the weird details of family vacation: getting rained on a lot; noticing a squirrel eating noodles from a box of Chinese takeout; the surprise advent of cousins; the sound of adults talking drifting up through the floor grate at night.

Reibstein, Mark and Ed Young       Wabi Sabi

"Wabi sabi is a way of seeing the world that is at the heart of Japanese culture.  It finds beauty and harmony in what is simple, imperfect, natural, modest, and mysterious.  It can be a little dark, but it is also warm and comfortable.  It may best be understood as a feeling, rather than an idea."

A collage cat, simple, beautiful, and mysterious, sets out to discover the meaning of her name.

Haiku, new and ancient.

Impressions, moods, ideas.

Calligraphy translated in the back: haiku by Basho and Shiki.

Lovely.

Schotter, Roni          In the Piney Woods  (2003)

Ella describes her wonderful relationship with her grandfather in the last year of his life. (Simultaneously, her older sister's pregnancy progresses.) Poignantly and successfully follows the metaphor of the pines in the nearby woods, whose seeds can only grow when a fire makes room for them by taking out the old growth and cracking open the cones.

Sharratt, Nick       The Foggy, Foggy Forest

Shea, Bob   Dinosaur vs. Bedtime

Sherry, Kevin       I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean

In this perfect-for-storytime book, a giant squid brags about its size - undaunted even when it's eaten by a whale!

Shulevitz, Uri           How I Learned Geography

Oh I do love Uri Shulevitz. This picture book for all ages describes from his 4-year-old perspective how his family fled Poland after the Warsaw blitz of 1939 and wound up in Turkestan, starved for food and for color. One day Uri's father came home not with a crust of bread but with a map, and it provided a wonderful vehicle for Uri's imagination. A 2009 Caldecott Honor book.

Stewart, Sarah     The Gardener

Swanson, Susan Marie     The House in the Night

A beautiful book that delineates (literally - it has scratchboard illustrations) the beauty, glory and comfort of the night, with all of its sparks of light. 

Willems, Mo     I Love My New Toy!

It is astonishing how complex and emotion-packed (and hilarious) a story Mo Willems can tell with deceptively simple line drawings (depicting two pals: a pig and an elephant) and about 6 words.  A terrific early reader. 

J Books

Deem, James M.    Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and the Recovery of the Past

jgn Gaiman, Neil; adapted & illus. by P. Craig Russell      Coraline (the graphic novel)

A successfully engaging and aptly creepy graphic novel adaptation of Gaiman's fun, freaky book.

Fleischman, Sid      The Trouble Begins at 8: a life of Mark Twain in the wild, wild West

Going, K.L.   The Liberation of Gabriel King

Hardinge, Frances   Well Witched

I loved Hardinge's Fly By Night, but couldn't get far in this one - it was too creepy for me.  

Thomas, Joyce Carol     The Blacker the Berry

Gorgeous, lush portraits of children (with berries), their skin in many hues. The poems were fine but didn't seduce me, although I liked their celebration of heritage and color and the way they radiated a sense of pleasure in being oneself.

2009 Coretta Scott King Honor book.  

j398.2 Mallam, Sally    Dende Maro: The Golden Prince

"Illustrations created from the ancient rock art of Africa." Sally Mallam brings ancient rock art to life in beautiful digital collages illustrating a hushed creation myth of her own invention.  In the beginning was a longing, which formed itself into a shape, which in turn gave rise to the sky, sea and earth, creatures, plants and people of our world.  The people longed for a guide and the golden prince, Dende Maro (a rock-painted figure found in Zimbabwe) appeared to teach them how to live well in the world. 

     The myth is fine, with a pleasant, contemplative cadence; but the really cool part is the art.  Mallam colors and superimposes rock art figures in vivid scenes that made me see, in those strangely-shaped ancient images, the immediacy and life their painters/etchers must have intended to evoke. 

Mass, Wendy         A Mango-Shaped Space 

Mia Winchell and her family figure out that her trouble in school comes from synesthesia, seeing colors and shapes with letters, words and sounds.  Clunky.

Milway, Katie Smith    One Hen: How one small loan made a big difference.  (2008)

Warmly illustrates the impact of microloans on a community by following the the personal story of young Kojo, in Ghana, who begins by buying one brown hen.  Painted illustrations are rich in daily life detail (market scenes, kente cloth, people and animals) and have a kind of Mexican-votive-style magical realism to them. 

     The story is followed by several short appendices, including a bio of the chicken farmer upon whom the story is based; info about microloan organizations such as FINCA; some brief tales of how real people improved their lots via microloans; and a glossary. 

Myracle, Lauren         Luv Ya Bunches

     A fun read about being brave enough to make friends and navigating the weird social world of 5th grade. Like a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants prequel for 5th graders.

     Currently censored by Scholastic Book Fairs, as explained in this SLJ article:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/arti...

     I wrote Scholastic a letter beginning: "I would like to be included among the voices of dismay over Scholastic's choice not to include Myracle's book in its book fair offerings, in part because of the marginal plot detail of one character's lesbian parents."

Nye, Naomi Shihab      Honeybee: poems & short prose               I especially loved several of the short prose pieces, including Museum and Gate A-4.

Rex, Adam         The True Meaning of Smekday

YA/Teen Books

Anderson, Laurie Halse      Wintergirls

A page-turner, a ghost story, a dark fairy tale, a white-rapids ride through a horrifying, seductive hallucinatory hell. Lia and Cassie both tried to be the skinniest. Cassie won, and now her ghost sits on Lia’s bed, whispering encouragement as matchstick Lia loses weight and maybe her mind. Anderson sucks us in to one anorexic's dazzling, suffocating inner world through Lia's voice, in language that is both convincingly colloquial and startlingly lyrical. Not an easy story to read, but so re...more A page-turner, a ghost story, a dark fairy tale, a white-rapids ride through a horrifying, seductive hallucinatory hell. Lia and Cassie both tried to be the skinniest. Cassie won, and now her ghost sits on Lia’s bed, whispering encouragement as matchstick Lia loses weight and maybe her mind. Anderson sucks us in to one anorexic's dazzling, suffocating inner world through Lia's voice, in language that is both convincingly colloquial and startlingly lyrical. Not an easy story to read, but so rewarding.

Baratz-Logsted, Lauren              Crazy Beautiful

I was really, really bored and irritated by this book. I only finished it because it was on my Mock Printz reading list, I assume just to give me something to rant about. The cover is by far the best thing about it, even allowing for the fact that it doesn't accurately reflect the content.

I will now be a killjoy. If you liked this book, don't read any farther. The primary problems (I usually wouldn't bother with this detailed a dismissal, but I'm lining up my thoughts for the Mock P...more I was really, really bored and irritated by this book. I only finished it because it was on my Mock Printz reading list, I assume just to give me something to rant about. The cover is by far the best thing about it, even allowing for the fact that it doesn't accurately reflect the content. The only way it reminded me of high school was in its painful tedium.

     I will now be a killjoy. If you liked this book, don't read any farther. The primary problems (I usually wouldn't bother with this detailed a dismissal, but I'm lining up my thoughts for the Mock Printz discussion):

     Descriptions, characterizations, observations are consistently generic cop-outs utterly lacking in specificity. Telling instead of showing. A typical example: Lucius describing Aurora's house (p. 112): "It's tough to put my finger on it... but there's just a generous warmth that permeates everything here." Not a single telling detail to back up this claim.

     A tin ear for contemporary teenage conversation (including inner monologue) and interactions. Characters act like aliens who've read the Handbook to Earth High Schools and have been given puppet teenagers to animate. Eg. (p. 135): "Those jeans look great on you. I bet Gary will think you look really cool in them." And (p. 141): "Ooh! Dark-tinted, crackle-wash, low-rise boot jeans!"

     Inconsistent characterization. Scenes as transparent devices to advance particular plot points. Eg. Anecdote (pp. 41-2) of T.J., in Aurora's preschool, who did "bad stuff" (unspecified, of course). But it's good to be nice to underdogs. Why? Because, in the bizarre words of A's supposedly sane and sweet mother, "because if the underdog grows up to be the kind of person that starts shooting [foreshadow foreshadow:], you'll have a chance at survival." Who says this to their preschooler??

     An embarrassing tendency to fall back on antiquated metaphors elaborately interpreted and awkwardly hidden as things-my-dad/mom-says: "At home, my dad plays... real vinyl records! If there's a scratch on one of them, sometimes the needle skips, screeching to the innermost circle of the vinyl as the music halts. Lucius's entrance has that same effect on the room now..."

Bernier-Grand, Carmen T.          Diego: Bigger Than Life        

Outstanding illustrations by David Diaz grace this series of "auto"biographical poems about Diego Rivera.

Blundell, Judy         What I Saw and How I Lied        

15-yr-old Evie's stepfather returns to NY after WWII and sets himself up with a thriving appliance business.  But an old army buddy comes calling and Joe hastily hauls his glamorous wife and fond daughter down to a mostly-empty Palm Beach hotel in the off-season for the R&R he claims they all need.  Several flirtations, overheard conversations, and doubtful identities later and the lives of several people both converge and begin to unravel.  Period piece, coming of age story, and mystery (complete with courtroom drama) in one.  Well-written.

Cashore, Kristin     Graceling

I wanted to like it, I really did, but I found myself skimming and abandoned it halfway through.

Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan      Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Collins, Suzanne    The Hunger Games

In this crackling dystopian future of North America, Katniss (16) lives in the poorest of the 12 Districts surrounding the glamorous Capital.  Her dad died in a mining accident and she's been providing for her depressed mother and younger sister since she was a kid by sneaking outside the electrically-fenced confines of the District to hunt illegally in the woods.  She trades the squirrels and birds she kills on the black market, but the only way to make enough money to stave off starvation is for her to buy extra tokens every year in the tribute lottery.  

     In the political past, the oppressed, impoverished Districts staged an uprising against the rich rulers in the Capital.  Now every year the Capital exacts a punishing tribute from every district of one boy and one girl (ages 12-18) to become competitors in the Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games are like reality TV taken to the savage extremes of the Roman Colosseum: Children are abandoned in an extreme environment and pitted against one another in a live broadcast that is required viewing for the entire population.  They kill one another off until the last one is left standing and declared the winner.  

     I already liked Suzanne Collins for her terrific Underland series (Gregor the Overlander, etc.), but I was very impressed with this page-turning, dystopian survival adventure.  Big themes, intimate characters, convincingly realized settings.  The book stands alone but is clearly the start to a new series.  Highly recommended for teens and adults.

Collins, Suzanne     Catching Fire

Katniss and company are back.  She and Peeta survived and therefore won the Hunger Games, so they should be resting on their laurels in the District 12 victory compound and recovering from PTSD.  But there are whispers of rebellion against the Capitol, and the menacing President comes calling to let Katniss know she'd better straighten things out, and fast.  The only way to do that is to maintain the fiction of romance between her and Peeta...

     Not quite as strong as the first book (The Hunger Games), but still a great read.  Suffers from Middle Book Syndrome - Collins is moving the plot along from A to C and had to flesh out the middle in this book, which changes settings surprisingly partway along.  One of the book's most interesting strengths is the realistic ambivalence the heroine, Katniss, feels toward the two important young men in her life, and toward romance in general.  Also interesting is her position as symbol of the revolution without being an actual revolutionary herself. 

Cross, Shauna      Derby Girl

Forman, Gayle            If I Stay

Tiny, warm, realistic details create distinctive, likeable characters from the outset. We get to really know them, mourn some of them (book starts with car wreck) and celebrate their lives. Language: Simple, clean, evocative. Fits characters’ voices. Plain, effective similes (eg. p. 113: “The instruments didn’t blend so much as collide, like rocks caught in a lawn mower.”) Funny: both in use of language and in sharp ear for character and dialogue. (Eg p. 61 “Girl-fighting was extra ...more Tiny, warm, realistic details create distinctive, likeable characters from the outset. We get to really know them, mourn some of them (book starts with car wreck) and celebrate their lives. Language: Simple, clean, evocative. Fits characters’ voices. Plain, effective similes (eg. p. 113: “The instruments didn’t blend so much as collide, like rocks caught in a lawn mower.”) Funny: both in use of language and in sharp ear for character and dialogue. (Eg p. 61 “Girl-fighting was extra special. And good girls going at it was like hitting the trifecta.”)

     The only part that didn't fully succeed for me was in the philosophical musings. They retain a detached feel consistent with her shock and confusion, so although I grow to love and regret Mia's family, I never quite believe that she is in indecisive anguish over whether to stay.

Goldman, Steven   Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film About the Grapes of Wrath

Well-written, good characters. HS junior Mitchell is a bit of a hapless shlemiel but a good guy. He and his best friend David communicate through some kind of guy osmosis, but when David mentions that he's gay, the wordless comfort between them gets awkward as they try to navigate actual verbal language. The supporting cast of bossy younger sister Carrie, her best friend M.C., jackass HS acquaintance Louis, and some teacher and parent peripherals come alive with believable details. Mitchell seems angsty and bewildered a lot as the world just kind of happens to him, which made me exasperated with him. The author's language is smart, precise, and often very funny.

Goodman, Alison   Eon: Dragoneye Reborn

Absorbing, well-written, rather breakneck and grim.  12-year-old Eon, dredged from the squalor of the mines by his master, is in training in hopes that this year's ascendant energy dragon will choose him as Dragoneye, assuring him (and his master) wealth, power and influence on the Council of Dragoneyes.  But Eon is actually 16-year-old Eona, and women are forbidden to have anything to do with the mysterious dragons whose power the 12 Dragoneyes channel to direct the nation's weather and fortune.  Make that 11 Dragoneyes, because the Mirror Dragon has been missing for 500 years. 

Danger, politics, intrigue, and a flavor of Imperial China make this a compelling read.  My only complaint was that I figured out The Thing waaaaaay before Eon/a did - it wasn't hard - and this irritated me no end. 

McKinley, Robin      Chalice

Well. I mean, it's good, because it's a Robin McKinley book. But I felt like I'd met these people before, in other tours through McKinley's brain, and on those other occasions they had more to say. There was a great deal of setting the stage for this book but (as Alice would note) not much in the way of pictures or conversation. In fact I felt as if the book were constantly going backwards, because so much of it takes place in the past perfect continuous tense of the main character's recolle...more      Well. I mean, it's good, because it's a Robin McKinley book. But I felt like I'd met these people before, in other tours through McKinley's brain, and on those other occasions they had more to say. There was a great deal of setting the stage for this book but (as Alice would note) not much in the way of pictures or conversation. In fact I felt as if the book were constantly going backwards, because so much of it takes place in the past perfect continuous tense of the main character's recollection. (She had been tending bees when the Circle came to see her; odd things had been happening...) And (while I'm lamenting) there was also an overuse of the Single Stark Repeating Sentence: She would have to marry him. Paragraph paragraph. And then - she would marry him. Paragraph. Which would mean they would have to marry. Etc.

It sucked me in with its continues flow of proto-story in a fever-dream sort of way, but never satisfied me. Rats.

Ness, Patrick          The Knife of Never Letting Go

Thoroughly realized voice and world. Distinctive and absorbing.

     Todd Hewitt is growing up in the only remaining human colony (Prentisstown) on the planet colonized by his parents' generation. All the settlement's women were killed in warfare with the native aliens ("Spackles") by a virus that left the surviving men unable to avoid listening to one another's mental "Noise" (choatic thoughts) all the time. (They also hear the simpler Noise of animals.) Consequently everyone is miserable and half-crazy. Todd is the youngest in town, about (at age 14 or 15) to become a man and be initiated into the town's dark secrets.

     But then something utterly unexpected happens: walking in the swamp, Todd encounters an impossible patch of silence. And nothing is ever the same again.

     I made it to page 280 before I concluded that the stress and nasty violence weren't going to let up and I had to put it down.

Langrish, Katherine     Troll Blood

Larbalestier, Justine       How to Ditch Your Fairy

Lockhart, E.    The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Frankie is a modern-day sister to Holden Caulfield, and Lockhart (in an omniscient narrator voice) uses her character to explore the experience of being a thoughtful, self-actualizing young woman in the young man's world of prep school.  A large group of librarians and teens I was in had a heated argument about whether this is or isn't a feminist book, and whether Frankie is or isn't a feminist character.  (I voted "is.")

Marchetta, Melina   Jellicoe Road

So fragmentary and confusing at the beginning that I put it down three times in irritation. But there were just enough flavor and interesting hints to tug me through to where I began to perceive a story and get caught up in the characters and the ever-shifting mosaic of emotions and history and relationships and pure dangerous important fun teen havoc, and then it was a stay-up-late no-brakes downhill screaming ride. (Although I did still find all the names impossible to keep sorted out, which kept pushing me out of the tree, I mean the story.) But now I want to read it again so that I can see the first hundred-plus pages in light of the later unfoldings. Once you catch the tide it's really an astounding, complicated, mesmerizing book.

Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert      Princess Ben

Adult Books

GN  Abel, Jessica     Life Sucks

: BBeing a vampire doesn't have to be glamorous. For Dave, it's sure not. Dave's a wage slave whose convenience-store boss is also his vampire master, an ex-pat Romanian who "turns" good workers into vampires when he needs a reliable night-shift manager. Dave lives with his best friend (still a mortal), has a crush on Rosa, a goth girl who's into the romance of the dark side, and manages to stay semi-vegetarian by stealing donations from blood banks. There's a nemesis surfer-boy vampi..Being a vampire doesn't have to be glamorous. For Dave, it's sure not. Dave's a wage slave whose convenience-store boss is also his vampire master, an ex-pat Romanian who "turns" good workers into vampires when he needs a reliable night-shift manager. Dave lives with his best friend (still a mortal), has a crush on Rosa, a goth girl who's into the romance of the dark side, and manages to stay semi-vegetarian by stealing donations from blood banks. There's a nemesis surfer-boy vampire, an Old Country old boys' club, a little bit of gore and a lot of hanging out with goofy pals. Grimy young adulthood meets the logic of the undead. Pretty fun, with engaging drawings and lively, realistic dialogue. My only complaint was that certain story segues happened abruptly, leaving me wondering if I'd missed a few pages.

Barnes/Ambaum    Library Mascot Cage Match          The third Unshelved collection.

Barnes/Ambaum    Book Club          The fourth Unshelved collection.

Barnes/Ambaum    Read Responsibly         

5th Unshelved collection.  More pleasing library humor & comics-form booktalks.

Borchert, Don        Free for All: oddballs, geeks, and gangstas in the public library

Braestrup, Kate       Here If You Need Me: a True Story

When Kate Braestrup's state trooper husband, Drew, was killed in a car accident, she decided to pursue what had been his dream for retirement: to become a UU minister.  Once ordained, Kate returns to the life of law enforcement by becoming chaplain to the Maine Warden Service. 

Many musings on death, grace, grieving, life, celebration, knowing and not knowing, miracles (she says it's gratitude that differentiates a miracle from an unusual event), and how people in our culture handle these human moments. 

Hillenbrand, Laura        Seabiscuit

Absolutely fantastic and engaging and beautifully written, just like everybody had told me.

Hornby, Nick       High Fidelity

Relationships in your 30s from the perspective of a (straight, white, British, music-obsessed, record-shop owner, bit of a schlemiel) guy named Rob.  Rueful, reflective, oblivious, funny. 

Kessel, John   The Baum Plan for Financial Independence

Only read the first story.  Which was solid, and weird, and good, but didn't entice me to read more.

Kress, Nancy      Steal Across the Sky

An alien race calling themselves the Atoners lands on the moon and starts posting ads on the Internet explaining that 10,000 years ago they did humanity a terrible wrong, and they're here to fix things.  Any volunteers to help out?  21 humans are selected as Witnesses and shipped off in trios to various binary planets to land and observe the human descendants living there, looking for... what?  This is the book's central mystery, and once it's revealed and the repercussions begin the story becomes more of a what-if experiment and less of an engrossing tale.  Still, it's quite an interesting proposition to consider.

Mones, Nicole       The Last Chinese Chef

Widow and food writer Maggie goes to China to settle a surprising paternity claim against her late husband and to interview a rising chef star, Sam, a Chinese-American who has returned to China to be trained by his uncles in traditional, Imperial Chinese cuisine.  A smooth and interesting read. 

     What I especially enjoyed about this novel were the passionate musings of the various Chinese chefs on the philosophical underpinnings of classical Chinese cooking: highlighting not just taste but texture; aesthetic surprise; the relationship between the diner, the food and the chef; and food's relationship to literature, poetry and other arts.  Fascinating.

Mortenson, Greg       Three Cups of Tea

Rebeck, Theresa       Three Girls and their Brother

A completely fun high-class gossip type read. The New Yorker does a piece on the Hellers, grandchildren of a late literary critic who just happen to be ravishingly beautiful young redheads, and their modeling party girl careers are off to a careening start. Their brother, Philip, 15, narrates the first part, dubiously chronicling how their former Miss America mother blithely yanks the girls out of school (they are 18, 17 and 14) and throws them to the jackals of publicity. The youngest, Ameli...more A completely fun high-class gossip type read. The New Yorker does a piece on the Hellers, grandchildren of a late literary critic who just happen to be ravishingly beautiful young redheads, and their modeling party girl careers are off to a careening start. Their brother, Philip, 15, narrates the first part, dubiously chronicling how their former Miss America mother blithely yanks the girls out of school (they are 18, 17 and 14) and throws them to the jackals of publicity. The youngest, Amelia, who narrates next, gets them all into the trash press when she bites a movie star with roaming hands, and then moves on to an off-Broadway role that allows the author (also a playwright) a chance to have fun with a behind-the-scenes glimpse into scrungy, passionate theater life. Hollywood collides with Broadway, models cavort with all and sundry, agents are soulless blood-suckers, and there's a hairdresser with a potty mouth and a heart of gold. Funny, fast-paced, and told from all four Hellers' points of view in realistic brassy teen voices. A total kick.

A 2009 Alex Award winner.

Reichl, Ruth    Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way

Sedaris, David     When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Simmonds, Posy          Tamara Drewe

Graphic novel.  Absorbingly realistic tale of various unhappy people in and around a writer's retreat in rural England.  Not very happy, though.  Evidently "loosely inspired by Harding's Far from the Madding Crowd."