Woo HOO! New Riordan coming very soon!!!

Happy Spring Break to us this week!



Wonderful news! Rick Riordan's sequel to The Lightning Thief will be out April 1, 2006.
The Sea of Monsters continues the story of Percy Jackson and his fellow Olympians at Camp Half-Blood.

I was the librarian for the day at a jr. high this week. The groups coming in that day were ESL classes. The library aide showed me the book the librarian had been book talking and it was The Lightning Thief. She jumped backward about 5 feet as I exclaimed, "I LOVE this book!" I know (at first) she was thinking, what kind of nutty sub have they sent me now?

It was my pleasure to talk about the book and read to them. I read part of the first chapter where Percy encounters his pre-algebra teacher in the museum and sees her turn into a Fury who is trying to kill him. Almost every boy in the group wanted the book so I spent the rest of my time with them walking the stacks looking for other titles and asking them "what kind of books do you like to read" and seeing the look on their faces amending it to "can you think of a book you have liked in the past?"

Lots of them said "scary books" so we found R.L. Stine short story collections and for the "Help-help-monsters-are-after-us-we-are-going-to-die" fans, the library had a good collection of Paul Zindel titles like Doom Stone, Night of the Bat, Loch, and Raptor. There are always books the library does not own which makes me want to leave the librarian a list of books to buy asap. If the librarians are friends, they take my "You have GOT to buy these books!" lists in stride.

Reading is personal and kids (no matter what age they are) appreciate someone who takes the time to ask about their interests and recommend books just for them. It was an incredibly rewarding day.

ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room

ER Vets: Life in an Animal Emergency Room by Donna M. Jackson, 2005

Subbing at an elementary library earlier this month I came across this marvelous book on the shelving cart. I bet it is not on the shelf very often.

Kids love books about their favorite animals. Books on dog and cat breeds fly off the shelves. Put a puppy on the cover and there is instant interest.

Veterinary medicine is a career that is intriguing to many children. The photography shines in this book and invites the reader into a state of the art emergency care facility. There are photos of surgery that are detailed but not gruesome. The images of animals being cushioned with pillows and blankets are particularly comforting to young pet owners. Kind and caring professionals offer insight into their work at the ER.

The book also deals with the loss of a pet. Lucy is a ball python who escaped from her bag and got behind the dash of her owner's car. Despite the vet's attempts to revive the snake Lucy dies from hypothermia. Her owner describes his feelings of sadness and loss.

There are interesting insets, including abbreviations and terminology the doctors use (example HBC is hit by car) and human foods that are dangerous to animals.

State reading assessments use nonfiction selections to test student reading ability. This would be an excellent choice to model nonfiction reading. Young readers will also pick this one up and pore over every word on their own.

Author/Illustrator: Patricia Polacco

Nice article about a Patricia Polacco school visit in the Lansing State Journal.

Some nice background about her if you do not know her story. She is not a fan of the emphasis on testing in education today. This line did make me chuckle:

She admitted she probably couldn't pass the test and questioned whether some other adults could.

"Let's spring the seventh grade proficiency test on the House of Representatives and post the results in the newspaper the next day," she suggested.

What a splendid suggestion!

Lewis!

Oh Joy, Rapture!

Michele at Scholar's Blog reports that Granada has a new show about Lewis, Inspector Morse's patient and supportive sargent.
She says:

I thought it was a brilliant comeback for Morse's former sergeant and now an Inspector himself, Robbie Lewis (played as marvellously as ever by Kevin Whately. The little references to Morse himself were nicely done from the Jaguar that nearly runs him down outside the airport at the start of the film, to the various characters who knew him, and the "Endeavour" music scholarship that was created as the result of an anonymous bequest (Morse's first name having been revealed to be Endeavour.)

I still love watching Inspector Morse. The episode that was set in Australia had such a poignant ending. Lewis was off to meet his wife and see the sights and Morse is alone, climbing the steps of the beautiful Sydney Opera House to see an opera.

Hopefully this will be arriving over here at PBS, or BBC America or A&E soon. Off to do research to see who will have it and when.

Whately will reprise Morse role--BBC

Last Shot

Last Shot by John Feinstein

I have listened to John Feinstein on NPR's Morning Edition for years. When a young basketball enthusiast said this was one of the best books he had ever read I was intrigued.

Steven Thomas wins a writing contest sponsored by the U.S. Basketball Writer's Association. His prize is a basketball fan's dream: tickets and press privledges to the NCAA's Final Four at the Superdome in New Orleans. When Steven arrives in New Orleans he meets the other contest winner, another 8th grader named Susan Carol Anderson. She is very tall, very poised and a devout Duke fan.

The two of them are reporting for their hometown papers and take their job as writers very seriously. They attend press conferences and look for stories while enjoying the excitement of the pre-game activities. On their way to an interview they overhear a plot to blackmail the star of the Minnesota State team. Gamblers want star Chip Graber to lose the final game for his team.

Steven and Susan Carol are determined to help Chip and investigate who is behind the threats. The mystery is convincing because of all the detail and background Feinstein includes. Well known personalities from the sports world make appearances in the story. Dick Vitale talks to the kids and "waves his arms." Susan Carol get an interview with Coach K from Duke. Sportswriter/commentator, Tony Kornheiser also has a cameo.

There are in-the-know references to to the real world of college basketball. Steven is bemused by the NCAA references to the players as "student athletes" as the low graduation rates of basketball players at some schools are well known.

As a librarian I appreciated the fact that Steven and Susan Carol won this contest based on their research and writing skills. They are talented writers but they still have to revise and edit and do the hard research on their topics.

This book has all the color and energy of the Final Four and will strike a chord with young basketball and sports fans. The setting of New Orleans and the Superdome was especially nostalgic and touching.

This book is billed as a "Final Four Mystery" and the publisher informs me another one, Vanishing Act, is coming out in August. It will be set at the US Open.

Last Shot is one of the books on the Texas LoneStar Reading list for 2006-2007. This list continues to be one of my favorites.

Not Edgar!

Oh dear, I guess Edgar is really... gone. Just watched an interview with Louis Lombardi on the 24 website. I am so sad.

Reading with Children

There was a very interesting article, "Crossover books," in the Houston Chronicle on Sunday.
Eric Ligon was frustrated by Braille book formats that made it difficult to read with his 8 year old, blind son.

His answer to the problem was to design a new format for Braille picture books. BrailleInk has two titles so far, Guess How Much I love you by Sam McBratney and Anita Jerama and The Dot, a brilliant book by Peter Reynolds.

Of the 1.3 million legally blind people in the United States, about 55,200 are children, according to Wolffe's foundation. About 5,500 of those children use mainly Braille. Others may have enough sight to read print or might use books on tape.

Tanya Holton, vice president for development at National Braille Press, said more legally blind schoolchildren should be encouraged to learn Braille.

"The more books that blind children have access to, the better," Holton said. "There is a whole generation of young blind adults who don't know how to read (Braille)."

Know-Nothing Alert!

They are everywhere.

1. All book challengers should be required to reimburse district libraries for the replacement cost of all the books they want pulled off the shelves. These folks have too much time on their hands. They should have to pay for their fun.

2. Book banners should have to compensate area homeowners for damage to property values when the negative publicity hits and remember that forever after, their school will appear on ALA's and NCTE's book banners list.

3. Know-Nothings should read the whole book (but they never do!) Picking pieces of a book out of context is pointless. If I were to read the Ten Commandments, the way they read literature, I would be quite sure that "Thou shalt ... steal" was part of the Decalogue.

4. Know-Nothings think some books have supernatural powers and their mere presence in the same space-time-continuum as their young one will cause brain damage or emotional distress. For as many years as I have been a librarian, I have yet to see a book sprout arms and grab a student as they passed it on the shelf. I have never seen a book emit a mind-altering cloud that turns a kid into a zombie who then pulls the book off the shelf. I have never seen a book spontaneously leap off the shelf into someone’s hand, then DRAG him or her over to the circulation counter, and then force them to checkout the book.

Hmmm...double checking...let me think...nope, never have seen it.

Generally, books sit very quietly on the shelves.

Book challengers should have to prove the existence of these supernatural powers before a reconsideration committee would act.

5. Know-Nothings have to accept that sometimes the answer is NO! After two committees have reviewed a book and affirmed its inclusion in a collection it is time to call it a day but Know-Nothings WILL have it their way or...or...else!

These self-centered whiners are the same ones who talk on their cell phones in the theater and run red lights because the rules do not apply to them.

6. Book banners would have schools give up teaching any kind of critical thinking. To follow their logic, globes should be removed from schools because the sight of a globe might cause a member of the Flat Earth Society serious mental harm.

7. Know-Nothings should know that we are on to them and we understand it is REALLY NOT about the book. It REALLY IS about: their anger with someone at the school, their guilt about not being there for their child, their sad bid for attention and/or their desperate and pathetic desire to be someone of consequence and power.

8. Know-Nothings should forward the shoe and clothing sizes for their kids to me because if they are going to dictate MY family's reading choices then I get to pick THEIR family's' fashion choices.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

The Boy on Fairfield Street by Kathleen Krull, paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, 2004

This is a wonderful biography to share with children and adults. A poll of any group of readers about their favorite books will ALWAYS come up with Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat. Ted Geisel's work is loved.

Kathleen Krull describes the events in his early life that became part of his work and interests later. His lifelong love of animals, his shyness, his sense of justice and fairplay were outgrowths of his boyhood on Fairfield Street in Springfield, MA.

Geisel's boyhood was filled with fun and adventure but he was always slightly out of step with the rest of the world. He was a kid who preferred drawing crazy animals to studying. As the son of German immigrants, he was mocked and bullied. He had a three-legged dog. He wrote and drew under pseudonyms.

The book follows his childhood and college days and ends with Ted striking out on his own, as an illustrator and cartoonist in Greenwich Village.

The paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher seem to just glow and invite the reader to keep turning the pages.

I read this book to many classes as it was a Bluebonnet title but this is not a book you can just breeze though. There is much to discuss and digest. Without fail, the kids are outraged when Ted is shorted his medal for selling war bonds in an embarrassing presentation by former President Theodore Roosevelt. They are thrilled when Ted draws on the walls of his room and does NOT get in trouble. They examined the illustrations closely. I shared the book with at least 10 classes before I noticed (thanks to a sharp-eyed student) Ted's three legged dog is featured on the cover of the book. The kids also enjoyed picking out the tiny Seuss images on the corners of the pages.

There is a comprehensive "rest of the story" at the end of the book with details about his later life.

This is a lovely tribute to an American icon.

If you know kids who are fans of books by Theodore Le Sieg (The Eye Book, The Foot Book, Ten Apples Up on Top, Wacky Wednesday) have them spell Le Sieg's name backwards after you finish this book.

Music: Back of the Moon

I keep bumping into all things Scottish these days. I found this music group, Back of the Moon, while surfing around on the internet. I loved "Lumsden's Rant" when I heard the .mp3 (on their record label website) so I ordered their album Luminosity.

I love their use of the piano and guitar along with the traditional fiddle and pipes. The album has a nice balance of vocals and instrumentals. When I found their website yesterday I realized they had just been in Austin, TX in February promoting themselves for a USA tour at the Folk Alliance. I hope they get back here. I will go hear them.

If you like folk music, this is a lot of fun.

Back of the Moon website