Travel Team

Travel Team by Mike Lupica, 2004
I am becoming a solid Mike Lupica fan. I have never seen him on ESPN and I do not read sports writers usually but I may start in this case. I think Travel Team and Heat are two of the best books I have read this year.

Danny Walker loves basketball. Danny understands the game to the very core. He understands that a key to the game is getting the ball to the shooters. Danny is a great passer. Danny is also the shortest player on court.

For the first time in his life, Danny has not made "the" team. The coach of the travel team is looking to repeat the town's run to the national championship and is selecting players by size not ability.

Danny is devastated and thinking of giving up on basketball when his mostly absent father, Richie Walker, turns up. His dad was a professional NBA ball player and the player who led the town's travel team to televised glory in the national championship years before. Richie's career is over due to an injury but he sees a way to have a second chance with his son and at life when he starts a team made up of the other 'also ran' kids.

Lupica creates realistic, full-rounded characters. His descriptions of the action makes you feel as if you are running down the court looking for the pass along with the characters. This book will strike a chord with kids and grownups as it reminds us that playing is supposed to be fun. Hard work, smart players and heart are what make a team.

Lupica's books would be great to promote to Matt Christopher and Dan Gutman readers. The poignant stories resonate with heart and give readers a front row seat to terrific sports action.

Ptolemy's Gate

Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud, 2006

I finished this book earlier this week. I sat very still for a moment and then closed the book to get on with my life when suddenly my lower lip started trembling and the tears began flowing. I do not think I have had such an emotional reaction to the conclusion of a book since Frodo left the Shire for the last time.

To tell you much about the plot would deny you the profound enjoyment of discovery that Stroud's fine writing provides. It is not spoiling anything to say the story picks up about three years after the conclusion of The Golem's Eye and Nathaniel, aka John Mandrake, is now part of the top tier of magicians that run the country. Kitty has assumed a new identity and is working as an assistant to a minor magician. Nathaniel has kept the djinni, Bartimaeus, on Earth for too long. Denied a return to The Other Place, Bartimaeus’s powers are weakening and he is losing his essence.

Stroud brings all the threads of the story together as the events unfold. His character, Bartimaeus is a voice for all time. His humor, insight and heart are unforgettable.

The door is open for a sequel. I understand he wants to write in other directions but it is my profound hope that he will pass this way again.

A definite "gotta have it."

The Boy who Loved Words

The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter, illustrated by Giselle Potter, 2006

As a school librarian, I have certain shticks that I utilize as the occasions arise. Today as a group of fourth graders burst, vaulted, ran, stormed and catapulted into the library where I was subbing, I deployed my standard entreaty to "amble, saunter, meander, mosey, roam, walk, dally, wander, perambulate, drift, or stroll but PLEASE do NOT run!" If I am lucky, about half of the kids stop in their tracks just to stare at me ("This sub is so weird!") and that leaves a managable number to corral and refocus.

Roni Schotter echoes my own affection for lovely words in The Boy Who Loved Words. Giselle Potter's illustrations have an whimsical Chagall-like quality as the boy decorates a tree with his favorite words. The book includes an abundance, a profusion, a plethora, and a heap of language that will expand, enlarge, embellish and enrich the word choices of all readers.

Mabel O'Leary Put Peas in Her Ear-y

Mabel O'Leary Put Peas in Her Ear-y by Mary Delaney, Illustrated by Kathy Couri, 2006

I shared this book with a group of kindergarten children who were suitably impressed with the huge pile of peas on Mabel O'Leary's plate. Mabel will not eat her peas and her mother orders her to sit at the table until they are gone. She decides to hide the peas in her ears. The sight of Mabel pouring the peas into her ears evoked loud "eeeeeeeeeuuuwwwwwwws" from my classes. Sadly, the peas obstruct Mabel's hearing and chaos follows in her wake as she tries to follow her mother's misheard instructions.

Peas are flying everywhere in Couri's illustrations. One of the my students asked why she didn't just feed the peas to her dog who seemed to being enjoying them in the beginning. As the kids lined up to go back to class, another student told me that she thought it was a very funny story. Recently a teacher recounted her own childhood horror of having to sit at the dinner table until the vegetables were gone. Delaney has touched a memory in kids and adults with this book.

Author: Lois Lowry

Quick post this a.m. from the Houston Chronicle about Lois Lowry.
She describes her inspiration for The Giver:

Inspiration for The Giver came when Lowry realized her elderly father had forgotten the death of his eldest child.

"I was thinking a lot about how that must be kind of nice for him not to have to remember the worst thing in his life," said Lowry, whose 20-something sister died of cancer in 1962. "But, of course, that's what goes into making us what we are."

Lowry is blogging at Lowry Updates. She will be in Houston this weekend.

Her website.

The week ahead

I'm going to be bookin' up to Sherman, TX tomorrow to hear my entling play Benny Goodman. While on the road, I hope to finish listening to Capt. Hook by J. V. Hart. I am a Pan-fan but not sure how well this story is playing with me. Twice now while listening to the story that I thought the ending had arrived but it continues.

Then it will be a fun week with my annoying sidekick subbing in a local school library.

In other local news, Marvin Hoffman reviews Lois Lowery's new book, Gossamer in the Houston Chronicle today. They report that Lowery will be reading from Gossamer, here in Houston next Saturday at 11:00 a.m. in Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center. Admission is free for this Family Literary Event!

More Joey! Yippee!

The Book Standard reports that a surprise 4th Joey Pigza book is on the way!

Gantos said:

“I was writing one novel in the front of my journal and yet every day I was jotting down odd notes about Joey in the back of my journal,” Gantos said in a press release. “After a few months the random notes began to form a cohesive story and I came to realize I had an unforeseen Joey Pigza story on my hands. I’ve since flipped the journal over and have turned my full attention to Joey.”

I am a tremendous Jack Gantos fan. I was so happy to hear this news. He deserves the money.

In addition to the upcoming I Am Not Joey Pigza, Farrar, Straus & Giroux has signed a high-six-figure deal with Gantos for a new four-book series, set to launch in Fall 2008. The audience for the new series is younger middle-grade. FSG will also release Gantos’s The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, in May.

Titanic

Today is the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The ship struck an iceberg at 11:40 PM on April 14, 1912 11:40 p.m. at 41° 46’ north latitude , 50° 14’ west longitude. It sank about three hours later.

When THE movie came out, it was my first year as a school librarian. The library had the Robert Ballard books and a picture book biography on Mollie Brown but that was about all. Over the course of that year I decided there would never be enough books on earth about that subject to meet the demand. It was a veritable frenzy each day as kids scoured the shelves for some reading on the subject. I have not seen any topic seize their collective imaginations in the same way since.

The publishers jumped on the bandwagon immediately. At my first TLA convention that year, Little Brown came out with Inside the Titanic : A Giant Cut-away Book. The book was on display at their booth. On the last day of the convention, the sellers put the books on super sale. I was near the Little Brown booth at the appointed hour and saw so many hands reaching for the book that it looked like basketball players going for a rebound. I don't know if it got down to hair-pulling and shin-kicking because I quickly retreated. Librarians are usually such refined creatures. I did understand the excitement and desperation those folks felt.

Luckily there are lots of books for us to read today.



The Magic Tree House kids visit there in Tonight on the Titanic and felt the frustration of knowing what was going to happen and try to prevent it.



Eve Bunting's novel, S.O.S. Titanic, mixes a touch of romance with well researched facts.



Barbara Williams's Titanic Crossing describes thirteen year old Albert's happiness and pride in having graduated from short pants to new long pants for the trip to New York on the Titanic. Those long pants prevent him from entering a lifeboat however in the final desparate hours of the ship's life as they denoted the passage to manhood and it was "women and children first."


882 1/2 Amazing Answers To Your Questions About The Titanic
by Hugh Brewster is a terrific book for fact browsing.

Titanic

DK Eyewitness Books does their excellent take on the tragedy.


Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady

I'm not reader of Dear America books because they are so dreary but lots of girls read this one.

Exploring the Titanic by Robert D. Ballard

Ballard's account of his discovery of Titanic's resting place will be the reading favorite in school libraries for all time.

Books for the Birds

The True Story of Stellina by by Matteo Pericoli, 2006

One of the honors of being a school librarian is the opportunity to be there for some of the small but very important moments of your students lives.

Reading The True Story of Stellina reminded me of an early morning visit from a student who came in before school and asked "Do we have any books on birds?" Well, what do you want to find out about birds? Is this for a report? Is there any special type of bird you are looking for?

She was clutching a shoebox and slowly lifted the lid and began to explain how she had found this baby bird on the sidewalk on the way to school and she had run all the way back home to find a shoebox and now she had it in the box and see the sticks and leaves she had added? She needed to find out how to take care of the bird so she had come to her library to get help.

We ended up enlisting the help of our school nurse who, as a professional 4H mom, had raised just about every kind of animal imaginable. I cannot remember now what happened to the bird but my young friend would have been enchanted by this gentle story.

The author's wife hears a "cheep" and finds a baby bird on the noisy streets of Manhattan. She takes the little bird home and manages to feed it and care for it. Stellina lives and thrives and repays the couple with companionship and love for eight years. The drawings are light and delicate like the bird whose story they are telling. I am looking forward to sharing it with kids. They will be charmed.




Mocking birdies by Annette Simon, 2005

Wikipedia explains that mockingbirds are "best known for the habit of some species of mimicking the songs of other birds, often loudly and in rapid succession." The Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas. Kids understand that copycatting is a sure way to get under someone's skin. The book flap reminds us that "stop copying me" is a frequent childhood refrain.

The bright primary colors and geometric shapes of the birds prepare the readers for a bit of fun as they read this book. The birds sit on lines that resemble a music staff and then later, telephone lines. The text varies in size and color, which would make the book interesting to share as a choral read with a class. I would put the book under an Elmo so the whole class could see the colors and read the words. One group could read the red lines, another, the blue lines, and the purple lines together. The echoing quality of the text would make all students feel successful. This is also a good book to share sitting side by side with just one special reading friend.

Author?: Katie Couric

Dare we speculate that Katie's return to "hard" news may signal the end of her career as a children's book author? Blessings abound for us all!