Author: Kimberly Willis Holt

Kimberly Willis Holt is blogging at A Pen and a Nest. The blog looks beautiful.
All of our blogs change over time but for now she is reflecting on:

A Writer's Relationship with Home--How a sixty's ranch-style house provides comfort and inspiration for one writer's work.

Under the Jolly Roger

Oh, joy, joy, joy!

My public library just added the 3rd Jacky Faber book, Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber, to its audiobook downloads collection!!

And I didn't have to put it on hold!

I just checked it out!

It is on my mp3 player!!

Hoorah!

Texas Bluebonnet Award

And the winner is...



One Potato, Two Potato
by Cynthia DeFelice; illustrated by Andrea U'Ren

I love, love, love reading this book aloud. Cynthia DeFelice is an incomparable story teller!!

Mr. and Mrs. O'Grady are poor. Then Mr. O'Grady finds a magic pot that duplicates whatever lands in it. Once the premise is established the kids immediately "tumble" to the predicament when Mrs. O'Grady falls into the pot by accident.

Andrea U'Ren's comic illustrations perfectly complement this folktale. The image of Mrs. O'Grady's legs sticking out of the pot is the "money" page. I just let the kids savor the picture then wait for the "oh NOs" to start through the audience.

I can't believe I get paid to have fun like that!!

No Mush Today

No Mush Today by Sally Derby, illustrated Nicole Tadgell, Lee & Low, 2008

I have to say, in the intrest of full disclosure, that I love cornmeal mush. It was always a treat as a child to have fried mush on a Saturday morning. Yumm...dipped in honey...

With a new baby crying in her mother's arms, a little girls announces "Not gonna eat my mush, Not gonna eat it." She runs next door to her Grandma's and announces she is going to live with her.

Her patient grandma takes her to church and then to the church family picnic where she lets her daddy take her on a boat ride and push her in the swings. They watch a family of ducks and he reminds her that "Ducklings stay with their families."

Every child imagines running away from home. This little girl only has to run next door to her grandmother's and the illustration shows her daddy leaning out of the window, watching her the whole time.

The adults wisely, give her some room and time to vent her feelings, always reinforcing their love for her. In the end they even let her have the last word, as she asks her mother to promise that there will be no mush for breakfast the next day.

Illustrator Nicole Tadgell lets the love glow on their faces and adds an extra element to the pictures as the little girl keeps a toy duckling with her at all times.

What a loving and reassuring message to parents and children in this little book.

Further ponders about the illustrations:

The family is always pictured with the little girl. She is never alone in a picture even though she is trying to put herself apart from family. What a reassuring visual message, your family is always with you.

I also loved the toy duck that she always has with her in every picture, "ducklings stick with their families."
Tadgell brought the story to life from the detail of the child's cable knit sweater to the joy on her face as she sails high in the swing.

How the artist does it

Loved this video from FIRST SECOND "Drawing with Water."

See how Emmanuel Guibert created the art for his graphic novel ALAN'S WAR.

NonFiction Monday: The Lincolns

Dewey: 973.7092








The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming, Schwartz & Wade, 2008




Candace Fleming has a gift for finding those stories in history that would be lost to children if she did not tell them.

A Big Cheese for the White House: The True Tale of a Tremendous Cheddar and Boxes for Katje are two of my favorite Fleming books.


Here, Fleming focuses on the Lincoln's personal life, telling the story in a scrapbook format.
My own family has a scrapbook that was kept by my great-grandmother while living on the Wyoming frontier in the late 19th century. The look of this book bears a strong resemblance to that family heirloom with clippings from magazines and newspapers papers that give a feel for the time. The book design and even the typeface, Old Times American, brings the 1800's to life.

Fleming has included material from letters and archives that paint a picture of Lincoln family life. Her notes and picture credits at the end of the book testify to her research. Period photographs, cartoons, and illustrations carry the reader through their story, from start to finish but also invite browsing for an odd fact or two.

My original plan to skim through the book was, thankfully, defeated by Fleming's clear and engaging writing which sent me scurrying back to the beginning to read the whole thing.

The outlines of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's lives are generally known. "The rest of the story" that is presented here makes for fascinating reading.

I did NOT know:

• that Abe's relationship with his father was so poor that he did not attend his father's funeral
  
  
• that he devised and patented a devise to lift boats over sandbars and shallows but never developed or tested the idea commercially
  
  
• that his law practice, before entering politics, was highly successful and very profitable (makes sense but the image of Henry Fonda in Young Mr. Lincoln, riding that mule is strong)
  
  
• that he returned all campaign donations, except for $.75, to his political supporters, thanking them and explaining that he had not need the extra money.
  Oh, if ONLY that were true today, a model for us all!

Personally, I have always believed that Mary Lincoln's image and memory were misunderstood and abused by her contemporaries and by history. The reader will feel deep empathy for this woman who lost her children to typhoid and pleurisy and saw her husband murdered, before her eyes.

• The image of her recipe for white cake, "from the kitchen of Mrs. Lincoln and pages from Godey Lady's Book give the reader an feel for what her daily life was like.
  
  
• Fleming presents the reader with the Lincoln's wedding certificate and, later, the headlines about the trial that resulted in her commitment to an insane asylum by her son, Robert.
  
  
• There is no doubt Mary Lincoln was unconventional and difficult. I cheered though, at the story of her emerging from her deep grief following the assassination, to thwart the self aggrandizing plans of the Springfield community leaders who were ignoring her and the President's wishes for his final resting place.
  
  
• Mary's desperation to escape her incarceration in the asylum drove her to cannily contact a leading woman lawyer who took up her cause and helped free her.
  
  

Fleming has documented her sources and includes a note about her research. That part of the book is worth sharing with students who are embarking on their own research papers. This is a moving and engaging look into our sixteenth president's family life which is pitched perfectly for middle grade and older readers.

I recommend using this as a nonfiction class read-aloud. Educators who are worried about standardized tests need to model nonfiction reading for students.

Candace Fleming, what an outstanding achievement!

The Dragon in the Sock Drawer

The Dragon in the Sock Drawer by Kate Klimo, Random House, 2008.

Klimo's story, is the first in a series. This is a lighthearted, middle grade fantasy. The design is nicely formatted with one inch margins and a readable typeface. Illustrator John Shroades has decorated the first page of each chapter with an illustrated preview in a dragon scale frame. The cover art of the bright green baby dragon was one of the first things that drew me to this book (that and the dragon subject matter.)

The story follows the tradition of boy-finds-rock-that-turns-out-to-be-a-dragon-egg and the-egg-hatches. A bad guy named Dr. St. George is after the dragon so the two children, Jesse and Daisy must hide and protect the baby.

I applaud Klimo for the ending of the story. Ponder most children's book where a young person has care of a wild or fantasy creature. The bird with the damaged wing is set free to return to its flock, the baby mermaid goes home to its mother, THE DOG DIES...
As the sun sets on these tales, the children are left older and wiser, having learned a life lesson from their experience.

Here, Klimo has given Jesse and Daisy a happy ending, helpful to a sequel, no doubt.

Still, SALUTE!

I was very happy with the allusion to St. George. Hopefully this will send the young'un to Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman's elegant, award-winning Saint George and the Dragon.

Author: Grace Lin

Oh, oh, oh, look at Grace Lin's Small Graces painting for the month of February.

Grace is sponsoring the Foundation of Children's Books, through a monthly auction of her original artwork.

Kidlitosphere Central

Yippee Ki Yay!

MotherReader announces the new Kidlitosphere Central.

The need for a centralized point for all things "kidlitosphere" was initially discussed at the first Kidlitosphere conference in Chicago and now it is a reality!

Thank you to Mother Reader and these other hardworking kidlitospherians for this site:

Pamela W. Coughlan, Director, MotherReader
Elizabeth Burns, A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy
Kelly Herold, Big A, little a
Anne Boles Levy, Cybils
Jen Robinson, Jen Robinson’s Book Page

The site looks wonderful! Love the color scheme and design!

Brava! Brava!

What started as individuals blogging independently about children's and young adult books became a collective of like-minded people. While maintaining our own sites and unique perspectives, shared activities made us a thriving community. Now — with weekly celebrations of poetry and nonfiction, an online literary journal, a shared database of book reviews, discussion groups, contests, social networks, an annual conference, and our own book awards — we've become a society.

Comics: Zits

Awww...

Check out today's (Feb. 1, 2009) Zits comic strip.