What I’m Reading and What I Want to Be Reading

I have three stacks of “have to be read” books.  A mock Newbery list, a mock Printz list and the state award list.  One of the things I’m finding interesting about this is paying attention to the varying criteria as I read. (Thank goodness we’re not tackling a mock Caldecott again this year.)

Our mock Newbery list is long!

The Prince of Fenway Park by Julianna Baggot
All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane
The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
The Problem with the Puddles by Kate Feiffer
The Dream Stealer by Dis Fleishman (Pictures by Peter Sis)
Brooklyn Nine: a Novel in Nine Innings by Alan Gatz
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Neil Armstrong is my Uncle and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me by Nan Marino
The Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson
A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck
The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead [By the end of June I'd already been wanting to blog about this book for ages - trust me there's a draft - and now it is mid December and I still haven't. I hope I will have time to reread it before our discussion.]

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Tate
The Great and Only Barnum by Candice Fleming
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (J Biography – National Book Award Finalist)
Traveling the Freedom Road by Linda Barrett Osborne
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

For the mock Printz:

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson [this will be interesting as some of us have already had a contentious discussion of this title]
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
The Devil’s Paintbox by Victoria Mckernan
SLOB by Ellen Potter
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
When you Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
Everything is Fine by Ann Dee Ellis
Flygirl by Sherri Smith
All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg

I will not share my reading list for the state award.  Of course there are any number of other books waiting to be read:  the most recent Wheel of Time entry, Her Fearful Symmetry, Under the Dome, Splendour . . . My hope is to type up something as I visit or revisit these mock award books.

Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award

Walden Award announced.  And it was just yesterday (or sometime earlier this week) that I was thinking that My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park hadn’t gotten enough attention.

Where the Wild Things Are Program

I never know how many kids are going to show up on any given day.  This morning it was raining heavily which means there’s always a threat of flooding and people just don’t leave the house if they don’t have to.  Plus it is truly fall and all the summer people have gone home.

So I was happy to have a pair of three-year olds and an 18 month old (plus two moms and a set of grandparents at my Where the Wild Things Are program) even if they were very quiet three-year olds.

What I Did (roughly in this order):

“Open, Shut Them”

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Admittedly, I wouldn’t normally include this book for this age audience, but since that was the premise for the whole thing . . .

Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley
I love using this book with almost any age kids careening from silly to scary depending on the age of the audience.  As the little girl’s eyes got bigger I had to make it sillier and sillier.  She actually joined in, telling the monster to “Go away!”.

“Two Little Blackbirds”
One of my standards to grab attention.

“If You’re Happy and You Know it”
A get up a move song that usually works.

Witch’s House cut and tell
If you’re not familiar with this one, it is about a little witch who makes a house for herself and a little ghost out of an orange piece of paper.  The twist being that she’s really cut a pumpkin.  Shhh!  They particularly loved the pumpkin.

Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
When this book arrived at the library I immediately put it in my storyingtelling collection.  It is one of those “holiday” books I’ll try and make an excuse to read anytime.

activity: make Max crowns
The original idea was to have the kids make crowns and/or terrible claws and parade around the library.  The kids were so reserved that we ended up just making the crowns.  The kids took marker to precut paper and then I fitted them to their heads. It was fun to watch the eighteen month old scribble and try and wipe the marks away.  His markers were quickly replaced with my piggie puppet that he could chew on.

Spooky Spooky Spooky by Cathy MacLennan
I don’t love this book as much as her Chicky Chicky Chook Chook, but to be honest that would be near impossible. I love that there’s a jack-o-cucumber and jack-o-eggplant and a number of other nontraditional jack-o-lanterns.

As I do almost every October, I forgot to include the audience favorite Chocolate Chip Ghost flannel board, but I use that often enough when doing color stories that I don’t feel bad about the missed opportunity.

Long Time, No Post

So, yesterday I’m sitting in a meeting with the YA team and one of my colleagues says, “I don’t know if you know this, but K blogs regularly.” Imagine my embarrassment.

Yes, I am a teen librarian now, at least part-time.  It is a split position and the vast majority of the job tends to fall in the younger range. I’m finding the process of growing a teen presence in the library even more difficult than I imagined.  (Also, I’m going to have to learn how to say no.  I just can’t join every committee and do every presentation that comes along.)

Thanks in part to all  those commitments I haven’t said no to, I have a few stacks of middle grade books waiting to be read. Look for some mock Newbery discussion in the coming weeks. Though if you want a really good Newbery discussion check out the Heavy Medal blog over at SLJ.

One thing about this new(ish) position is that every morning I get to drive over a bridge and everyday the water is different.  Most days, from the apex of the bridge, I can see the ocean and when the sun is filtering through the clouds in distinct beams and the bay is glistening it truly seems to be ” an enchanted land.”

Lightning Thief teaser

See the teaser trailer over at moviefone. Very slick.

Faith, Hope and Ivy June

Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

ARC from Midwinter

Ivy June Mosely and Catherine Combs are seventh graders and are going to be participating in their respective schools first exchange program.  No, they don’t live in different countries, or even different states.  Ivy June and Catherine are both residents of the bluegrass state.  Catherine is a city girl from Lexington, while Ivy June lives in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky.  (Full disclosure: I grew up halfway between the two.)  The exchange program is a way for the girls to explore a different way of life and all the prejudices and stereotypes that exist because of these differences. Of course, they find out their differences and similarities are not what they’d thought they’d be.

The differences in physical surroundings are obvious. Ivy June lives with her grandparents, because her parents’ house was getting too crowded (forget the telephone and indoor bathroom), while Catherine lives in a mcmansion and has her own bathroom.  However, the girls share family/friend joys and difficulties.

Interspersed between the third person narrative focused on Ivy June are  journals entries written by both girls. The settings are rich, particularly Naylor’s descriptions of the Appalachian mountains, and made me a little homesick.

The book takes a more serious tone at the end. Drama brings the two girls closer, leaving me hoping they can maintain that friendship despite the physical distance that seperates them.

48 Hour Reading Challenge

Now that the Tonys are on I’ve given up trying to accomplish anything else towards the challenge.  Today was much less sucessful than yesterday.

Yesterday I read for 13 hours and finished 3 books (and a portion of one I put aside for later), today only 4 hours and 1 book. My original plan for this weekend was to get to titles that I should have read ages ago and so I checked out stack of books from the library. None of the books I read were from this pile and so these titles remain unread.

My totals were 17 hours, 4 books and 1469 pages.

Goth Girl Rising

Goth Girl Rising by Barry Lyga, ARC from BEA

I think I did this book a disservice by reading it towards the end of this marathon.  Nearly as good as Boy Toy and The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, it is Goth Girl’s turn to showcase her place in Brookdale.

The action starts about six months after the end of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl ends.  Kyra Sellers, Goth Girl, is just that a goth girl. A very angry goth girl.  We are stuck in Kyra’s head for duration of the novel.  Spaced between the prose are letters to Neil Gaiman (she’s obsessed with Sandman) and a poem she wrote in middle school.  Staying in her head exclusively was difficult because of the depth of her discontent, but it ultimately a rewarding stay.

Troy High

Troy High by Shana Norris, ARC from BEA

As you may be able to tell from the title, this is a retelling of The Illiad in a modern high school.  District lines are redrawn and when one of the most popular Spartan cheerleaders suddenly has to go to Troy High a decades old football rivalry is amped up. The story is told from Cassie’s perspective, who keeps trying to convince the main players (her brothers and crush’s brother) that this “war” isn’t worth it.  And that’s where the main flaw with this book lies.  The stakes in this “war” are so laughable compared to the original.

If I didn’t know the source material this would probably be a fairly cute tale of high school pranks and love.

Forest Born

Yet another BEA ARC due out in September, Forest Born by Shannon Hale is the final “I’m serious this time. I swear.” book in the Bayern series.

Rin has had a feeling of unease growing in her ever since she made Willem kiss her. The trees no longer comfort her and the only thing she can do is keep moving. . . It is always a delight to visit the world of Bayern and the enchanting characters who live there.  This time Rin, Razo’s little sister, is the focus of the story.  She has her own unique powers to discover while, of course, having adventures of the dangerous and political sort. A novel about finding oneself and home wrapped in action. The kind of thing I love to booktalk for middle schoolers.