Take me out to the ball game!

Smarty Marty's Got Game by Amy Gutierrez

Marty and her brother have tickets to see Marty's favorite team against their biggest, meanest competitors!  Mickey knows very little about baseball, but luckily he is attending the game with Marty, the team's biggest fan and an expert in the ins and outs of baseball- she explains it all and makes Mickey love the game as much as she does. With this book, sports journalist and San Francisco Giants fan, Amy G. explains the sometimes confusing rules of baseball in a fun and easy way and even teaches score keeping.  Baseball is America's past-time but its also a great family tradition.  Colorful and fun illustrations by Adam McCauley are a beautiful finishing touch!

Take Me Out to the Yakyu by Aaron Meshon 

While we commonly think of baseball as the great American pastime, Take me out to the Yakyu nicely demonstrates how baseball transcends both American and Japanese cultures.  Two little boys each attend a game with their grandfather and through them, we see the many differences and similarities of this beloved game in each country.  A great book for a young person interested in Japanese culture. 

A boat load of Picture Books!

There have been a lot of great picture books coming across my desk over that last few months!  

I have been already using some of these in programs, storytime and class visits.  
Here are a few! 

 Have You Seen My New Blue Socks?  Written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier, my favorite new illlustrator! 

The rhyming hunt for Duck's missing socks is very funny and will delight both young and old.  Fortunately there is a happy ending!  

 Hooray for Hat! Written by Brian Won is a great story of friendship.  Elephant wakes up grumpy. Who can't relate to that?  He is quickly cheered up by a hat and wants to share his joy!  Proof that happiness can be contagious! 

Number One Sam by Greg Pizzoli

Sam is number one at being number one.  What happens when he doesn't win?  A great fun story with a sweet resolution!  

 Sparky!  By Jenny Offill

Our narrator wants a pet and her mom agrees, so long as said pet doesn't need to be walked, fed or bathed.  After some research at the local library, our plucky narrator comes home with Sparky, a sloth.  A great story of how someone isn't exactly what you expect them to be.  I would pair this with David LaRochelle's wonderful The Best Pet of All or Peggy Rathmann's award winning Officer Buckle and Gloria. 

smells like teen spirit

One of my favorite parts of being the teen librarian is buying materials for the teen collection.  I have been reading a lot of teen angst lately and I am really enjoying it. 

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban intrigued me because it takes place at a tony boarding school in Westchester County, NY and the author happened to attend a tony boarding school in Westchester County that was not far from my home. 

As school tradition dictates, Duncan arrives for his senior year and receives a package from his room's former resident. Tim MacBeth was an albino and senior year transfer.  Tim has left Duncan a series of cd's that explain in great detail what occurred during Tim's senior year at the Irving School, in particular how the traditional senior prank went very wrong, Tim's love for Vanessa, a bright, popular girl and the girlfriend of the most popular boy on campus.  It's a story within a story- with Tim and Duncan alternating the storytelling.  Tying everything together is the Tragedy Paper, the lengthy and weighty senior project Duncan needs to complete to graduate.  This was an engrossing and quick read. Full of love triangles, rivalries and plenty of teen angst. 

Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott is a quick read but a story that stayed with me for a long while. Emma is reeling from tragedy.  Her mother is brain dead but being kept alive by Emma's step-father because she is pregnant and the baby is still viable.  Emma is devastated over the death of her mother and irate at her once beloved step-father who prolonging the agony of her mother's death.  Emma feels he is selfish and cruel and this makes their living situation unbearable.  At the hospital Emma runs into Caleb, the local high school bad boy working off his community service hours. Emma's problems at home and developing friendship with Caleb, drives a wedge between Emma and her bestie, Olivia. Since he is aware of her mom's condition, Caleb is one of the few people from Emma's school life who understands her sadness.  As their friendship and eventual romance develops, Emma learns that Caleb too, has experienced tragedy and is hurting and misunderstood.  Emma and Caleb are real and their emotions are right on the surface.  A sad but wonderful book.  

      

New Picture Books

I am always on the search for some new fun picture books, for the collection, for story time or for outreach.  Here are some that I have been getting a lot of use out of lately.

Maple, the debut of author Lori Nichols is a sweet and lovely portrait of a fun-loving, free-spirited girl.  Maple's parents plant a tree in her honor when she is born.  As they both grow, Maple looks on her tree as a friend, seeking her in happy times and sad times.  A great story!

With Paul meets Bernadette, author/illustrator Rosy Lamb gives us Paul, a goldfish whose life is a rather hum-drum existence until, of course, Bernadette moves in to the bowl!  Bernadette and her exciting take on everything shows Paul a whole new world right outside his bowl.

Found, by author/illustrator Salina Yoon is a wonderful story about lost objects and found love.  Bear finds a lost toy Bunny in the woods.  He feels terrible that somebody may have lost their favorite toy and he is determined to reunite them.  While Bear posts flyers and searches for Bunny's owner, he finds himself growing attached.  What will he do when Bunny's owner is found?  So sweet. 

In Sophie's Squash, written Pat Zietlow Miller and illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf, Sophie finds a unique friend at the farm market, a squash she names Bernice.  Sophie discovers the many joys of friendship as well as the many pitfalls of befriending a vegetable.  A sweet and funny story that had me laughing out loud. 

I am back!

I started this blog a little over a year ago and had every intention of keeping up with it no matter what else I had going on. 

I really missed being a full time librarian and thought it would make me feel like I still was, if I had a place to keep track of all the books I was reading.  It also quickly became the place I would talk about how I would use all the books- library programs- my baby time and my mother daughter book club.  I had every intention of keeping up with those programs and my blog. 

In the summer of 2013 I started a full-time children's position and I felt like I was back where I belonged- the children's room.  I started to get my feet wet again with weekly programs, I made great friends at the library and I was settling in. 

Soon it became apparent to me that my dad who had been pretty sick all year, was only getting worse.  By chance I saw a children's librarian position posted for a town near my parents and thought of it as my chance to be close to him and to help my mother.

In the span of a month I flew to Florida, interviewed and got the job, gave notice, packed nearly everything I owned into storage and moved to Florida. 

My father knew I was here, there is no doubt about that but he died on December 15th.  

I started my library job, and for the most part, it is a good one.  There is a lot to do, and it keeps me busy and for that I am grateful.


Unfortunately, things didn't work out quite like I planned. At first, I found it really hard to concentrate. I couldn't read for about a month.  Slowly, I have been coming around.  I love looking for books for story-time and baby-time and lately I have been reading a good deal of teen angst.

I find myself thinking of my father a lot when I am planning my programs.  It is in his lap that my sister and I learned the joy of listening to stories and to sing silly songs.  The things that I like best, that make me really good at this  job I got from him.  

So I am sad, I feel like I got to Florida too late to help him like I wanted to. But, I can do what I do best for this little library for the time being. 
 

An Adventuresome Duo

Since I loved Divergent this summer I decided I would do well to branch out and read more books in genres that I do not naturally gravitate toward.  Hence adventure books!  I am not an adventurous person- adventure makes me nervous. But here are two good adventure books that I thought went well together.  Both are, well adventurous, both are about teenage boys making tough decisions and trying to navigate right and wrong when most of the adults in their lives aren't doing such a good job in that area.  Both could be called political thrillers.

First up is First Boy by Gary D. Schmidt.  One of my favorite books of all time is Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. A book of historical fiction which garnered Mr. Schmidt the Newbery Honor in 2005.  

Strange things are happening in the rather ordinary life of 14 year old Cooper Jewett.  Black sedans are showing up in the sleepy New Hampshire town where Cooper lives on his grandfather's farm.  It feels like he is being watched.  Despite this feeling Cooper goes on with his chores on the farm, he goes to school, he runs cross country, he watches after his grandfather, as they are both still reeling from the recenty death of Ida Jewett, Cooper's grandmother.   

Unexpectedly, Cooper's grandfather passes away and now Cooper is alone. No parents, no grandparents, not even a dog.  Cooper does have 64 cows that need milking and cleaning up after and Cooper is a tough kid, but can he really run a dairy farm by himself?  Cooper is determined to keep the farm going, keep up with his school work and show his neighbors and the social services that he can take care of things.  

Senator Wickham who is currently challenging the sitting President in a primary shows up at Cooper's school and offers him the opportunity to join the campaign.  Cooper is suspisious or the Senator's motives and feels too much loyalty to the cows and his grandparents legacy and bravely declines this offer.  Now very mysterious things are happening around the farm, broken fences and fires, break ins and black sedans showing up to watch him. Is Senator Wickham behind all this? What does he really want with Cooper?  

While this storyline was a bit odd, the well drawn characters and the suspensful pacing of the mystery made it a good, quick read and a great one to reccomend to those who like Alex Rider or the Gordon Corman books.  

If Cooper Jewett ever got to NY, I am certain that he and Zach Harriman would be fast friends.  

Zach is the main character in Mike Lupica's Hero.  Mr. Lupica is know for his sports novels, Heat is a favorite of mine.   

14 year old Zach seems to have a pretty great life in NY.  He lives with his parents, housekeeper and her daughter who is also Zach's best friend. They live in a brownstone on swanky Fifth Avenue, right near Central Park. Zach's mom spends a lot of time working at her family's charitable foundation and Zach's dad, works for the President, as in of the United States. Zach's dad is a hero, a confidante of the President who is called in to rescue hostages in foriegn lands or capture terrorists.  Everything is great until on the way back from a mission, the plane crashes and Zach's dad dies.  

Life without his dad is incredibly difficult for Zach.  His mom seems to be coping by throwing herself into her friend's campaign for President.  But something doesn't feel right to Zach, he starts to investigate his dad's death, believing his dad wouldn't never let his plane go down.  

Zach feels something in himself changing and its not just his grief.  He is suddenly strong, suddenly bold and feels the need to patrol Central Park at night to protect good people and fight the bad.  What does it mean to be a hero?  And what's with the old man who keeps following him? 

Does Zach suddenly possess super powers?  How does this all connect to his fathers death and what does it all mean to the campaign for the presidency?  

Cooper and Zach's lives go from ordinary to incredibly exciting. They go on adventures that border on the extreme and the strange.  They outwit law enforcement and government agencies.  And the both grow and learn to trust themselves, figure out which adults to trust,  and what it means to be trustworthy.  

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Tales

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Tales is the newest book by Kate DiCamillo, an author I admire and respect and who previous works (Tale of Desperaux, Because of Winn Dixie etc.) I have devoured whole in a single setting. I have been waiting for a new book from this author for a long time.   

Flora, a witty, quirky girl is obsessed by comics like, Terrible Things Can Happen To You.  Flora lives alone with her mom who smokes, writes romance novels and transfers all her love and affection on to a lamp shaped like a shepherdess named Marianne.  

The action begins when Flora's neighbor Mrs. Twickham receives the gift of a vacuum cleaner, specifically, a Ulysses 2000, The machine has so much power Mrs. Twickham loses control and accidentally vacuums up a squirrel.  Flora swings into action, reviving the poor guy and a beautiful, sweet friendship is born.  

Ulysses comes away from his near death experience with some super human or super squirrel powers that enable him to type and create some beautiful poetry that expresses his gratitude to Flora for saving him and make up some of the books more tender moments.  

Calamity ensues when Flora's mother plots to kill poor Ulysses; Mrs. Twickham's super annoying and temporarily blind nephew comes to visit; Flora's dad shows up for his regularly scheduled custodial visit and chaos breaks out at the local doughnut shop when Ulysses is discovered in a box at their table, and he's very hungry!

The humor of the story is greatly enhanced by the comic or graphic novel style sequences illustrated by K. G. Campbell.  

I loved the relationship between Flora and her squirrel, it evokes the feelings of love, friendship, loss, and belonging that are usually themes in DiCamillo's work. These are two wonderful characters who in my opinion were shortchanged in the plot department. I kept waiting for something more significant to happen to them.  I wanted to know more about Flora's dad who seemed like a decent guy and I wanted Flora's mother to redeem herself.  

 So while I liked Flora and Ulysses, I  am sorry to say I didn't love it.