Children’s Literature

Five Books of Poetry (#readathon)

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Poetry /

I probably should have started the #readathon with the poetry, I’m tired and that’s not the best time to read poetry. Thankfully, all five of these were good – for different reasons.

Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers – I always like books like this, that tell the story of art and artists.

We Are America: A Tribute From the Art – As you’d expect from Walter Dean Myers. A book everyone should read (maybe particularly during an election year…)

Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems – As a big sister, I had to love this one. Because little sisters are annoying and wonderful all at the same time.

Dear Hot Dog – Poetry to everyday things (like toothpaste and socks and sunshine. My favorite is about light.)

Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems – I have two children who love Elephants so this one made me particularly happy. I’ll be buying it for someone…

(Readathon page count, 1,619)

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Warp Speed (#readathon)

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Fiction /

Warp Speed was a lot of fun, and not just because it’s always fun to debate the Star Trek vs Star Wars issue – extra fun to throw in some Batman and Superman debate as well. I really liked Marley’s mom – she’s blind and that’s not something you see in a character’s mom very often. Marley’s dad sounds like he has some social phobia. So yea, interesting family which makes the whole bullies in middle school topic a lot more interesting.

(Readathon page count: 1,435)

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Words in the Dust (#readathon)

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Fiction /

Readathon page count: 781

I really liked Words in the Dust.  We need more stories about children in Afghanistan and we need more books with really solid female characters.  I was skeptical when I read the introduction by Katherine Paterson but she’s right – Zulaikha is a character who you can’t help but care about and wonder about after the story ends.

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Four Cybil Easy Readers (#readathon)

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites /

I don’t always love the easy readers from the Cybils short list. Some are just too – too – typical. So it is with much surprise that I’m here to report that I just finished four really excellent easy readers.

Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus – it was obvious that I was going to love that, because I’ve loved all of the Anna Hibiscus books. This one might be my favorite because Anna went to Canada and met Canadian kids and the Canadian kids met Anna, who is from Africa. Anna also met a dog – a Canadian dog, which is not like an African dog. I love this series and I loved this book.

I read Just Grace and the Double Surprise and I was probably most surprised by this book. I expected it to be… boring. It wasn’t. Just Grace got a puppy, which made me laugh because her puppy is like my puppy which is like every puppy. And Grace’s best friend got a baby brother, through adoption, which is not at all what she was hoping for. Many lessons were learned but the book wasn’t at all boring and I laughed out loud, several times.

Also surprising was my appreciation of The Trouble with Chickens. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t JJ the retired search and rescue dog, Vince the Funnel or the chicken family and their suspenseful mystery. An easy reader suspense drama – almost pulp fiction like in an easy reader animal story kind of way. Excellent.

And, the book with the best title – Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie. I know about bad months and about missing people who had to leave and about getting used to new people. Eleanor Abigail Kane knows this stuff too. Another good story with good characters. And now I’m going to think about sprinkling some pickle juice on a cookie… just to see what that’s like.

(Readathon count after two hours and four easy readers: 521 pages.)

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The Friendship Doll

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge /

I’ve decided I have problems with books about dolls. I don’t know why that might be, I’ve never had any issues in real life with dolls but it’s true, just the same.

I found The Friendship Doll really interesting, and I almost got a little weepy when a little girl died who I didn’t expect to die. And I really loved the Mrs. Roosevelt part and the Alzheimer’s ending. I also found myself looking up more information about the real Friendship Dolls from Japan.

But.

The book troubled me. Much the way Hitty: Her First Hundred Years troubled me, I guess (it’s been so long since I read it, but yea, like that.) Some underlying angst about the story. I don’t know.

It’s me, not the book. The book was good. I promise. (Unless you have doll issues like I apparently have?)

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Catching Up on Graphic Novels

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Young Adult /

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed someone had reviewed Books 3,4, and 5 in the Amulet series on our library website. That caused me to realize that Elly and I have fallen way behind on our Amulet series so I reserved books 4 & 5 immediately. I’d planned to read them during #readathon but book 5 was due back today and could not be renewed because it has holds so… I read them both yesterday.

And, excellent series. I have yet to tire of these characters, except for Emily’s mom who is pretty much a waste of a character, if you ask me.  Is there some reason that she’s so… clueless and blah and I just missed the explanation for that? Her father blah blah blah, yea, I get that but still, she needs to get her shit together or I’m just gonna skip over every word in her bubble from now on.

I really liked seeing what happened to Max and I’m glad Miskrit is back!

Here’s hoping we won’t fall so far behind again!

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Breadcrumbs

2012, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

We listened to Breadcrumbs on audio and I liked it more than TW did. She found it a little tired – retelling of fairy tales. So yea, been there, done that, but I still liked it. I liked Hazel. It was a little slow, particularly for audio, but I definitely enjoyed it.

Good Cybils middle grade fantasy. Not the best but worthy of the shortlist for sure.

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Three More Cybils — All Non-Fiction

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

Let’s see… what did I read?

Unraveling Freedom. This was interesting because I don’t read a lot of books about WW1, fiction or non-fiction. Nice change from the overwhelming amount of WW2 books I usually read. It was also a nice change to read about WW1 and the US – not WW1 in Europe.

Next, I read Amelia Lost. This took me a long time to get through and I’m not sure why. Maybe because I was reading it while Diana Nyad was attempting to swim from Cuba to Florida and following a living, awesome woman was more interesting than reading stuff about Amelia Earhart that caused me to not like her quite so much. (I had no idea the US government paid to build the airfield on Howland Island JUST for Earhart to land on. Sheesh. We/She would have been better off if she’d just had Roosevelt arrange for inflight fueling at Midway…)

Last, but not least, How They Croaked. This was fun. All of the interesting facts about how famous people died. Nice illustrations (cartoon-like.) It would be a fun book to have on the shelf for kids to pull down and flip through for fun.

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The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

I was more amused by The Cheshire Cheese Cat than I expected to be. An animal story done well is a wonderful thing – and not as easy to find as you might think, considering the overwhelming number of animal stories published for kids every year. But, it was the appearance/mentions of Wilkie Collins that did it. And, the role Dickens played in the story.  Brilliant way to, softly, introduce Victorian authors to middle grade (or younger!) readers.  (As a bonus, Skilly reminded me of the Fake Cat and her love of cheese – how could I not love this book?)

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Catching Up on Cybils — Five Down

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

I knew we’d be spending a lot of time at home this weekend, new puppy and all that… so I went ahead and reserved a bunch of the books from the Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books. Generally speaking – I didn’t love them.

These are all perfectly fine books – Clementine was my favorite because I really like Clementine.

I Broke My Trunk – Mo Willems. I know it’s sacrilege to say so, but sometimes his books are boring. This is one of those books.

Dodsworth in Rome – I do not understand these books. OK I understand them, I am just not sure why one might read them to/with their kids. Kids should read travel books and learn about wonderful, famous places but I’m not sure that Dodsworth and Duck are the best books for that.

Aggie Gets Lost – I always want more from an Aggie story than I get. In this case, I really wanted more and it was just the same ole Aggie story stuff.

Frog & Friends – The balloon story was cute. The other two were fine.

Clementine and the Family Meeting – I really like Clementine. I like her a lot. She’s an awesome 8 year old with some of the same problems any other 8 year old might have. I like her parents and I like her teachers/principal. I even like her friends.

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