Fiction – Page 15 – Mom Read It

Early Reader, Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction, Intermediate

Knit-Knotters: A New Fairy Tale from Scholastic’s Branches!

Posted on January 5, 2016January 4, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Stella is getting glasses – and she’s not sure how she feels about them. When she puts them on, though, she starts seeing things very differently – like the glasses were enchanted! That night, Stella discovers that her tangled and knotted hair isn’t her fault, but the fault of a knit-knotter sprite named Trixie, whose job it is to tangle up kids’ hair! If Stella lets her tangle her hair, she’ll have to get a haircut, and she doesn’t want that! Can she and Trixie figure out a deal that will work out for both of them?

Stella & The Night Sprites, Book One: Knit-Knotters, by Sam Hay/Illustrated by Turine Tran (Jan. 2015, Scholastic), $4.99, ISBN: 9780545819985

Recommended for ages 6-8

This is another series under Scholastic’s Branches line, made for newly independent readers. When kids are growing out of Easy Readers but aren’t quite ready to dive into chapter books, Branches is the way to go. I’ve read a few of these, and they’re great for young readers who are ready for a little bit more. The books are illustrated and have easy to read, short chapters with fun storylines. Stella and the Sprites is adorable, with a fun, fantasy storyline about mischievous sprites and fairies and a little girl who can think really fast on her feet. A discussion guide with questions is available at the end of the book, so parents, read along with your kids, then talk about the book!

Branches Books are great for literacy programs at the library, too. I’ve got a need at my library for a literacy program for younger grades, so my shopping cart will be full of these come budget time this month. They’re an easy enough read for kids, and we can discuss it right here at the library – maybe even make some knit-knotters of your own with toothpicks, beads, and glitter glue!

Early Reader, Fiction, Fiction, Intermediate

Eerie Elementary still stands… and Recess is a JUNGLE!

Posted on January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Eerie Elementary is a school with a secret – it’s ALIVE! Possessed by the spirit of Orson Eerie, the school is locked in an eternal battle to eat the children of Eerie Elementary, and only Sam Graves, the Hall Monitor (and his mentor, janitor Mr. Nekobi) stands in the way of that happening. Along with his friends, Antonio and Lucy, Sam battles the forces of evil and keeps Eerie Elementary safe.

Eerie Elementary #3: Recess is a JUNGLE!, by Jack Chabert/Illustrated by Sam Ricks (Jan. 2015, Scholastic), $4.99, ISBN: 9780545873529

Recommended for ages 8-10

This time, though, old Eerie may have our group of friends where he wants them. While Sam, Antonio, and Lucy are kicking a soccer ball around at recess, the ball gets away from them. They chase after it, only to discover themselves in a foggy jungle! The grass and trees come alive, trying to keep them in, and when they make it back to the school grounds, they find themselves in a giant hedge maze – while the jungle gym comes to life and heads toward the school to devour the students! No, my friends, it’s not just the school that’s alive: it’s everything on the school grounds! Will Sam and his friends be able to rescue the students of Eerie Elementary this time?

This series is just too much fun. For kids who are ready to something a little spooky and fun, but aren’t quite ready to tackle Goosebumps yet, this is the series to give them. The Branches books are perfect for young and developing readers, with illustrations on every page and short, fast-paced, easy to read chapters. This is the third book in the Eerie Elementary series, and they just get better as they go. You don’t need to read the series from the beginning, either – there’s a sentence or two worth of summary in the story that tells new readers what they need to know, and they’ll be happy to pick up the first books after they’re done.

There’s a good Branches page on the Scholastic site that provides links to all the Branches series, plus links to classroom and parent guides. Pair these with the discussion questions at the back of the book and have a great book chat with the little readers in your life!

Early Reader, Fiction, Toddler Reads

Vocabulary the Dickens Way – Cozy Classics’ Great Expectations

Posted on December 22, 2015December 21, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Cozy Classics: Great Expectations, by Holman Wang and Jack Wang (March 2016, Chronicle Books), $9.95, ISBN: 9781452152431

Recommended for infant-3 years

The brothers behind one of my favorite board book series, Star Wars Yarns, is back with their Cozy Classics series, this time, tackling Charles Dickens. But seriously, don’t sweat it – they’re teaching our wee ones vocabulary, using their adorable felted yarn figures and words related to the Dickens’ tale. Words like “boy”, “help”, “manners”, and “old”, set against the backdrop of the Victorian epic, give extra feel to the words. I particularly love Pip – the “boy” – standing on the first page of the story. Parents will love it, kids will think it’s something cool (because it is). “

Miss Havisham illustrates the word “old”. With her tattered dress and her worn expression, young readers will see that old takes on many meanings – the dress is old, Miss Havisham is old, and are those cobwebs surrounding her in that picture? Explain that cobwebs form when something hasn’t been moved or dusted in a while.

Naturally, Estella is “pretty”. See Pip staring at her from behind the wall? That speaks volumes – she’s pretty, and Pip has a crush on her.

There are about 12 illustrations and words in Cozy Classics: Great Expectations, with great words that aren’t sight words – it’s a real chance to expand kids’ vocabulary. The Wang brothers’ art is amazing – my Star Wars Yarns books are never on the shelf here at the library – and I think it’s time to bring some Cozy Classics to my home and work libraries.

I love this classics to teach concepts trend. BabyLit does it, Cozy Classics does it, and Mini Myths teaches kids Greek myths on a level that makes complete sense in today’s world. The books make for great storytimes, and you can get moms, dads, and caregivers to pick up a grown-up book, too – pair up your board books with their companion grown-up titles for a heck of a list!

Animal Fiction, Early Reader, Fiction, Fiction, Intermediate, Uncategorized

Olga da Polga – a favorite classic comes to Kane Publishing!

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Olga da Polga, by Michael Bond/Illustrated by Catherine Rayner (Oct. 2015, Kane Miller Publishing), $17.99, ISBN: 978-1-61067-433-1

Recommended for ages 6-10

The creator of Paddington Bear, Michael Bond, introduced Olga da Polga, an adventurous guinea pig with a bit of sass, in 1971. I don’t remember this book when I was growing up, so I’m not sure whether these were originally published only in the UK, but there are both picture and chapter books full of Olga’s Adventures! Kane Miller Publishing recently brought Olga back to readers with this beautifully illustrated edition. Greenaway Medal winner Catherine Rayner adds beautiful watercolor artwork to this collection of stories that new readers and their parents will love and want on their shelves.

Olga da Polga is a guinea pig who wants to go on adventures. She wants out of the pet store! She gets her wish when she’s adopted by the Sawdust family – that’s what she calls humans – who builds her a her own hamster run in their garden. She goes on adventures in the family’s backyard and meets the local wildlife, including Noel the housecat, Fangio the hedgehog, and Graham, the tortoise. Stories encompass all the seasons, also lending themselves to great seasonal storytimes.

Olga da Polga is one of those books that I feel like I missed out on, and that I need to get on the shelves here at my library to make sure today’s kids meet Olga and her friends! Give this to kids who love their animal fiction – Paddington fans, naturally; Olivia fans, and Corduroy fans can move up to Olga da Polga and enjoy another group of stories about a plucky little guinea pig and her adventures. Kids reading the EB White trilogy (Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Trumpet of the Swan) will love Olga, too. The short chapters/stories provide for great read-aloud opportunities.

You can get your own copy of Olga da Polga at the Usborne books website. Amazon offers the book through independent sellers.

Early Reader, Fiction

Casey’s Bright Red Christmas – Perfect for Blaze & The Monster Machines and Cars Fans!

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Casey’s Bright Red Christmas with Tillus & Friends, by Holly Dufek/Illustrated by Paul E. Nunn (Dec. 2015, Octane Press), $14.99, ISBN: 9781937747619

Recommended for ages 4-8

Casey and the team is getting ready for Christmas! But Casey still has so much to do and she’s getting a cold – can the team work together to give Casey a hand and get the farm ready for Christmas?

This is the sweetest story about friendship and teamwork. Holly Dufek and Paul E. Munn write and illustrate the Casey & Friends series for Octane Press, a publisher of books on racing, adventure, architecture, and collectible farm tractors. The Casey & Friends series introduces kids to farming and farm equipment, pairing nonfiction with a fictional group of friendly characters to explain and educate.

In Casey’s Bright Red Christmas, we see the team come together to help a sick Casey – who shows kids how much work goes into maintaining a farm! – get ready for the holidays. The chores are there and need to be done before the fun of decorating and celebrating, after all! The artwork is appealing, with anthropomorphic farm machines that kids will take to easily – my 3 year-old loves Blaze and the Monster Machines and Pixar’s Cars/Planes movies, so the book appealed to him right away (and I simplified the text to make it a quicker read for his attention span). The kids (ages 2-5) at my Christmas storytime enjoyed talking about the farm and loved the machines (and the parents were happy to get a cookie recipe at the end of the book!), so I’d say the book is a hit all around.

The text is easily adaptable for a younger audience with a short attention span, and is a good step toward a longer story for kids in Kindergarten and first grade. Pair this with a good Christmas book, share the cookie recipe, and sing some Christmas carols! It’s a fun stocking stuffer, for anyone still looking for those last few gifts. And since car and truck books do gangbusters in pretty much any children’s collection, it’s a great one to add to your own library’s wish list.

Early Reader, Fiction, Preschool Reads

Spotlight On: A Halloween Scare at My House!

Posted on October 29, 2015October 11, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

From the opening invitation to a Halloween Scare t0 the Halloween-motif endpapers, A Halloween Scare at My House is a perfect read-aloud for toddlers to Kindergarteners! Check out the Sourcebooks Spotlight below, with the chance to win your own copy of the book!

A Halloween Scare at My House Series, by Eric James/Illustrated by Marina Le Ray

Series Info:
Title: A Halloween Scare at My House
Author: Eric James
Illustrator: Marina Le Ray
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Description:
The perfect gift for every child or kid-at-heart who also loves celebrating the most eerie and thrilling night of the year, the Halloween Scare regional series offers a jaunty tale with a humorous bent—sure to ward off any creature who goes bump in the night in cities and states across the country!

Now with 78 titles highlighting different cities, states, and regions in the U.S. and Canada, each book in the Halloween Scare series features art and text created especially for a specific state or city. Fun Halloween creatures and critters haunt your favorite landmarks, including famous sites like the Statue of Liberty in New York, California’s Hollywood sign, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, Churchill Downs in Kentucky, the San Jacinto Monument in Texas and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina.

With its bouncing rhyme, colorful illustrations, and funny story, the Halloween Scare series is a delightful Halloween adventure for everyone who loves a silly, spooky tale. It’s perfect for younger readers who can explore their state or city and little learn more about the places and landmarks that make their homes unique.

Prepare, if you dare, for a Halloween scare,
A night of pure terror to whiten your hair.
A tale full of sights that are best left unseen. You ready? You sure?
This was my Halloween.

About the Author and Illustrator:

Eric James is a children’s book author, word tickler, and champion asparagus thrower. You can find him online at http://www.ericjames.co.uk. He lives in Bath, England, with his family.

Marina Le Ray has had success both as a children’s book illustrator as well as a greeting card designer. She lives and works in Nantes, France.

My two cents: This is an adorable book. The fact that it’s customized for different regions of the states makes it a great choice for read-alouds and for classrooms that want to incorporate some fun into their Social Studies curriculum. Leave time in a lesson to talk about Halloween in your cities, versus traditions from other cities. The rhyming text and story about a little boy who overcame his fear of Halloween and monsters will draw kids in, so don’t be afraid to read with different voices, make spooky sounds, and invite the kids to shriek and moan along with you. Halloween storytimes are the best storytimes ever!

Buy Links:
Available at all major booksellers

Don’t forget, enter this Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to win your own copy!
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Early Reader, Fiction

Olive & Beatrix – a fun Easy Reader chapter series!

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Not-So Itty-Bitty Spiders (Olive & Beatrix #1),by Amy Marie Stadelmann (Aug. 2015, Scholastic), $4.99, ISBN:9780545814805

Recommended for ages 5-8

Olive and Beatrix are twin sisters, but they’ve got one thing that makes them very different – Beatrix is a witch, and Olive is more of a scientist. To get back at prankster Beatrix, Olive and her best friend, Eddie try to play a prank on Beatrix involving spiders, which backfires in a BIG way!

This is a fun, new Easy Reader chapter book series; part of Scholastic’s Branches line for newly independent readers. There are bright, colorful pictures on every page, bold, easy to read text, and an interesting, fast-paced story loaded with excitement and humor. There are even discussion questions at the end fo the book, to spur some conversation. Scholastic is offering a nice PDF excerpt of Olive & Beatrix on their Branches website, so you can check it out for yourself before you buy.

I really like the Branches books. I’ve got a few of the series on my library shelves, including Eerie Elementary, The Notebook of Doom, and Lotus Lane. The kids love them, and the fact that they’re easy chapter books really helps bridge that Easy Reader-Intermediate gap I sometimes find my readers experiencing. Plus, I’ve got kids coming in, younger and younger, asking for “spooky stories”. This will be a big addition to my Easy Reader shelves for those brave little readers!

This is the first series for author Amy Marie Stadelmann, but she’s got a great resume – she works on Nick Jr. preschool programming! She’s worked on shows like The Wonder Pets and Team Umizoomi, so she knows what kids like and she knows how important learning and literacy is. Check out her author website for a look at her illustration portfolio.

Early Reader, Fiction, Preschool Reads

Spotlight Tour: Max the Brave by Ed Vere

Posted on September 1, 2015August 24, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Max is a fearless kitten. Max is a brave kitten. Max is a kitten who chases mice. There’s only one problem—Max doesn’t know what a mouse looks like! With a little bit of bad advice, Max finds himself facing a much bigger challenge. Maybe Max doesn’t have to be Max the Brave all the time…

Join this adventurous black cat as he very politely asks a variety of animals for help in finding a mouse. Young readers will delight in Max’s mistakes, while adults will love the subtle, tongue-in-cheek humor of this new children’s classic.

Ed Vere is an author, artist and illustrator with a long track record of success in the picture book category. Max the Brave was named one of The Sunday Times’s 100 Modern Children’s Classics. His book Bedtime for Monsters was shortlisted for the 2011 Roald Dahl Funny Prize and Mr Big was chosen by Booktrust as the official Booktime book for 2009 (and was distributed to 750,000 British schoolchildren, making it the largest single print run of a picture book). Vere was the World Book Day illustrator for 2009.

Enter this Rafflecopter giveaway to win a copy of your own! (Contest runs Sept. 1-Oct. 31.)
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Social Media:
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuNbrpUVunE
Website: http://books.sourcebooks.com/maxthebrave/
Activity Kit: http://sourcebooksftp.com/Email/MaxTheBrave/MaxTheBrave-ActivityKit.pdf
Educator guide: http://sourcebooksftp.com/Email/MaxTheBrave/MaxTheBrave-EduGuide.pdf
Twitter: @ed_vere, @jabberwockykids

Early Reader, Fiction, Preschool Reads, Uncategorized

Busy Wheels’ Plane’s Royal Rescue is on a mission!

Posted on August 28, 2015August 27, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Plane’s Royal Rescue, by Peter Bently/illus. by Louise Conway (Aug. 2015, QEB Publishing), $14.95, ISBN: 9781609927912

Recommended for ages 3-6

Another book in the Busy Wheels series from QEB Publishing, Plane’s Royal Rescue tells the story of Plane, its clever captain, Captain Koala, and how they save the day for the traveling royal family. We meet Plane, who is getting ready for the day’s journey, and Captain Koala, who is talking to his copilot. The royal family is boarding a flight to the same destination, but when the jet takes off, the limousine driver discovers a big problem – the king has forgotten his crown in the car! Captain Koala and Plane step in to save the day.

This is such a fun series for young readers, and just enough detail to introduce them to the concepts of flying and the parts of a plane. There are details included throughout the story, including new vocabulary, and a Let’s Look at section that provides detailed pictures and terms for the parts of a plane and other airport vehicles. The kids at my preschool libraries will be happy to see this one Plane’s Royal Rescue join Train is On Track.

Early Reader, Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Intermediate, Uncategorized

Paranormal fiction for beginners: Seymour Strange

Posted on August 28, 2015August 24, 2019 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Seymour Strange: How to Trick a One-Eyed Ghost, by Susan Lurie/Illus. by Victor Rivas (December 2015, Blue Apple Books), $6.99, ISBN: 9781609055554

Recommended for ages 6-8

Seymour Strange (that’s not his real last name) sees ghosts, even if no one else does. In his first adventure, How to Trick a One-Eyed Ghost, Seymour and his best friend, Ozzie, find themselves being chased by three wacky ghosts.

This is a fun early chapter book, perfect for readers who are ready for a little extra thrills and chills in their fiction, but aren’t quite ready for Goosebumps – in fact, author Susan Lurie was the Goosebumps series editor. There’s a great mix of humor and wacky, creepy fun in this debut – no nightmares need apply here.

Seymour Strange: How to Trick a One-Eyed Ghost is part of Blue Apple’s I Can Read Chapters series; paperbacks with a smaller trim size and denser text that are just right for readers with growing competence who are ready to move on from Blue Apple’s Jump-Into-Chapter series.