Uncategorized – Page 25

Hands-On Science and Math makes learning fun!

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Hands-On Science and Math – Fun, Fascinating Activities for Young Children, by Beth R. Davis (July 2015, Gryphon House), $14.95, ISBN: 9780876596500

Recommended for educators and parents of preschoolers-age 8

I’m always on the lookout for books that have fun, easy activities for my younger patrons. Being a librarian in an urban, lower community made up largely of working class and working poor families, I’ve got a lot of parents concerned about their kids’ progress in math and science. One thing I’ve been working on putting together is a series of science workshops for my younger patrons. I’m a bit clueless in this area, so I’ve been getting some help from my colleague at our Children’s Library and Discovery Center in Jamaica (seriously, go to this library and prepare to be amazed); I also keep an eye out for blogs, websites, and books that offer some ideas. Hands-On Science and Math is one of those books.

Loaded with experiments and ideas for kids from preschool to roughly third grade (you can skew older or younger, with easy tweaks on these experiments), Hands-On Science and Math gets kids thinking and using their five senses to explore the world around them. Each experiment comes with an explanation of the scientific concepts behind the experiment, STEM lessons to be gained from the experiments, and ways to link to the math and literacy in each one. I’ve already created a few sessions for the kids in my library, including using a Matchbox car, cardboard, a pile of books, and a measuring stick to learn about simple machines; examining the world around them using a magnifying glass, and the almighty baking soda volcano (I’ll be doing that one solo, but I’ll give them instructions they can try at home). I’ll be trying these out over the winter break!

Parents and educators can recreate these experiments on a small budget: most of the ingredients and objects can be found at dollar stores or are already in your home. There’s an appendix on graphing topics, a popular math and literacy link here, including questions with concrete answers you can use to graph results. Further resources are available for anyone who wants to read more about STEM activities and young children.

Author Beth R. Davis, EdS, NBCT, holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education; a master’s degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages, or TESOL; and an education specialist degree in computer education. She is the director of Kids 4 Kids Academy preschool in Miami, Florida. I’m thrilled that she’s got experience in working with speakers of other languages; this talent comes through in her experimentation, and allows me to create these programs with my multicultural families. She offers more science activities for kids on her website, where you can also sign up to join her mailing list.

Fantasy, Fiction, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

Blog Tour: Poet Anderson … Of Nightmares – and a Giveaway!

Posted on November 8, 2015November 8, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Jonas Anderson is a teenager who’s had a recent run of hard luck. His parents are dead, recently killed in a plane crash, and his older brother, Alan, is in a coma after a car crash. Jonas is no ordinary teen, though – he’s also Poet Anderson, a Lucid Dreamer – someone who can walk around in dreams and interact with other dreamers – who’s on the run from REM, an evil being who lives in the Dreamscape. Poets like Jonas are special dreamers; they can guide lost dreamers who accidentally find themselves in the Dreamscape. And REM wants to use Jonas to gain entry into the Waking World, where he can spread his terror net even wider, controlling everyone’s dreams and trapping them in a world of nightmares.

Poet Anderson …Of Nightmares is the first book in a new YA/New Adult series by musician Tom DeLonge, who you may remember from Blink 182, and New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young. Conceived of by DeLonge as a multimedia experience, there’s also a soundtrack, a comic book series, and an prequel animated film, Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker, which won Best Animation at the Toronto International Short Film Festival last year. And the animation is truly gorgeous, just take a look:

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Poet Anderson …Of Nightmares is kind of like The Matrix, but with dreams. We live in two separate realms, but a handful of people can move between the Dreamscape and the Waking World, fighting evil and protecting the rest of us regular dreamers here in the Waking World. Jonas, despite having a brutal run of it recently, deals with his grief, knuckles down to stay in school and hold down a job while learning more about his talents. Jarabec, a Dream Walker who becomes Jonas’ mentor in the Dreamscape, helps keep him safe while educating him and training him for battles to come. Jonas is a likable character who you want to root for; you want this poor kid to catch a break for once.

The characters surrounding Jonas are also vivid, coming off the page and taking up space in your imagination. Jarabec is a gritty, curmudgeonly mentor that you respect and ultimately love. The Dream Walkers – the foot soldiers in this battle – will both irritate and impress, like the antiheroes they kind of are. Night Terrors will make you think about all the crazy times you thought of the monsters in your closet or under your bed and wonder whether you were maybe just a little right after all.

I thoroughly enjoyed this first book, and was very happy with the way DeLonge and Young left a thread for the next book hanging there, dangling, waiting for readers to take the bait.

The first book is available right now, and for more information about the graphic novels, music, and full animated video, check out Tom DeLonge’s website, To the Stars Media. To join the book club community, find out about the director’s cut of the book with rich media content, visit the Eden Hotel Book Club.

Want your own copy of Poet Anderson? There’s a giveaway! Good luck!

Just click here to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway!

Poet Anderson …Of Nightmares, by Tom DeLonge and Suzanne Young
Hardcover, 368 pages, $17.99
ISBN: 978-1-943272-00-06
Publication Date: November 1, 2015
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

Realistic Fiction, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

Blog Tour: Jeannie Waudby’s One of Us

Posted on October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

In the midst of political and ideological conflict, things are rarely as black and white as they appear to be. This is especially true now, in our post 9/11-society – a society that Jeannie Waudby’s One of Us taps into for her story.

“…how can you face a danger you can’t see? A person who looks like any other person, but who secretly wants to kill you and everyone like you?”

After a terrorist attack during uprising called The Strife orphaned her at the age of two, K has been alone. She was raised by her grandmother until she, too, died when K was 10, and now, at 15, is a ward of the state, living in a halfway house and flunking out of school. She survives a bomb blast – another terrorist attack, like the one that killed her parents – and is saved by Oskar, whom she thinks is a cop. She learns that The Brotherhood, an insurgent group that lives and moves among her society, is behind the blast. Oskar recruits K as an informant. Her mission is to infiltrate The Brotherhood and report back to Oskar and his people. It should be that easy.

It’s never that easy. As K lives among a group of Brotherhood students, she begins to question everything she’s been brought up to believe and discovers that every side has its own secrets. What is she willing to do to keep her new friends safe?

One of Us isn’t afraid to show readers that things aren’t always what they seem. The good guys aren’t always good, the bad guys aren’t always bad, and people will use other people as pawns in a game to get what they want, no matter who gets hurt in the process. In a day and age where we tend to make snap judgements about groups of people based on ideology, religion, or appearance, One of Us is essential reading that reminds us – demands, in fact – that we think before we act.

The characters are solidly constructed and likable, the situations they’re put in tense and real. It’s a gripping read from start to finish, and the plot twists left me with clenched fists and jaw until I finished the book. This one’s going on the shelves at my library, and I’m giving my copy to my teenage son tonight. Don’t miss this book – it’s an opportunity to open up some incredible conversations with the teens and young adults in your life.

Don’t miss your chance to win your own copy of One of Us! Enter a Rafflecopter giveaway from Running Press now!

Book Info: One of Us, by Jeannie Waudby (Oct. 2015, Running Press Teens), $16.95, ISBN: 978-0-7624-5799-1

Recommended for ages 13+

Animal Fiction, Fiction, Fiction, Intermediate, Middle Grade, Uncategorized

Mutt’s Promise- Animal Fiction about family, journeys, and finding your home

Posted on October 15, 2015September 17, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Mutt’s Promise, by Julie Salamon/Illus. by Jill Weber (March 2016, Dial Books), $16.99, ISBN: 9780525427780

Recommended for ages 8-12

A tired dog wanders the woods and saves a cat from a weasel attack. She’s taken in by the cat’s human, an older man living on his own, and he christens the dog, “Mutt”. The son of the migrant family working for the man bonds with the dog, who gives birth to a little of four puppies. He names them, cares for them, but when the family has to move on and tells their employer that they won’t be back, he gives the puppies away, saying they’re too much to take care for. Two puppies are adopted by one loving family, but the other two – a female named Luna and a boy named Chief – end up living a nightmare in a horrific puppy mill. Will they be able to keep their spirits and their bodies healthy enough to survive and escape?

Mutt’s Promise is an unexpected book. It starts in a most idyllic setting, only to move pretty quickly into some heavy social issues. While the idea of migrant worker families is lightly touched on, it’s there, showing that this is not something that died out with The Grapes of Wrath. The heavier topic here is animal cruelty, most notably the kind of cruelty that takes place in puppy mills. Luna, a spunky little female pup, also deals with crushing depression and post-traumatic stress disorder from her time in the puppy mill. All of these topics are handled in an age-appropriate manner, framed within the animals’ story and using vocabulary that doesn’t try to sugar-coat what happens in these places, but makes the situation comprehensible to younger readers.

The writing and illustrations made me think of the animal fiction I read as a child; books like Margery Sharp’s The Rescuers series, and one of my all-time favorites, Rosemary Weir’s Pyewacket. Kids who love animal fiction will enjoy this book, and it provides a gentle introduction to hot-button social issues today. For kids who have experienced trauma in their own lives, reading a book like this may help facilitate a discussion; guidance counselors and therapists should give this a read and have available to talk over with parents and children.

Author has written nine books for both adults and children, including Cat in the City (also illustrated by Jill Weber). Jill Weber is a children’s book illustrator and designer, and has worked on two other books by Julie Salamon.

Enjoy a glimpse at some of the art from the pages of Mutt’s Promise.

Non-Fiction, Teen, Tween Reads, Uncategorized, Women's History

Radioactive! The story of two women scientists and how they changed the world.

Posted on October 14, 2015September 18, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Radioactive!: How Irène Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World, by Winifred Conkling (Jan. 2016, Algonquin Young Readers), $17.95, ISBN: 9781616204150

Recommended for ages 12+

Most of us know who Marie Curie was: the scientist who pioneered the study of radioactivity. But how many know that her daughter, Irène, was an accomplished scientist in her own right, whose studies on radioactivity, physics, and the transmutation of elements earned her a Nobel prize, shared with her husband? Have you heard of Lise Meitner, the physicist whose work in physics – often published in conjunction with her friend and research partner, Otto Hahn – led to the discovery of nuclear fission? She was passed over for a Nobel for several reasons, not the least of which involved her being straight-up robbed by a partner who took credit for much of her work during the World War II years, when she was exiled in Sweden.

Radioactive! tells the stories of these two very important women and their historical research. We learn Irène’s story from the beginning, as the daughter of celebrated scientist, Marie Curie. She worked by her mother’s side, operating an x-ray machine on World War I battlefields, eventually going on to further her mother’s work in radioactivity along with her chemist husband, Pierre Joliot. We learn about Lise Meitner, whose work put her in competition with Curie many times, but experienced more sexism and prejudice than Curie ever did. When Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, her Jewish heritage created problems at her research position, where former colleagues turned against her and demanded she resign; she was eventually forced her to flee Austria for Sweden or end up in a concentration camp. Although she continued to consult with Hahn on their nuclear fission research, he took credit for her work and took home the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944.

I’ve been looking for biographies on women in science for my tweens and teens, and this certainly fits the bill. There are photographs throughout the book, and Ms. Conkling provides strong backgrounds on both Curie and Mietner, making them live again, making the reader care about them, and explaining physics, fission, and radioactive science in terms that we can all wrap our heads around. A valuable addition to libraries and classrooms, and a great book for anyone who wants to inspire the next generation of scientists – female OR male.

Winifred Conkling is an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction for young readers, including Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery and the middle-grade novel Sylvia and Aki, winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Literature Award and the Tomás Rivera Award. Her author website provides teacher guides for her books. There is no guide up for Radioactive yet, but I’m sure there will be one closer to the book’s publication date.

Uncategorized

It’s a Wonderful Death… Can you really get a do-over?

Posted on October 12, 2015October 11, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

It’s a Wonderful Death, by Sarah J. Schmitt (Oct. 2015, Sky Pony Press), $17.99, ISBN: 978-1-63450-173-6

Recommended for ages 12+

RJ is a classic mean girl. She runs with the “in” crowd, she’s stuck-up, and she’s spoiled rotten. But she learns pretty quickly that Death is the grand equalizer when a Grim Reaper accidentally collects her soul. Now, she’s in the Afterlife and she’s not happy. She’s raising a ruckus, but her existing track record isn’t doing her any favors. If she can get enough souls, angels, and Death Himself on her side, she may stand a second chance, but can she stop thinking about herself long enough to make the right choices?

Written in the first person from RJ’s point of view, It’s a Wonderful Death is nearly unputdownable. It’s loaded with snark and sarcasm that will leave you chuckling and snorting into your sleeve (I commute on public transportation, for heaven’s sake). I needed to know what RJ was going to say next, or what Death Himself was going to come up with. Both characters are hilarious and yet, get the message across. What you do in life will stay with you. Whatever you believe – a topic touched on in this book – there is a reckoning; what you may think is a minor moment in your life could mean someone else’s life. We also see, very clearly, that as much as bad karma snowballs, so does good karma.

This story operates on the hope that people are, for the most part, good – if you show them a chance to go on the right path, and they take it, chances are, they’ll keep finding ways to stay on that path. It’s a pretty upbeat message, for a book about a dead teenager.

It’s a Wonderful Death is a very moral story that would lend itself to some great book discussions. And why shouldn’t it? Author Sarah J. Schmitt is a youth librarian. If she can’t get a teen’s sarcasm down, who can? She gets to the heart of a lot of teen issues here, and for that reason, It’s a Wonderful Death is on my must-have list for my YA collection. .

Have a morality program without beating kids over the head with the concept by showing Death Note one week, then discuss this book the next. There are a lot of facets to be discussed.

Fantasy, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

Promo Spotlight: A Curse of Ash & Iron

Posted on October 7, 2015October 6, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

A Curse of Ash and Iron by Christine Norris

Release Date: May 21st 2015, Curiosity Quills Press

Summary from Goodreads: Benjamin Grimm knows the theater is much like real life. In 1876 Philadelphia, people play their parts, hiding behind the illusion of their lives, and never revealing their secrets. When he reunites with his childhood friend Eleanor Banneker, he is delighted. His delight turns to dismay when he discovers she has been under a spell for the past 7 years, being forced to live as a servant in her own home, and he realizes how sinister some secrets can be. She asks for his help, and he can’t refuse. Even if he doesn’t believe in ‘real’ magic, he can’t abandon her.

Ellie has spent the long years since her mother’s death under the watchful eye and unforgiving eye of her stepmother. Bewitched and hidden in plain sight, it seems no one can help Ellie escape. Not even her own father, who is under a spell of his own. When she sees Ben one evening, it seems he is immune to the magic that binds her, and her hope is rekindled along with her friendship. But time is running short. If they do not find a way to break the spell before midnight on New Year’s Eve, then both Ellie and her father will be bound forever.

Add to Goodreads

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Kobo

Excerpt from A Curse of Ash & Iron

Ellie entered. She stopped for a moment, her eyes wary, and her hand against her stomach as if she were holding in her breath.

“Ellie?” Ben called her. “Ellie Banneker?

Her shoulders relaxed, and her breath came out in a whoosh. She paused for another breath before making her way down the center aisle toward Ben. The door closed behind her with a muffled thump, shutting out the murmurs of those who remained in the lobby. The theater dropped into an eerie quiet. Now that they were face-to-face, Benjamin’s excitement was replaced by overwhelming self-consciousness. He ran his sweaty palms through his hair, smoothing the runaway brown locks his mother would say needed trimming. He was suddenly aware of the way he was dressed―he looked like a ragamuffin compared to the upper class men Ellie must be used to. Her chestnut hair shone in the light, her green eyes wary but bright.Ben stopped near the first row, a lump in his throat, hoping she wouldn’t notice the scuffed tops of his shoes and his frayed shirt cuffs, and let her approach him.

“Benjamin Grimm? It is you.” Her smile widened, and it was as if the curtain had gone up in her eyes. The sadness Ben had seen before lifted, and she became a girl of seventeen. She reached out to him with her bare hand.

His nervousness evaporated like morning fog. He wiped his hand on his pants and then grasped hers tightly, catching the slight scent of soap and rose water.

Ben had expected the soft hand of the daughter of a prominent banker; hands used to doing embroidery and playing the piano. But there were calluses on her palm, the nails short and ragged. Her skin was pink and chapped. His expression must have given away some of his surprise, because when he released her hand, Ellie tucked it into the folds of her skirt. “I can’t believe that you… It’s been so long, Ben. You’ve grown.”

The look in her eyes made Ben decide to keep quiet about her hands. He was glad she had come in to see him. Having spent years under her stepmother’s care, he had worried she might have turned into a snob. “As have you, my lady.” His grin was large as he bent over in an exaggerated bow.

“Oh, please don’t. Ben, stop it this minute.” Ellie put her hands to her blushing cheeks, as if trying to hold back her smile. Ben stood, laughing, and thrust his hands in his pockets. “I was hiding in the loft above the lobby and saw you come in tonight. I… didn’t recognize you at first. You’ve, uh, changed.” It was his turn to blush again as he remembered what he had been thinking about her curves.

“You’ve changed, too.” She squinted and looked closely at his face. “I can’t see any dirt. So your mother finally wrestled you into submission about keeping clean.”

Ben didn’t answer, only smirked and scratched the back of his head. “I tried to think how many years it’s been since I saw you last.”

“Seven.” Ellie’s reply was so soft he almost didn’t hear it. “Seven years. The last time I saw you, we were both ten, after…” she hesitated. “After my mother died.”

Ben’s smile faltered. “Yes, that’s right.” He felt stupid for forgetting, even more stupid for making her bring up something so obviously painful. His own mother had cried for days after her employer’s passing. Ellie’s mother had been a lovely woman, who had provided him with a seemingly endless supply of sweets.

Ellie shook her head as if shaking herself free of the edge of melancholy that had dropped over the conversation. “How is your dear mother? And your little brother? I’m sure he’s no longer the chubby-cheeked baby I remember.”

Ben shrugged. “Mother’s fine. She keeps busy running the bookshop. Harry is… he’s a little brother.” Ellie wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes.

“Being as I have no little brothers, I’ll have to assume you mean you love him dearly and can’t imagine life without him.” “Not exactly, but I don’t want to ruin your image of me as a wholesome young man, so I won’t tell you what I really think about him. It wouldn’t be proper for me to say in front of a lady, anyway.”

“You think I’m a lady, do you? You might be surprised at some of the words I’ve used when no one is listening.” Ellie’s gaze wandered over the theater’s ceiling. There was a teasing note in her voice. “I never thought I’d see you working here. If I remember correctly, you said if you were going to be in the theater, it would be in front of the footlights. A magician, I believe it was?”

“I’m still working on that.” Ben’s reply was touched with defensiveness. “But now it’s illusion instead of straight magic, don’t you know that? It’s all the rage in Europe. Until I can find a backer, I need to work. My father, he’s the stage manager now. He got me the job, said it would do me good to learn a real skill.” He rolled his eyes.

Ellie raised an eyebrow. “He doesn’t approve of your career aspirations?” Ben shook his head. “He lets me keep my workshop, but thinks I’m wasting my time.” He shrugged. “It’s better than the brickyard.”

Ellie laughed out loud, a pretty sound that rolled around the inside of the theater. She covered her mouth and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one else had heard. When she stopped giggling, she looked at Ben and sighed. “I can’t stay, Ben. I don’t want to keep my stepmother waiting.” She glanced over her shoulder and back to Ben. “It was so good to see you again.”

Ben felt the words were weighted somehow, like a current pulling beneath the calm surface of a river. “It was good to see you again, too, Ellie.” There was so much more Ben wanted to say, seven years’ worth. He didn’t dare ask to see her again, though, and resigned himself to only having this stolen moment.

About the Author

Christine Norris is the author of several works for children and adults, including the Library of Athena series and the Zandria duology. When she’s not out saving the world one story at a time, she is disguised as a mild mannered substitute teacher, mother, and wife. She cares for her family of one husband-creature, a son-animal, and two felines who function as Guardian of the Bathtub and Official Lap Warmer, respectively. She has also done several English adaptations of novels translated from other languages. She reached a new level of insanity by attending Southern Connecticut State University Graduate School’s Information and Library Science program, so that someday she, too, can be a real Librarian. She currently resides somewhere in southern New Jersey.

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook

Don’t forget to enter this Rafflecopter giveaway!

Book Blitz Organized by:

YA Bound Book Tours

Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

This is Where it Ends brings us into the heart of a school shooting.

Posted on October 1, 2015September 17, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

This is Where it Ends, by Marieke Nijkamp (Jan. 2016, Sourcebooks Fire), $17.99, ISBN: 9781492622468

Recommended for ages 13+

It’s the first day of the school year at Alabama’s Opportunity High. At 10 a.m. the principal finishes her welcome speech. At 10:03, the students, trying to get to class, notice the auditorium doors won’t open. At 10:05, someone starts shooting. Not everyone is in that auditorium, though – some kids are running track, some kids are cutting – and it’s up to them to help their classmates and, in some cases, family members, inside.

This is Where it Ends takes readers inside a school on lockdown. The shooter has things to say, and this captive audience is going to listen. Four narratives from teens inside and outside of the auditorium bring readers there, inside that school, waiting for the next bullet to fire. Every one of these teens has a history with the shooter – some good, some not.

This book is tense. It’s rough. Ms. Nijkamp excels at putting the reader into the middle of the chaos – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the churning inside – readers are thrown onto the same roller coaster that her characters are on. She creates strong backgrounds and uses each character’s narrative to move between past and present-day to provide a full picture not only of the traumatized teens, but a profile of the shooter himself.

There’s also a brilliant use of diversity here. We’ve got a queer female person of color as a main character. There are teens of all backgrounds in this school. This school can be Anywhere, USA, and these kids could be our neighbors, our families, our friends. Author Marieke Nijkamp is an executive member of We Need Diverse Books and the founder of DiversifYA; she practices what she preaches with eloquence and skill. Her author website offers a discussion guide for This is Where it Ends. Educators can also find resources at the National School Safety Center to deepen a discussion on school shootings and school safety.

This is a great book to have in libraries and classrooms, particularly those with a current events focus. Discussion groups will find a lot to delve into here. I’d love to see parent book groups read this, too – it’s not a pleasant topic to think about, but when it concerns our kids, it’s something we should start talking about.

Animal Fiction, Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Intermediate, Middle Grade, Uncategorized

Hamster Princess is back, and she’s saving twelve dancing princesses!

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Hamster Princess: Of Mice and Magic, by Ursula Vernon (March 2016, Dial Books), $12.99, ISBN: 9780803739840

Recommended for ages 8-12

Babymouse fans, where are you? Come on over and check out the adventures of Princess Harriet Hamsterbone, a hamster princess with enough snark and sass to stand toe to toe with our favorite Mouse.

Written by Dragonbreath series author Ursula Vernon, Hamster Princess: Of Mice and Magic is the second book in this new series about a hamster princess who has a battle quail, a poncho of invisibility, and a best friend, Prince Wilbur, who she totally does not like like that, okay? She’d rather be cliff-diving than sitting at court any day of the week.

Of Mice and Magic finds Princess Hamster bored stiff now that all the local monsters have retired. She happens upon a fairy who tells her about twelve mice princesses – daughters of a very odd king with loads of issues – who are cursed to dance all night long. She offers to help break the curse, but she may have gotten herself in too deep when she comes up against a witch that’s really calling the shots.

This series is fantastic! I’ve been a fan of the Dragonbreath series for a while, and the kids at my library agree; the series is in constant circulation. I can’t wait to introduce them to Hamster Princess – she’s awesome for boys and girls alike, thanks to Ursula Vernon’s snappy dialogue, loaded with side-of-the-mouth snarky comebacks and a great graphic novel/chapter book hybrid format. It’s everything we love about Danny Dragonbreath, with a new twist on a beloved fairy tale. Where Dragonbreath’s art is largely green, black, and white, Hamster Princess glams it up a bit, with shades of purple and pink thrown in with the black and white. Princess Harriet is a great heroine – she’s smart, independent, can think on her feet, and can fend for herself. I love her, and I can’t wait for the kids in my library to meet her.

Ursula Vernon writes the Dragonbreath series, along with other great books for kids. Her website offers an FAQ, her blog, and a shop where you can check out some of her amazing artwork. While Of Mice and Magic won’t be out until March 2016, you can get started with the first book in the series, Harriet the Invincible, right now!

Uncategorized

#Presidents: Follow the Leaders – A funny social media guide to the Presidents

Posted on September 19, 2015September 18, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

#presidents: Follow the Leaders, by John Bailey Owen (Aug. 2015, Scholastic), $9.99, ISBN: 9780545849388

Recommended for ages 8-13

Imagine for a minute, if all the Presidents – all 44 of them! – were on Twitter? And they could talk to one another? Can you imagine what you’d find out if you were able to follow them? That would be the best history lesson ever!

#presidents: Follow the Leaders does exactly that. We hear from the Presidents – and some Vice Presidents and First Ladies! – as they tell us a little bit about themselves and react to other Presidents. There are hilarious screen names, too: James Madison, our shortest President and the author of the Constitution, goes by @LILJCONSTITUTION; William Henry Harrison, who caught a cold during his inauguration speech and died after 32 days in office, can be found @ILLWILL_H. Bill Clinton can be found @CLINSTAGRAM, and our current Prez, Barack Obama, is @BAMIMOBAMA. We’ve got some guest stars, like the White House Pets, Camp David, the Secret Service, and the White House Chef, and the Rules of Running for President makes sure everyone knows how the process works.

There are profile pictures, hometowns, hilarious hashtags, even #tbt pictures. A timeline of the U.S. Presidency rounds out the book. It’s a fun companion to a kid’s history books, but make sure no one’s doing their history homework with this as their sole source of information (I can see some of my patrons trying it)!

Author John Bailey Owen is a humorist. His author website offers blog posts and links to his other books.