Posted in Conferences & Events

BookExpo 2019: That’s a wrap!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

BookExpo is my Super Bowl. Every year, I look forward to it: I print out dozens of pages of ARC giveaways and author/illustrator signings, and make sure to wear my comfiest Doc Martens to hit the Javits Center.

The festivities started off with the Library Reads author dinner – this one was for adult books (as in grownup books), and the list of authors was amazing: literary powerhouses Colson Whitehead and Jacqueline Woodson, TV writer and producer Gary Janetti (shoutout to my fellow Vicious fans out there!), Annalee Newitz, founder of one of my favorite SFF sites, i09, E.R. Ramzipoor, whose novel, The Ventriloquists, has shot to the top of my TBR, and Nefertiti Austin, who blew me away just reading the summary of her new book, Motherhood So White.

So my TBR continues to grow…

Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America, by Nefertiti Austin

Do You Mind if I Cancel? (Things That Still Annoy Me), by Gary Janetti

The Future of Another Timeline, by Annalee Newitz

The Ventriloquists, by E.R. Ramzipoor

The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead

Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson

 

I was Instagramming and Tweeting from BookExpo, so if you want to see all of the pics, that’s where to go. Some highlights here:

 NOS4A2 creeping the bejesus out of me as I walked into Javits

The Javits Center welcoming all book lovers and geeks home

 

Meeting Dav Pilkey and telling him how much  my kiddo loves Dog Man, plus getting a signed Dog Man strip for said kiddo.

 

 Dog Man, Cat Kid, and enough Petes to make for a groovy storytime!

 

More to come when I’ve had a chance to start wandering through my BookExpo goodness and start blogging it!

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

Two back-to-school titles to ease kids into a new school year

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

I know, I know, the kids aren’t even out of school yet, and I’m talking about back-to-school books. Don’t yell at me! I received some adorable books from Charlesbridge, and thought, what better way to get rising preschoolers and kindergarteners ready for school? When my youngest was getting ready to start Pre-K, and later, Kindergarten, we read books about starting school throughout the summer, to introduce the ideas of classroom setup, recess, and learning time (as opposed to running around and playing all the time) to him. By the time school started, he had more of an idea of what to expect, and I felt better about dropping him off those first few days (look, I still cried, I’m not made of stone).

Anyway, if you’re developing your collections for back-to-school or want to have books handy to get your own kiddos excited about school over the next couple of months, jump in and check these two titles out.

Clothesline Clues to the First Day of School, by Kathryn Heling & Deborah Hembrook/Illustrated by Andy Robert Davies, (June 2019, Charlesbridge), $14.99, ISBN: 9781580898249

Ages 3-6

This is the third Clothesline Clues book from Kathryn Heling, Deborah Hembrook, and Andy Robert Davies, and I’m thrilled that they’re introducing kids to the different people they’ll meet in a school setting. The Clothesline Clues books are popular at my library; Clothesline Clues to the Jobs People Do is especially popular for the local schools’ community helpers unit.

The rhyming story greets readers by drawing them in and letting them know that people are looking forward to meeting them on the first day of school: “High on the clotheslines/hang clue after clue/It’s the first day of school!/Who wants to meet you?” Spreads alternate between clotheslines for different people the kids will meet at school, inviting readers to guess “who wants to meet you?”, and the clothes belonging to that person, illustrated and performing their job. The crossing guard’s clothesline has a cloat, reflective vest, gloves, and hat; she’s revealed on the next spread, allowing a child and her grownup to cross the street. Teachers, cafeteria cooks, custodians, and classmates all have their clothes out on the line, waiting for the big first day of school. The characters are diverse, making this a book that welcomes all readers to a new school year. The text creates a real sense of anticipation, encouraging kids to wonder who’s waiting to meet them when they start school.

Another good Clothesline Clues book that I’ll be adding to my Back to School storytime in August. Get this one on your shelves now, so it’s there when kids and families need it.

Lola Goes to School, by Anna McQuinn/Illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw, (June 2019, Charlesbridge), $15.99, ISBN: 9781580899383

Ages 3-7

One of our favorite readers, Lola (Lula, in the UK), is starting school! I feel so invested in Lola; I’ve been reading Anna McQuinn’s Lola books since my high schooler was a preschooler, and she’s been a cornerstone of countless class visit readalouds. Lola is excited about starting school; she and her family set out her schoolbag and clothes the night before, and Lola brings her stuffed cat, Dinah, for moral support. In the morning, Lola’s mom takes that first day photo, and she’s off! She meets a new friend, Julia – another book fan – and has a great first day, filled with play, snacks, and circle time. Mommy picks Lola up after her big first day, and falls right to sleep: “School is fun… but exhausting!”

Lola Goes to School is a sweet look at a first day in preschool; Lola and her family develop a routine and have familiarized Lola with the school through previous visits, so she knows what to expect. The day is mixed with play, learning, and rest, and at the end of the school day, Mom’s there to take Lola home. Lola has been growing up through her books, creating a relationship with readers that will take them from toddlerhood through preschool and kindergarten. Sentences are short, easily readable for stronger, emerging readers and perfect for storytime reading. Lola’s colorful outfit pattern also repeats itself on the endpapers. Lola is a child of color, and her classmates are a diverse group of children.

Originally published in the UK, Lola (Lulu) is just as popular here as she is over on the other side of the pond. How do you not add a Lola book to your collections? You don’t. Add Lola Goes to School to your shelves, your Back To School storytimes, and buy an extra copy or two if your budget permits; your local teachers may be stopping in to pick up books for their Welcome To School storytimes.

Posted in Fantasy, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

Groundhog Day meets the ’80s in Pretty in Punxsutawney

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Pretty in Punxsutawney, by Laurie Boyle Crompton, (Jan. 2019, Blink YA), $17.99, ISBN: 9780310762164

Ages 12+

This fun mash-up of ’80s teen classic movies (Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club) and 1993’s Groundhog Day stars a high schooler who’s stuck in a time loop: her first day of school in a new town. Andie, daughter of a Gen X John Hughes fanatic, wakes up every morning with the Pretty in Pink DVD from the night before stuck in her DVD player. She goes through the first day of school again and again, trying to figure out how to break the loop; she tries everything from joining different cliques to trying on new personas, to no avail. But as she tries to get through each day and stave off the frustration and depression that tries to set in, she also sees past the social groups to the personalities of her classmates, and realizes that she can bring everyone together.

Pretty in Punxsutawney is a fun, light-hearted love letter to ’80s movies (the novel is loaded with great references), friendship, and finding your own space in your community. Andie gains depth as a character as the novel progresses; the other characters are there to support her, so we only get a taste of them. This one’s a fun beach read that Gen X parents can enjoy with their teens.

 

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

When Pencil Met Eraser… a story of friendship

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

When Pencil Met Eraser, by Karen Kilpatrick & Luis O. Ramos, Jr./Illustrated by German Blanco, (May 2019, Macmillan), $17.99, ISBN: 9781250309396

Ages 3-6

Ever wonder how Pencil and Eraser met? This adorable story provides the origin story for one of history’s most enduring dynamic duos. Pencil loves to draw and he likes to work alone; that is, until Eraser shows up and starts “enhancing” Pencil’s work. Pencil, challenged, starts creating more and more, only to have Eraser put finishing touches that make everything more dynamic, with more depth and interest. Eraser is relentlessly upbeat, making him an adorable and amusing foil to the grumpy Pencil. When the two collaborate on a maze, their future together is sealed: together, they’re unstoppable.

When Pencil Met Eraser is a story about teamwork, about friendship, and about creativity. It’s very similar to Max Amato’s Perfect, and I love both books’ use of erasure to create art. Pencil is adorable, with a wide-open smile and who performs acrobatic moves throughout the story, as he buzzes around Pencil’s creations; Pencil is a sweet curmudgeon, with hands pressed to his hip area and a slash for both eyebrows and mouth. He softens up and reveals a sweet smile all his own.

Macmillan offers a free, downloadable activity kit for When Pencil Met Eraser that makes a great storytime enhancement! Try some erasure art with your storytime groups, and see what the kids come up with. Add this to your friendship storytimes for laughs.

 

 

Posted in Middle Grade, Non-Fiction, Non-fiction, Tween Reads

The National Geographic Kids Almanac Turns 10! Plus, a major giveaway opportunity!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Every year, the NatGeo Kids Almanac hits my library shelf, and I don’t see it for a couple of months after I put it out. It’s a little bit of everything: a desk reference; a current events recap; a guide to conservation and preservation efforts around the world; it’s loaded with gorgeous pictures of animals and amazing places all over the world, and a hilarious joke book – and that’s just for starters.

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2020, (May 2019, National Geographic Kids),
$14.99, ISBN: 9781426332814
Ages 8-12

The 2020 Almanac offers all the usual facts and figures, games, and pop culture/technology/extreme exploration and conservation efforts that we’ve come to expect from NatGeo Kids, plus some new features: there are interviews with NatGeo scientists and explorers in each chapter, a special section on how the world has changed between that first NatGeo Almanac in 2010 and today, and the results of the 2019 Lions Forever Poster Contest. There’s also a new 20/20 Visionary Challenge for kids, inviting them to be futurists and imagine what the world will be like 10 years from now. It’s positive and it inspires and empowers kids to see themselves as the changemakers.

There are quizzes, homework hacks, and a section on Crafts Around the Globe that you can easily incorporate into your summer reading activities; the Space and Earth chapter fits perfectly with this year’s Universe of Stories theme, and includes a sky calendar that gives readers the heads-up on what’s happening in the coolest live show on earth: just look up to see lunar eclipses, meteor showers, supermoons, and even the International Space Station!

To celebrate the Almanac’s 10th Anniversary, NatGeo is hosting a Summer on the Go Almanac 2020 Grand Prize Giveaway — a GO-PRO!

Don’t miss your chance at winning your own GoPro, to capture your own extreme exploration! Enter this Rafflecopter giveaway today! (U.S. and Canada addresses only, please!)

Good luck!

Posted in Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Humor, Intermediate, Middle Grade

The Worst Book Ever is hilarious!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Worst Book Ever, by Elise Gravel, (May 2019. Drawn & Quarterly), $17.95, ISBN: 9781770463639

Ages 5-10

Elise Gravel’s work always makes me smile, and her newest book, The Worst Book Ever, made me laugh out loud. Three characters come together to comment on the worst fairy tale ever as it unfolds. They’re annoyed by standard fairy tale tropes, like the “beautiful prinsess and brave prinse”; they criticize typos, illustration, and writing style, all for laughs. The commentary is laugh-out-loud funny, and the visuals are bold, bright, and wonderfully odd. The fourth wall is more than broken; it’s demolished as coffee stains and cookie crumbs dot the pages and our main characters call out lack of diversity, literary clichés, and weak female characters. One character makes a list of all the spelling mistakes found in the book always good for a prize for anyone who can catch them all. As the story descends into madness, the characters become more confused, and your readers will laugh even harder.

The Worst Book Ever can be a good companion when talking about short story writing. Point out issues the characters have with the story as it develops, and see what your readers chime in with. Can they fix the narrative?

Lest I leave out the most important part: there’s bathroom humor. I quote: “Poopie Peepee Fart Booger”. So this is basically kid gold.

Add this to your graphic novel shelves and watch it fly.

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

A concept classic returns! Yellow Yellow by Frank Asch & Mark Alan Stamaty

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Yellow Yellow, by Frank Asch/Illustrated by Mark Alan Stamaty, (May 2019, Drawn & Quarterly), $15.95, ISBN: 9781770463585

Ages 2-6

Originally published in 1971, Yellow Yellow is back for a new generation of readers. A boy finds a bright yellow hat as he goes walking in the city one day. He wanders the streets, wearing the hat, until he finally meets up with the hat’s owner: a burly construction worker, who needs his hat back. When the boy goes home, he makes his own yellow hat.

Yellow Yellow has vintage ’70s artwork that just explodes across the page, and the story is truly written in a different time; the boy wanders crowded urban streets with no parental guidance, walking along a construction site loaded with screws, pipe fittings, and paint cans; passes blocks jammed with small storefronts, like a barbershop, a bookstore, and a deli; and passes through a lunch counter joint, where he weighs himself on a scale that costs a penny. This is the urban New York landscape of my childhood, and I love every single second I spend with this boy and his stroll. Tiny details abound, providing a feast for the sharp-eyed reader. The black and white scratchy ink drawings have yellow touches for effect and appear like 1970s-era mandalas for Gen Xers like myself. Mark Alan Stamaty made each 2-page spread filled with things to see, from the paint cans that offer inspirational messages (read ’em!) to the boys’ room at home, walls covered in pictures of planes, numbers, and letters. Surreal touches dot the artwork, too: the boy has fish in a birdcage, and two birds thriving in a clearly full fish tank. At the lunch counter, a live frog waits under one glass dome, while a bird makes a nest in another. Hope they’re not on the menu!

If you love the old school Sesame Street music cutaways, like the famous pinball “12” song, Yellow Yellow will hit you right in the heartstrings. Right this to your kidlings, play the Number 12 song, and have plenty of yellow construction paper handy to make yellow hats.

Frank Asch went on to create the classic Moonbear books, and Mark Alan Stamaty wrote another children’s classic, Who Needs Donuts, in 1973.

Posted in Humor, Non-Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

Quantum Theory explained in rhyme: The Cat in the Box

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Cat in the Box, by Chris Ferrie/Illustrated by Kevin Sherry, (June 2019, Sourcebooks), $17.99: ISBN; 9781492671237

Ages 14+

The Cat in the Hat meets quantum physics with Chris Ferrie’s The Cat in the Box. The story is similar in structure to Dr. Seuss’ classic, giving it a tongue-in-cheek twist. The narrator sits with Schrödinger himself, puzzling out a problem, when a box shows up. It’s a cat! Can the cat solve the problem? Schrödinger thinks so – and all the cat has to do in this situation is “see and not see”. Whew! What a relief. The story explains Schrödinger’s theory in rhyme that the folks on The Big Bang Theory would love: “Schrödinger used/this cat in a box/to dream up the first/quantum paradox/A paradox is something/that doesn’t make sense/There must be an assumption/that is causing offense”. The cat is the winner in this story, giving the two humans a lesson in quantum physics and probability, sing-songing, “The more math you know, the happier you’ll be”. An author’s note on Schrödinger recounts the original hypothesis, which didn’t end nearly so well for the cat.

The illustrations are black and white, with a big, googly-eyed scientist and a googly-eyed cat. Mathematical symbols and atomic symbols abound, with occasional reds for emphasis. The fun artwork is a perfect match for the light tone of the rhyme, and makes this a great book to keep around for teens and college students who may need a little brain break from studying.

Can younger kids read this? Of course! It’s a fun rhyme, loaded with math and science terms, and there are adorable cats and wacky scientists telling readers that math is fun. They may not get the bare bones of quantum physics, but they’ll pick up new science and math vocabulary.

Chris Ferrie, bringing a love of science and math to the kiddos.

Posted in Fantasy, Teen, Tween Reads

Keira Gillett wraps up Aleks Mickelsen’s trilogy with the Eighth Fox Throne War

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Aleks Mickelsen and the Eighth Fox Throne War, by Keira Gillett/Illustrated by Eoghan Kerrigan/maps by Kaitlin Statz, (May 2019, self-published), $14.99, ISBN: 9781942750123

Ages 10+

The second trilogy in Keira Gillett’s Zaria Fierce series is loaded with the epic battles, dragon fights, and complex relationships that have defined the series, but most important, the friendship between the core characters: Aleks, Zaria, Christoffer, Geirr, and Filip, the original group of friends from Zaria Fierce and the Secret of Gloomwood Forest, have been through a lot together: kidnapping by trolls; magical fantasy worlds and the discovery that Zaria and Aleks are royalty within this magical realm; fantastic beasts (who always seem to know where to find them), and epic battles, just to name a few. In this last Aleks Mickelsen adventure, Fritjof, the chaos dragon, is still causing trouble in Niffelheim, and Aleks and his friends – the original gang, plus stag lord Henrik, Airi the raven, Aleks’s fey sister, Nori – are ready to take him down. If they can get through the army of dwarf ravagers on their trail and past the warring fey courts, that is.

Aleks continues to grow as a character in the Eighth Fox Throne War. Ever conflicted over whether to embrace his fey gifts or abandon them to remain human, he makes decisions based on the good of a people who don’t want him: he’s a changeling, and is on the receiving end of a lot of prejudice and anger. The fact that he’s king isn’t helping. There’s intrigue and war on a previously untold level here, so upper middle graders and middle schoolers are more the target audience for this series. The characters have grown up, are experiencing first love (Filip and Zaria, now Aleks and Saskia, a Winter Court fey and love interest), and are in fights for their lives and the lives of both Niffleheim and the modern world.

Relationships are at the heart of every Keira Gillett fantasy, and that’s what makes these books so good. The high fantasy aspects – the dragons, the epic conflicts, the grandiose ceremonies – they’re brilliant, but the emotion, the investment in these characters and their ties to one another, is what makes it all come together. Eoghan Kerrigan’s artwork is as fantastic as ever, bringing Keira Gillett’s incredible creatures and characters to life ; Kaitlin Statz’s maps help readers place themselves in the story.

Aleks Mickelsen and the Eighth Fox Throne War is a strong conclusion to another character arc in the Zaria Fierce series. Give this series to your high fantasy fans and watch them ask for more. (Ahem… nudge your Magnus Chase readers to explore this one!)

Author Keira Gillett is having a virtual book launch party on May 23 from 10:30-midnight! Put on your pajamas and join for a book reading, trivia, bingo, and a Q&A session!

Posted in Graphic Novels, Preschool Reads, Toddler Reads

Sara Varon’s Hold Hands eases fears

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Hold Hands, by Sara Varon, (June 2019, First Second), $17.99, ISBN: 9781596435889

Ages 3-6

It’s a day in the life of a preschooler in this adorable graphic novel by award-winning graphic novelist Sara Varon. Her adorable animal characters all hold hands: camels hold hands with giraffes, the sun and the moon share a hand-to-hand clasp as they pass in the sky, cats and dogs walk hand-in-hand, even the title page of the book sports colorful letters with sweet, smiling faces, holding onto one another. The whole day is seen as a series of hand-holding moments: a little bear holds hands with his mother, father, and brother during morning routines and on the way to daycare; holds hands with teachers and friends during the school day; during playdates; on the way home, and during bedtime stories and nighttime routines. The rhyming text is short and sweet, assuring readers that every time is a good time to hold hands: “Hold hands when the day is new, when you need a pal, or when one needs you”; “Hold hands with your buddy when you’re on the go, especially if your teacher tells you so”. The illustrations are colorful, boldly outlined, and loaded with sweet details, like a father wearing bunny slippers, or a heart charm hanging off a mom’s rear view mirror. Sara Varon emphasizes the power of connection by creating little starbursts around each hand-holding relationship.

Hold Hands is perfect for kids in daycare and preschool, and it’s an adorable testament to the power of physical contact. A must-have.