Posted in Fiction, Fiction, Middle Grade, Tween Reads, Uncategorized

My Life in Dioramas: A touching middle grade book about family, change, and holding on

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

MyLifeDioramasMy Life in Dioramas, by Tara Altebrando (Apr 2015, Running Press) $14.95, ISBN: 9780762456826

Recommended for ages 9-14

Kate Marino has spent her life in Big Red, her wonderfully large, rambling house. But her parents are having financial trouble, and have to put Big Red up for sale and move in with her grandparents – just as Kate’s dancing class is about to compete for the very first time! Kate’s world coming feels like it’s coming to an end, and begins crafting dioramas of her life at Big Red as she and her friends try to think of ways to turn potential buyers off of a sale.

I loved this story. Ms. Altebrando takes a sobering look at life for many families today and finds the spark of hope, the humor, and ultimately, the ability to move on. Kate is a wonderful main character that middle graders will love. The ideas she and her friends come up with to discourage potential buyers are hilarious and innocent rather than mean-spirited.  We see the stress of the family’s financial situation affecting Kate, but also, her family, particularly through her mother’s fight with depression. Using a popular school project – the diorama – as a vehicle to advance the plot and take readers through Big Red’s story – as much a character in this book as anyone else – immediately invests the reader.

Tara Altebrando’s author page offers more information about her other books, including Roomies, a YALSA 2015 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers selection,co-authored with Sara Zarr. My Life in Dioramas hit shelves this week, so please check with your local bookseller and pick up a copy. You’ll be glad you did, and so will your kids/students/and so on.

Check out this great book trailer for My Life in Dioramas, made by Teeny Tiny Filmworks, a group of young filmmakers.

My Life in Dioramas from Teeny Tiny Filmworks on Vimeo.

Posted in Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

SYNC is back for the summer!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Did you take advantage of the SYNC free audiobook program last summer? If you did, awesome – if you didn’t, you’ve got another chance! SYNC is a free summer audiobook program for young adults. Starting again May 7th 2015, SYNC will give away two complete audiobook downloads a week – a current young adult title along with a thematically paired classic or required summer reading title.

Here’s a look at what you’ve got to look forward to – I know my SmartPhone will be busy!

May 7 – Kami Garcia & Margarget Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca

May 14 – Terry Pratchett’s Dodger and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations

May 21 – Ilyasah Shabazz’s X and Walter Dean Myers’ Here in Harlem

May 28 – Melissa de la Cruz’s The Ring & The Crown and Margo Lanagan’s Sea Hearts

Librarians and teachers, promote SYNC by downloading the posters and bookmarks at SYNC’s online toolkit. Sign up for email or text alerts and be first to know when new titles are available to download at www.audiobooksync.com or text “syncya” to 25827.

Posted in Preschool

This is Sadie gives us a little girl with a big imagination

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

this is sadieThis is Sadie, by Sara O’Leary/illus. by Julie Morstad (May 2015, Tundra Books), $17.99, ISBN: 9781770495326

Recommended for ages 4-8

Sadie is a little girl whose friends sometimes live in the pages of books. She makes worlds and kingdoms out of cushions and boxes and anything around her. She has wings that bring her wherever she wants to go, and get her home safely. She can do anything, be anything, with her imagination. She’s Alice in Wonderland, she’s Mowgli, she’s anyone she wants to be.

The whole book is an invitation to all readers to get lost in their imaginations. Sadie is the focal point for the story, but boys and girls alike will recognize their own adventures, whether it’s sailing in a cardboard box boat or talking to birds and trees. Sadie’s creativity will spark children to create their own adventures – storytime and a pillow fort building activity would go great together for this book!

The art itself is dreamlike, with soft, bright yet relaxed colors on the pages. The simple black font is unintrusive and is perfect for storytime reading.

Kids will love this book, and grown-ups will love reading it. Read together, and go on an adventure.

Posted in Preschool

Butterfly Park by Elly MacKay is a gorgeous book about new beginnings and friendship!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

buterfly parkButterfly Park, by Elly MacKay (2015, Running Press), $16.95, ISBN: 978-0762453399

Recommended for ages 3-8

A young girl moves from her home, surrounded by green and butterflies, to a new house, where she hears horns and sirens, and everything looks the same. Until she finds the gates to a park next door, that read “Butterfly Park”. Thrilled, she drops in – but there are no butterflies to be found in the park! She sets to work with her neighbors to create a place that the butterflies will return to again and again.

This book delivers such positive messages in a beautiful setting. Created with collage and diorama, the art seemingly takes on an extra dimension, inviting the reader to join in the quest to bring the butterflies to Butterfly Park. The characters, known only as The Girl and The Boy, facilitate this by easily allowing any child reading the book to become The Girl or The Boy, chasing butterflies and planting flowers with nectar that the butterflies will love.  The entire neighborhood comes together to help The Girl create the garden, illustrating the value and the fun in teamwork. The girl’s determination to make the best of her move and her new surroundings will resonate with anyone who’s had to move and start over.

The book’s cover folds out into a poster featuring plants that attract butterflies, and the final pages fold out into a beautiful panorama of a community butterfly garden. Kids will likely want to get some seeds and tools and plant their own gardens after reading this book – and they should! It’s springtime! Show kids they can create a garden anywhere – container gardens and houseplants are just as much fun to work with as outdoor gardens.

Join #TheButterflyTrail at Running Press’ Butterfly Park site and learn more about the book and the author.

Posted in Preschool Reads

Mahalia Jackson: Walking with Kings and Queens is a beautiful biography for young readers

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

mahaliaMahalia Jackson: Walking with Kings and Queens, by Nina Nolan/illus. by John Holyfield (2015, Amistad/HarperCollins),$17.99, ISBN: 978-0-06-087944-0

Recommended for ages 6-10

Mahalia Jackson had a voice that could make the world stop. I’m only familiar with her through my mom’s records and Ms. Jackson’s enduring performance as a choir soloist in the movie Imitation of Life, but once you’ve heard her sing, her voice is with you forever.

Walking with Kings and Queens is Mahalia’s story, from her New Orleans childhood to her performance at the March on Washington. It’s a story of determination and endurance, of her faith, and her talent. Orphaned at a young age, she lived with her aunts, forced to drop in and out of school as other duties made themselves known. She always had her singing, though. As a child, it made her feel like a peacock, spreading his feathers, and as she grew, it was a source of strength and comfort to her. She drove to churches that would pay her to sing, and was finally noticed by someone from Decca Records. From there, her gospel was heard far and wide. Her aunt once told her she would “walk with kings and queens” one day, but she never counted on being a queen herself – the queen of gospel.

This book is gorgeous, with beautiful acrylic paintings bringing out the true joy that singing brought Mahalia Jackson. Her face is always tilted upward, illustrating her relationship with God and her music, a beatific smile lighting up her face. The story emphasizes Mahalia’s determination not only to keep singing, but her determination to continue her education. There are positive messages to be found through this whole story, and I’m hoping it finds a place on library and classroom shelves to introduce a new generation of listeners to Mahalia Jackson and her amazing voice.

Posted in Uncategorized

We Dig Worms Earth Day Contest!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

I loved TOON’s We Dig Worms, and the fact that the original illustrations were painted on recycled paper bags; when I saw this Earth Day contest run by TOON, I had to share. Good luck!

wedigworms

“We Dig Worms” Earth Day Giveaway
Did you know that Kevin McCloskey painted his illustrations for “We Dig Worms” on recycled paper bags?  Send us a drawing of ANYTHING on a recycled paper bag (or other recycled product) and enter to win a SIGNED copy of We Dig Worms!

This is an all-ages competition!  Deadline is Monday April 27th.

Just email photos to raw.junior@gmail.com or post to our Facebook page.

 

Step 1: Cut a Paper Bag Open
Step 2: Draw or doodle anything!
Posted in Fiction, Fiction, gaming, geek culture, Intermediate, Middle Grade, roleplaying

Invasion of the Overworld – Is Minecraft The Matrix?

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

invasionInvasion of the Overworld, by Mark Cheverton (2013, Sky Pony Press) $9.99, ISBN: 978-1-63220-711-1

Recommended for ages 8-12

If you’re around tweens at all in the course of your day, you’ve probably at least heard of Minecraft. It’s an online game and community that allows users to create their own worlds in 8-bit, or face off against other users on other servers. My kids have been Minecrafting for a  few years now, and some of the stuff I’ve seen is nothing short of mind-blowing. I’ve seen Hogwarts, Middle Earth, and castles and creations that defy all explanation, created by anyone from young kids to architects and engineers who use Minecraft. That said, there are – as in real life – creeps who find amusement in destroying other people’s creations. Called “griefers”, they find their way into users’ areas and burn down and destroy other people’s hard work. Invasion of the Overworld addresses this beautifully.

The story begins with a boy whose Minecraft name is GameKnight999. He’s a 12 year-old kid who loves griefing and setting up traps to lure his teammates and friends to. It’s his way of exercising power that he doesn’t have in real life, but it’s not doing him any favors. When – in a scene that reminded me of Disney’s Tron – he finds himself digitized and in the Minecraft world itself, he learns that his online actions have repercussions, and when he’s confronted with the fallout from his actions, he begins to see things in a new light.

He also learns that all is not well in the world of Minecraft. The monsters that exist in the game are finding their way, server by server, to the Source, a source of power that will lead them to our world. GameKnight – called The User That is Not a User – is the one things standing in their way. We see GameKnight on a voyage of personal discovery as he matures and takes on the responsibility not only of defending Minecraft, but his own world.

The book is Minecraft-heavy. There are detailed desriptions of settings, tools, and game vocabulary. Minecrafters will recognize and love this, and newbies to the game (and I count myself in this number) will appreciate Mr. Cheverton’s explanations. Mark Cheverton wrote this series after the Minecraft world he and his son created was destroyed by griefers. Parents will appreciate the discussions about cyberbullying and bullying in real life, and I’m hopeful that kids reading this series will see that every action brings with it some consequence, whether or not they hide behind the anonymity of being online.

I bought a set of these books for my library, because the kids are avid Minecrafters. I haven’t seen the books since the day I put them on the shelves – they’re constantly in circulation, and I really should by a new set, along with Mr. Cheverton’s latest series, The Mystery of Herobrine.

Keep up with Mark Cheverton’s Minecraft novels at his website, where you can sign up for email updates.

Full disclosure, I am mortified by how long it took me to get to this review. I received a copy of the GameKnight999 trilogy at New York Comic Con last year, and only just got to sit down and read this first book in the series. I hope that all the booktalks I’ve given this series in the time it took me to read it helps make up for the delay!

Posted in Uncategorized

LI PopCon was a Blast!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Whew! I’ve done it. I’ve spoken on my first panel. I was a guest at the first (hopefully annual) Long Island PopCon, a pop culture conference for librarians, educators, and students held at St. John’s Oakdale Campus. I got a nice nap on the LIRR in, and after a couple of coffees, was ready to go. I met some great exhibitors, got to hear Raina Telgemeier give a brilliant keynote at our lunch, and attended great panels – there were so many great panels lined up, I need to look into cloning technology for next year, so I don’t miss out on anything.

lipopcon

 

The anime/manga panel was a huge help for me. I tried to get an anime/manga club going at Pomonok Library for my tweens and teens earlier this year, but couldn’t sustain it past a few sessions. Now that I have resources recommended by both academic and public librarians, I feel more confident in offering this over the summer and seeing what I can get.

My panel, The Image of the Librarian and the Librarian’s Image, was filled with some great ladies, all of whom shared a love of pop culture and a firm tongue-in-cheek sense of humor when it comes to the classic image of the bunheaded librarian. We looked at our collective image from pop culture/media crit, sociological, and literary standpoints, and I hope that our audience learned from us as much as we learned from one another.

lipopcon_2

If you ever have a chance to go to St. John’s Oakdale campus, I highly recommend it. It’s gorgeous and green, and the Bourne Mansion is stunning. My fellow pop culture librarians and I are already talking about what panels we can put together for next year.

If you want to keep up to date with the Con, you can follow them on Facebook and their website, where you can also find a copy of yesterday’s program, complete with speaker information for your networking needs.

Posted in Fantasy, Teen

Spelled: A Fairy Tale/Wizard of Oz Mash-Up!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

SPELLEDSpelled, by Betsy Schow (June 2015, Sourcebooks Fire), $9.99, ISBN: 9781492608714

Recommended for ages 13+

Spoiled princess Dorothea has it all – including a family curse that requires she, like all the women in her family, never leave the castle. That all changes the night she tries to get out of a royal matchmaking by making a wish that undoes the fabric of the land. Now, her parents are missing and she finds herself hunted by Griz, a wicked old witch; she’s on the road with Kato, her almost-fiancé-turned-chimera, and a grouchy kleptomaniac lady in waiting named Rexie. Can they find their way to the Wizard before Griz and her magic henchfolk get hold of her?

This book is a mashup that’s influenced by, but not a retelling of, Frank L. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, with a splash of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass to keep the story moving. It’s a fun take on the spoiled princess grows up concept, set in a kind of parallel Oz. There’s a lot going on here, and plotlines can become a little confusing. There’s a lack of depth to the characters, especially for a story that’s relying only on a basic recognition of established characters – this could be on purpose, as the ending leaves no question as to whether there will be a sequel.

Fans of the current young adult fairy tale mashups trend will get a kick out of this book.