Tag: Black Sheep

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

A new age-old question: How Did Humans Go Extinct?

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

How Did Humans Go Extinct?, by Johnny Marciano/Illustrated by Paul Hoppe (Oct. 2021, Black Sheep), $16.95, ISBN: 9781617759277

Ages 3-7

Ten million years, the Earth looks a little different. It looks really futuristic, and the inhabitants? Well, they look a little amphibious. They’re Nøørfbløøks, and according to the science museum, the theory is that they’ve evolved from frogs. But our story revolves around young Plib, a Nøørfbløøk who loves humans, as is obvious from his favorite human stuffie, Frank, and his books and movies (Human Park, How Do Humans Say Good Night, Planet of the Humans). He wants to know how humans went extinct, but his mother is reticent to tell him: it’s really not a story for kids, after all. But when Plib presses, she relents and tells him some pretty uncomfortably plausible theories: pollution, war, and worst of all, they just stopped caring about one another. Plib is crushed at these heartbreaking theories, but Mom shushes his fears away by offering her own theory, which is more comforting. But it’s food for thought, isn’t it? Comic book style artwork has great little details on what archaeologists may find in about 10 million years, and the reasons for our extinction are food for thought and discussion. A smart call to action from a different point of view.

Johnny Marciano is a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator, and the grandson of Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator of the Madeline books. Marciano has continued the series with Madeline and the Old House in Paris, Madeline at the White House, and Madeline and the Cats of Rome. Paul Hoppe is an award-winning illustrator whose artwork regularly appears in the New York Times. See more of Paul Hoppe’s illustration work at his website.

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

Wordless wonder: Grand Isle

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Grand Isle, by Kate Samworth, (Sept. 2021, Black Sheep), $18.95, ISBN: 9781617759765

Ages 3-8

In the great tradition of wordless adventure stories, Grand Isle takes readers on a big adventure, joining two sisters on a day at the beach for a day of fun. They discover a giant seed pod that just begs to be a canoe; sure enough, they climb aboard and journey to a mysterious island where everything is huge, from the plants to the bugs! When their seed pod canoe gets pulled back to sea, they discover they’re stranded: are they resourceful enough to get back home?

In the vein of books like Aaron Becker’s Journey trilogy, Grand Isle uses illustration to transport readers: the pages burst with color and scale; the characters go from typical size, as they build a sand castle together and roam the coastline, to smaller as they discover the seed pods and arrive at the hidden island. The shift is subtle, with no grand reveal; it’s never disruptive. When the girls arrive at the island, they are tiny and discover giant flora and fauna around them! The illustrations are lush and have beautiful movement to them. A rich story that invites readers to tell you what they see.

See more of Kate Samworth’s work at her website.

Posted in picture books

Under the Sea books for your favorite fishy fans!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

The weather’s warming up, so why not start thinking of ocean-y fun? I’ve got a couple of fun, new books that are perfect for fans of sea life!

Shark Nate-O, by Becky Cattie and Tara Luebbe/Illustrated by Daniel Duncan, (Apr. 2018, little bee books), $17.99, ISBN: 978-1-4998-0496-6

Recommended for readers 4-7

Nate LOVES sharks. He’s got shark posters and books, spouts shark facts all day, and pretends to be a shark, chomping his way through the schoolyard and the dinner table. But Nate has a secret that’s keeping him from fully realizing his full shark potential: he can’t swim. And his school swim team is named The Sharks! Luckily, Nate has the tenacity of a great white, and takes lessons, determined to get on the team and show his brother – who’s also on the swim team – who the real shark is.

This is a fun story about overcoming fear. Nate loves sharks, but he’s got to learn how to swim; his first lesson doesn’t go so well – he feels like a “great white wimp” – but he doesn’t give up, and works harder, until he’s good enough to make it on the team and compete at the swim meet. The art is kid-friendly, with a great cover: Nate casts a shark-y shadow as he stands at the tiled floor of a pool area; the endpapers show wavy, bluish-green water with a single shark fin navigating the spreads. There’s a spread on different kinds of sharks, with fun facts (the blue shark eats until he throws up – and then goes back to eating). Kids, parents, and caregivers alike will enjoy reading this one.

 

Inky the Octopus: Bound for Glory, by Erin Guendelsberger/Illustrated by David Leonard, (Apr. 2018, Sourcebooks Jabberwocky), $17.99, ISBN:9781492654148

Recommended for readers 4-8

Based on a real-life story, Inky the Octopus is a rhyming tale about an octopus who escapes his New Zealand aquarium tank and heads out for the open sea. When we first meet Inky, he’s bored, maybe even a little sad, with his fish friend, Blotchy, for company. But he spies an open drain and that’s it: “Out of this tank, I must be free/I must explore the open sea!” Inky gets ready to make his escape, asking Blotchy to come with him – an invitation that his friend politely declines. The next morning, the discovery is made: Inky is gone, free to experience life in the ocean.

The real-life Inky escaped from his National Aquarium of New Zealand tank in 2016, when aquarium keepers came into work and noticed that the octopus wasn’t in his tank. It appears that he slipped through a small opening in his tank, maneuvered across the floor, and slid down a 164-foot-long drainpipe that led out to Hawke’s Bay. There’s even a real-life Blotchy, but he’s another octopus, not a fish. While there are other children’s books about Inky, including 2017’s Inky’s Great Escape by Casey Lyell and Sebastià Serra, Inky the Octopus is officially endorsed by the National Aquarium of New Zealand.

The artwork is adorable and the rhyming text gives a nice cadence to storytelling that allows for dramatic embellishment (at least, when I read it: he’s an octopus, he’s got eight arms, give him some grand gestures!) Inky has big, sweet eyes that will appeal to readers and have them falling in love with the sweet cephalopod, rooting for him to make a run for it. Information about the real-life Inky at the book’s conclusion adds a nice learning opportunity for readers.

 

Sea Creatures from the Sky, by Ricardo Cortés, (Apr. 2018, Black Sheep), $16.95, ISBN: Ricardo Cortés

Recommended for readers 4-8

A shark’s tale of being kidnapped by aliens! Kind of. A shark speaks directly to the reader in rhyme, confiding in us a true story that happened to him: he was kidnapped by aliens from the sky. Now, remember: when a shark looks up, that’s the sky. We know it as the surface. As the shark notes: “There is something else/and that’s no lie. It stole me from the ocean, and took me to the sky.” The poor shark sees a yummy fish, goes for a snack, and discovers – whoops! – the fish has a hook. And those aliens were terrifying: “In ships they steered? Faces with beards? Heads with two ears? It was all just too weird.” To add insult to injury, no one believes him. What’s a poor shark to do?

I loved everything about this story. The art is just beautiful, from the endpapers that could be a starry night sky or the surface of the water at night; the combination of realistic and almost dreamlike renderings of sea life, from the hazy, colorful jellyfish to the crisp spread of rays making their way through the story, to the black-eyed protagonist whose tale will make you chuckle and yet, feel for his plight (gender pronoun is mine; the character has no determined gender in the story). It’s a look at preservation and oceanography from a different point of view, and makes a realistic-looking shark less threatening, even likable. Kids will appreciate the misunderstood predator; how many times have kids been called out for exaggerating a recollection that is absolutely true from their point of view? Sea Creatures From the Sky provides a good jumping-off point to discuss point-of-view storytelling and what exactly the humans were doing with the shark when they “measured, probed, and spoke in strange code”. This one is a must-add to storytimes and books where sharks and undersea life are popular. Which, really, has to be, like every collection. Kids LOVE sharks.

Ricardo Cortés illustrated one of my baby shower gifts, Go The F**k to Sleep (no, I’ve never read it to the kiddo, but it did comfort me on many a sleepless night), and its child-friendly companion, Seriously, Just Go to Sleep.

 

Posted in Fantasy, Teen, Tween Reads, Young Adult/New Adult

Blog Tour: Broken Circle, by JL Powers and MA Powers

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Broken Circle, by JL and MA Powers, (Oct. 2017, Akashic), $14.95, ISBN: 978-1-61775-580-4
Recommended for readers 12+

 

Fifteen year-old Adam Jones just wants to be a normal teen, but the chances aren’t looking so good. He’s got a monster chasing him in his sleep, and he can tell a person’s character by seeing what kind of shadow they cast. His dad is almost never around, his grandfather is a little nuts. He’s expected to take on the family business – but his father won’t tell him what that business is. Is he a mafioso? After a couple of incidents at school, his father makes the decision to send him to a special boarding school where he’ll learn how to be part of the family business – whatever that is. Adam arrives at the school to discover that he’s part of a special group of “soul guides”: grim reapers. They’re all around us; they’re from different clans, with different territories, and there are TONS of rivalries. No wonder Adam’s dad told him not to tell anyone where he’s from. If only that were the end of Adam’s problems, right? But he’s still got the monster chasing him, he’s got some strange characters stalking him, and he’s learning about himself and his family while having to keep it all a secret from his new friends AND the ones he left behind.

I LOVED Broken Circle. It’s a first-person narration by Adam, the main character, with periodic half chapters that fill in crucial backstory, told in third person through meetings of the synod: an assembly of Soul Guide leaders. Adam’s chapters are written with a wicked sense of humor – he’s 15, and just found out he’s a grim reaper, after all – and a deepening sense of pathos and fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of the things he discovers as he moves through the book. There’s a diversity of characters in the book as we meet soul guides from different cultures and ethnicities. You won’t want to put this one down: it’s Hogwarts for soul guides, with family rivalries and developing powers aplenty. The writing flows and the characters have a rich depth to them, even with their own secrets that we may or may not find out before this volume ends. Thank goodness it’s the first in a series; I have more to look forward to and so will you. Give this to your Gaiman fans, for sure; hand it to your Potterheads that are ready to meet a new group of friends. Give it to your readers that enjoy seeing life from a different point of view.

Watch this space: I’ve got a vlog entry from the authors!

J.L. POWERS is the award-winning author of three young adult novels, The Confessional, This Thing Called the Future, and Amina. She is also the editor of two collections of essays and author of a picture book, Colors of the Wind. She works as an editor/publicist for Cinco Puntos Press, and is founder and editor of the online blog, The Pirate Tree: Social Justice and Children’s Literature. She teaches creative writing, literature, and composition at Skyline College in California’s Bay Area, served as a jurist for the 2014 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and is launching Catalyst Press in 2017 to publish African writers. Broken Circle is her first novel written with her brother, M.A. Powers.

 

M.A. POWERS is J.L.’s “little” (but much taller) brother. He has a PhD in the oncological sciences from the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He is currently a stay-at-home dad and lives in Maine. Broken Circle is his first novel written with his sister, J.L. Powers.

Posted in Animal Fiction, Early Reader, Fiction, Fiction, Intermediate, Preschool Reads

The Bear Who Wasn’t There and the Fabulous Forest: unbridled optimism!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

bear_covThe Bear Who Wasn’t There and the Fabulous Forest, by Oren Lavie/Illustrated by Wolf Erlbruch, (Oct. 2016, Black Sheep/Akashic), $17.95, ISBN: 9781617754906

Recommended for ages 4-8

A bear searches for himself, using clues he’s discovered scrawled on a note in his pocket: 1) I am a very nice bear; 2) I am a happy bear; and 3) Very handsome too. As he searches, he discovers more about the world around him, seeing things with a childlike sense of wonder that all readers will enjoy. Originally published in Germany, The Bear Who Wasn’t There is a debut picture book by composer and playwright Oren Lavie and illustrated by German illustrator Wolf Erlbruch, both renowned for their crafts.

I adore this bear. He’s perpetually upbeat, excited to learn more about himself and ready to explore the world around him. He’s drawn with huge, wide eyes, eager to take in everything he sees, and his mouth is curved into big, happy red smile. He wanders through the Fabulous Forest and meets other creatures who help him on his quest for self-discovery: the Convenience Cow and the Lazy Lizard; the Penultimate Penguin, and the Turtle Taxi, all of whom guide him in some way. Bear is thrilled with everyone he meets; even the snappish Penguin. Lavie’s words are lyrical, beautifully curling themselves around the characters. I love the bantering between Bear and each character; it’s sweet and gentle, and shows kids how to respond to others, as is the case with the standoffish Penguin. Bear never loses his idealism, best seen when he counts flowers, deciding that the number is “beautiful”. When he’s told that “beautiful” isn’t a number, Bear has already moved on, thinking to himself, that it’s better to smell flowers than count them, and that “Flowers are more Beautiful than they are thirty-eight.”

bear_1

This is such a happy, sweet book to read to younger kids and to older, school-age kids. Kids see things in a different way; a more inspiring, upbeat way. Books like The Bear Who Wasn’t There are a great reminder to kids and adults that sometimes, it really is better to smell flowers than to count them.

Add this one to collections where animal books are popular. The Bear Who Wasn’t There has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.