Scholastic Book Fair February 27-March 3

This week is Yulupa's annual Scholastic Book Fair held in the Library/Media Center from 8-9 AM and 1-4 PM. On Wednesday it will stay open from 1-7:30 PM. This is a great opportunity to get your kids some books, both for read alouds and for reading on their own. And maybe even pick up a book for your child's classroom; teachers fill out slips of paper with the names of books they would like to add to their classrooms. Check out the Scholastic Book Fair Flyer. This is just a small sample of the books available.

One of the books I plan to purchase is Dog Man Unleashed by Dav Pilkey of Captain Underpants fame. This is the second book in the Dog Man series. In this short clip, Dav Pilkey talks about why graphic novels should be in every classroom. You can here more from him in this January, 2013 interview on NPR.

Another book that interests me is Pig the Pug because it is 1) a dog book and 2) it is about a pug, albeit a rather naughty one. This book is part of a picture book series.

One of my granddaughters loves the Upside Down Magic books. The flyer features Showing Off, the third book in the series.

To help you and your child find the just right book to read here is the Five Finger Rule again:

Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run! An Alphabet Caper

Mike Twohy's Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor winning abecedary, Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run! An Alphabet Caper tells a compelling story with one or two words on each page. A mouse is sleeping, a dog's ball bounces into his home to wake him up. The dog reaches into the mouse hole to retrieve the ball, scares the mouse, the mouse runs and a chase ensues. Finally, the mouse manages to get back home, wraps up the ball and gives the present to the dog, the dog loves it, they make up and become friends. I have now used twice as many words to tell the story as the author used. His drawings are pen and ink with color used only for the mouse, the dog, the ball, the present and the ABCs. There is plenty of white space to focus attention on the action and the font is large and bold. It is a great book for both younger kids and beginning readers. The younger kids get a different look at the alphabet and beginning readers have a action filled book they can read themselves.

The Sonoma County Library has twelve copies. There is no AR for this book. If your kids like this abecedary (an alphabet book), they might also like Z is for Moose, too.

Antoinette

The Bulldog and Poodle families from Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio are back in Antoinette. Each of Antoinette's brothers has a special talent: Rocky is clever, Ricky is fast and Bruno is strong. What is Antoinette's talent? She's not sure..

One day while playing in the park with the Poodle kids: Fi-Fi, Foo-Foo, Ooh-La-La and Gaston, Ooh-La-La goes missing while chasing a butterfly. Where could she be? Everyone starts looking for her. Antoinette catches a scent and follows it through the streets of Paris right into the Louvre and up to the very tip of Winged Victory and catches Ooh-La-La just as she is about to fall off the statue. An "instant" replay lets us see Antoinette save Ooh-La-La again. Fast forward into the future and we see Antoinette and Gaston in the park with their puppies near a statue honoring Antoinette as Paris' most famous police dog.

Again Christian Robinson's artwork perfectly captures the dog families, the action and the feeling of Paris.

The Sonoma County Library has seven copies. There is no AR yet for this book but the AR for Gaston is 2.8.

World Read Aloud Day

Here is an ideas for a great read aloud book:

Vera Brosgol's Leave Me Alone! is a 2017 Caldecott Honor book. The protagonist is the grandmother in a small house with many children,a big sack of yarn and lots of sweaters to make for her grandchildren. But she could get no peace, so she left to find a place to knit. Bears bothered her in the woods,  goats in a mountain cave snacked on her yarn, she climbed so far up the mountain that she climbed onto the moon. Did she find peace there? The little green men had scanners that beeped and booped until she could stand it no longer and left through a wormhole. On the other side it was very dark, very quiet and she was alone at last. The perfect place to do her knitting. When she finished 30 sweaters she went through another wormhole back to the house and a joyous welcome from her grandchildren.

Depending on the age of the child(ren) you are reading to, be prepared to answer some questions about wormholes. The Sonoma County Library has thirteen copies. The AR is 2.9.

The Infamous Ratsos

The Ratso brothers, Louie and Ralphie,  want to be tough just like their dad, Big Lou. But try as they might every time they try to  be tough they wind up doing a good deed. One day, their father confronts them with a letter from school commending them on welcoming a new student to school and stopping a bully from harassing another student. And to top it off, Mr. O'Hare told him that the boys shoveled his sidewalk during the snowstorm. What did they have to say for themselves? They want to be tough like their dad. Dad thinks he should be more like his boys and help others. So that is what the three of them do.

The Infamous Ratsos won a Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor for 2017. Kara La Reau has written several other books for beginning readers. Most of them fall into the 2.0 to 3.0 AR range. This book has not been assigned an AR as of today. One of the things that I like about the book is that the font is easy to read, the letters large and spaced so beginning readers can tell where one word ends and another begins. Beginning readers will like this funny chapter book and Matt Myers' illustrations.

The Sonoma County Library has one copy.

Finding Books

Listen to the Kids & Family Reading Report. One place my son got book recommendations that excited him was a weekly Friday book talk in his fourth grade classroom. Each student presented a book that he or she had just read and why they liked it. Every Friday afternoon, he came home from school talking about the books he wanted to read next.

Help Kids Find Books They Love