New Picture Books

Dreamers by Yuyi Morales is the story of her immigration to the United States with her then three month old son to join her American citizen husband in 1994. They settled in San Francisco. She and her son spent their days in the San Francisco Public Library learning English and learning about their new country. The illustrations in the library show many of the books they read. Books opened the door to their new life. Yuyi Morales became an award winning writer and illustrator. This is a powerful book about the value of libraries and reading.
The Sonoma County Library has fourteen copies.

Carmela Full of Wishes is written by Matt de Pena and illustrated by Christian Robinson, the award winning (Newbery Medal and Caldecott Honor) of Last Stop on Market Street. It is Carmela's birthday. She finds a spent dandelion, her brother tells her she has to make a wish before she blows the seeds away, but what should she wish for?
The Sonoma County Library has nine copies.

Drawn Together is written by Mihn Le and illustrated by Dan Santat. A young boy is being babysat by his grandfather. They eat lunch and watch a little TV. Neither one speaks the others language so how do they communicate?  By drawing a story together, each in his own style, they find a language they both understand.                                                                                                                               
 The Sonoma County Library has eleven copies.                                                                                                                                                         

Good Rosie by Kate Di Camillo with pictures by Harry Bliss is about a good dog who sometimes gets lonely and dare I say bored. George, her owner, tries something new, they go to a dog park. At first Rosie doesn't know what to do and is scared of a big dog named Maurice. But eventually she makes friends with a little dog and by the end of the book they both become friends with Maurice.
The Sonoma County Library has thirteen copies.

My Dog Laughs is written and illustrated by Rachel Isadora. Children introduce us to their dogs, tell us what their dog likes, show us how they train their dogs and how their dog plays. The pictures give clues to the text and there is plenty of white space between each vignette. 
The Sonoma County Library has six copies.

The Day You Begin by Newbery Medalist  Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Rafael Lopez is a story about feeling different for any number of reasons and how by sharing your story others will meet you halfway.
The Sonoma County Library has twenty copies.

What Can A Citizen Do? by Dave Eggers with pictures by Shawn Harris is about being a citizen. Since the characters in this book are children, citizen is meant in a much broader sense than just voting. "A citizen's not what you are-a citizen is what you do."
The Sonoma County Library has seven copies.

Elephant & Piggie Like Reading

Last spring, the final Elephant & Piggie book, The Thank You Book, was published. Now Mo Willems and a series of writers are bringing you the Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! series. Each book has a book within a book: Gerald and Piggie introduce each book, we read it with them and then they come back and comment on it. Like every book in the original series, there is plenty of humor and drama in each one.

The first book, We Are Growing by Laurie Keller is as Gerald (Elephant for the uninitiated) says about watching grass grow.  We meet eight blades of grass, one after another start to grow, each in their own way. One is the tallest, one is the curliest, one is the silliest and one is a dandelion. Two are pointy and one is crunchy but one, named Walt,  does not know what he is. What is that buzzing noise? It helps Walt find out. 

The Cookie Fiasco by Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat is the next book in the series. Again Gerald and Piggie introduce the book. The story involves  a crocodile, a hippo, two squirrels and three cookies. How can everyone have an equal share of cookies when there are four of them and and three cookies? After much mayhem, the answer involves a hippo who breaks things when he is nervous and division. Gerald feels hungry after reading the book and Piggie brings just the right number of cookies and glasses of milk for them to share.

The Sonoma County Library has eight copies of We Are Growing! and six copies of The Cookie Fiasco. Since both books were published today no AR level has been assigned yet. The original series had AR levels from .5 to 1.3, these books have bigger words but can be sounded out by kids with the phonics skills of mid to late first grade. The font is large and there are limited words on each page. Fans of the original series will love this one, too.

Are We There Yet?

When our kids were young, we loaded them in the car every summer and took road trips to the west or to the east or north to Canada. We once were on the road for six weeks, so when I saw Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat's new book, Are We There Yet?, I had to take a look because we heard that from the backseat countless times each summer.

The family is in the car headed to Grandma's birthday party. The drive seems endless. A voice from the back seat asks, "are we there yet?" It is so boring that time seems to be flowing backwards to the Wild West, to a pirate ship, to the days of jousting knights, to the Valley of the Kings and  all the way back to the dinosaurs. On the back of a very large dinosaur, they ride quickly into the future.  We have landed on October 24, 2059! Oh no, we have missed Grandma's birthday party! The young man in the backseat drifts off into sleep. When he hears "we're here!", he wakes and runs into Grandma's arms. The book ends in a pun that even kids will get.

The construction of the book is very clever, when we head into the past, to follow the text we have to turn the book upside down. Then we are turning the pages to the left (backward). When  we are racing to the future, the text causes us to turn the book right side up again. This will definitely be in my Schools of Hope bag for next year.

The AR is 1.8. The Sonoma County Library has ten copies.

2015 Caldecott Awards

This morning the 2015 Caldecott Medal was given to  The Adventures of Beekle, The Unimaginary Friend  written and illustrated by Dan Santat.

The Honors went to Nana in the City written and illustrated by Lauren Castillo

and The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art illustrated by Mary GrandPre and written by Barb Rosenstock:

and Sam and Dave Dig A Hole illustrated by Jon Klassen and written by Mac Barnett:

and Viva Frida written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales:

and The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus Illustrated by Mellisa Sweet and written by Jen Bryant:

and finally, This One Summer illustrated by Jillian Tamaki and written by Mariko Tamaki.

There are three biographies among the Honor books plus a graphic novel aimed at tens. Very interesting to say the least!

100 Best Children’s Books for 2011

A group of librarians at the New York Public Library have posted a list of the best children’s books for 2011. A hundred year tradition (since 1911) the books are divided into seven categories: picture books, fairy and folk tales, early chapter books, chapter books, poetry, graphic novels and non-fiction. Here is one sample in each category:

Picture Books

This is the story of Jane Goodall as a child and her favorite toy chimpanzee named Jubilee. Jane dreams of some day “living with and helping all animals” until one day her dream comes true. The book is written by Patrick McDonnell the  Creator of the Mutts comic strip. There are several  copies of this book in the Sonoma County Library. Yulupa’s library has one copy.

 Folk and Fairy Tales

Nine tales of ancient Egypt are told comic-strip style. The Sonoma County Library has three copies of this book.

Early Chapter Books

Spunky tells this story because his humans, the Bates, do not speak dog. Due to a miscommunication, his family gives him a friend he is not so sure he wants. Our family loves books about (and by) dogs. The Sonoma County Library has several copies of this book.

Chapter Books

This should be no surprise. See the post on The Houdini Box below. The Sonoma County Library has many copies. The Yulupa library has one copy.

Poetry

More than 130 never-before-seen poems and drawings to delight all ages. The Sonoma County Library has several copies.

Graphic Novels

Superhero, Captain Amazing, is looking for a sidekick. His pets duke it out for the the honor. The Sonoma County Library has several copies.

Nonfiction

This is a book about one of the greatest friendships and greatest rivalries in our history. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were strong allies before and during the Revolution. They became political rivals, each seeing the role of government differently, during their service under President Washington. They became political enemies during their respective terms as President. After retirement, these two men commenced a written dialogue that lasted over a decade. And in one of the most spectacular coincidences in American history, they died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826. There is one copy in the Sonoma County Library.