Two New Beginning Chapter Books

I may not have spent the summer writing much but I did read a couple dozen children's books, two of which, I will review today. The first is the 17th book in the Fly Guy series Fly Guy's Big Family written and illustrated by Tedd Arnold. 

Buzz finds Fly Guy drawing pictures of his family because he misses them. He decides to throw a surprise party for his friend. He makes up little signs inviting Fly Guy's family to the party. He puts them in all the places you'd expect to find flies: garbage cans, rotting fish and spoiled food. The first guest to arrive is Cuzz. Once Buzz assures him there are no Swatterzz in the house, he calls out "Okayzz!" and thousands of flies fly into the house yelling "Surprizze!!!" After Fly Guy hugs his many cousins, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and finally his mother and father, it is time for dinner. Buzz has thought of everything: a garbage truck pulls up and dumps a load on the front lawn and the flies party in the garbage. 

Kids love this early chapter book series. It is funny, easy to read with a large font and only a sentence or two per page. The Sonoma County Library has sixteen copies.

Hilde Lysiak is a ten year old journalist who publishes The Orange Street News in Selinsgrove, PA. Now she is also the author of a new Branches series for Scholastic, Hilde Cracks the Case: Hero Dog! Hero Dog! is the first book in the series, Bear on the Loose comes out on Halloween and Fire! Fire! comes out the day after Christmas.

Hero Dog takes place on Orange Street. It is the day of the yearly bake off sponsored by the Kind Kat Cafe. Three of the past winners have their baked goods or ingredients stolen the morning of the bake off. Hilde is on the trail of the culprit. A good journalist tries to answer six questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? After each interview, Hilde writes the clues under those questions. Her sister, Izzy, is a photographer and together they sift through the clues and confront the perpetrator with the help of the hero dog, Zeus.

I am a big fan of Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries, Hilde reminds me a bit of Kinsey Milhone, the private eye protagonist of the series. You get to see the step by step of solving the mysteries in each book much like a real PI would work. You get to see Hilde's method in this book, too.

Hilde's co-author is her father, former journalist Matthew Lysiak. The black and white illustrations are by JoAnne Lew-Vriethoff. There are pictures through out, a map of the Orange street neighborhood, the type is large and easy to read. There are one or two paragraphs on each page with 15 chapters versus three for the Fly Guy books. The Sonoma County Library has one copy. The book will also be available at Strawberry's Scholastic Book Fair this fall and at Yulupa's in the spring.

Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

Today seems like a fine day to write about a book that has been compared by many reviewers to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Luigi Lemoncello is a world famous board and video game maker who got his start in a now defunct library in Alexandriaville, Ohio. As a gift to his home town and to honor the memory of the librarian who befriended a twelve year old boy, he has built a state of the art library (if Disney Imagineers or George Lucas built libraries). Kyle Keeley is a twelve year old boy who comes from a family of experienced game players but does not necessarily miss the fact that his town had no library. Of course, the Keeley’s favorite games were Mr. Lemoncello’s games.

Mr. Lemoncello invites every 12 year old in town to write an essay about why they want to attend the invitation-only all night party at the new library for a night of food and games.  In the morning, the attendees are offered a  new challenge: find a secret escape from the library by solving puzzles and riddles and using clues found in the library. This time it is a competition. Can one person find the route or does teamwork pay off?  Like in the Willy Wonka story, character counts but smarts do, too. You’ll learn plenty about the Dewey Decimal System.  And there are also many of references to classic and current children’s literature. Maybe that will spark an idea for the next book to read.

The Sonoma County Library has several copies. The AR level is 4.5 with 7 points.

The Red Blazer Girls

Last month, I  linked to a post on theroommom blog  That Book Sounds Familiar. She paired up Nancy Drew novels with a new series called The Red Blazer Girls by Michael D. Beil. I promised a review when I finished the first book in the series, The Ring of Rocamadour.

 

The Red Blazer Girls are four seventh grade students at St. Veronica’s School in Manhattan. Sophie, the narrator and her three friends, Margaret, Rebecca and Leigh Ann are smart girls who like a challenge. The challenge appears in the form of a scavenger hunt found in a twenty year old letter by a woman who found a birthday letter from her father to her then 14 year old daughter. Her father died before he could deliver the letter. The grandfather, an archeologist,  created an elaborate puzzle for his granddaughter to follow to find her birthday present.

The first clue is in the school library tucked into  book, but first they have to figure out which book. The title and author’s name were in an anagram in the grandfather’s letter. To help them, they recruited their English teacher, Mr. Elliot. When they find the first clue they also find a note that will lead them to the second clue. Once they solve the anagram, they discover the book is The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It is no longer in the library but in storage. With Mr. Elliot’s help, they find the book and the second letter. The puzzle has two equations, each numeral in the equation corresponds to a clue. The solution to the two equations is the location of the present. Most of the clues are in or on St Veronica’s Church which is located next to the school. He tells his granddaughter she will need her knowledge of religion, classical languages, mathematics, literature, philosophy and art to solve the puzzle.

The Red Blazer Girls do need to use all of this knowledge to solve the puzzle. Along the way they initially mistake  a friend as a foe and find that an adult who they thought was their ally, was not. In the end, a family that was fractured is reunited with their help.

As a young girl, I was a huge fan of Nancy Drew, she was smart, she had a roadster and she held out the promise of an interesting life. This series is every bit as interesting and you get a chance to solve some of the clues on your own.

This is the first of four novels, so far. The Sonoma County Library has several copies of the book, an audio recording on CD and  an e-book.

The AR reading level is 4.4.

 

 

 

 

The Sonoma County Library has many copies.

Lemony Snicket on the Radio

Yesterday, Terry Gross interviewed Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler on her NPR program Fresh Air. The author of the 13 volume series, A Series of Unfortunate Events was on Terry’s program to talk about his new series starring a younger Lemony Snicket called Who Could That Be at This Hour?  using a detective noir style inspired by Raymond Chandler. The first book in the series is All The Wrong Questions. He has also written, in conjunction with illustrator Jon Klassen (I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat) a book for younger children, called The Dark. You also get to hear him play the accordion. Check it out!

The Templeton Twins Have An Idea

Yesterday, I was wandering around Copperfield’s and came across a table that featured children’s books the staff thought were the best of the year. For some reason, The Templeton Twins Have An Idea by Ellis Weiner and illustrated  by Jeremy Holmes stood out. Maybe because the inside flap says that the book is “perfect for boys and girls who are smart, clever and funny (just like the [Templeton] twins), and who enjoy reading adventurous stories (who doesn’t?!).”

Abigail is the theoretical twin who loves cryptic crossword puzzles (pay attention, these are important facts) and John is the practical twin who loves to play the drums. Their father is a famous inventor and scientist and they have a ridiculous dog named Cassie. The twins and Cassie are kidnapped by twins Dean D. Dean and Dan D. Dean because Dean D. Dean wants something from Professor Templeton. The story is told by an opinionated narrator who keeps asking for affirmations. He (perhaps, she, it is not clear) asks questions at the end of each chapter. Some are practical, some theoretical and some are ridiculous. Oh, and the narrator loves alliteration and there is a recipe for meatloaf.

Abigail and John use their smarts and their talents to escape from their kidnappers, save their father and at the end are getting ready for their next adventure. As you can plainly see, the Templeton Twins are planning on a series.

This would be a fun book to read out loud. It is a perfect book to try out Mo Willem’s Secrets for Raising a Reader, especially secret number 1.

The Sonoma County Library has two copies.

Guerilla Tactics to Get Your Child to Love Reading

My niece recently posted on Facebook that something had clicked with her third grader and suddenly he is excited about reading . One of the series that interests him is the Encyclopedia Brown books. Those were my son’s favorite books in third grade, too.

This got me thinking about an Imagination Soup post from last year. Melissa Taylor’s goal was for her children to  LOVE to read and the book itself was the reward. This is a goal I agree with completely and the some of the strategies she outlines worked for me with my children and grandchildren. She also explains the Five Finger Rule for finding “just right” books for beginning readers. You can find her post at Imagination Soup.