The Bad Guys

Aaron Blabey, like his fellow Australian, Andy Griffiths, knows what kids like. He has picked characters that everyone knows are bad guys: Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Shark and Mr. Piranha, but has them form a gang to do good deeds and redeem their reputations. Of course, they aren't particularity talented at doing good deeds but the job gets done one way or an other. 

The original idea belongs to Mr. Wolf. He's a good guy at heart; maybe he has blown down a house or two and dressed up like an old lady but he is really a nice guy deep inside. We get a peek at his rap sheet. There appear to be a few more incidents than he reported. He introduces Mr. Snake whose rap sheet includes a rampage at Mr. Ho's Pet Store. We are next introduced to Mr. Piranha who has come all the way from Bolivia. His rap sheet includes one crime: eating tourists. The last to arrive is Mr. Shark, Mr. Wolf covers up his rap sheet. About all we can see is a notation "Will literally eat ANYTHING or ANYBODY".

Over cupcakes, Mr. Wolf introduces the idea of the Good Guys Club. The others are a tad skeptical. After some coaxing the guys decide to try a small project: rescuing a cat stuck in a tree. The cat gets down from the tree by being scared to death by Mr. Piranha. But they still feel pretty good about helping the cat so they plan a bigger caper. This time it is freeing 200 puppies kept prisoner in the maximum security dog pound. The scheme is elaborate, not everything goes according to plan but the puppies are freed, terrified of their rescuers. Success! To be continued...

The story and pictures each tell part of the story, every page has just a few sentences with dynamic black and white drawings and the fonts are bold and easy to read. The series is a good transition to longer chapter books. Two of my second grade students read out loud all 138 pages in less than thirty minutes laughing all the way. There are two more books in this series, with a third due out in August.                             

The Sonoma County Library has six copies. The AR is 2.4.

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:

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.

The Power of a Series

Life has been getting in the way of blogging this month but when I saw this article, The Power of a Series by Kathie Muhtaris, I had to reblog it. What caught my attention was the Nancy Drew cover attached to the article. I just passed on four old Nancy Drew books from my childhood to my four elementary school granddaughters. These books started a life long love of mysteries for me. They had been in my mother's attic for half a century and were given to me by my paternal grandmother. Kathie Muhtaris' article is about the power of series to turn kids into voracious readers. The Nancy Drew books weren't the first series I obsessively read, the  Betsy-Tacy and Cherry Ames books came first, but series books kept me reading and still do.

Series books are great for reluctant readers. If the first book is a "just right" book then it is fair to assume that others in the series will be too.

From Erica at The What Do We Do All Day website are 18 Mystery Books and Series for Kids, First Chapter Books: Series About Boys and Series About Girls to get you started. Enjoy!

Fly Guy Presents Weather

Buzz and Fly Guy take us on a tour of a weather station to learn about the weather in Tedd Arnold's latest book in his non-fiction series, Fly Guy Presents: Weather. Buzz and Fly Guy learn a couple of things I didn't know (or remember, same thing). Cirrus (SIR-uhs) clouds (the thin wispy ones) are made up of ice and lightening is hotter than the surface of the sun. We learn about the water cycle, hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes. Meteorologists (mee-tee-uh-RAH-luh-jists) study and forecast the weather. Climate (KLY-muht) is what the weather is usually like in an area: temperate, tropical, desert or polar. Some places can have more than one of these climates, Antarctica is both a polar and a desert climate. Buzz and Fly Guy have some tips at the end to help keep the earth healthy: use less energy and water, recycle and plant trees.

Tedd Arnold is writing for beginning readers so he puts the phonic pronunciation in parenthesis next to harder to pronounce words so his readers will learn weather vocabulary.  As in the other Fly Guy Presents books, pictures are used to illustrate weather phenomenon like tornadoes, clouds, hail and flooded streets.

The Sonoma County Library has eight copies. The book was published this week and hasn't been given an AR level yet. The previous books in the series have ranged from 2.8 to 3.9.

Horrid Henry

Speaking of funny books for early readers, because I have have a small relative named Henry, Amazon highlights kid's books for me with that name in the title. That is how I ran across Horrid Henry. The book has been out for over twenty years in the United Kingdom, it just made its way to the US a few years ago. The author, Francesca Simon, is an American expat who lives in London. The book (and its many sequels are ) are laugh out loud funny. Our hero (or anti-hero), Henry, has "an amazing talent for trouble".

There are four short stories in the book, the first one illustrates why Henry is so horrid. Henry has a little brother known as Perfect Peter. Peter says "please" and "thank you", helps make dinner, and loves vegetables. One day, Henry wonders what would happen if he were perfect. His experiment in perfection drives his perfect brother into horrid behavior. Perfectly horrid!

In the third story, Henry and his frenemy, Moody Margaret, fight over who gets to be Captain Hook, make Perfect Peter walk the plank 14 times, create a huge mess making glop and dare each other to taste it before giving some to the unsuspecting Peter.

There are dozens of books in this series. The illustrator, Tony Ross's drawings remind me a bit of Quentin Blake's drawing for the Roald Dahl books. The Sonoma County Library has three copies and many of the sequels. The AR is 3.3.

Books for Kids Reading Above Grade Level

This is not a topic we talk about often on this blog but it is something I spend a great deal of time on with the kids in my life. The situation described by the author, Joan Kindig, about a teacher reading aloud to her third grade class applies to many kids in elementary school. They have already read and enjoyed the read aloud book and can become bored. The solution to the read aloud challenge in the classroom is headphones and audio-books. Let's stop here for a minute. Did you know that audio-books count as reading? I have been on many car trips where we listened to the great Jim Dale use his 101 different voices to read the seven Harry Potter books. The article, Books For Kids Reading Above Grade Level from the School Library Journal has a list of audio-books that are age appropriate but have more meat. They also are great for read alouds at home and for kids to read by themselves. These are my favorites:

The Sonoma County Library has six copies of Stella By Starlight, the AR is 4.8. The library has ninety copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the AR is 5.5; there are twenty-three copies of Echo and the AR is 4.9; there are eleven copies of The War That Saved My Life, the AR is 4.1 and twenty-seven copies of Dead End In Norvelt, the AR is 5.7.

Happy 100th Birthday, Beverly Cleary!

Six decades ago, I picked a book from my school library called Beezus and Ramona. At the time my favorite books were fairy tales, The Betsy, Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace and the Cherry Ames series by Helen Wells. None of these books were about contemporary families like mine. The Betsy, Tacy books took place in the early 1900's, more my grandmother's childhood than mine (I loved those books and so did my daughters). The Cherry Ames books were a series about a young girl starting  nursing school and following  her into various nursing positions. Cherry Ames, Army Nurse was my first real exposure to World War II. All of that was a far cry from Beezus and Ramona. Almost a quarter century later, when my daughters were reading the book, it was just as real. By then, Beverly Cleary had written several more books about Ramona and her family: Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona and her Father and Ramona Forever. In 1999, she wrote her final book about Ramona, Ramona's World.

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 Did you know Beverly Cleary was a struggling reader who grew up first to be a librarian and then a writer? You can find out more about her at CNN and NPR. She also has a website, http://www.beverlycleary.com/ where you can find all the 41 books she has written, learn about the characters and even play games. In Ramona Quimby, Age 8, she wrote about Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.) a month long celebration of reading. D.E.A.R. programs have been held nationwide on April 12, Beverly Cleary's birthday.

Beverly Cleary won the Newbery Medal in 1984 for Dear Mr. Henshaw and Honors in 1978 for Ramona and Her Father and in 1982 for Ramona Quimby, Age 8.

The Sonoma County Library has every book written by Beverly Cleary and many as audio-books as well.

Reading and Bookish Links

Every day I come across interesting blog posts and articles about kids and reading from Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr. Each week I will try to round up the most helpful and post them here.

Do you have a child who is ready for chapter books or a reluctant reader? Melissa Taylor from the Imagination Soup blog has compiled an long list of humorous books,Funny Books for Kids. Bonus: many of these books are one of a series.

This morning on Facebook there was a picture of my 3 month old great-niece being read to by her father. Joy! Reading to your child from birth onward is the most important thing you can do to prepare her for success in school. From the Scholastic Parents Blog is 5 Tips Every Parent Needs to Rock the Read-Aloud.

A few years ago, I gave a Yulupa teacher a copy of The One and Only Ivan to read to her class. The class had just raised money and purchased a painting by an elephant in a preserve in Thailand. What I did not count on was that she did not read the book first. When she got to the part about (spoiler alert) Ruby dying, she started crying. Her students were very concerned and tried to comfort her and the next day she received flowers and cards from them. The story and the teacher's reaction brought out empathy in her students. On the Brightly website, Heather Shumaker writes  about Why We Should Share Sad and Scary Stories With Kids. When stories reflect the broad spectrum of life kids can feel empathy, wonder and relief in a safe place.

Jessica Woodbury writes for Book Riot, To Ramona Quimby, With Love about reading all the Ramona books to her children and how different it was from when she read them as a child.  I read the first book in second or third grade and two and a half decades later I read the Ramona books to my kids. My reactions as an adult paralleled Jessica's. I was amazed at how real to life the books were. Beezus and Ramona was the first book in the series, published in 1955. Real life books were not the standard in the 1950's. They are every bit as real today. On April 12th, Beverly Cleary will be 100 years old (more about that later).

100 Great Children's Books

New York Public Library's children's librarians have compiled a list of 100 great children's books.  Many of these books are decades old but are still widely read because they tell great stories. The very first book on the list was my oldest daughter's favorite book in the second grade, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good ,Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. My youngest daughter's favorite book (and mine, too) was Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis was one of my son's favorites.

My favorite book  reviewed for this blog is Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. Others on the list reviewed here are The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Holes by Louis Sachar, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L Konigsburg and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. Authors included on the list include David Wiesner, Beverly Cleary, Eric Carle, Gary Paulsen, Jon Scieszka, Kevin Henkes, Maurice Sendak, Mo Willems, Dr Seuss, and Roald Dahl.

There are books for every level of reader on this list. Some of the books like Amelia Bedelia, Curious George, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone are the first books in a series. If you like the first one you'll probably like the rest, great for reluctant readers.

Happiness is

Reading is Fundamental

Early Readers and Chapter Books From an Animal's Point of View

One of the websites I follow is Book Riot. It is a great resource for books, not only for adults but for children and young adults. This morning they posted a list of books for early and middle grade readers from an animal's point of view. Most of the ones on the early reader list are new to me except for The Story of Diva and Flea. On the middle grade list is one of this blog's favorites: The One And Only Ivan. Note that several of these books are the first of a series. Series are great for reluctant readers. If they like the first book, they will often want to read the entire series.

Early Readers

The Sonoma County Library has ten copies. This is the first of a series. There is no AR for any book in this series.

The Sonoma County Library has twenty-nine copies. The AR is 4.6.

The Sonoma County Library has seven copies. This is the first in a series and the AR is 2.6.

The Sonoma County Library has seven copies. This is part of The Park Pals adventure series. The AR is 4.7.

The Sonoma County Library has nineteen copies. This book is the first in a series. The AR is 4.2.

Middle Grade

This book will be published on February 9, 2016.

The Sonoma County Library has four copies. The AR is 4.9.

The Sonoma County Library has one copy. The AR is 4.9.

The Sonoma County Library has thirty-one copies. The AR is 3.6.

The Sonoma County Library has three copies. The AR is 5.1.

The Sonoma County Library has eleven copies. The AR is 3.7.

The Sonoma County Library has eight copies. This the first book of a series. The AR is 4.5.

You may have noticed that some of the early readers have as high or higher reading levels (according to the Accelerated Reader rankings) than the middle grade books. In this article the categories are according to interest. One of my first grade granddaughters has read The Story of Diva and Flea; the only word trouble she had was with the very few French words in the story. 

I Really Like Slop!

Mo Willems' latest Elephant and Piggie book, I Really Like Slop, cracks me up. I have known my fair share of Geralds! Piggie has made her favorite dish: slop. Slop is part of pig culture and Piggie really, really, really likes it. Gerald questions her about the smell and the flies (flies are how you know that the slop is ripe) before Piggie asks him if he wants to try some. Gerald's first reaction is NO WAY! He sees that he has hurt Piggie's feelings so he agrees to try a small taste. Gerald takes a pea sized morsel. It takes him four pages to get it to the tip of his tongue, then we have six pages of Gerald's reaction to the taste while Piggie explains the flavors. Does he  really like slop? Not, but he's glad he tried it because he really likes Piggie.

Mo Willems uses lots of color and pattern to show Gerald's reaction to the slop. It is his most colorful Elephant and Piggie book yet. 

The Sonoma County Library has twenty-eight copies. After being on the market only three weeks, I Really Like Slop, is number one on the New York Times Children's Best Seller List. 

Fly Guy and the Frankenfly

Buzz and his pal, Fly Guy, are back with a new adventure called Fly Guy and the Frankenfly. Tedd Arnold’s Frankenstein inspired book comes just in time for Halloween. On a dark and stormy night, Buzz  and Fly Guy are pretending to be Frankenstein’s  monsters. Before Buzz goes to bed, he draws a picture of Fly Guy and himself with the caption, “Fly Guy is my best friend”. As he goes to bed, he sees Fly Guy making something.

Soon, Buzz is having a nightmare. Fly Guy has made a huge Frankenfly who is coming after Buzz. Fly Guy saves his friend. In the morning, Buzz wants to know what Fly Guy was making. He finds a picture of himself captioned “Buzz iz bezt frienz”. Great minds think alike!

The Sonoma County Library has many copies of Fly Guy and the Frankenfly  The AR level is 1.6. The book is also available from Scholastic.

Pete the Cat I Can Read Books

Pete the Cat books have been favorites of both  my students and my grandchildren. James Dean has  pared down the vocabulary for early readers with three new I Can Read books: Pete the Cat: Pete at the Beach, Pete the Cat: Play Ball! and Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch. As in the earlier books, things do not always go Pete’s way but he is resilient. Pete is an optomist, for him the glass is always half. If he fails or fate is cruel, as the song goes, “he picks himself up, dusts himself off  and starts all over again”.

The AR level is 1.2 to 1.3 which makes them perfect for beginning readers. The Sonoma County Library has several copies each of  Pete at the Beach, Play Ball and Pete's Big Lunch.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Peter Hatcher has a problem, his little brother Fudge. He gets in the way, messes up everything and screams and kicks and bangs his fists when he doesn’t get his way. Fudge is two and a half. To make things worse, grown-ups (most of them anyway) think he’s adorable.  As Peter’s mother tries to tell him, two and a half is like that. 

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume is a hilarious romp. Perhaps it is funnier now, when I have some distance from my children’s childhood than it was the first time I read it in the late seventies. There weren’t honest books like this when I was growing up. As the oldest of six, I would have appreciated Peter’s point of view as I had more than one cute but annoying sibling. Judy Blume was a leader in writing children’s books that told the truth about children’s real feelings about the business of growing up. It seems unremarkable now, but forty years ago, it was revolutionary. Kids still love the Fudge series for that reason.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is the first in a series that includes Otherwise Known as Shelia the Great, Superfudge, Fudge-a-Mania and Double Fudge. All the books are narrated by Peter, except the second one but all of them are laugh out loud funny.

The Sonoma County Library has many copies and the Yulupa Library has several copies. The AR level is 3.3 with 3 AR points.

Fly Guy Presents: Space

Tedd Arnold is back with a new non-fiction book about space starring two of his fictional characters, Buzz and Fly Guy. Buzz and Fly Guy go on a field trip to the Space Museum in Fly Guy Presents: Space. Like his previous non-fiction book, Fly Guy Presents: Sharks, this book is part live “action” and part scrapbook. All the photos come from NASA and satellite images. They learn  about the solar system, the sun, planets and the moons orbiting the planets. They also learn  about meteoroids, comets and asteroids. They learn about the sun’s gravity, that it acts like a giant magnet keeping the planets in orbit around it. We meet famous astronauts and learn about some of their accomplishments and about some of the equipment needed to get to space and even to live in space. This is a great introduction to space for kids who only know about it from Star Wars movies.

Tedd Arnold includes pronunciation guides to big, perhaps unfamiliar words like universe (yoo-nih-vurs). The Scholastic reader level is  2nd grade and appeals to K-2nd graders. The Sonoma County Library has several copies of the book. It is also available through Scholastic and other booksellers.

Lulu and the Dog from the Sea

Seven-year old Lulu loves animals and she has lots of pets. Her mother says, “The more the merrier! As long as Lulu cleans up after them!” She has two guinea pigs, four rabbits, one parrot, one hamster, lots of goldfish and an old dog named Sam. Lulu’s best friend and cousin, Mellie, is going on vacation to the beach with Lulu and her family. At the beach house, the family is warned about a dog from the sea who is stealing food wherever he can find it. Right away Lulu wants to know more about the “dog from the sea” and sets out to find out. Lulu and then Mellie and eventually, even Lulu’s parents gain the dog’s trust. In the end, the dog from the sea comes to the rescue of Lulu and Mellie.

 

Lulu and the Dog from the Sea by Hilary McKay is the second in a series of books about Lulu and her love for animals. I found out about the first book, Lulu and the Duck in the Park, from Anita Silvey’s Children's Book-A-Day Almanac. She had high praise for the first book but when I found a book about a dog, I had to go with that one. A third book, Lulu and the Cat in the Bag is going to be published on September 1, 2013. All the books are illustrated by Pricilla Lamont.

The Accelerated Reader rating is 4.7, but the book is short (108 pages) and the story is straight forward. These books would be great for kids who are reading above grade level at a young age or as read-a-loud books. There are plenty of issues to discuss about animal welfare.

There are many copies of this book in the Sonoma County Library.  The book is also available from Scholastic.

Kelsey Green, Reading Queen

How could I pass up a book called Kelsey Green, Reading Queen? Besides, I know a young lady who  definitely is a reading queen. The story by Claudia Mills is about a one month reading contest at Franklin School. The classroom that reads the most books in April wins a pizza party and the student in each class who reads the most books gets their name on a plaque in the library and a certificate (that may not be a lot of motivation for your average 3rd grader). As an added incentive, the principal will shave his beard if the the number of books read passes 2000. Kelsey is an avid reader and she is going to place first in her class. Her only possible competition is Simon Ellis. At first, Kelsey focuses on beating Simon, who halfway through the month is a few books ahead of her. Kelsey’s class is also coming in second to a fifth grade class. To change that Kelsey helps a student who is a poor reader read lots of books  and in the process help him become a better reader.

What I loved about the book was all the books talked about in the story, like Harriet The Spy,  Sarah, Plain and Tall and The Secret Garden (one of my all time favorites). Kelsey and Simon become allies when they discover that both of them love The Secret Garden. Maybe the reader will want to check out some of the many books mentioned within the story.

The illustrations by Rob Shepperson add to the story, especially the before and after of the  principal's beard.

Since the book was just published today (June 4, 2013), there is no AR level yet. This is the first in a new series by author, Claudia Mills.

Summer Reading Recommendations 2013

The Horn Book, a publication about books for children and young adults, has published a long list of recommended summer reading from picture books to books for young adults. All were published in 2012 or 2013. For first and second grade readers, the Early Readers and Young Fiction category may be especially helpful. There is a list of books and description for each one  here.

Some of the featured books have been reviewed here: The One And Only Ivan, This Is Not My Hat and That Is NOT a Good Idea! Even more are in my to-review or to read pile: The Dark, Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Three Times Lucky, The Great Unexpected and H.O.R.S.E: A Game of  Basketball and Imagination. I have also been meaning to read at least one of the Bink & Gollie books because they are co-written by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee. Bink & Gollie: Best Friends Forever is on the early reader list.