2018 Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal and Honors

The American Library Association gives the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the “most distinguished beginning reader book”. The 2018 Medal was awarded to Charlie & Mouse written by Laurel Snyder and illustrated by  Emily Hughes. 

Two brothers, four short stories and one funny read. This is book one of a series. The Sonoma County Library has six copies. The library also has four  copies of the second book in the series, Charlie & Mouse & Grumpy.

The Honors were awarded to:

I See a Cat  written and illustrated by Paul Meisel.

An "I Like to Read" book, I See a Cat is about a housebound dog who spies animals through the patio door until his boy comes home from school, they head outside to get up close and personal with the wildlife. Simple text using just ten words to tell story along with easily interpreted pictures. Great for kids just learning to read.  The Sonoma County Library has seven copies.

King & Kayla and The Case of the Missing Dog Treats written by Dori Hillstad Butler and illustrated by  Nancy Meyers.

Kayla is baking peanut butter treats for her friend Jillian's new dog. Three treats are missing, they are King's favorite treat but his breathe doesn't smell like peanut butter. Who ate the treats? As in all good dog books, the dog is the smartest one in the story. The Sonoma County Library has three copies. There are four books in this series. 

My Kite Is Stuck and Other Stories written and illustrated by Salina Yoon.

  The Sonoma County Library has eight copies. This book is the second in a series of three books (so far) about the humorous  adventures of Big Duck, Little Duck and Porcupine.

Noodleheads See the Future written by Tedd Arnold, Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss and illustrated by Tedd Arnold.

Somehow I have missed this new series by the author of the hugely popular Fly Guy books based on stories from many cultures about the fool. Seems the Sonoma County Library has missed this series, too.

Snail & Worm Again written and illustrated by Tina Kugler.

The second book of a series about the humorous adventures of Snail and Worm. The Sonoma County Library has three copies. 

Why, Fly Guy?

We have reviewed several Fly Guy Presents books on a single topic. Fly Guy Presents: Why, Fly Guy? is a BIG Question & Answer Book covering the human body, animals, plants and nature and plenty of other cool stuff. Each sub-topic has a two page spread that answers questions like, Why do my feet smell?  Why don't polar bears get cold? Why does thunder follow lightening? The answers are factual but not overwhelming. As an added bonus, some answers include a Science Project or Activity to help illustrate the answer. And, of course, there is plenty of witty commentary from Fly Guy. 

The Sonoma County Library has seven copies.

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.

Fly Guy Presents Castles

Buzz and Fly Guy go on a field trip to learn about castles in Fly Guy Presents Castles by Tedd Arnold. Buzz and Fly Guy learn about when, where and why castles were built. They see moats and drawbridges, parapets and gatehouses and watchtowers and keeps. Weapons used to lay siege to a castle include a ballista, a battering ram and a trebuchet. The latter flung heavy stones, beehives and animal poop over castle walls. I believe this is the first time "poop" and in Fly Guy's case "poopz' have made an appearance in any Fly Guy book. This will cause some giggles, I am sure. Another first is Fly Guy speaks an entire sentence completely devoid of 'z's.

A brief history of castles includes a timeline and a discussion of the Middle Ages. There are pictures of castles from France (the birthplace of castles), Spain, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Romania, Prague, Japan, Russia, India and even New York City. Lots of information about who lived in the castles, including the Lord and Lady, Knights, Jesters, Gardeners, Blacksmiths, Tailors, Kitchen Workers and pets. 

The topic was picked and voted upon by Fly Guy readers. This should appeal to kids who like fairy tales, princess books and adventure stories. This book was published on Jan 6th. Neither the Sonoma County Library nor Accelerated Reader have it listed. Most of the Fly Guy Presents books have an AR around 3.2-3.7. 

Up next is a Tedd Arnold bonus book, Vincent Paints His House. Full disclosure:  have loved Vincent Van Gogh almost my entire life. In High School, I did a self-portrait in his painting style, spent two weeks in August many years later visiting places he lived in France including the sanitarium in Saint-Remy, ate lunch at The Little Yellow House in Arles and spent a day at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam viewing his paintings in chronological order. When I found this book, I had to buy it.

The story is simple, Vincent wants to paint his house. He thinks white might be nice. The next page shows four tubes of white paint: Snow, Ivory, Titanium and Cream. A spider says, "Stop! This is MY house and I like red". The next page has four tubes of red paint, each a different shade of red. And so it goes as a caterpillar, beetle, bird, butterfly, snake, mouse and bat state their preferences. Vincent decides to use all the colors and the last page has the multi-colored house in front of the Starry Night sky. 

This is a very accessible book for a beginning reader because there is so much repetition, picture clues, an easy to read font and lots of white space. The AR is 1.1. The Sonoma County Library has four copies.

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.

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.

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.

Fly Guy Presents Sharks

The Fly Guy series is turning to non-fiction in Fly Guy Presents Sharks. If fictional characters like Buzz and Fly Guy narrate a factual book on sharks is it still non-fiction? I’ll leave that to someone else to determine.

Buzz and Fly Guy take a trip to the aquarium. Buzz was excited to see the sharks but Fly Guy was scared. We meet many kinds of sharks, find out how they breathe underwater and learn that sharks have no bone, just cartilage. We look at lots of shark teeth, rough skin made of denticles and learn about  shark senses underwater. Did you know that a shark can hear a fish’s muscles moving underwater? Or that two-thirds of a shark’s brain is used for smelling? Or that baby sharks are called pups?

 

The information in the book is presented as part live action and part scrapbook. Buzz is taking notes as he and Fly Guy walk around the exhibit. We get a microscopic look at various kinds of dentricles and a close up of a shark eye that can see in very murky water. The cartoon drawings of Buzz and Fly Guy are superimposed over photos of the sharks. The humor of the series characters is intact. This is a great book for kids who love Fly Guy and for kids who want to know more about sharks. And, by the way, Fly Guy is not scared of sharks at the end.

Scholastic has this book rated at a 3.o grade level (most of the other books in the series are in the 1.4 to 2.4 range).

According to Amazon, the publication date is May 1, 2013, so the  libraries have no copies yet, but it is available from Scholastic, either at the Book Fair or until March 19th at Scholastic/bvusd. 

Monday’s Trip to the Book Fair

Yulupa School is hosting a Scholastic book Fair this week. I had a bit of a list but bought a few other books that caught my eye. I’ll be reviewing the books one by one but I thought I’d let you see what I bought today.

AR level 4.3, 3 points.

AR level 2.9, 3 points

5.3 AR, 5 points

AR 3.2, 0.5 points

AR 1.5, 0.5 points

The following books currently have no AR grade level and test:

As usual, my purchases are heavy on dog books. I also couldn’t resist  a new Fly Guy book or the sequel to a book I just reviewed and one I first read in 1957.

There’s A Fly Guy In My Soup

This afternoon, I was finishing up a tutoring session in a first grade class when the teacher started a vocabulary lesson. One of the words was “ridiculous” and she said it meant something wasn’t true or shouldn’t be true. That is as good an explanation of the Fly Guy series as any. Not to say that is a bad thing. For many kids it is a wonderful thing. A new Fly Guy book was published this fall, There’s A Fly Guy In My Soup. Tedd Arnold knows what delights kids. He takes an old Marx Brothers’ joke and turns it into a family vacation tale.

Buzz is a young boy with a pet fly named Fly Guy. They became friends when Buzz heard Fly Guy call his name “Buzzzzz! In this book, Buzz, his parents and Fly Guy go to stay at a hotel. The family decides to go to the restaurant but Fly Guy cannot go with them, so he heads out to the garbage cans to find a meal, he smells something delicious and follows the aroma to the restaurant kitchen. He winds up in a bowl of soup and causes messy mayhem in the restaurant. At the end, everyone needs a bath.

You can read about another Fly Guy book here.

 

The Yulupa Library has six copies. The reading grade level is 1.6. The Sonoma County Library has many copies.

Buzz Boy and Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold

The holidays and major gift giving time is upon us. For the next few weeks we will be featuring book reviews by kids on the books they like. Our first review is by Zach a second-grader at Yulupa School. He reviewed Buzz Boy and Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold. No, I am not Tedd Arnold’s publicist; this second post about a Fly Guy book just shows you how much both boys and girls love these books. In this book, Buzz has written a comic book called The Amazing Adventures of Buzz Boy and Fly Guy. In it he and Fly Guy are SUPERHEROS! One day Buzz wakes up and he is the same size as Fly Guy. They soon find that a pirate ship has taken their house to a dragon cave! After many adventures Buzz boy and Fly Guy save the day. Zach said he loves this book because it is funny, there is a dragon (and pirates) in it and he likes that Buzz  writes a book to share with Fly Guy.

Zach’s picture shows Buzz reading his book to Fly Guy. Thanks, Zach for a great morning.

You can read what Tedd Arnold says about this book here.

Early Readers

The blog, Imagination Soup, has a list of newly published early readers. Melissa Taylor looks for engaging books with beautiful illustrations  and appropriate text.  I have included a couple of her recommended books because I know kids who love them both.










Fly Guy vs.. The Flyswatter is the tenth book in the Fly Guy series. Fly Guy is the extraordinary pet fly of a boy named Buzz.  In this book, Buzz’s class goes on a field trip to a factory that makes flyswatters. As always, chaos ensues and Fly Guy saves the day.
Ant in Her Pants  is about what happens when Miss Grant gets an ant in her pants. This book is part of a series of readers that focus on phonics for beginning readers.  At the end of the book is a Sight Word game and  Phonics Rhyming, Word Game Bingo and Make a Word games.
Check out the rest of the list at http://imaginationsoup.net/