New Early Reader Books

The Bad Guys Do-You-Think-He-Saurus?! by Aaron Blabey goes back in time to the Jurassic era because, of course, dinosaurs, the perfect foils for this group.

The Sonoma County Library has one copy. This book will also be available at Strawberry's Scholastic Book Fair November 8-16, 2018.

Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin is a 192 page very beginning reader book. Baby Monkey solves three cases once he manages to put on his pants. The ending makes it a perfect bedtime read. Like Brian Selznick's previous work, much of the story is told in beautiful black and white drawings.
The Sonoma County Library has nine copies. This book will also be available at Strawberry's Scholastic Book Fair November 8-16, 2018.

Big Foot and Little Foot by Ellen Potter and illustrated by Felicita Sala is about how an unlikely friendship between a human boy, Boone, and a Sasquatch, Hugo. This is the first book in a series. The first chapter of The Monster Detector is included at the end of the book.
The Sonoma County Library has seven  copies.

Beatrice Zinker Upside Down Thinker: Incognito written and illustrated by Shelley Johannes is the second in a new series about Beatrice and her best friend, Lenny. It is the second week of third grade. The two friends have a great idea, Operation Upside. It is a plan to anonymously acknowledge people who are doing good things or are good at something. Beatrice gets a little ahead of herself and gives an upside to her teacher who is really good at being strict. Her teacher does not take it the way it was intended. How will they save Operation Upside?
The Sonoma County Library has two copies.

Scholastic Book Fair Comes to Yulupa

This week is Yulupa's annual Scholastic Book Fair held in the Library/Media Center from 8-9 AM and 1-4 PM on Monday, March 5 thru Friday, March 9. 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.  The Yulupa Book Fair home page is here. You can find the link to this year's book flyer on the bottom of the page. 

These are just a few of the books available at the book fair:

Every Elephant & Piggie book is perfect for beginning readers but this is my favorite. Two of my students read this book to me with expression this past week and loved it too. Mo Willlems structures these books with lots of white space, just a few words on a page, picture clues and plenty of humor. Piggie's speech balloons are pink, Gerald's (Elephant) are grey. The font is small for a whisper and large for exclamations, making it easy for new readers to read with expression.

 I reviewed Let's Go for a Drive! in 2013.

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea is the first book in the Narwhal and Jelly series by Ben Clanton. Told in three short stories, this graphic novel introduces us to the adventures of Narwhal and Jelly; friends who despite their differences have much in common.

The Bad Guys in Attack of the Zittens by Australian author and illustrator, Aaron Blabey. The Bad Guys are four classic villains: Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha and Mr. Shark who want to do good deeds, mostly. There is a bit of a problem of trying not to eat each other though. This time they save the world from zombie kittens with the help of a granny alligator. 

This is book #4 of The Bad Guys graphic novel series. Check out my review of the first The Bad Guys book. I have used this series with a few second graders who love the humor and mayhem.

The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Adam Rex is another kid favorite. You can read my review here. 

Upside Down Magic: Dragon Overnight by the team of Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins is the fourth book in the series about Nory and Andres and their wonky magic in an upside-down magic class. One of my granddaughter's loves this series because she loves magic and cats.

Sarah Mlynowski is also the author of the Whatever After series that updates classic fairy tales. My review of the first book is here.

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.