Jabba the Puppett and Best Books!

Children's Book Review offers several lists of favorites here.  Keep The Children's Book Review on your favorites list.  Hmmm, I wonder.  Can I Pin their site?  I can, but only one book at a time. 

The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett by Tom Angleberger is on sale TODAY!!!  Oh, why did I give away my entire Tom Angleberger collection to that school librarian?  WHY? 

I must read this book!

 So much to do.  See you soon.

The French Connection

Just an astonishing coincidence, I'm sure, but today two of the blogs I follow - Betsy Bird and Lerner - have targeted French books.  Betsy's blog is all about children's books.  Lerner's entry talks about the high concentration of books and book reviews in the hands of the Parisian populace.  Since Herve Tullet's smash hit, Press Here, I am very interested in French books - especially for children.

It helps that my daughter-in-law promises (or threatens), on a regular basis, to return to Lyons, taking my son and granddaughter with her.

I have to thank Betsy for adding the link to Pop-Op, a French blog that concentrates on children's books and picture book art.  Tres adorable! (Someday, I'll learn to add diacritical marks, I hope.)

It's What I DO

I found this quote on Shelf Awareness - love that newsletter - and they found it on the blog Brain Pickings, as you will see. (And Brain Pickings got it from a book of Ursula Nordstrom's letters that I now MUST read.)  This is a great answer to all those people who wonder - out loud - why I "still" read children's books.  As my hero might have said, it's what I do.

"I was taken out to luncheon and offered, with great ceremony, the opportunity to be an editor in the adult department. The implication, of course, was that since I had learned to publish books for children with considerable success perhaps I was now ready to move along (or up) to the adult field. I almost pushed the luncheon table into the lap of the pompous gentleman opposite me and then explained kindly that publishing children's books was what I did, that I couldn't possibly be interested in books for dead dull finished adults, and thank you very much but I had to get back to my desk to publish some more good books for bad children."

--Ursula Nordstrom, who was head of Harper's department of books for boys and girls from 1940 to 1973 (from the book Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, which was showcased by the Brain Pickings blog).

Money, money, money, money

Money is on my mind.  It appears to be on the minds of a lot of authors, too.  Take the book I'm reading right now, The Adventures of Beanboy by Lisa Harkrader (9780547550787, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, publication date Feb. 9, 2012).   Tucker wants to earn a college scholarship for his Mom so she won't have to work full time and go to school full time.  In the meantime, he and his very cute special needs brother, Beecher, try to save money anyway they can.

Gary Paulsen's Flat Broke is all about money, how to earn it, how NOT to earn it. (Hint: running poker games?  Not a good idea.)  What to do with it when you get it, being responsible with it and living without it.  The book is funny and functional all at the same time!

In a lot of the books I read this Fall, the undercurrent of economic strain added to the tension between characters.  When parents have to work all the time to pay the bills, they have to leave their children unsupervised.  This opens the door to all kinds of misbehavior and misunderstandings.  And since overworked parents are more and more common in the lives of American children, the plots are so believable.

Even in a fantasy like Small Persons With Wings, the difficulty of making ends meet works for the plot.  When the very odd lawyer shows up and tells the heroine's father that his own father left him the family Inn, they move.  Why?  Because they won't have to pay rent if they live in the Inn and the heroine's father is having trouble with his business.  (I wish I had the book in hand.  I think the father is a stone mason.) BTW, the small persons have their own kinds of "economic" crises.  Money is not the only currency out there.

In Marissa Meyer's Cinder, Cinder's family depends on her to provide money for clothes and food and lodging.  Even still, she is treated badly and not just because she is "stepchild".  The way Cinder uses the money she earns gives her step-mother a reason to throw Cinder out of the family home.

Money problems fuel family break-ups, moves, weird child care arrangements, unusual food choices, vacation disasters, holiday disappointments, wardrobe insufficiencies, even changing schools.  Money, or the lack of it, formed loveless marriages, caused wars, created the environment for disease, and pestilence.   Some of these are crises that kids face every day. Others are trials we hope our kids will only read about.

Money problems allow kids to vicariously make choices, such as saving rather than spending, making gifts rather than buying them, making their own fun rather than playing/buying expensive games, using their imaginations rather than their parents' wallets, being responsible for their free time or learning to live with a "baby-sitter", whining or dealing. In more dramatic books - dystopian fiction, historical novels - readers get to choose between food OR shelter; safety OR warmth, fighting or fleeing.  All because of money.

Money is on my mind. I can't seem to get away from it.  Sigh.

KBWT - continued

It was a tough choice, really.  I could share with you a visually appealing website that lets you download ancient children's books as part of an attempt to digitally archive as much human literary effort as possible.  Maybe someday ...

Or I could showcase The Children's Book Council, even though it has a Twitter feed in which a certain famous YA author is reporting on viewing "Topper"!  Is this what people do on Twitter?  Unfortunately, now I really want to watch Topper, but I digress... (Hopefully, by the time you read this, the Twitter feed will feature authors doing more literary stuff.)

The Children's Book Council won out BECAUSE, right there on the home page, the CBC lists predicted Big Sellers in the children and teen market.  Books of the Future have won out over Books of the Past - at least for this week.  And they have a cool list of books on the theme of technology including non-fiction and sci-fi, too.

The CBC is a non-profit organization for trade publishers, addressing concerns and advances in the publication of books for children and teens.  Children's Book Week is the CBC's biggest event. 

Kids' Internet Tuesday

Yesterday (approximately 53 minutes ago) was Kids' Books Website Tuesday - the day I share a blog or website (or two) devoted to children's books.  Enjoy.

 A Fuse #8 Production is written by book blogger and librarian, Elizabeth Bird.  The blog is hosted/sponsored/part of School Library Journal's amazing Internet resources for people who like schools, and libraries, the materials found in those institutions and the people who frequent both.  Book reviews - lots of book reviews - commentary on what's happening in the publishing world for children and teens - interesting stuff about authors and illustrators - it's all on this blog.  I check with Betsy's blog to keep on top of what's new and different in writing for young people.

For those of us who sometimes need picture books on a theme, check out 5 Great Books, a blog written by author and literacy consultant, Anastasia Suen.  Suen lists five recommended books on different topics.  Her choices are designed to appeal to beginning readers.

Suen writes for this age group, too, and she features one of her books every week on another blog, Anastasia Suen's Book of the Week.  If you read the sidebars of these blogs, you will find links to Suen's other online presences including a daily blog on Picture Books and another one on Chapter Books and an e-newsletter.  Fun, helpful and informative!  Thanks, Anastasia.

In praise of black and white

In  The Martian Chronicles (I think), Ray Bradbury wrote a story of human space explorers on a planet where it rained endlessly.  I think they turned into mushrooms.  Well, I am turning into a mushroom.

Because of the mushroom nature of my inner being, I don't want to write a single book review tonight.  Instead, I will tell you a little bit about my visit with the Northeast Allentown Kiwanis yesterday.  Some of the Northeast members read to preschoolers at various Lehigh Valley Childcare sites.

Imagine my delight in meeting Beth Krommes' dad, Fred!  Beth won the 2009 Caldecott award for her illustrations for Susan Marie Swanson's The House in the Night.  Her name came up as I encouraged the volunteers to use black and white books as well as colorful books when reading to children.  I don't own Beth's book, so I used another Caldecott winner, Kevin Henkes' Kitten's First Full Moon, as an illustration.

I brought out my worn out copy of Andrew Henry's Meadow by Doris Burn and told the story of a first grade teacher who had her class vote on two books, Andrew Henry's Meadow and a bright and colorful book.  The class wanted the bright, colorful book.  Then the teacher read the books and asked the children to pick the one they liked best.  Burns' detailed black and white drawings and clever story won hands down.  

OH MY HEAVENS!!!!  Zach Braff is turning this book into a MOVIE!!!! I am totally thrilled about that!

So, Hugo, (see the trailer below) based on the wonderful grayscale novel  The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, is now a movie.  And, soon, I hope, the black and white picture book about Andrew Henry and his inventions will become a movie.  See?  Color in children's books is GREAT!  I love it!  But black and white can be truly inspirational.