Provo Library Children's Book Blog

I love October.  I love the changing leaves, the nip in the air, the bright orange pumpkins, the yummy treats. I especially love Halloween.  My favorite Halloween book that I try to read every year or two in October is "The Halloween Tree" by Ray Bradbury.  "The Halloween Tree" is filled with such beautifully descriptive words and vibe-y imagery that I can almost taste, touch, smell, and see Halloween.  “Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.”  Halloween could be weeks away, but when I read those words from Bradbury, I am there.  Halloween surrounds me!  Halloween is the one night a year where I feel all the energy and excitement of my y

  The Moving-Box Sukkah Written by Leah Rachel Berkowitz Illustrated by Sharon Vargo Millburn, NJ: Apples and Honey Press, 2023. Picture Book. Moving to a new place is often hard, especially when you're trying to celebrate a holiday and most of your stuff is still in moving boxes. In Berkowitz's picture book, a boy is worried about how he and his mom will celebrate Sukkot when they don't have a yard to build their sukkah-a temporary dwelling place built during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Through stories, his mom is able to assure him that people have built sukkahs in all sorts of strange places and that soon their new apartment will feel like home.  Told in first person, The Moving-Box Sukkah  displays some of a child's concerns that come up when they move to a new place mixed and when holiday traditions change. Mixed-medium illustrations add texture to the story and vibrancy to the sukkah the boy and his mom make. While the reasoning behind building the sukkah isn

Lei and the Fire Goddess By Malia Maunakea New York: Penguin Workshop, 2023. Fiction. 298 pgs. Twelve-year-old Anna must dig deep into her Hawaiian roots in order to save her best friend and her island from an angry fire goddess. The Deadliest Fires Then and Now By Deborah Hopkinson New York: Scholastic Focus, 2022. Informational. 216 pgs. Through the eyes of scientists, witnesses, and survivors of terrible fires alike, Sibert Honor author Deborah Hopkinson brings the horrific history of deadly fires to life, tracing a line from the Peshtigo and Great Chicago fires of 1871 to the wildfires raging in the western United States today. Fire Cat Written by Pippa Goodhart Illustrated by Philip Hurst New York: Crabtree Pub., 2006. Intermediate. While London burns in 1666, John's cat Sammy disappears, and while he searches for the cat, John follows his friend Mr. Pepys's advice and writes in a journal about what he observes. Fire Shapes the World By Joanna Cooke Illustrated by Cornelia

  Preschool Time Mister Fairy Written by Morgane de Cadier Illustrated by Florian Pige Brooklyn, NY: Red Comet Press, 2021. Picture Book.  Mister Fairy spreads happiness and joy wherever he goes. --Editor Preschool Time Frog Boots Written by Jill Esbaum Illustrated by Joshua Heinsz New York: Sterling Children's Books, 2019. Picture Book. School shopping is no fun for Dylan--until he spots boots decorated with poison-dart frogs. They even glow in the dark! He can't wait to show them off in class. But then a kid exclaims: "Ms. Kory, that boy's wearing girl boots." Suddenly, everyone's laughing at Dylan and the boots don't seem so cool anymore. Will he ever wear them again? A timely story about staying true to yourself and defying stereotypes. --Editor Toddler Time Down the Hole Written by Scott Slater Illustrated by Adam Ming New York: Clarion Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2023. Picture Book. When a suspiciously polite fox attempts to coax hi

Give Me Something Good to Eat By D. W. Gillespie New York, Delacorte Press, 2024. Fiction. 262 pages.    I went totally out of my comfort zone with my choice for this book review. I decided I wanted to read a spooky book for October, even though I typically do not read scary books. This book gave me shivers from the very start, with a giant spider on the cover and spider webs drawn on the page of each new chapter.    Halloween is the best night of the year in a rural town that is obsessed with monsters and all kinds of creepy things. There is one major problem, however. Each year on Halloween a child goes missing! But after they go missing, no one remembers the children, except for the main character Mason Miller.   When Mason's little sister becomes the next in a long string of missing children, it’s up to Mason and his friends to figure out the town's bizarre mystery. This book has a lot to offer: monsters, heroes, a werewolf, zombies, an enchanted scarecrow, a rat man, and p

The Night Librarian By Christopher Lincoln New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2024. Comics. 247 pages. Fraternal twins Page and Turner Read have grown accustomed to feeling neglected by their parents lately. Their parents are often busy with meetings and work trips and leave the twins behind with a revolving door of nannies -- who are also often neglectful. So, Page and Turner spend a lot of time at their favorite place -- the New York Public Library. On a whim, Page, the more reckless twin, steals her father's prized first-edition copy of Dracula and takes it to the library hoping to have it appraised, much to the chagrin of her more careful brother, Turner. In a disastrous twist, the book goes missing before they get the information they need. In soliciting help from Ms. Literati, the Night Librarian, they have no idea that they'll be whisked to a secret room far under the stacks where the night librarians tend to the characters that like to pop out of books and try to p