Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Sapphy and her older brother Conner are irresistibly drawn to the sea--just like their father the night he took his boat out onto the ocean and never returned. After meeting a merboy her own age and following him into the magical underwater world of Ingo, Sapphy finds herself embarking on an exciting adventure to uncover the mystery of what it is the sea wants from her family. It was nice, for once, to read a story with a sister and brother that not only got along but made a great team as well. I also loved Dunmore's fantastic descriptions of the sea which made it seem like a living creature. Both sinister and alluring at the same time, it fascinated me as much as it did Sapphy. Questions still unanswered at the end of the book will leave the reader excited for future installments in this series.

Among librarians, speculation about potential Newbery and Caldecott winners begins almost as soon as last year's winners are announced. This year, Brian Wildsmith's Jungle Party is already getting long looks as a potential Caldecott winner. Wildsmith, a well-beloved and much-honored author and illustrator has outdone himself in Jungle Party , the story of a crafty python who invites all the animals to a party so he can swallow them in due course. Wildsmith has an extraordinary gift of being able to combine brilliant and subtle colors to ravishing effect. As the animals do tricks to amaze their fellows, the quirky combinations of a dun-colored lion and a purplish-owl with red wings; or of a dusty gnu and two acrobatic guinea fowl are both novel and satisfying. Though python's evil trick works, along comes elephant to save the day. A fine introduction to art and animals for young children.

The story is no match for the pictures in Elisha Cooper's new picture book, Bear Dreams, but the pictures alone are well worth the price of admission. A bear cub doesn't want to hibernate and leaves his cave to play with the rabbits, geese, and moose that are still out and about. Bear races with the rabbits, wrestles with the moose, and flies with the geese (an odd and unexplained element). When the other animals need a rest, bear wants to keep going but eventually falls asleep and his parents take him back into the cave for his long winter's rest. Cooper's signature watercolors are breathtaking: geese against the coral sky of afternoon, and the purple sky of evening; the austere beauties of the Far North are portrayed with subtlety and grace.

The Fire Within by Chris D'Lacey Orchard Books, 2005. 340 pp. Chapter book. In The Fire Within, D’Lacey uses his vivid imagination to mix two very separate plots of fantasy and realism. Lucy, a high-energy child of 10 is obsessed with squirrels – in particular a one-eyed squirrel that didn’t have the strength to follow his friends when their home was chopped down by a pesky neighbor. Enter David, a college student who has come to board with Lucy and her mother, Liz. Liz makes clay dragons, and through a series of odd, although slightly underplayed adventures, convinces David they’re real. David becomes a hero of sorts, writing stories for Lucy, and helping catch and care for squirrels, while figuring out how his personal clay dragon, Gadzooks, plays an integral part of him. Separately, both of the stories could be expanded upon and are enjoyable. However, combined, they don’t adhere very well, and make for a chaotic read. David’s characterization is not consistent: in the beginning...

Antoinette Portis has created a simple picture book that illustrates the complexity of a child's imagination. The young bunny is drawn in various activities involving a plain cardboard box. The unseen questioner asks questions such as, "Why are you sitting in a box?" These questions are accompanied by black and white illustrations of just the bunny and the box. Turn the page and the bunny answers, "It's not a box." The answer is paired with the same illustration with the addition of red ink to show what the bunny is imagining. The question and answer format is carried throughout the book to show the numerous possibilities for a basic cardboard box and a child's active, limitless imagination. Using minimal text and color, NOT A BOX is a book to be read by all. Read it aloud to your young children; let early readers explore it on their own; and as an adult, read it to remember when you were free to make a cardboard box into a race car, a rocket ship or a...

A. J. Lake's The Coming of Dragons is the newest entry in a bushelful of books designed to fill kids' seemingly insatiable desire for stories about dragons. In most of these books, the dragons are heroic beings, but in Lake's newest, Torment the Dragon is a nasty piece of work. In the first pages of this ripping yarn, the Spearwa, the dragon destroys a sailing vessel and all hands, except two passengers, Edmund, a king's song, and Elspeth, the skipper's daughter. Both are saved by clinging to an chest from the cargo hold, and then by an old, Gandalf-like mentor named Aagard, who takes them into his home when they wash ashore. Edmund and Elspeth are soon discovered to have stunning--and inconvenient--gifts. Edmund is a Ripente, one who can see through others' eyes, and Elspeth becomes the guardian and wielder of a silver sword which comes to her unbidden from the chest. Many scary and sometimes violent adventures follow, asthe two children desperately try to get ...

To Dance: a Memoir By Siena Siegel Antheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006, unpag. graphic novel One of this year's Siebert Honor books is"To Dance: memoir" by Siena Siegel, being the first graphic novel to win this award. Some people think that graphic novel is just a fancy name for comic book, and on the most basic level it is, in the same way that a billboard is a work of art. However, a graphic novel is much more than just a comic book. It is a new literary form. In a graphic novel, the role of pictures and words are reversed. In a regular novel, the text is illustrated by a few well chosen pictures. In a graphic novel the pictures bear the burden of story telling and are illustrated by a few well chosen words. The graphic novel format is a good choice for the topic of this book, which is, of course, dancing. This is a story of the author's journey from her first ballet class at age 6, to dancing with Baryshnikov at the New York State Theater. The pi...

All the beloved and familiar elements of Richard Peck's writing are evident in his latest book, On the Wings of Heroes. Davy Bowman and his friend Scooter are active in "the war effort," collecting paper and scrap metal during World War II. Davy's dad is a WWI veteran, and Davy's older brother Bill has enlisted and is learning to fly B17s. As usual, Peck seamlessly combines serious and hilarious business. While Scooter's father is getting ready to leave for the War, Davy and Scooter run into Miss Eulalia Titus, who discourages their rooting around in her barn with a shotgun blast to the tin roof. Miss Eulalia's face is "like a walnut with a mustache," but she is quickly the best teacher they have ever had. Peck considers, with humor and pathos, all aspects of war: soldiers, former soldiers, parents who have lost children, the families left at home. He reiterates, as well, the profoundly important themes of his recent work--it is important to ...

Most of us have vague ideas about Marie Curie's life--that she discovered radium, that her beloved husband and fellow scientist, Pierre, was killed by a streetcar, and that she was the first woman to win the Nobel prize. But the details of her life, as revealed in Carla McClafferty's excellent new biography, are truly remarkable. For example, even though Marie isolated radium independently from Pierre, he was offered the Nobel prize without reference to her but refused to accept it unless she was included. Scientists wishing to study her papers have to sign a waiver because the materials are still dangerously radioactive. Marie's life is beautifully well-documented here, and the accompanying pictures are remarkable. The only drawback to the book is that a knowledge of the importance of the discovery or radium is presupposed--children becoming acquainted with Marie Curie for the first time are unlikely to understand why she was such a big deal, and although the hazards of ra...

Phineas L. MacGuire--known as Mac--is a fourth-grader who loves science, but his hopes of winning first place in the science fair are compromised when he has to team up with the obnoxious new kid. Predictable fare as the boys figure out each other's talents and become friends, but Mac and Ben are appealing young men, the supporting characters are likeable, and the message that one should do one's best to get along and to use one's talents is delivered with a light touch.