Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Here's another Newbery contender for Ruth White. And justly so. Little Audrey is the true story of White's family in 1948 when they lived in the coal mining camp of Jewel Valley, Virginia. Told in the voice of White's oldest sister, Audrey, who was 11 at the time, we hear about life in a poor mining camp. We see inside the home of a family with an alcoholic father, a mother suffering from depression brought on by the death of a baby, and the four remaining children, all daughters, and how they cope with it all. White's talent as a writer is evident in the way Audrey's vernacular descriptions and observations of her world and the people in it are childlike without being childish. She never uses the words "alcoholic" or "depression", but we clearly understand that that is what's going on. This memorable book is full of heart and soul. Maybe it will hold a place in our Newbery section here at the library.

When your relatives can capture radio waves, summon hurricanes, and control electricity, there is reason to be excited for your 13th birthday. Mississippi Beaumont, known as Mibs, is on the edge of gaining her own savvy, an extremely special talent that is hereditary in her family and typically blossoms on each child's thirteenth year. She is certain it will be a wonderful day and that her savvy will be amazing. When disaster strikes on her birthday and her beloved Poppa is hospitalized, she becomes a stowawy on a salesman's bus in order to save him with her new power. However, when the bus begins heading the opposite direction, Mibs finds herself on a wild adventure where she discovers some secrets merely lie skin deep. A possible contender for the Newbery, Savvy is a marvelous story that is so much more than a book about supernatural powers. It has heart, depth, and a strong voice. There is humor, tension, and great adventure! Despite the hint of romance, this story is one t...

Do you know what a family in Australia eats every day? What about Mali? Or Kuwait? Or China? What do their kitchens look like? Who lives in their home and eats all of this food? What the World Eats is a fascinating book that will answer all of these questions, and many more. The book starts with a photo of an Australian family in their kitchen surrounded by everything they would eat in a typical week. The following page lists all the items in categories and gives an approximate cost in US dollars. There are also maps and little fact boxes about the country. The next 3-4 pages give the family's story and some more pictures of them and their interactions with food. If you are lucky, there will even be a recipe for a family favorite. {Dong Family's Pigskin Jelly is the one I want to try}. The same basic format is followed for 25 families from different economic classes in scattered locations across the globe. When I checked out this book I had expected to just glance through t...

The Night of the Veggie Monster by George McClements is one of my new favorite picture books. It is a story about a little boy who becomes a horrible Veggie Monster not only when he has to eat a vegetable, but when one touches his lips as well. You can imagine the disaster that takes place one night in his home when he has to eat peas. This book had me laughing out loud. The parent’s reaction to the boy’s transformation is equally as hilarious as the boy’s.

Dogfish by Gillian Shields, illustrated by Dan Taylor Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2008. Unpaged. Picture book. What do you do when you want a dog? First, you wish for one. Second, you try to convince your mom that it's a good idea to have a dog, including attempted hypnosis. When that doesn't work, you finally decide to make do with what you already have--a fish. In this utterly charming book, we see the power of choosing to be happy with what we have. The retro illustrations by Dan Taylor are wonderful and delightful with a beautiful color palette and really make the story soar. This is a great read!

The village of Thornstowe has a witch. The villagers secretly visit her for all manner of cures and potions. Whenever anything goes wrong in the village, the witch is blamed. It is believed that she even steals children. One child was stolen six years ago, now another baby is missing. The villagers have had enough, they hunt the witch down and set fire to her house. The very same day a 12-year-old girl with no memory appears in the village. Is there a connection between this girl and the one stolen previously? Is she a princess whom the witch cast a spell upon? Is she an animal turned into human shape by the witch? Or is it something else entirely? Though of course, it must have something to do with the witch. Stolen is an interesting fantasy mystery by veteran author Vivian Vande Velde. Girls 10 and up will most likely be drawn to this particular novel as most the characters are girls. However, it is not a girly book and boys who choose to read it will get caught up in the mystery a...

Hazel and Ned are home from boarding school. They are prepared to spend their summer vacation playing basketball, working on chemistry experiments and spending time with their father. Plans drastically change when they wake up to find that their famous art-dealer father missing. Frankie, the woman who works in the art gallery, leaves town and the kids are really left on their own. Hazel stumbles upon mysterious e-mails, mixed-up paintings and two bad guys who seem to be following them everywhere. Eventually the siblings uncover some deep, dark family secrets that explain a lot about their father's behavior. A fun mystery for both boys and girls. There are some great action sequences (my favorite being the chase through secret tunnels under a castle during a tornado)! Though parts of the story are a bit unrealistic, it is not enough to detract from a good fun mystery for children.

A quirky, funny story, Those Darn Squirrels is about a man who loves birds. He wants them to stay near his home year-round and so sets out multiple birdfeeders filled with delicious things. However, the food attracts more than just birds...those darn squirrels want some, too! In this silly but sweet tale, Old Man Fookwire learns to appreciate other creatures besides birds. We also see the great ingenuity and generosity that lies in the hearts of squirrels and discover the value of friendship, even from unusual sources. The spare, funky illustrations lend the perfect charm to this great picture book. Check it out for a good laugh!

ERRATUM ; Walter Sorrells; New York: Dutton, 2008; 298pgs. Juvenile Fiction. Jessica Sternhagen is a little different from the rest of her family. For one thing, she likes to read. For another, she is strikingly tall and has hair so blonde it is almost white. Lastly, she is destined to save the universe. When Jessica wanders into a bookstore that was never there before, she discovers a volume entitled "Her Lif," which she discovers tells the story of her own rather normal life, and ends with what she is doing at the moment. When the owners of the bookstore suddenly go scary and try to kill her, she runs off with the book and discovers that how she writes the ending of the story, to make "Her Lif" into "Her Life" will determine whether the universe as we know it will continue to exist, or to be sucked into an assimilated by another universe. Helped by her friend Dale, several courageous librarians (huzzah!), and a couple of mysterious benefactors (including...

Got a young pirate lover on board this Christmas? A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas is the perfect book for you and your little swashbuckling adventurer this year. Being bad is a pirate’s way of life, so it isn’t Santa that visits them on Christmas Eve. Instead it is a real tough character named Sir Peggedy. Complete with a peg leg and a sleigh pulled by a team of creatively named giant seahorses, Sir Peggedy knows how to bring Christmas cheer to all aboard the pirate ship, Black Sark . Colorfully detailed pictures of many rosy-cheeked pirates make this book as fun to look at as it is to read aloud. A glossary of pirate terms at the back of the book will have kids practicing their pirate lingo long after the story is over. AARGH!

THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD ; J. K. Rowling (translated from the Runic originals by Hermione Granger); New York: Scholastic, 2008; 111pgs. Fiction “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” is a lightweight in the J. K. Rowling canon, but it has its delights, nonetheless. The stories themselves are fair to middling, some of them a tad bit violent for the younger set, such as “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart” in which a a wizard, his heart grown hairy from being set aside, tears the heart from his fiance’s bosom. However, Albus Dumbledore himself points out the foolishness of trying to sugar up the grim but cautionary in true fairy tales by pointing out the failure of Beatrice Bloxam’s “Toadstool Tales” revisions to produce anything except retching in generations of Wizarding children. Lighter-hearted stories are included, such as “Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump,” but the true charm of this volume lies in Dumbledore’s commentaries, which show J. K. Rowling’s genius to great effect as she elabo...

THE LUMP OF COAL ; Lemony Snicket and Brett Helquist; New York: HarperCollins, 2008; unpaged. Juvenile Fiction. Lemony Snicket's tale of a lump of coal who wants to become an artist or a barbeque briquet is a tiny little Christmas book best suited for older children and grownups. Some of the conventions of the Series of Unfortunate Events are here (I refer, of course, to parenthetical definitions), but the one big different is that The Lump of Coal has a happy ending. Snicket's lump of coal is spurned by the snooty art gallery guy and the owner of the bogus Korean restaurant, but eventually finds a place for himself in a "bad" young man's stocking, the boy being an artist interested in working with black on white drawings and a Korean gourmet. Small (both the book and the lump of coal), but immensely charming.

THE DRAGONFLY POOL ; Eva Ibbotson; New York: Dutton, 2008; 377pp. Fiction. Tally doesn't want to go to Delderton, the progressive boarding school far from home and her loving father and aunts, but with war looming and a scholarship available, she has no choice. Happily, the school (based on Ibbotson's own childhood academy) is welcoming and nourishing to body, mind, and soul. While at the cinema with a friend, Tally sees a newsreel of the brave king of Bergania whose country has remained neutral in the face of enormous Nazi pressure. She wants very much to visit Bergania and her wish is granted when Delderton is invited to send a folk dance group to an international Berganian festival. The rest of the book tells the story of Tally and her friends' rescue of Prince Karil, first from his Nazi pursuers, and then from the life he is bound to, but crushed by. The Dragonfly Pool is a lovely, old-fashioned tale of good versus evil, of friendship, kindness, and open minds and hear...