Provo Library Children's Book Blog

picture book 2007 illustrated by Barry Gott Lisa Wheeler is one of my very favoritist authors! Even though it's a 2007, Dino-Hockey is new here at the library and I give it a strong recommend! Whether you're a hockey or dinosaur enthusiast, or just a fan of good writing, you'll enjoy this one. Written in rhyme, as most of Wheeler's books are, Dino-Hockey is a terrific read-aloud, packed with wonderful vocabulary. In addition to dinosaur names, there's lots of words used in hockey but not necessarily exclusive to that sport: puck, referee, check, boards, penalty, face off, etc. The story is fun, loaded with action. Barry Gott's illustrations add to the appeal of this book. The pictures help tell the story but the added little details in the background make the reader linger longer over each page. Take extra time to notice the "DHL" insignia on the ice and the items in the hawker's tray. How about the shards of ice coming off the players sk...

The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen Candlewick, 2009. Unpaged. Picture Book Steaming past Maine, the circus ship is headed for Boston when the fog closes in, she hits a rock and sinks. Animals are everywhere in the water, but though the captain tries to help them, the circus owner, Mr. Paine, insists on being saved first. The animals swim for it and everyone arrives safely in a small coastal town where the residents are at first unnerved by finding an alligator on the woodpile and a lion on the lawn. After the tiger leaps through fire to save Emma Rose from the Abbots' burning shed, everyone gets along famously. So well, in fact, that when the loathsome Mr. Paine comes back to retrieve his animals, he can't find them. Perhaps he doesn't know where to look. And everyone lives happily ever after. A sparkly rhyming text and brilliantly colored (and imagined) pictures make this one of the premiere picture books of the year.

S aving the Ghost of the Mountain: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia Text by Sy Montgomery; Photographs by Nic Bishop Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. 72 pgs. Juvenile Nonfiction The snow leopard is among the most beautiful and elusive animals in the world. Even researchers who devote their lives to the study of panthera uncia rarely see the creature in the wild. And indeed neither Sy Montgomery nor Nic Bishop saw a leopard on their expedition to Mongolia with Tom McCarthy, director of the Snow Leopard Trust, but they did see and record in glorious color and detail the people, landscape, and animals of the snow leopard range. In wildlife books for children it doesn't get any better than Montgomery and Bishop and Saving the Ghost of the Mountain is a model of its kind. Readers learn not only about snow leopards but about long-eared desert hedgehogs, how to use yak milk, how to build a ger , and how to use animal poop to discover what kind of animal has been...

Hannah's Winter by Kierin Meehan juvenile mystery 205 pages La Jolla, Calif. : Kane/Miller Book Publishers, 2009 (originally published in Australia 2001) Hannah is a 12-year-old redhead from Australia. Her mother has dumped her with family friends in Kanazawa, Japan while she tours the country getting information for her next book. Hannah would much rather be home with her dad and going to school with her friends. However, her mother decided this would be the perfect opportunity to improve her Japanese language skills. Resigned to make a go of it, Hannah settles into the household. She quickly makes friends with Miki, the daughter, which is a good thing considering they immediately get drawn into a ghostly mystery. It all began when Miki's father received a box of old paper stuff at his shop. The girls find a box with old paper toys and a riddle about an ocean boy. When the riddle starts mirroring their daily life they begin to take it seriously.The girls friendship strengthen...

The Shifter The Healing Wars: Book 1 by Janice Hardy juvenile fantasy 370 pages New York : Balzer & Bray, 2009 Geveg and its neighboring countries are being overtaken by the Evil Duke of Baseer. He is greedy and wants all of their pynvium, a special ore used both for healing and weapon-making. Nya and Tali are two sisters orphaned by the war. To survive, Tali enters the Healer League to learn how to master her ability to heal and draw out someone's pain. She and all the other Healers, or Takers, then transfer the pain into the pynvium so they don't have to carry it longer than necessary. Pain-filled pynvium is then used to make weapons. Nya too is a healer, yet she does not have the ability to transfer the pain into pynvium, instead she can transfer the pain into another person. You can imagine the many wrong-ways someone could use this power. Considered an Abnormal Taker, she can not enter the League and has to scrape out an existence on the streets while trying to hide he...

A Finder's Magic by Philippa Pearce Candlewick, 2009. 120 pgs. Juvenile Fiction. A passing reference to Batman and Spider-man sets this book in the present, but it entirely has the feel of an old-fashioned story of a boy and his dog with a bit of magic to bring them back together. Written by Pearce for her grandsons, Nat and Will, the story was barely finished before Pearce died and the manuscript went to the boys' other grandmother, Helen Craig, to be illustrated. Tillawn (you will see the anagram) has lost his little dog Bess and despairs both waking and sleeping. But in his dreams a man appears at his garden gate and when he goes out the next morning, there is the man, waiting to help him. The old gentleman is a Finder and soon he and Till are on Bess's trail, out to the meadow where Miss Gammer and Miss Mousy live. With the help of these friends (one a writer, one an artist), and Finder's use of Bess's toy Mudman to talk to the heron, the mole, and the witch...

Mule Train Mail by Craig Brown Charlesbridge, 2009. Unpaged. Juvenile Non-Fiction (J 383.143 BRO) Anthony the Postman is the only mail carrier in the United States to deliver mail on mules. Each day he loads up his animals to take mail to Supai, the Havasupai Indian community in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Anthony's story is charmingly told and nicely illustrated in Craig Brown's treatment of this unusual postal service. The dangers of the trail (especially in wet or wintry weather) are shown as the mules pass the skeleton of a mule that fell from the trail, but children will be interested to know that the delivery of mail down the canyon has never been canceled for any reason. The coloration of the canyon in Brown's book is not as varied as one remembers it--mostly browns and yellows--and the omission of the famous blue-green falls of the Supai trail is surprising, but on the whole children should be charmed by this unusual story of mail delivery in the desert Sout...

The Last Newspaper Boy in America by Sue Corbett New York: Dutton, 2009. 199 pgs. Juvenile Fiction Wil David is the youngest in a long line of Davids who have delivered the newspaper to the households of Steele, Pennsylvania, beginning at age twelve. Wil is excited as his birthday approaches, not only because he is the most accurate newspaper thrower of his whole family, but because he can now start earning money towards a laptop computer. But Wil's dream withers on the vine before it can begin to grow when the proprietors of The Cooper County Caller decide to discontinue newspaper service to Steele because the town is too small to be cost-effective for the paper's advertisers. But Wil of Steele refuses to give in, and mounts a petition campaign to save the paper and his job. Many contemporary concerns inform Corbett's very funny book. In addition to the small-town reflection of the decline of print journalism, many of Steele's residents are unemployed as a result of t...

J Fiction 2009 195 pages Veteran writer Baskin takes us inside the mind of an young autistic boy and we get to see the world through his eyes. Anything But Typical is told in first person by 12 year old Jason Blake. Jason's family is made up of his brother, Jeremy, who seems to accept Jason the way he is, his father, who deals with Jason's condition well, and his mom, who believes Jason needs to be "fixed". She seems to try to force normalcy upon Jason. Jason finds he can be himself easily when he writes. He posts his stories on "Storyboard" and makes a connection with a girl who calls herself PhoenixBird. Jason enjoys their online friendship, until his parents sign him up for a writer's conference and he finds out that PhoenixBird will also be attending. He knows how people react to him when they see him and observe his quirky, atypical behaviors. Will PhoenixBird still be his friend after she meets him? A very fast read and well written. Mode...

Chasing Degas By Eva Montanari Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2009. Unpaged. Picture book. A young dancer and the famous Impressionist painter, Monsieur Degas, accidentally switch satchels. The dancer races all over Paris to find Degas and exchange bags as she has his paints and he has her tutu that she needs for a performance that evening. During her journey, she crosses paths with many other famous artists--but where is Monsieur Degas? This is a lovely, fun piece of historical fiction. Eva Montanari's illustrations are beautiful and really capture the feel of the Impressionist era, specifically Degas' work, while still maintaining her own unique illustration style. There are some really fun pictorial nods to well known paintings by some of the most famous Impressionist artists and there is even a guide at the end of the book, referencing the specific paintings that inspired some of the illustration spreads.

Snow White By The Brothers Grimm; illustrated by Quentin Greban North-South Books, 2009. Unpaged. Picture book. The original tale of Snow White is much darker and more frightening than the version most people are familiar with today. The core story is the same, with a wicked, vain queen who wants her stepdaughter dead because her beauty challenges the queen's own, but there are elements which make this a version more suited for older readers. Snow White flees the castle after the queen's attempted death plot and is taken in by seven kind dwarfs. The queen hunts her down and finally manages to end Snow White's life--or so she believes. Beautiful illustrations set this book apart from other Snow White versions. Delicate, airy watercolors and a Snow White depicted as very young and sweet give this book a fresh look. Reminiscent to Lisbeth Zwerger's style, this book is a lovely update on an old classic.

Zero is the Leaves on the Tree by Betsy Franco, illustrated by Shino Arihara The concept of "zero" is beautifully demonstrated both in text and picture in this 2009 picture book. Zero can be seen. Zero can be felt and heard. Franco and Arihara show us that zero, a very important math basic, can be found all around us. Masterfully written for and to children without ever being condescending, Franco gives examples of zero that are straight from a child's world; "Zero is . . . no balls in the bin at recess time"; "Zero is . . . no bikes in the bike rack on the last day of school". Arihara's full spread illustrations in gouache of children from various cultures help make this a winner! Whoo Goes There? by Jennifer A. Ericsson illustrated by Bert Kitchen Written in a wonderfully patterned, cumulative text, Whoo Goes There is the story of Owl who is patiently waiting and watching for something to come his way that could be dinner. He hears vari...

2009 J Fiction 94 pages with illustrations Here's the second children's novel by Katherine Hannigan, her first being Ida B. If you liked Ida B., you'll like Emmaline. It's a sweet, gentle story of a girl, Emmaline, who lives in a town where only "tidiness" is accepted. She wants a bunny, but bunnies don't exactly fit in a place where everyone and everything is expected to stay TIDY. With quiet determination, and the hesitant support of her parents, Emmaline finds a way to get her bunny. There are some inferred themes within this story that children will probably miss. Take care of the earth and tolerance of others are the main two. Hannigan's prose-like text is light and fluffly, like a bunny's tail. The 94 pages are fast reading and the watercolor illustrations are beautiful. This book is on some Newbery possibilities lists. Not mine. It's well written, but it's not a "fill-you-up" kind of story. There's not much characte...

Princess Hyacinth has a big, big problem! She isn’t trapped in a tower waiting to be rescued by a brave knight, or sleeping until true love’s kiss…. she floats! In order to make sure she doesn’t float away the princess has golden weights in the hems of her clothes and the crown she wears has the heaviest jewels in the kingdom. (Hmm, I would like this problem hehe!!) Floating in the house is one thing, but Hyacinth can’t go outside and play with the other kids because there is no roof to stop her from floating. Disaster strikes one day when Hyacinth goes outside and decides to float on a string with a bunch of balloons. Check this book out to find out if Hyacinth will be saved or if she will float forever. This is a cute, fun read for any girl who loves princesses! The illustrations are very charming as well.

Kadir Nelson is exceptionally talented and it shows in the book Coretta Scott by Ntozake Shange. Just by looking at the cover you can tell how breathtaking the pictures will be inside. The colors are bold and vibrant throughout the book. He also does a great job of capturing emotions on the people’s faces. The text is in poetry form and is simple and basic. This is a great biography for someone with a short attention span. Check out this book and others illustrated by Nelson, you won’t be disappointed! I’m positive this will win awards this year!

Dun, dun, dun, dun!!!! I think the title of this book tells you how entertaining it is going to be; The Strange Case of the Missing Sheep: A Thriller . Oh and did I mention that on the front cover is a hilarious picture of a sheep with buck teeth and it claims that the story is inspired by true events? So when I first started reading this book I thought it was going to be the typical wolf and sheep book…. WRONG!!!!!! The sheep live in Happy Valley with the Super Sheep Dog Doug. The wolf lives in the Dark Forest. One night the wolf is having a problem and needs sheep. He is able to lure the sheep into the Dark Forest with a lollipop. It is up to Super Doug to save the day! So the story is great, the pictures are amazingly hilarious. The sheep look so funny and the activities they are doing throughout the story are laugh out loud funny! This is a must read book and most likely one that I will end up purchasing for my own library. Make sure you take time to look at the pictures while yo...

What would the world be like today is dinosaurs still roamed around? I know I would be scared to go outside! If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today doesn’t make that idea seem that scary. In fact, it compares dinosaurs to many of the animals that are alive today. In this interesting nonfiction book learn about animals in today’s world that are similar in size, appearance, and other characteristics to dinosaurs. The computer generated pictures do an excellent job in depicting these similarities. One picture is of a tiger attacking a Plateosaurus, another is a bear fighting for a fish with a giant crocodile, or a Quetzalcoatlus flying in the air with a small airplane. Check it out to explore all the other interesting and fun pictures. This book is sure to delight both boys and dinosaur lovers. There are numerous pages also that explain what life would be like for dinosaurs if they were still alive today, the theories for why they disappeared, and other random facts on dinosaurs. All said and do...

Happy Birthday Bad Kitty written and illustrated by Nick Bruel 159 pages New York : Roaring Brook, c2009 Bad Kitty is back with a vengeance! His loving owner is throwing him a birthday party. But the silly owner's first mistake is waking Kitty up for that party! Doesn't he know that cat's are generally quite grumpy if woken up from a nice pleasant nap? Despite all the neighborhood cats bringing him gifts and having a birthday cake that defies description, Bad Kitty's birthday is just not what was planned. It is made slightly better at the end by a surprise visitor and an especially thoughtful gift. While not quite as hilarious as Bad Kitty Gets a Bath , Bruel's lovably naughty Kitty still made me laugh out loud. The informative sections were an nice addition to the story, but it was the illustrations that really made the book so enjoyable.

The Amaranth Enchantment By Julie Berry Bloomsbury, 2009. 308 pgs. Juvenile/young adult fiction. After her parents pass away suddenly, Lucinda is swept from her wealthy, comfortable existence into the life of a drudge in her relative's jewelry shop. When a mysterious stranger brings in a beautiful gem to be repaired, Lucinda's life takes a surprising turn in which she befriends the Amaranth Witch. A thief and a prince also play important roles in her new life, bringing both pain and happiness as well as uncovering her bright, unconquerable spirit and inner strength. Through her following adventures, Lucinda life, as well as the lives of those closest to her, are all changed forever. This is a beautiful, enchanting fairy tale based very loosely on Cinderella . I loved the strong characters, particularly Lucinda and Beryl. This book will be a big hit with readers who enjoyed books like Ella Enchanted, Dragon Slippers, and Goose Girl and is a n excellent addition to fairy tale li...

This is the perfect book to welcome fall and its beautiful leaves. Pip Squirrel is shocked one morning when the tree that he lives in starts falling apart. (So shocked in fact, that he falls out of the tree!) The leaves are no longer green but yellow, orange and red. To make matter worse the different colored leaves keep falling off the tree! In a panic Pip starts to race around catching leaves to put back on the tree only to have the wind keep blowing them off again. It isn’t until Pip’s mom comes into the picture that he finds out why the leaves lose their leaves. The story is cute and one of the best choices for a fall book. I really enjoyed the pictures as well. They consist mainly of vibrant, fall colors. They also have nice texturing and shadowing. Make sure you come check it out at the library, then take a drive up the canyon to enjoy the beautiful fall colors!

Did you know that there are over forty types of kangaroos in Australia? Or that kangaroos have tendons in their legs that are like bungee cords that help them jump so fast? Nic Bishop is at it again with another book full of amazing photographs. Marsupials is about all kinds of crazy marsupials in Australia. Learn about the common animals such as kangaroos and koalas but also learn about more obscure ones such as a bilby, dunnart and numbat. Haha! Great Australian names for Australian animals! My only complaint is that sometimes Bishop describes things, but there is no accompanying picture. For example marsupial babies are so small they look like pink jelly beans with two legs when they are born! I was so fascinated that I wanted to see a picture of them! (Don’t worry I looked it up elsewhere!) However, even with that small complaint, the information in the book was interesting and the pictures superb! Any of Bishop’s books are great for reluctant nonfiction readers and people who lo...

The Seeing Stick was originally published in 1977; however, the book has been re-released with new breathtaking pictures. Hwei Ming is the emperor’s daughter. She has the perfect life except that she is blind. One day the emperor sends out a decree offering a fortune in jewels to anyone who can help his daughter see. Monks come from far and wide to help the girl, but just like any other princess story it is the underdog, a little old man, who is able to help her the most. This is a beautiful and touching story. After reading it I was grateful for my sight and touched by the little old man who spent the rest of his life helping the princess. The story was great, the pictures are fabulous. Some of the pictures are in black and white and some are in color. There is also random embossing in the book which makes some pictures look even more exquisite and makes them almost jump off the page. This is a definite must read. Don’t expect it to be a Caldecott runner however; the illustrator, Dani...

Come to the Castle: a Visit to a Castle in Thirteenth-Century England by Linda Ashman; illuminated by S. D. Schindler New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2009. Unpaged. Juvenile nonfiction. This book is reminiscent of the Newbery award winning Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! . . . though it brings a lighter, funnier touch to medieval life. The voice of the squire tells the glories of being a knight--"Defender of virtue; Protector of Right. Chivalrous, daring, prepared for a fight!", while the spectator at the joust decries ". . . the drudge of watching these brutes, Charge at each other in ludicrous suits . . . ." S. D. Schindler's illustrations make the days when knighthood was in flower look appropriately seedy. All in all, a cheerful little antidote for the generally romantic view of the Middle Ages; should turn kids on to the delights of history truly told.

Two brand new 2009 picture books - one I liked, one I didn't. Let's start with the one I liked . . . Flabby Cat and Slobby Dog by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Tony Ross. Here's a fun story, very apropos for our times. Slobby Dog and Flabby Cat are just what their names say; slobby and flabby. They become more so by eating more and sleeping more. They try to blame the couch, yes, the couch, saying that it has shrunk and the cushions have grown. The eating, sleeping, and blaming continues until, growing so large, they don't fit in the house anymore. They think they can live with their "distant relatives", Wild Wolf and Cunning Tiger, a couple of TV characters, and go in search of them. Well, the searching involves lots of running, walking, climbing, and hunting. As a result, they naturally slim down. Slobby Dog and Flabby Cat discover the wonders of "getting off the couch". An excellent message for our ever growing (I mean the waistline, not ...