Provo Library Children's Book Blog

There was a Tree by Rachel Isadora Penguin, 2012.  Unpaged.  Picture book.      Rachel Isadora's variation on   "And the Green Grass Grew All Around" sets the old children's song in Africa where it adapts very well. Zebra, wildebeest, giraffes, and elephants roam the greenly grassy savannahs with the orange, basketball-sized sun floating in a sky burned white, while brightly-colored birds lay and hatch out eggs "on the branches on the tree, and the tree in the hole, and the hole in the ground. Small boxed rebuses are slotted into the text, adding visual fun to this cumulative/predictable favorite.

  Annie and Snowball and the Grandmother Night by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Sucie Stevenson Simon & Schuster, 2012.  40 pgs.  Easy Reader       In the further adventures of Annie and Snowball, the young girl and her bunny get to spend the night at Annie's grandmother's house. No big adventures here, but lots of grandmotherly fun.  The two make cookies while Snowball eats a carrot. They braid each other's hair and watch their favorite movies and tell stories before they go to sleep. Annie loves her grandmother's soft, warm house with its bowl of peppermints and a budgie named Marty. Ms. Rylant and Ms. Stevenson are an award-winning team who come through again with a warm and happy story perfect for beginning readers. 

Good News Bad News Jeff Mack Chronicle Books LLC, Picture Book Two friends, hare and a mouse, go on a picnic and have some interesting experiences, one sees the positive and the other the negative, at the end both learn something. This picture book is very funny, and the pictures tells the story. I found myself laughing and really enjoying it, I think small children would enjoy this book (even big kids).

  Bomb:  The Race to Build and Steal the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin Roaring Book Press, 2012.  266 pgs. Non-fiction.      Several fine books have been written for older children and young adults about the creation of the atomic bomb and its aftermath, but Sheinkin's may be the first to combine accounts of the work at the University of Chicago, at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and at Los Alamos with Allied efforts to sabotage Germany's work on the bomb, and Russia's (successful) efforts to steal bomb-making secrets from the Americans. Any young person who thinks history is boring ought to be able to find something interesting here--secret agents, double agents, Norwegian saboteurs skiing to Germany's heavy water plant and blowing it sky high, then sinking the remaining cargo bound for Germany. Along with all the derring-do and perfidy of espionage and counter-espionage, the fits and starts of building the bomb itself, and the frightening...

  All the Awake Animals are Almost Asleep by Crescent Dragonwagon, illustrated by David McPhail Little, Brown and Company, 2012.  Unpaged. Picture Book.      A young mother coaxes her son towards sleep with an alphabet full of animals who are themselves headed to bed. The title alone will tell you that this is not a simple A is for Apple kind of alphabet book. Each animal's bedtime story is filled with the sounds of its name:  "Baby Bison has bedded down beside her brother, by the barn," and "Cat's curled up on a crimson couch cushion."  David McPhail's sumptuous paintings of snuggling and heavy-lidded creatures large and small will no doubt make adults sleepy. Here's hoping it works on the little ones, too.

Pomelo Explores Color Written by Ramona Badescu Illustrated by Benjamin Chaud Enchanted Lion Book, 2012. Small picture book. Pomelo the elephant is having a day in which everything around him seems dull, black and white. Upon exploring his garden, he discovers a wondrous world of color and excitement. Pomelo (who is a small, pink fellow with an unusually long nose) finds that there is plenty to enjoy on his journey. His discoveries include "the messy brown of muddy earth, the shiny brown of chestnuts, and the breathtaking brown of Gigi" (the garden snail). This small picture book is full of learning opportunities about observing and describing. Badescu's concept and Chaud's artwork are a lovely companionship. This would make a nice bedtime story, or something to treasure when feeling blue.

  Cat Tale by Michael Hall Greenwillow, 2012.  Unpaged.  Picture book.      Three cats--Lillian, Tilly, and William J.--go on an excursion with many adventures in rhyming and illustrating homophones:  "They flee a steer/ They steer a plane/ They plane a board/ They board a train. . . ." Part way through their lilting linguistic journey, things fall apart:  "They use their paws to shoo a train.  A shoo-shoo train? No!  They use a shoe to steer a box?  No!  They use a box to steer a steer? No, no, no!"  But then the cats' tale/tail comes into play and off they go to the end of their delightful story.  Hall's brightly colored geometric illustrations highlight and propel the cats' wordplay. Cat Tale is a perfect beginning literacy text, but is also a total gas.

This display has a sweet added bonus.  Kids 3-12 can come in and participate in the Christmas candy guessing game! Cool Holiday Food Art: Easy Recipes That make Food Fun to Eat! By Nancy Tuminelly Provides step-by-step instructions for creating holiday-themed food art, such as reindeer cookies, dreidel pretzels, and creepy popcorn balls; and includes tips on techniques. Christmas Foods By Jenny Vaughan and Penny Beauchamp Includes easy-to-prepare Christmas recipes from different cultures around the world. Cool Sweets and Treats to Eat: Easy Recipes for Kids to Cook By Lisa Wagner Chock Full Of Chocolate By Elizabeth McLeod Holiday Cooking Around the World By Kari A. Cornell How Sweet it Is (and Was): The History of Candy By Ruth Freeman Swain  Illustrated by John O'Brien  Provides a brief history of a variety of candies and chewing gum. Includes recipes for sugar paste, fudge, and taffy. A Christmas Cookbook...

Verbs Adjectives Edited by Deborah Lambert Designed by Terry Paulhus In these books, you will acquire the tools you need to write interesting and effective sentences and paragraphs using adjectives and verbs. At the same time, you will learn fascinating facts about American sites and symbols. Pictures relate to the main text, providing guidance as you use different types of pronouns in the writing process. Also features activities, charts, and vocabulary exercises.   Kites Sail High: A Book About Verbs By Ruth Heller Stop and Go, Yes and No: What is an Antonym? Thumbtacks, Earwax, Lipstick, Dipstick: What is a Compound Word? Written by Brian P. Cleary Illustrated by Brian Gable The Hebrew Letters Tell Their Story By Reudor Learn the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet while enjoying The Dooodle family's funny rhymes. Hieroglyphs By Kremena Spengler Describes the ancient Egyptian's hieroglyphic writing system, including types ...

 This book display has a fun challenge.  Come into the library and see if you can find the hidden objects! There are 7 new books in the Spot-It series by Sarah L. Shuette: Color Camouflage Happy Birthday! Halloween Hunt Animals Everywhere Season Search Science Fun Princesses and Fairy Tales

Creep and Flutter: The Secret World of Insects and Spiders By Jim Arnosky Celebrates the beauty and diversity of hundreds of insects and spiders in an illustrated work that features eight gatefolds depicting butterflies, beetles, spiders, and other insects. Boot and Shoe By Marla Frazee Boot and Shoe are dogs that live in the same house, eat from the same bowl, and sleep in the same bed but spend their days on separate porches until a squirrel mixes things up. Crow By Barbara Wright In 1898, Moses Thomas's summer vacation does not go exactly as planned as he contends with family problems and the ever-changing alliances among his friends at the same time as he is exposed to the escalating tension between the African-American and white communities of Wilmington, North Carolina. The False Prince By Jennifer A. Nielsen In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the ...

  Santa From Cincinnati Written by Judi Barrett Illustrated by Kevin Hawks A baby in Cincinnati whose first words are "ho ho ho" grows up to become Santa Claus. Max's Christmas By Rosemary Wells Despite his sister Ruby's admonitions, Max waits up on Christmas Eve to see Santa Claus coming down the chimney. The Night Before Christmas By Clement Clarke Moore A well-known poem about an important Christmas Eve visitor. Little Miss Spider: A Christmas Wish By David Kirk It's Christmas Eve and Little Miss Spider is lonely--she doesn't have a little brother or sister to help build snowy creatures and join in her holiday games. Just when Little Miss Spider is wishing her hardest for a friend, she gets whopped with a snowball and discovers Asparagus Beetle... The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey  Written by Susan Wojciuechowski Illustrated by P.J. Lynch The widow McDowell and her seven-year-old son Thomas ask the gr...

Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon Amazon, 2012.  Unpaged.  Picture Book.      Ralph's teacher claims their are "stories everywhere," but though his classmates agree as they are writing their little faces off, Ralph can't come up with anything. Even though he begs to go help the lunch ladies rather than read his story to the class the day of reckoning comes and he stands up to read his two sentences:  "I was at the park.  An inchworm crawled on my knee." Spurred on by the excited questions of his classmates, Ralph comes up, on the fly, with the Incredible Adventures of Nick the Inchworm.  After that, there is no holding Ralph back as the stories flow:  "The Crazy Supermarket Cart," "When My Baby Brother Ate Hot Sauce," and "The Scariest Hamster," to name only a few. A terrific story for budding young authors who may not want to be authors.

Goblin Secrets by William Alexander Simon & Schuster, 2012.  223 pgs. Fantasy.      Goblin Secrets won this year's National Book Award for Young People's Literature.  It is an odd, folksy, complex fantasy about a boy named Rownie who lives with Graba, a Baba Yaga-like "grandmother" who walks about on mechanical chicken legs and whose house moves about the town of Zombay according to her will and pleasure.  Rownie and his fellow orphans may or may not be able to find their way home each night. Rownie hopes someday soon to find his big brother Rowan, a gifted performer in a place where any kind of play, or circus act, or prestidigitation was strictly forbidden to any of the unChanged.  Goblins could perform in some few places and Rownie runs away and joins a goblin troupe, because he likes being with them and he thinks he will find his brother. But when the river begins to rise and Zombay itself is threatened both Rownie and Rowa...

Three Times Lucky  By Sheila Turnage Dial Books for Young Readers, 2012, 312 p Fiction Mo's was named Moses when she was saved from a flooded river during a hurricane when she was just a baby.  She is taken in and raised by a quirky but lovable couple who own a diner in a small town in North Carolina.  Things in that town get pretty interesting when there is a murder and Mo's friend, Dale, becomes a suspect.  Mo and Dale form their own detective agency and take on the case to clear Dale's name.  As the kids get closer to solving the mystery the danger to them and their families grows until they find themselves in a race against the murderer, and a hurricane, to save their parent's lives. This book is full of delightful and interesting characters and the plot twists and turns will keep young readers turning pages until the very end.

Leave Your Sleep: A Collection of Classic Children's Poetry Collected and adapted to music by Natalie Merchant Illustrated by Barbara McClintock Farrar Straus Giroux 2012, Poetry, 48 pages In the introduction, Merchant explains that she started working on this creative project when her own daughter was born. She chose 19 older, classic, children's poems and then set them to music. The poems are available as a book illustrated by Barbara McClintock, and the songs based on the poems are included on a CD attached inside the cover. The poems are varied and interesting.  Some are familiar, like Robert Lewis Stevenson's Land of Nod ,  but most are less known.  McClintock's watercolor and ink illustrations match the mood of each poem.  The most delightful thing about this collection is Merchant's music.  Her voice has a mellow, folk quality that is very listenable.  The songs are accompanied by various instruments and represent a variety of music styles t...

Will Sparrow's Road by Karen Cushman Clarion, 2012. 216 pgs. Historical Fiction.      Unlike Ms. Cushman's Newbery and Newbery Honor winning books, her latest features a boy in the title role. Will Sparrow has been sold into servitude by his father in exchange for ale from the local tavern keeper.  Will, an acknowledged liar and thief, steals one too many meat pies from his boss, and the man decides to sell him for a chimney sweep in London. Will runs away, knowing that, as a rule, sweeps live short, unhappy lives before dying of black lung. With no money, nothing to eat, and no one to care for him, Will takes to the road where he is occasionally helped along by kind-hearted folk but more often taken advantage of by con artists and tricksters. Will decides to care for "no one but myself, and nothing but my belly," but fortunately falls in with some itinerant Fair folk who travel from place to place exhibiting "oddities and prodigies" for the few pennie...

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry Edited by J. Patrick Lewis National Geographic, 2012, 183 p. Poetry In this beautiful poetry collection, the National Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, has teamed up with the amazing photographers at National Geographic. The result is 200 poems about animals, all illustrated with stunning nature photography.  The poems are well chosen and include rhyming, free verse, and shape poetry. Some of the poems are funny, many are contemplative and all are nicely typeset on top of the full color photographs. One of my favorites is a shape poem about flamingos, with a photograph of a flock of flamingos which seem to be standing the the shape of a flamingo (how did they do that?).  Lewis ends the collection with a brief but interesting section about writing animal poetry.  This selection is sure to turn any animal lover into a poetry lover.

Pirate Puzzles By Stella Maidment; illustrated by Daniela Dogliani. QEB Pub.; 2012. 32 pp. Juvenile nonfiction. Enjoy a swashbuckling adventure as you sail the seven seas with a pirate crew and hunt for buried treasure in this attractive book! Help Pip swab the deck, clean up after untidy pirates, cook delicious sea fare, and decipher a treasure map, among other things. The book has vibrant, nicely-designed illustrations with fun picture puzzles to solve that are simple enough for young children to enjoy. This is a perfect sort of book to entertain while in the car--road trip, anyone? For more books in the Puzzle Adventure Series , check out Princess Puzzles , Fairy Puzzles , and Cowboy Puzzles . They are all done by the same author/illustrator duo and have lots of fun picture puzzles to solve!

Beyond Courage:  The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust by Doreen Rappaport Candlewick, 2012.  228 pgs. Non-fiction      Doreen Rappaport's beautifully constructed narrative of the Jewish response to the Holocaust begins with a section entitled The Realization.  Somewhat surprisingly, young people caught on to promises of relocations and resettlements actually being code words for mass executions before the older folk did and tried to make their voices heard before it was too late. When most Jews realized that the Nazis intended to extinguish the Jewish race, they fought back with every means at hand.  In subsequent sections, Rappaport details uprisings in the ghettos where Jews were confined, hidden Jewish shtetls in the depths of the forest, partisan forces in occupied lands, and desperate escape attempts from labor, concentration, and death camps. The great power of this book lies in Rappaport's seamless integration of her ...

Lulu and the Duck in the Park by Hilary McKay Albert Whitman & Company, 2011. 104 pgs. Intermediate      Lulu loves animals so much that she even has a little rope ladder in her bathtub so trapped spiders can get out. But when Lulu brings her dog Sam to visit  the class guinea pig and he causes a ruckus and a mess, Mrs. Holiday, Class Three's teacher, says that if any other animals ever come to visit the class guinea pig she will trade him for Class Two's stick insects. Eeek.  No one wants that. So Lulu is very good until her class goes to the park where some mean dogs chase the ducks around and smash up their nests and eggs. Their special friend, the duck with one wing, gets chased away from her nest and may even have been killed. While Mrs. Holiday and the park workers are chasing the dogs away, Lulu and her best friend and cousin Mellie find something that they just have to take back to class--not exactly an animal visitor, but something that may me...