Provo Library Children's Book Blog

                                            Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley, illustrated by Diana Sudyka Dial, 2015. 292 pgs. Fantasy      Micah's grandfather is dying, and Micah's great aunt Gertrudis is caring for them both, after her fashion, which is mean-spirited if not downright wicked. But before he passes on, Ephraim Tuttle is going to call in a favor from the Man Who Bends Light, of the Circus Mirandus. When Ephraim was a small boy he played alone on a lone and dreary beach, where one day the skirl of pipes and the thrum of drums called him over the hill to the Circus Mirandus. Luckily he found what passed for a ticket in his boot, and stayed as long as his ticket allowed to learn and to feel the Magic of the circus. Messages pass back and forth between Ephraim and the Circus, carried by Chintzy the Parrot and though Micah thinks his grandfather w...

                                  A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall Random House, 2015. Unpaged. Picture Book.      Three centuries ago, a mother and daughter in the English village of Lyme gathered blackberries, milked the cow and skimmed the cream, and whipped it with "a bundle of clean, soft twigs. Then they put it all together for "a fine dessert": blackberry fool. A hundred years later in America, a black woman and her daughter gathered blackberries from the plantation garden where they were slaves. Cream arrived in a horse-drawn cart and was whipped with a metal whisk. This fine dessert was served to the master and his family. The mother and her daughter licked the bowl. In 1910 a Boston family bought blackberries at a market, and in 2010, a father and son bought pasteurized organic cream and two boxes of bl...

  I’m Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton Viking Books, 2015. Picture Book. “I keep telling myself: ‘Spiders are cool.’ I want to love them.” The narrator of this book is heroically trying to love spiders despite being afraid of them. The narrator and reader pump themselves up by going over awesome arachnid facts, and just when it seems like it’s working… “Ahhhhhh!! It’s moving!! Squish it!! Squish it!! Squish it!!” A dotted-line handprint around the spider lets the reader help with the squishing, and on the next page there is a big dark ink splat. Oops! Full of fun spider facts, clever captions, and cute cartoon spiders, this book is just plain hilarious!

The Tapper Twins Go to War (With Each Other) by Geoff Rodkey Little, Brown, and Co. 2015. Fiction. 219 p. It all starts with Claudia thinks her twin Reese took her toaster pastry.  She gets back at him by insulting him at school.  He gets back at her by calling her a name in front of her friends.  The war escalates with hilarious results. The story is told in notebook form, and includes transcripts of parent texts and interviews with friends and teachers.  The general tone of the story is humorous, but there are serious (and a little bit preachy) overtones. That said, the voices of the two tweens and the junior high atmosphere are spot on, and the book is illustrated with cartoons like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or the Dork Diaries , so kids will be willing to overlook the tiny bit of moralizing.  (219 p.)

Big and Small By Elizabeth Bennett Illustrated by Jane Chapman Tiger Tales, 2014. Picture Book. Big, a bear, is best friends with Small, a mouse. One day, they go outside to play but as they are climbing trees, crossing a stream, or playing in the field Small calls on Big’s help to assist him so he can keep up. But when they get home and it’s time to go to bed it is Big that calls on Small’s help for a hug because he can’t sleep. A cheerfully illustrated picture book about friendship that shows that no matter your size, each friend has a very important role in helping the other.

Mothman's Curse by Christine Hayes, illustrated by James K. Hindle Roaring Book Press, 2015.  310 pgs. Fantasy      Josie, Fox, and Mason Fletcher live in Athens, Ohio, a mere forty miles from Point Pleasant, West Virginia where the "real" folk monster, Mothman, began to appear just a year before Point Pleasant's Silver Bridge collapsed, killing forty-six people. In Hayes' story of the Mothman, he appears hither and yon just before similar tragedies such as the one in neighboring Clark, Ohio, where a landslide claimed many lives. The children's father runs an auction house and has been asked to sell items from the estate of John Goodrich (and he was good and rich, but not untouched by disaster); when the children look over the sale items they find a camera that has no film and yet spits out picture after picture of Goodrich; Josie finds a pin with a moth encased in it which she keeps, with dread consequences. The Fletcher children's encounters with ...

  ABC Zooborns! By Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland Beach Lane Books, 2012, Picture Book. Another fun entry in Bleiman and Eastland’s ZooBorn series, ABC ZooBorns introduces a cute and cuddly animal for each letter of the alphabet. Filled with beautiful photographs of well-known animals like a giraffe and a rhinoceros as well as a few lesser-known animals like a dhole and a vicuña, this is another good book for little ones learning their abc’s. Each page includes a letter, a photograph of an animal and a brief sentence that acts as a caption for the photo. Be sure to check out all of the books in the ZooBorn series !    

House of Robots by James Patterson Illustrated by Chris Grabenstein Little Brown and Company, 2014. Fiction Sammy has a crazy home life.  His father is a comic book author and his mother is a robotics expert.  Sammy tolerates the teasing he gets about his unusual parents, until one day when his mom wants to send one of her robots to school with him as his "robot brother."  After a first disastrous day, Sammy starts to get used to having his "bro-bot" around. "E" is smart, strong and funny.  Most of the other kids like "E" as well, but not everyone is glad to have him at school. Sammy's story is illustrated throughout with line drawings reminiscent of  Diary of a Wimpy Kid .  Patterson includes plenty of silliness, especially at Sammy's house which is filled with a whole cast of whacky robots.  There is a touch of tenderness, too, in Sammy's relationship with his home-bound sister. Patterson proves, once again, that he knows ho...

  Necessary Skills and Then Some DK Publishing, 2014. Nonfiction, 192 pgs. This book offers kids step-by-step instructions about how to make, explore, and experiment in every imaginable life category, both practical and outrageous. A small sample of activities: perform magic tricks, make origami animals, learn to juggle, make real hot chocolate, attract and feed moths, escape from an alligator, pan for gold, find your latitude, learn CPR, make balloon animals, and build a compost pile. Full of fun tips and great diagrams, this book is an excellent boredom buster which will keep kids busy, give them new knowledge about the world, and might even introduce them to their next favorite hobby.

Dinosaur Farm By Frann Preston-Gannon Sterling Children's Books, 2014. Picture Book. Working on a farm is hard work but it’s even trickier when your livestock are dinosaurs. The story follows a farmer and his pet dinosaur as they go about their busy day feeding, bathing, and cleaning up after the dinosaurs on the farm. Sparse text and humorous colorful collage illustrations make this book one of my all-time favorite dinosaur picture books—and I read a lot of dinosaur picture books. Frann Preston-Gannon was the 2011 Sendak Fellowship recipient which gave her the opportunity to live with and learn from master illustrator Maurice Sendak for a month in his home.

Captain America: The First Avenger by Alexander Irvine (adapter) Little, Brown and Co. 2014. 152 p. Captain America is one of the most beloved of Marvel superheroes.  Irvine tells his story, based on the Captain America movie, with clear, straight forward prose in this short novelization.  Readers can follow Steve Rodgers as he goes from being a super wimp to a super soldier. Irvine portrays his struggles as a propaganda star and his final triumph over Hydra. Irvine focuses on the plot, and does not use a lot of detail in describing the fighting and action sequences.  This helps the story move at a good pace, and keeps the violence levels more appropriate for the target audience.  The library has both the print and audiobook formats.

  iMotion is hands-down the best stop-motion app I have seen.  It is educational and has a simple enough interface that kids can easily use it on any iPhone or iPad. The videos it creates are high quality and can be saved to a computer, or posted online to places like Facebook. Once your child learns how to use the app, prepare yourself for hours spent creating their own clever stop-motion short films. We used this app in one of our library programs. (I found that action figures and LEGOs are some easiest items to use for stop-motion.) The kids LOVED making their own film. Parents later reported that some of them went straight home and started making films of their own. In all, it is an app that should not to be missed.

  Wednesday by Anne Bertier Enchanted Lion Books, 2014. Picture book. Every Wednesday, Little Round, a small orange circle, and Big Square, a large blue square, get together to play their favorite game of pretend. One of them shouts out an object, such as butterfly or flower, and both divide themselves into parts and reassemble into the new shape. But soon Big Square gets carried away and starts transforming into shapes that Little Round can’t make. Will their game be ruined or can they find a way to play cooperatively? The complementary colors of the bright blue and orange printed on thick creamy paper makes this book a joy to hold and view. The abstract creations made from simple geometric shapes are eye-catching enough for even very young children to enjoy. Preschoolers will be familiar with the complications of trying to play collaboratively with others and will delight in Little Round and Big Square’s creative solutions. Use this book to talk about shapes or a...

In Mary's Garden By Tina and Carson Kugler Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. Biography This whimsical picture book biography introduces artist Mary Nohl (1914-2001), who used objects that she found and mixed them together to create outdoor sculptures in her garden in Wisconsin. It shows how her creativity was cultivated as a child and grew with her world traveling. She did not create for monetary gain or world recognition; she did it because it made her happy. The final page gives some more detail about the Mary’s life plus two photographs of Mary and her garden. A great picture book to use with children in discussing what art is.

One Family By George Shannon Illustrated by Blanca Gomez Frances Goster Books, 2015. Picture Book. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and this picture book show that if you are a family of one or ten we are all part of one global family and interact with each other. This counting picture book, going from one to ten, uses two page spreads showing a family representing that number and two other objects as well. For example, the spread for “8” shows a multigenerational family of eight and, in the living room, a box of eight crayons and a row of eight ducks. What makes this book stand out from other counting books is that it gives the reader/listener three times to count out the number they are learning instead of the usual one.

The Song of Delphine  Written and illustrated by Kenneth Kraegel Candlewick Press, 2015. Picture Book Delphine works as a servant in a palace near the Savannah.  To pass the long lonely hours she sings to herself while she works.  One day a young princess comes to the castle.  Delphine hopes they can be friends, but the princess is intentionally cruel to Delphine.  One night as Delphine pours out her sadness and loneliness in song, help comes to her from an unexpected source.  This new folktale is told in simple prose and masterful watercolor-and-ink illustrations.  Kraegel's message of hope will resonate with young readers: if you hang on and do your best to be kind, things can get better.

Yak and Gnu  By Juliette MacIver  Illustrated by Cat Chapman Candlewick, 2015. Picture Book Yak in his kayak and Gnu in her canoe think they are the only animals that can “float in a boat or sail in the sea.” As they are floating down the river they come across more and more animals that are on rafts, sail boats, and even a catamaran. With the river full of other animals and their watercrafts are Yak and Gnu still special?  The illustrations gain humor as more and more animals appear. The characters’ faces are lively, silly and ooze personality. The story reaffirms that everyone is special even if others may be doing something similar.

Mouse’s First Night at Moonlight School Written by Simon Puttock Illustrated by Ali Pye Nosy Crow, 2014. Picture Book. Miss Moon’s new nocturnal students have just arrived for the first day of Moonlight School. However, one student, Mouse, is missing. She was so shy that she hid from everyone. After Miss Moon calls for a game of hide and seek in which Mouse’s talents are revealed, Mouse becomes more comfortable with school and her classmates. This is a great choice for any younger children who are nervous about starting school or who just feel a little shy. The cartoon-like illustrations accented with nighttime colors are fun and bring the Moonlight School to life for the reader.