Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Only Fish Fall from the Sky by Leif Parsons Pow! Publishing. 2015. Picture Book. A boy wakes up from a very strange dream. He cannot believe what he saw -- water falling from the sky! He reminds the reader, "how ridiculous. Everyone knows only fish fall from the sky." What follows is a series of similar nonsense, with the narrator treating absurd statements as obvious fact -- until, that is, he wakes up from this dream. As it turns out, his first dream went much deeper than he realized. The literal-minded may become frustrated with this book before it reveals its final twist, but those with a taste for the surreal should not miss out. Parsons accompanies his absurd story with even more bizarre illustrations, adopting a Where's Waldo? -like spread to each dream anecdote. These pages are rich in detail, with the absurd elements beautifully colored while the banal parts remain black and white. It's a terrific visual metaphor for this book, which clearly has more f...

The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy  By Beatrice Alemagna Enchanted Lion Books, 2015. Picture Book. Edith, who goes by Eddie, thinks that she does not know how to do anything. When she overhears her sister use the words “fuzzy—little—squishy” when discussing a birthday gift for their mom, Eddie sets out to find a fuzzy little squishy gift to rival whatever her sister is planning. Eddie races from shop to shop asking her friends, the shop owners, for help finding the perfect gift. However, the adjectives of “fuzzy” and “squishy” get mixed up with other words and Eddie ends up with a random assortment of objects. Just when she begins to lose hope, she finds a “true FLUFFY LITTLE SQUISHY.” Using the newly acquired objects, Eddie obtains the perfect gift for her mom. The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy is a fun import from France full of unique illustrations done using a combination of colored pencil and water colors with a brilliant pink being used to accent Eddie’s coat an...

Love: The Tiger By Frédéric Brrémaud and Federico Bertolucci Follows a single majestic tiger through a wordless adventure as it hunts prey and defends itself from other would-be killers defending their own territory. Avatar: The Last Airbender-Smoke and Shadow Part 1  By Gene Luen Yang When the Fire Nation begins to believe that the country will perish if Zuko stays in power, Avatar Aang and his friends must protect the ruler. Space Dumplins By Craig Thompson For Violet Marlocke, family is the most important thing in the whole galaxy. So when her father goes missing while on a hazardous job, she can't just sit around and do nothing. To get him back, Violet throws caution to the stars and sets out with a group of misfit friends on a quest to find him. But space is vast and dangerous, and she soon discovers that her dad is in big, BIG trouble. With her father's life on the line, nothing is going to stop Violet from trying to rescue him and keep her family together. ...

Gennifer Choldenko Al Capone Does My Shirts A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister. Chasing Secrets Thirteen-year-old Lizzie and her secret friend Noah, who is hiding in her house, plan to rescue Noah's father from the quarantined Chinatown, and save everyone they love from contracting the plague that is spreading in 1900 San Francisco. If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period Kirsten and Walk, seventh-graders at an elite private school, alternate telling how race, wealth, weight, and other issues shape their relationships as they and other misfits stand up to a mean but influential classmate, even as they are uncovering a long-kept secret about themselves. No Passengers Beyond this Point With their house in foreclosure, sisters India and Mouse and brother Finn are sent to stay with an uncle in Colorado until t...

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead Wendy Lamb Books, 2015. Fiction 289 p. Bridge, Em and Tab have been best friends for as long as they can remember, but when they hit 7th grade, their friendship is challenged.  Em gets a boyfriend and Tab discovers social activism.  Bridge makes a new friend in Sherm, but doesn't quite know if their friendship is more than that.  Everything blows up when Em feels pressure to text a risky picture of herself to her new older boyfriend.  Does friendship mean doing what your friend wants you to, even if you know it is a bad idea?  Each character faces challenges that threaten to overwhelm him/her, but the friends learn that if they support and help each other they can make it through. With amazing insight into modern early teen culture, Stead creates sympathetic characters caught up in the first whirlwind of adolescence.  Stead won the Newbery with When You Meet Me and may well do it again with this one. This book is a...

Happy Halloween Witch's Cat! by Harriet Muncaster Harper, 2015. Picture Book. In this bright and beautiful picture book, a young girl tries to decide which costume she should wear for Halloween. But nothing seems right. Will she be able to find the perfect costume in time? Muncaster's illustrations are made up of cut paper characters set up in a 3D world which is then lit and photographed. This gives each picture a magically real quality. Young readers will find themselves pulled in to this delightful but simple Halloween tale right from the start.

Everyone Loves Bacon By Kelly DiPucchio Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. Picture book. Bacon is the new celebrity at the diner. Egg loves him. Waffle loves him. Pancake loves him. And it’s definitely going to Bacon’s head. He revels in the attention, the fans, and the merchandise with his face on it. Eventually he forgets all about his old friends back home, like Lettuce, Tomato, and Avocado. “Who needs friends when you have fans?” Will Bacon learn his lesson about the price of popularity? This is a clever and witty tale sure to have kids and grownups laughing all the way to the surprise ending.

Celebrating Georgia Written by Jane Kurtz Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. Easy Reader Informational In this fantastic series, 50 States to Celebrate, for early readers comes Celebrating Georgia . Along with Mr. Geo, readers can experience the world’s biggest peach cobbler, the Zoo Atlanta, and the beginning of the Appalachian Trail. Mr. Geo takes the reader through the state noting natural resources and famous people from history. In this informational easy reader, find out lots of fun facts about Georgia that you never knew!

Mother/Daughter Book Club The Penderwicks By Jeanne Birdsall While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother. Mother/Son Book Club The Trolls By Polly Horvath Eccentric Aunt Sally comes from Canada to babysit the Anderson children while their parents are on a trip to Paris and every night the bedtime story adds another piece to a very suspect family history.

Chasing Secrets by Gennifer Choldenko Random House, 2015.  Fiction, 278 p Lizzy attends Miss Barstow's finishing school where she learns etiquette and decorum, but she would rather be out doing house calls with her physician father. It is 1900 and Lizzy lives in San Francisco, a teaming city with a growing China Town. When there are rumors of a plague epidemic China Town is quarantined, but the way the quarantine is carried out doesn't seem right to Lizzy.  Her suspicions grow when she meets a quarantine refugee, Noah, and discovers that the newspapers are not telling the whole story.  Together Noah, some other new friends, and Lizzy go on a crusade to find out what is really happening. This is an interesting and exciting new historical fiction by a Newbery Honor author. Lizzy, with her pluck and persistence, is a complex and endearing strong-girl character.  Lizzy's father, and her friends are all fully formed, and their adventure together is firmly set ...

Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann NorthSouth, 2015. Picture Book. A single mole builds his house underneath a beautiful meadow and foolishly believes that he is alone. Soon after settling in, he is joined by more moles who wish to expand his simple home. Once other moles join in, one mole's house becomes a village, then a town, and finally a humongous industrial city. After some time, all that is left of the mole's original meadow is a tiny patch of grass. Moletown explores the rise and fall of a civilization, though it isn't as dour as that description implies. The book shows how our society adapts and changes as populations increase, and how simple things like electricity can change the way we live. Amazingly, this book tells its story with almost no words -- only using text to introduce and conclude. The rest is an illustrated journey into this mole empire, and Kuhlmann luxuriates in the smoke and gears of his city. The book rewards close inspection, as details are eve...

Love Volume 1: The Tiger By Frederic Brremaud and Federico Bertolucci Magnetic Press, 2015. Graphic Novel, 74 p. Experience the day in the life of a tiger as it hunts for its next meal through the jungle. The story unfolds clearly and engagingly with each panel in this completely wordless graphic novel. The lush and beautiful illustrations take the reader into a realistic depiction of nature’s circle of life through the eyes of a large predator. This story of survival includes some nature violence rendering it a good fit for children in grades 5-6. Be sure to check out Volume 2 as well which follows the day in the life of a fox.

  Frog on a Log? By Kes Gray Scholastic, 2015. Picture book. Frog doesn’t want to sit on a log. They’re hard and uncomfortable and give you splinters. But Cat has no patience for this. Cats sit on mats, hares sit on chairs, mules sit on stools, and frogs sit on logs. “It’s not about being comfortable. It’s about doing the right thing.” With ever more outrageous rhyming combinations and hilarious illustrations to go along – storks sit on forks; lions sit on irons – the frog learns about each animal’s special place to sit. Until he asks one question too many: “What do dogs sit on?”

Lizard from the Park By Mark Pett Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2015. Picture Book. On his way home from school, Leonard cuts through the park and comes across a curious-looking egg and decides to take it home with him. The next morning the egg cracks open to reveal a lizard which Leonard names Buster. Leonard shows Buster all his favorite places in the city and soon Buster (who turns out to be a Tyrannosaurs Rex) grows so large that Leonard can no longer keep him in his room and moves him up to his apartment building’s roof. But Leonard knows it won’t be long before Buster outgrows his new home, so he needs to come up with a plan to return Buster to his home in the park to be with his family. Lizard from the Park is a clever take on the boy and his pet dinosaur story. The humorous and ingenious way Leonard figures out how to return Buster to the park will have kids’ imaginations turning, pondering how they would solve the problem. An enjoyable read for any di...

If You Find This  By Matthew Baker Little Brown and Co, 2015. Fiction 358p. Nicholas has a lot to worry about.  He is worried that his family will have to move because of financial problems.  He is worried about being bullied at school.  He is worried that he will never have a true friend.  His worries only compound when his grandfather, who has spent the last two decades in prison, shows up on his doorstep.  It doesn't help that his grandfather has dementia and sometimes can't remember things. One thing his grandfather does remember is that there are some valuable heirlooms hidden somewhere in the old house where he lived before he went to prison. In a desperate attempt to save his own home, Nicholas teams up with some unlikely allies and tries to unravel the mystery of the missing heirlooms and his grandfather's missing memories. Baker captures an authentic middle school voice for Nicholas and his accomplices.  This sometimes lighthearted, som...

The Beast in My Belly By Grzegorz Kasdepke Enchanted Lion Books, 2015. Intermediate fiction. 48p. A little girl begins to hear worrisome groans and growls coming from her stomach. She realizes there must be a beast in there! She tries to tell her parents, her brother, and her grandparents, but no one believes her. Afraid that the beast will get bigger if she feeds it, she skips snack time, but that just seems to make the beast angrier. And then the beast keeps her awake at night: “He led me into the kitchen, right up to the refrigerator. When I opened it, I discovered what a greedy beast it was! It wouldn’t go back to sleep until it had eaten not one, not two, not three, but four sausages!” Will she figure out how to rid herself of the beast? This Polish import has very short chapters with whimsical illustrations on each page. A humorous exploration of children’s feelings and imagination.

Beastly Verse by Joohee Yoon Enchanted Lion Books, 2015. Poetry. In this collection of poems, Joohee Yoon draws upon both classical and modern verse, including selections by Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, and William Blake. Every poem is about a (mostly-real, some-imagined) member of the animal kingdom. The poems on display are a fun, diverse group that will help a young reader learn more about this form, as the poems have many different meters, rhythms, and styles. But the poems are not the only reason to pick up Beastly Verse --  they are accompanied by some extremely exciting illustrations by Yoon. Her style comprises three primary colors: cyan, magenta and yellow. She then blends the colors to create a secondary palette that fleshes out this sorta-psychedelic animal world. It's gorgeous. Between the fun literary collection and the wild illustrations, readers have many, many reasons to check out this book.

  Robert McCloskey (1914-2001) was one of America's greatest illustrators. His children's books won multiple Caldecott awards and honors, and his style helped define midcentury American art. A native of Maine, his books showcased his vibrant New England home, and they are perfect reads for the transition between summer and autumn.  Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey Mrs. Mallard was sure that the pond in the Boston Public Gardens would be a perfect place for her and her eight ducklings to live. The problem was how to get them there through the busy streets of Boston. Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey Little Sal and Little Bear both lose their mothers while eating blueberries and almost end up with the other's mother. One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey It's a big day for a little girl when she discovers her first loose tooth and makes a trip to the grocery store on the mainland. Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man by Robert ...

Ben Draws Trouble By Matt Davies Roaring Brook Press, 2015. Picture Book Ben Draws Trouble is Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Matt Davies’ follow up to the acclaimed Ben Rides On. Ben Lukin loves to draw. In fact, he loves it so much that he draws during every class, which makes them more entertaining to him. However, it also gets him into trouble. Ben is very good at drawing people so when his sketchbook goes missing Ben worries about who would see his drawings. Eventually the book ends up in the hands of his teacher, Mr. Upright. How he reacts to Ben’s drawings will bring a smile to your face. Davies’ scratchy and cartoon-like illustrations add to this simple but fun tale about a boy and his talent for drawing. Be sure to also check out Ben Lukin’s first adventure in Ben Rides On .

The Nutcracker Comes to America by Chris Barton Illustrated by Cathy Gendron Millbrook Press, 2015. Nonfiction. Find out the true story of the three talented brothers who introduced the Nutcracker Ballet here in America--eventually helping it to become a favorite ballet. The Christensen brothers were dancers who were born and raised in Utah. Without them, this traditional Russian ballet would never have been known here in America. Nor would it have be the popular holiday tradition that it is today. This would be the perfect book to read before attending the Nutcracker Ballet this Christmas season.

Monster Trouble! Written by Lane Fredrickson Illustrated by Michael Robertson Sterling Children's Books, 2015. Picture Book. A brand new Halloween treat! Winifred Schnitzel has a problem. Unlike other children her age, Winifred, is not afraid of Monsters. Because of this, monsters come from far and wide to test their scary skills on her, each wanting to be the one that finally scares her. Winifred is not in the least bit frightened, but the monster's nightly visits are starting to affect her sleep habits. Exhausted and tired, resourceful and brave Winifred must find a way to make the monsters leave her alone--once and for all. Her answer to the problem will make younger readers laugh out loud. In fact, they might even want try it themselves next time they suspect there is a monster under their bed.

I'm Not Afraid of This Haunted House By Laurie Friedman Illustrated by Teresa Murfin Carolrhoda Books, 2005. Picture Book. Simon Lester Henry Strauss is not afraid of the haunted house. He declares his bravery at every turn as he comes across a werewolf, ghoul, vampires and more, telling his friends there is nothing to be afraid of and he can’t wait until next year to return. But as he exits the house he comes across something that does scare him—something that causes him to scream and run away. An amusing rhyming Halloween book to share with grade school kids.

Once Upon a Line by Wallace Edwards Pajama Press, 2015. Picture Book Many wonderful stories begin with "Once Upon a Time" but the stories suggested by this book start with "Once Upon a Line." On each page Wallace has a fanciful illustration with a short story-starter below it.  "Once Upon a Line/ there was a great race.  No one knew who would come first, until the fluffy one began to..." The reader is invited to make up his/her own story to go along with the picture. The bright watercolor illustrations are a delight, and if the author/illustrator weren't Canadian this could be a Caldecott contender. To add to the fun Wallace has hidden both a fountain pen and a "line" of a certain shape in each picture.  Readers are invited to find the pen and the "line" in each page with answers provided at the back of the book. This is a great book to share with a budding author, or with anyone who enjoys getting caught up in a world of ima...

006 and a Half By Kes Gay Daisy's plan to become a spy falls apart when no one understands her spy language. Spy Guy: The Not-So-Secret Agent By Jessica Young Spy Guy is determined to become a good, sneaky spy, but he cannot do it without the help of his father, the Chief. Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers By Cynthia Rylant While trying out the spy glasses, spy hat, and other items in their new spy kit, seven-year-old Henry and his dog Mudge make a new friend and form a spy club. Super Spies By Susan Amerikaner When someone is sabotaging race cars in an international tournament, Mater discovers his new friends Holley and Finn are spy cars, and he agrees to help them find the culprits. Spy Mice: The Black Paw ByHeather Vogel Frederick Two fifth-graders who are the targets of bullies and a mouse spy who has not only lost her job but is also on a mobster rat's hit list, meet at Washington D.C.'s International Spy Mus...

The Fun Book of Scary Stuff By Emily Jenkins Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015. Picture book. A little boy makes a list of all the things that scare him, and with a little coaxing, shares them with his two dogs. They help him work through these fears which range from trolls and witches to a mean crossing guard and big, barking dogs. The dialogue, written in speech bubbles above their heads, is funny and full of personality. “When did you see trolls?” “Um. Never.” “You keep being scared of stuff that probably doesn’t exist.” “So?” “I’m just saying.” But when it comes to the ultimate scary thing – the dark – it’s the boy’s turn to play hero to his two dogs and save them, with a simple solution, from the “dark of nameless evil!” A great, light-hearted exploration of fears.

Aaron Loves Apples and Pumpkins Written by P.D. Eastman Random House, 2015. Easy Reader Aaron loves fall. He celebrates by playing hide and seek, dressing up for Halloween and watching football. Aaron ends this easy reader by showing his friends his way to pick apples. From the author of Go, Dog. Go! comes Aaron the Alligator in this charming fall Early Reader.

The Berenstain Bears Are Superbears! Written by Mike Berenstain HarperCollins, 2015. Easy Reader Bat Bear, Spider Bear and Cubby Bear go around their neighborhood foiling evildoers by using their imagination. When a little cub falls off his bike, the bear siblings become heroes in real life. Combining these familiar characters dressed as superheroes will delight any early reader.