Favorite pre-summer booktalking picks; Or, The Kids Have Spoken

Some people do amazing, planned skits for their school visits before summer. I take as many books as I can cram into my three milk crates, balanced on my collapsible dolly, do a rapid-fire explanation of summer reading along with a little poking of the general competition between the three elementary schools, and then as much impromptu booktalking as I can fit into 20 minutes or less. For an idea of my booktalking style, you can check out the utube movies in my booktalking tab here (full disclosure - I just talked, a colleague filmed and edited them). I also make a Pinterest board of all the school visit books, to help out my colleagues when kids come in asking for "the funny book with the mustaches" and this year I added a second board for the sixth grade (I don't go any higher).

Of course, placement matters, some they can't see and so don't ask for, sometimes teachers ask about a book, and there's also a subsection of kids (usually the older grades) who will ask for books they are obviously not interested in just to be silly. I have "sets" that I pre-talk, so they don't get a chance to ask about those. This year my sets included Ellie McDoodle as part of the summer program talk (one girl was so excited when she heard the author was coming to visit us that she started bouncing up and down!), Roller Girl and the new, colorized Babysitters' Club graphic novels. when kids ask for I survived (which they all did) I also booktalk Stranded and Disaster Strikes and I had a whole talk centered around reading not just being fiction or narrative nonfiction, but also informational books and then I talk all my experiment/craft/how-to books. However, overall this is what was most asked for, spontaneously, by the kids this year. Going by books that were asked for by the majority of classes and I see three elementary schools, grades K-5, and two groups of sixth graders, about 1500 kids in all.

I was interested to see that both boys and girls asked for these about equally. The boys usually being silly (yes, I can tell) but after I booktalk it they all want to read it!

Opinion is divided between kids who proudly proclaim "I love Frozen!" and those who snicker and roll their eyes "I looooove Frozen"

Everybody loves I Survived. EVERYBODY

One girl kindly informed me that I was booktalking this incorrectly. Frankie is zapped back to life in the FIRST book, not the SECOND. Oops. I do this on purpose to make the kids feel smarter. Really.

This just has a really good cover I think. Very active and the dog is always popular. One inquisitive boy did want to know "What's the Oregon Trail?" but his friends explained to him. First graders have a really varied set of knowledge I find.

This was a weird one. Usually, boys asking for a predominantly pink book like this do it as a "ha ha I'm asking for a girly book" thing (even if they're secretly interested) but apparently the monkey must make it ok, b/c boys and girls asked about this one equally seriously.

Duh.

I think this is one of the coolest snakes I've ever seen and apparently the kids agree.

Also duh.

We have a lot of guinea pig fans, which is cool with me because I like guinea pigs too.

This was a surprise request, although it shouldn't have been since it's checked out quite vigorously over the past few months. The cover is obviously very attractive. One student said they were adopted from an Asian country and is going back with their family and can't wait to read this book. Quieter books are harder to booktalk, but I think I've got a good spiel for this one.

No surprises here.

This has been very popular since I bought it - silhouette covers apparently are very popular right now. My copy does not have all the award stickers on it, fyi, and I don't feel I have a really catchy booktalk for it, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Several classes had just read Frindle and it was on Battle of the Books this year, plus this title is a grabber.

This was this year's surprise hit. I even went and googled it later to see if it was connected to some game or cartoon show I wasn't aware of. No, it just grabbed everybody for some reason. So I better go buy the rest of the series stat - this is volume 2, sent to me for review, and no one in my consortium owns 1 or 3!

This week at the library; or, Are we having fun yet?

What's going on; in my head and at the library

• Monday - staff meeting, youth services meeting with all my staff to get ready for summer, training my new aide, writing reports.
• Tuesday - elementary school visit, worked a very long day because I didn't want to bother to go home before I went to a book club in the evening.
• Wednesday - elementary school visit, then a bunch of misc. stuff (toilet-plunging, emails) then ran errands (thank you certificates etc.) then went home fairly early, trying to stick to 40 hours a week.
• Thursday - elementary school visit, then home early.
• Friday - started with the last school visit around noon; next year I need to remember to bring the remote circ tablet - I ended up with a scribbled list of requests for holds! also, that there is NO parking on field day. Then camp out in the evening
• Saturday - summer reading officially begins. I was trying to do things aimed at the youngest kids for a kick-off, since there's a huge community event for school-age kids, but it didn't really pan out. It was supposed to be a community event but we only ended up with a few people and signed up about 80 kids. It was perfect. We had the Usborne sale, Pattie and Head Start and the animal shelter in the lobby with cute dogs and lots of giveaways. We had lots of enthusiastic sign-ups, tons of circulation, and nobody was exhausted or miserable or too crazy. We have 435 kids signed up for summer reading.

Some Projects Completed/In Progress This Week

• Monthly reports and bills
• Processed all the stacks of new books (putting on new stickers, pinning, discharging)

Programs

• West Side school visit (K, 1st, 2nd, 4th) (with Jess)
• Jackson school visit (K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th in various groupings)
• Tibbets school visit (K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th)
• EAMS sixth grade (1 team, approx 100 students)
• Library Camp-Out
• Safety Shower (with Pattie)

Ongoing and New Stealth Programs and Displays

• 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten
• Summer Reading
• Take Home Storytime: Under the Sea
• Take Home Storytime: Babies
• Activity Table: Create a Superhero Mask!

What the kids are reading; A Selection

• Teens are starting to drift in - this is the brief moment I will see them asking for books before they vanish again for the summer. Requests for horror, Rick Riordan, adventure, manga, etc.
• School visit booktalking
• Mr. Pants is this year's surprise top request. Last year it was Holly Webb's Rose and Willo Davis Roberts Girl with the Silver Eyes. I must immediately buy the other books in the series, as I'm the only one who owns any Mr. Pants and I only have the second one!
• Roller Girl continues to be a very popular selection
• Lots of excitement with the new Lego books and Minecraft novels
• 4th-6th girls are very interested in Listen, Slowly, Brown Girl Dreaming, and Tell Me.
• The I Survived true stories is asked for every time by multiple kids.
• Interesting that there are lots of Ellie McDoodle fans at two of the elementary schools, almost none at the third (although the one there was was literally bouncing up and down when I told her the author was coming, so one is all we need!). I also found it interesting that the heaviest Raina Telgemeier fans are 4th grade girls, while Ellie McDoodle fans are evenly divided across genders and mostly in 2nd-3rd grade. Also, as many boys asked about Princess in Black as girls, which made me happy, and after I talked it one boy loudly said "I am going to READ that!"
• Baffled adult services librarian "he wants some kind of underwater adventure series??" me, after 30 second interview "Treasure Hunters by James Patterson"

Owl Diaries: Eva's Treetop Festival by Rebecca Elliott

This is a new Branches series, which is supposed to be a "branch" from easy readers to chapters. It's one of the easier ones, aimed at kids just starting to transition from easy readers to chapters.

Eva loves her new diary, her school and being busy. She does not love being bored, mean Sue Clawson, or her brother's stinky socks. Also, she thinks being an owl is pretty cool. When Eva gets bored, she gets a great idea - to have a spring festival at school! But she soon finds herself overwhelmed. Will the festival ever happen or will it be a total disaster? Will she have to ask for help from mean Sue Clawson and her friends?

The backgrounds of lined paper emphasize the "diary" aspect of this although the heavily illustrated pages don't really seem to add to the brief text. There are copious owl puns, lots of owls in cute glasses and outfits, and organizational charts and notes as Eva tries to get the festival under control. The plot itself is predictable and the characters are very stereotypical.

Verdict: This is cute, but lacks substance. If you are really in need of transitional series and have readers who will like this type of fluff, go for it. Otherwise I'd stick with Branches' more substantive series.

ISBN: 9780545683630; Published January 2015 by Branches/Scholastic; ARC provided by publisher at ALA Midwinter 2015

Big Max and the Mystery of the Missing Giraffe by Kin Platt, illustrated by Lynne Cravath

This is why weeding is important. You find the stuff you bought years ago without really looking at it and think...

What. The. Heck.

The Big Max titles, of which there were thankfully only two, were written back in the 1970s. However, like most of the I Can Read! imprint they are still available in paperback or prebind.

Big Max, a Sherlock-type investigator, gets a call on his Victorian-style phone. There is a mystery! King Punchapillow in Ah-Ah Achoo has a problem. He has lost his pet giraffe. Big Max says he will be there right away and gets directions to Ah-Ah Achoo which is "between Sneeze and Gesundheit, just past Runnynose." Big Max flies in on his umbrella, with several adventures along the way, and fortunately lands on a bouncy rubber tree. He investigates the king's pets, which consist of two of everything, except Jake the giraffe. Eventually, Big Max follows the right clues and they discover Jake, who, lonely for his friends, escaped and went to join a soccer game. The king apologizes to Jake for keeping him locked up with nothing to kick but rocks and offers Big Max a million Achoo rupees but Big Max prefers to finish watching the soccer game.

The first Big Max book was illustrated by Robert Lopshire, and Lynne Cravath has a very similar art style. This is a level 2, "reading with help" and so has more complex sentences and denser text. I'm always looking for funny books featuring diverse characters, but this is...not really funny. The author apparently had Africa and India confused and the tired old stereotype of people of color with funny names is not really funny. It was reviewed as silly and funny back when it was written, but even then I can't imagine that somebody didn't say "hey, maybe it's not funny to have an "african" king with a nonsensical name? Call me deficient in humor if you will, but there are plenty of humorous, nonsensical easy readers out there that don't use tired old stereotypes. It's time this character was retired from the I Can Read imprint, in my opinion.

Verdict: Thankfully, I originally pulled this because it had an old call number and was a paperback (I'm planning to slowly replace all the paperback easy readers) and then discovered that it was falling apart. Weeded.

ISBN: 9780060099206; Published 2005 by HarperCollins; Weeded for condition and general awfulness

Animal Supermarket by Giovanna Zoboli, illustrated by Simona Mulazzani, translated by Laura Watkinson

I was skeptical about the first book I saw from this pair, but I slowly fell in love with it. I was interested to see what they had next, and requested a galley of this title.

It was interesting. The endpapers are broad stripes of color, separated by sort of rolled on charcoal lines. The title page shows a table with a variety of foods, from tomatoes to bones to ice cream to potted flowers to a giant beetle. The first page begins "The Animal Supermarket sells only natural foods." and shows the supermarket surrounded by giant trees in animal shapes. The building itself has a sort of animal-head shaped tower. The story then goes through different shoppers, from the snail in the early morning getting "lettuce, kale, and herbs." to birds and ants taking advantage of a sale on crumbs, to the seal with "mackerel and cans of sardines." There's a meadow instead of a frozen food section where bees can shop, shelves of grubs and bugs for the monkeys, and a hazelnut tree, with the nuts hanging in little bags. At the end of the day the snail returns for mushrooms. The final spread shows thumbnails of each animals and the full table from the title page, asking "What does each animal eat?" There is a mustard-colored spread including the publication information and a note about the author, which is decorated with thumbnails of the food, and then the rainbow-striped endpapers end the story.

The art is different. Interesting, strange, not a perspective you usually see in most American picture books, but intriguing. Some of it is a little creepy, like the fox and mongoose walking off with a stolen chicken and eggs, or the giant beetles for the monkeys. It's colorful and unusual, catches the eye and makes you look twice. The text did not attract me - it felt clunky and awkward, almost like random sentences were added. Possibly that's the translation, or maybe that's the intent and style of the book.

Verdict: Intriguing, but I would call it an additional purchase at best.

ISBN: 9780802854483; Published 2015 by Eerdmans; F&G provided by publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Nonfiction Monday: Daylight Starlight Wildlife by Wendell Minor

I can hardly write this review I am so dazzled by the gorgeousness of this book. Wendell Minor's stunning paintings and it uses one of my favorite words, "crepuscular"!

*deep breath*

So, every bit of this book if perfectly, amazingly designed. Starting with the endpapers, which show animal tracks on yellow at the front and on blue at the back. I am no good at animal tracks, but I assume they are the track of diurnal and nocturnal animals. The first spread gives a simple explanation of how day and night works with a selection of animals on each side. Then the book moves to comparing specific animals. Diurnal red-tailed hawk has a full spread, then nocturnal barn owl. A woodchuck with babies wanders across the top of a page in the sunlight, while a skunk and her family walk in the opposite direction, at night, across the bottom. The simple story ends with an encouragement to imagine the animals out at night and watch for those coming out during the day.

The final spread of "Fun Facts" explains diurnal, nocturnal, and crepuscular (hello favorite word!) and then has thumbnails of all the creatures in the book with more information about each and their designation.

Minor's lush paintings are both detailed and engrossing, with hidden animals to search for and plenty of color and light to create a feast for the eye. The subjects are skillfully chosen to be both similar and different, creating a wealth of concepts for discussion in storytime or in a classroom. Comparing butterflies and moths, gray squirrels and flying squirrels, and more, would make this an excellent subject for a flannelboard or craft as well.

Verdict: This is an absolute must for your library, from the stunning artwork to the masterful presentation of concepts, to the opportunity to explain and explore similarities and differences. Highly recommended.

ISBN: 9780399246623; Published 2015 by Nancy Paulsen/Penguin; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library

RA RA Read: Picture books about divorce and blended families

A patron requested books about blended families some time ago and I totally blanked. I did some searches, but found mostly adoption and/or divorce stories, nothing about remarriage and new siblings. Storytime Underground came to my rescue and I'm listing titles here for future use! I've added divorce titles as well, although there are many more than the ones I've listed here. I don't necessarily recommend all of these - many I haven't looked at - they're just a reference list.

Divorce

• We're having a Tuesday by DK Simoneau
• Fred stays with me! by Nancy Coffelt
• A day with Dad by Bo Holmberg
• Mom and Dad don't live together anymore by Kathy Stinson
• The most important thing by Rhonda Roth
• I don't want to talk about it by Jeanie Ransom
• Monday, Wednesday and every other weekend by Karen Stanton
• There for you by Annette Aubrey

Remarriage and new siblings (i.e. blended families)

• When Otis Courted Mama by Kathi Appelt
• Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox by Brigitte Luciani (series)
• My mom's wedding by Eve Bunting
• Room for rabbit by Roni Schotter
• My real family by Doris Sanford
• Two's company by Amanda Benjamin
• My mother's getting married by Joan Drescher

More titles not available in my consortium

• Two homes for Tyler by Pamela Kennedy
• Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
• Dad and Pop: An ode to fathers and stepfathers by Kelly Bennett
• Do you sing twinkle by Sandra Levins

This week at the library

What's going on; in my head and at the library

• This is a shortened week because we're closed on Monday. I'm really trying not to be stressed this year. I've made a simpler summer reading program, I'm "only" doing 3 programs a week, and I've gotten two volunteers lined up to take care of summer reading on Thursday and Friday mornings so I don't have to work 10-12 hour days or simultaneously run srp and a program. Some days I feel confident and energized and Ready For Summer. Some days I can't breathe for the anxiety. Baby steps...I've been telling kids for the past 7 years that the only "rule" for summer reading is to HAVE FUN. So why am I not having fun?
• This is the first year I've let people sign up early for summer reading. I'm hoping this gets a better turnout, means we don't lose those folks who go on vacation as soon as school ends, and cuts down on the crazy first day of summer reading registration. I also used class lists to sign up the 180 kids who visited the library this week. We signed up about 20 kids on Tuesday, so that was a good start!
• This week is also when my school visits start in earnest. All the titles I booktalk (my school visits are basically orgies of booktalking) can be found here on the library's Pinterest page.
• Apart from the school visits, this week's big project was cleaning out the storyroom storage closet. I worked on it basically all week! I still need some more shelves - will wait to see what the circulation staff don't want after their workroom is reorganized in the near future. I also took out two old wooden shelves and repurposed them for the juvenile video games.
• The weather kind of made the school visits weird. I rarely have kids come to see me, but I had two big groups who wanted to. We had to reschedule the third graders twice and the second graders ended up coming for two hours because their tour of town got rained out. I added summer reading and the first grade scavenger hunt to stretch things out.
• The third graders finally made it on Thursday. This was a group effort - one of our staff covered the information desk and Jess supervised butterfly mask decorating and scavenger hunts. Meanwhile, I booktalked, promoted summer reading, and held my own against the flood of kids desperate to touch the shiny books. We figured out we need a scavenger hunt for 3rd graders - I had a mix of the 1st grade and my 5th/6th ones, and neither was quite what we needed. Anyways, even if I am overly perfectionist, the kids and teachers had a great time and are already planning to come back next year.
• Even if not all the sixth graders listen (or come back and do summer reading) I am still reaching people - even if it's just the teachers! Some were very excited to find out about class cards, so they don't rack up fines during the school year.

Some Projects Completed/In Progress This Week

• Cleaned out storyroom closet

Programs

• West Side 3rd grade field trip (4 classes) (divided with Jess)
• Tibbets 2nd grade community walk (3 classes) (divided with Jess)
• EAMS sixth grade (1 team, approx. 100 students)

Ongoing and New Stealth Programs and Displays

• 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten
• Summer Reading
• Display: Heroes of the Ancient World
• Middle School Madness: Guess the Superhero

What the kids are reading; A Selection

• Haven't seen these two in a while, but they wanted WWII books that they hadn't read and mysteries/Harry Potter read-alikes for a long trip. Fortunately, since they hadn't been in in a while, I had some new WWII books - the young reader's edition of Atkinson's D-Day, Pure Grit, and The Boys Who Challenged Hitler. We looked at a lot of other things for mysteries/Harry Potter read-alikes and she ended up with about 10 books.
• Heroes of Olympus
• One of my sixth graders came back with his mom after I visited today - a high lexile reader and we spent a lot of time figuring out what he could/should read and whether or not his lexile was going to get so high there was nothing he COULD read. I showed him some teen books he might like and then he hung out with another middle schooler, who helps me out after school a lot, while his mom and I talked.
• Booktalking notes
• As I expected, Roller Girl and the new colorized Babysitter's Club are going to be HUGE. I should have bought more than one copy.
• Also lots of excitement for the true I Survived backstories
• Unexpected, but very welcome, teacher interest for Castle Hangnail. That always ramps up the kids' interest
• One class had just read Frindle and so was very interested in Map Trap
• Lots of 3rd graders knew Ellie McDoodle - both boys and girls! and are absolutely thrilled that the author is coming to visit!

The glory that is my reorganized storyroom.

I used to have a shelf against the wall and a bunch of stuff crammed back here. Alas, no more. The tape of NO has been administered.

But I'm still allowed to keep my kleenex box stash behind the roof access ladder

Top shelf - Pattie's toys and birthday bags
1st shelf - aprons, tubs, containers for messy programs, bubbles, glue, and water (because I have no sink)
2nd shelf - the red totes hold staplers, tape, hole punches, big scissors, and duct tape. The large container has mixed sand
3rd shelf - the blue tub holds chalk, the green pots hold paint brushes, then comes colored masking tape, glue, and colored sand
4th shelf - paint
5th shelf - paper goods (plates etc.), snacks, and a box of a gazillion little paper pads donated by an insurance company

The giant tubs hold the balls for the baby ball pit
The drawers hold our puppets

The bags hold bells, shakers, a parachute, and bubble wands.
I would like to have another shelf here, so this space isn't wasted, but Pattie's giant water toy does take up a lot of space

Yes, we need a stool to reach the top of this, even me
the tubs on the very top have all our fabric paint and markers, because they're used rarely, then a lot of misc. stuff, beads, then markers and crayons and other stuff.

The tubs and dishpans include various things from craft supplies, glitter, bleeding art tissue paper, stickers, and popsicle sticks to misc. supplies (stencils, iron) down to Pattie's small toys and our tablecloths (i.e. old sheets)

The complete view

These are the two shelves that were in the storage room - one where the yellow tape is, one in the cleared space. I put them under the bulletin board and moved our games onto them so now the kids can reach the games and we have a new display space.

Sprout Street Neighbors: Five Stories by Anna Alter

I'm usually a little leary of these slice of life beginning chapter books, but this one was oddly comforting and very sweet. I have a lot of parents right now looking for read-alouds for preschool-aged children and this fills that need very well.

Five short chapters introduce five friends and their daily lives on Sprout Street. In the first chapter, The Acorn Problem, Henry the mouse tries to think of a tactful way to tell his upstairs neighbor, Emma the squirrel, that her thunking acorns are disturbing his Saturday morning nap. The next chapter, The Best Birthday, features Emma and her efforts to have the best birthday party ever. Fernando's Wish features Fernando's longing to do something in the annual parade and his fears of performing in public. With the help of his neighbors, especially Violet who plays the flute, he fulfills his longing to dance. Violet is featured in the next chapter, The Surprise, as she learns that sometimes you do need help from your neighbors. She finally accepts help from her neighbor Wilbur. The last chapter is about Wilbur and The Secret Garden, when all the neighbors come together to save Wilbur's beloved garden in an abandoned lot.

Alter's soft black and white illustrations are strongly reminiscent of Peter McCarty. Honestly, I had to look twice to make sure he wasn't the illustrator. Her artwork is a strong fit for the story though, simple and attractive, with each character having a clear personality and recognizable characteristics, both physical and personality-wise. I liked the little accents scattered throughout the book as well.

Verdict: This won't be a hugely popular title with most beginning readers; it's much more in the vein of the classic Frog and Toad easy reader, which isn't really that popular anymore, at least at my library, but that makes it a good choice as a read-aloud to younger children or for those kids who like more peaceful, everyday stories.

ISBN: 9780385755580; Published April 2015 by Alfred A. Knopf/Random House; ARC provided by publisher at ALA Midwinter 2015; Purchased for the library

Read, Read, Read said the Baby: Butterfly Colors and Counting by Jerry Pallotta, illustrated by Shennen Bersani

[This review was previously published. It has been edited.]

The text has the numbers (both  numeral and text) and the color shown in the picture. A key on the back cover lists the butterflies shown.

The illustrations in this little board book (only ten pages!) are very realistic, so much so that I had to look twice to see if they were photos or drawings. Readers can both count and identify the colors of ten brilliantly drawn butterflies. The pages are a little thinner than a normal board book.

Verdict: This is a pretty but light offering. I keep taking it on and off my order list because I'm afraid the thin pages won't hold up to extensive checkouts though.

ISBN: 9781570918995; Published 2013 by Charlesbridge; Borrowed from another library in my consortium