Mr. Pants: Slacks, Camera, Action! by Scot McCormick, illustrated by R. H. Lazzell

[Update: This turned out to be THE most popular book I took on my school booktalks. I'm now purchasing the rest of the series post-haste.]

I rarely review sequels, but I really wanted to preview this before purchasing it for the library and the only other library in my consortium which owned the first book promptly lost it. So, when I had an opportunity to review the second book I decided to just go with it.

Mr. Pants, an orange and white cat with two differently-sized eyes lives with his sister, gray cat Foot-Foot and their youngest sibling, little white cat Grommy. The three of them live with their human Mom and act rather like real children. Mr. Pants wants to make a movie and win a contest, but first there are chores to be done and then things keep going wrong! Will he ever get his movie made? Will they find out the end of of their bedtime story about Bum-Bum and his adventure riding the Vuumba? Who will win the game of "Honestly" by making Mom say "Honestly kids!" first?

The art felt very flat and digital, which worked really well with the odd storyline and wacky characters. It took me a little while to get used to the tilted perspectives and panels which sometimes felt cluttered to me, but I think kids would adapt to this a lot more easily than I did. This wasn't my personal favorite, but I did find parts of it quite funny.

Verdict: The flat, cartoon art coupled with the nonsensical storyline made me think of a lot of contemporary cartoon shows for middle grade kids and I think fans of Adventure Time and similar shows would definitely go for this. It's also got somewhat of a Garfield vibe to it as well. I'd definitely recommend adding this to your graphic novel collection.

ISBN: 9780803740099; Published 2015 by Dial/Penguin; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library

Small Readers: Little Big Horse: Where's my bike? by Dave Horowitz

The title of this looked awfully familiar; I must have seen mentions of it somewhere, but I didn't end up purchasing it as all my attention was focused on Neighborhoods for collection development.

This is the story of Little Big Horse. He is waiting anxiously for school to end so he can ride his bike. But when he races outside, his bike is gone! Pablo the bully (who also happens to be a bull) has taken his bike. Little Big Horse is dejectedly walking home when he discovers Pablo and his, now broken, bike. Turns out Pablo doesn't know how to fix a flat tire. Two fixed flat tires and one apology later, Pablo and Little Big Horse ride off into the desert.

Horowitz' watercolor caricatures are humorous and accessible. The characters have expressive faces and broadly memorable features. The text is shown in a large font with lots of white space around almost every sentence, keeping the focus on the words.

This is a good illustration of how utterly confusing publisher "levels" can be. Scholastic has several different "level 1" titles. Some have a small logo reading "50-250 words" which are much more complex. Others, like this one, have just a few words or one sentence per page.

Verdict: Maybe I'm just tired, but I don't really see where the humor comes into this - it's not exactly giving useful instructions on how to handle a thief or bully, since their reconciliation happened entirely by chance. The art has a cartoon feel, but nothing that said "funny" to me. An additional purchase.

ISBN: 9780545492140; Published 2014 by Scholastic; Borrowed from another library in my consortium

Changes: A child's first poetry collection by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke

I usually am not much of a poetry fan, but this galley (which was accidentally sent to our cataloger from whom I stole it) had eye-catching pictures and I couldn't resist it.

This is a new edition presenting 28 poems by Charlotte Zolotow. The table of contents has an introductory poem under "Celebrating the Seasons" and then divides the rest into the four seasons, with large, colorful thumbnails marking each section.

The introduction, by Charlotte's daughter Crescent Dragonwagon, talks about the beauty of Charlotte's poetry and her legacy. The introductory poem is bittersweet; it talks about how the seasons are the same every year, but "It is only I/who have changed."

"Spring" includes poems on the river, the wind, watching a bird as you lie in the grass, and several on flowers. "Little crocus/like a cup,/holding all that sunlight up!" "Summer" felt more generic to me with poems about feelings, colors, the ocean, a bridge on a summer night, and insects. "Autumn" focuses more on the season, changing leaves, school, and two poems on Halloween. "Winter" focuses on snow, ice, and waiting for spring. One short poem stands out to me, "Scene" which reads "Little trees like pencil strokes/black and still/etched forever in my mind/on that snowy hill."

The artwork reminded me a little of Jana Christy's soft, fuzzy scenes but while the backgrounds had those same softly glowing colors and blurred edges, the people and animals that populate the book are drawn with clear lines and bolder colors, standing out against the softer backgrounds. Although the poems and art generally picture a specific area - typical four seasons geography - the children pictured are diverse. I think they're the same six children on the cover, shown in different clothes and settings throughout the book, but I'm not obsessive enough to compare each one to be sure.

Verdict: Although poetry generally doesn't circulate well in my library, poetry cleverly disguised as picture books can be sneaked into the picture book section and seasons are always a popular topic. This is a lovely collection of beautiful, accessible verse that parents and children alike can enjoy and, if cataloged and marketed well, should circulate briskly. Recommended.

ISBN: 9781492610685; Published 2015 by Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky; Galley provided by publisher; Purchased for the library

Nonfiction Monday: As an oak tree grows by G. Brian Karas

I've never been a really big fan of Karas' art (I know, I know, everybody else loves it) but this is one book I can really get behind.

The story begins long, long ago with a little Native American boy dropping an acorn into a whole. In 1775 (the date is neatly blocked out at the bottom left corner) the tree sprouts. The tree grows throughout history as farmers take over the land, through heavy winters and hot summers, the coming of the railway and electric light. Cars appear on the roads, and a treehouse is built in the tree. Finally, when the tree is 225 years old, a final great storm splits the tree in two and its life is over. The last spread shows a large stump against a bold green background and, next to the stump, a little sprout as the cycle begins again.

A final page includes some simple facts about the life cycle of an oak tree. A poster is included in the book as well. One side shows how different historical events correlate to the rings in the oak tree, the other side has various activities.

Karas' smudgy, detailed art has a wealth of diverse people featured throughout the story, from the original boy who planted the tree to the families living and working around the tree in the ensuing spreads. Having recently been reading several nonfiction books, specifically picture book biographies, that were not at all suited to their audience, it was like standing under a refreshing waterfall to see this book. On the face of it, it's a very simplistic approach to history through the growth and changes in a tree, perfectly suited to a very young audience. However, the genius of this lies in the detailed art that allows parents and teachers to initiate discussions on the historical events as they are occurring; why did the Native American boy leave? How is the land changed with the advent of various technologies? What different people do you see? How are they the same? How are they different?

Verdict: This is a great book, not just in literary and artistic quality, but in the connections it opens up for further discussion and research. This will be accessible for a wide variety of ages and interests. Highly recommended.

ISBN: 9780399252334; Published 2014 by Nancy Paulsen/Penguin; Borrowed from another library in my consortium; Purchased for the library

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