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We’re kicking off a new feature, EarlyWord Galley Chat. This is an opportunity for librarians to talk to each other about favorite galleys (we know you carried or shipped a boatload of them back from PLA).
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Our many links on the far right offer useful tools for selection and readers advisory librarians. Get a head start on the Fall season by checking out the new Publisher’s Catalogs, view trailers for Movies Based on Books and identify Movie Tie-ins. If you need a librarian-friendly contact at publishing houses, check our listings under Publisher Contacts.
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We thought Scholastic had mastered the art of the embargo, but the LA Times got their hands on a copy and have posted a review, “…a series conclusion that is nearly as shocking, and certainly every bit as original and thought provoking, as The Hunger Games.”
Meanwhile, on Twitter, so many people have claimed to be reading copies that one person complained, “I feel like I’m the only one who hasn’t read it.”
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Before I leap into my picks of kids books for September, I wanted to mention that, while at ALA, Jo Ann Jonas, the woman who inspired me to become a librarian, and I made a recording for StoryCorps. We both enjoyed talking about why we love about our jobs.
Part of what continues to inspire me is discovering new books that kids will love. Below are some of my favorites for next month.
A Bedtime for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton, Candlewick. Ages 4 and up.
The bear who likes things in his house to be “just so” and the mouse (small, and gray and bright-eyed of course) from A Visitor for Bear return to deal with going-to-bed rituals.
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Switching on the Moon: A Very First Book of Bedtime Poems by Jane Yolen, Andrew Fusek Peters, and illustrated by G. Brian Karas
Here is a Little Poem is an essential buy for every children’s room. It is one of my favorite collections for young children. The same team brings together poems, old and new for nighttime reading paired with Karas’s dreamy paintings.
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Max and Ruby’s Bedtime Book, by Rosemary Wells, Viking. Ages 3 and up
Very short stories of our favorite sister and brother bunnies are collected in a lavishly illustrated volume perfect for settling our own little ones during the night time read-aloud ritual.
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The Baby Goes Beep, by Rebecca O’Connell, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max, Albert Whitman. Baby to toddler.
Baby goes beep, Baby goes splash, Baby goes shhhh. Hats off to Whitman for bringing back this rollicking repetitious toddler read aloud in a board book edition.
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I’m Big!, by Kate Mcmullam, illustrated by Jim Mcmullan, Balzar and Bray. Ages 4 and up
The latest from the creative duo of I Stink, I’m Bad, and I’m Mighty bring forth a not-so-little lost sauropod (check out the book trailer).
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Children Make Terrible Pets, Peter Brown, Little Brown.
A very feminine girl bear finds a little boy in the woods and brings him home for a pet. She names him Squeak for the noise he makes. Domesticating a human turns out to be more than she can handle because children DO make terrible pets. Brown makes the most of this ludicrous premise with his detailed cartoon drawings and deliberately tongue-in-cheek storytelling.
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A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea, by Michael Ian Black, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, Simon and Schuster. Ages 5+
In a droll serious tone the narrator details why it would be imprudent to stage a parade with a hundred pigs. Hawkes double page spreads of realist paintings not-at-all picture-book-cute (bringing to mind more Jamie Wyeth than David McPhail) instill an understanding of the madness of expecting porcine mammals to dress up in majorette costumes, play band instruments and tether balloons to the earth. Did you know pigs lack of any appreciation for floats except for the root beer kind?
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Three Little Kittens, retold and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, Dial. Ages 2 and up.
Caldecott award winning illustrator, Pinkney, presents the sweetest little kittens who lost their mittens.
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Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Bryan Collier, Little Brown. Ages 8 and up.
Very little is known about Dave the Potter. He could read and write, skills not common during a time when slaves were forced to be illiterate. He created huge well-crafted pots that survive to this day. The author weaves Dave’s own words in lyrical text that supported by Collier’s multi-media collage illustrations In this well-researched picture book biography
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Dust Devil, by Anne Isaacs, illustrated by Paul Zelinsky. Random House
Remember Swamp Angel? The heroine of that tall tale of the greatest Tennesse woodswoman has moved to Montana where she and her trusty steed Dust Devil find themselves up against the meanest bad guy ever.
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Bink and Gollie, By Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee, illustrated by Tony Fucile, Candlewick.
Two authors who are friends team up to write an easy-to-read chapter book about two very different best friends. One is tall, one is small. One is deliberate, one is enthusiastic. The retro-modern, luminous art perfectly matches the authors’ dry absurd humor, imagination and other-worldliness. Can’t wait for number two.
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Babymouse #13: Cupcake Tycoon, Jennifer L. Holm, Random House. Ages 7 and up
This series are graphic novels in the best sense; compelling, emotionally satisfying with three dimensional characters that we have grown to love. As a series it is remarkable because the most recently published in the is just as engaging as the first. which is not always the case.
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Alvin Ho: Allergic to Birthday Parties, Science Projects, and Other Man-made Catastrophe , by Lenore Look and LeUyen Pham,Schwartz and Wade. Ages 7 and up
I suspect the Alvin Ho series has not been as popular as it could be, so here’s my pitch. A transitional reader (Henry and Mudge but before Fudge) with a reading level similar to Junie B Jones, Judy Moody but with a boy main character who just happens to be Chinese. Alvin is quirky and funny and kids can relate to his trials and tribulations with school, teachers, friends and parents. Did I mention laugh-aloud funny?
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This Isn’t What It Looks Like (Secret Series) by Pseudonymous Bosch. Little Brown. Ages 8 and up.
I don’t know if these have taken off at your library, but at Bank Street, our kids can’t wait to get their hands on the 4th fourth in the series (the first was The Name of This Book is Secret).
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Guys Read: Funny Business edited by Jon Scieszka, Harper ages 10 and up.
Jon Scieszka IS my hero. The former ambassador of children’s literature tirelessly campaigns for children’s right to read — anything they want. Especially boys’ right to read fun, high-interest, adventurous, and sometimes grossly humourous books that the stereotypical female teacher might raise her eyebrows at as “Not appropriate.” Study after study has shown that self-selection is the magic key to life-long reading. Sieszka has gathered his writer buddies and convinced them to contribute this short story collection. Teachers are often scouring my library for short story collections and this one fits the bill. Kids will recognizer their favorite authors, Jeff (Wimpy Kid) Kinney, Adam (True Meaning of Smek Day) Rex, Mac (Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem) Barnett, Kate (Tale of Desperaux) Dicamillo, Eoin (Artemus Fowl) Colfer are among the contributors. Are some of the stories gross? Duh. Will some of the content make a grown-up squirm? You bet. Do the stories, engage, delight and provoke? Without a doubt. Just what the literacy specialist ordered. Thank you, Mr. Scieszka.
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The Search for WondLa, by Tony DiTerlizzi, Simon and Schuster. Ages 10 and up
This IS the big book. DiTerlizzi of Spiderwick fame opens this wide-ranging fantasy novel with a girl who lives underground and is raised by a robot named Mothr. My 4th and 5th graders couldn’t put it down and were begging for more.
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What Happened on Fox Street, by Tricia Springstubb, illustrated by Heather Ross, Balzar and Bray. Ages 9 and up
Mo loves her neighborhood and is looking forward to her best friend’s return for the summer. It would have been easy to overlook this sleeper, a seemingly quiet story of two long-time friends on a dead-end street, but Fox Street is much more than that. It is about change that happens even though we resist it. It’s about forces beyond our control. It’s about the pain of growing up as well as the everyday joys of friendship.
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Reckless, by Cornelia Funke, Little Brown. Ages 10 and up
Funke, the master of the richly imagined world populated with mystery and danger (Inkheart) presents a new series drawing on the dark side of traditional fairytales.
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Half Brother, by Kenneth Oppel, Scholastic. Ages 12 and up
What if your parents uproot your life and move you to a distant small town where you know no one? What if they bring a baby chimpanzee into the new house and try to raise him as your brother? What if they think they can teach him to speak in sign language , would that be okay with you?
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Welcome to the fall publishing session, which officially begins this month. In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting my month-by-month picks of the season, but first some not-to-be-missed July titles, followed by my picks for August.
JULY
How Rocket Learned to Read Balzar and Bray Ages 5+
A tiny yellow bird teaches a sweet fuzzy-faced doggy to read. Meet some new characters from the creative genius who brought us the developmentally perfect Duck and Goose. We hear it will be on the upcoming 8/15 NYT Picture Book best seller list at #4. No surprise.
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Clementine, Friend of the Week, Sara Pennypacker illustrated by Marla Frazee Hyperion, Ages 7+
This is the one that we have been waiting for, Clementine, the most irrepressible character since Ramona, is back. Will Clementine’s friend, Margaret come through for her or will we find out what friendship is really about?
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Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? My First Reader, Bill Jr Martin illustrated by Eric Carle Holt, Ages 5+
Did you know that this read-aloud classic was originally published as a beginning reader? Neither did I. Restored to the smaller trim size, with dramatic page turns, emergent readers will be amazed how quickly their reading skills pick up with this old favorite.
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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Brett Helquist Ages 8+
This is a reprint of short spooky tales just right for the re-telling. Newly refreshed covers by the artist who did Lemony Snicket will have these jumping off the shelf.
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School!: Adventures at the Harvey N. Trouble Elementary School, Kate McMullan and George Booth.Feiwell and Friends. Ages 8 and up
McMullan captures the humorous trials and tribulations of school aged children’s in this richly illustrated volume packed with puns.
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Bones: Skeletons and How They Work, written and illustrated by Steve Jenkins, Scholastic Ages 7 and up
Packed with facts and elegant cut paper illustrations, Jenkins lets us peer into the skeletal structure of a array of beings. He compares the human foot to the horse, the tiger, and the eagle. Turning the page of a human ribcage, we find a stunning gatefold of a six-foot-long python’s 200 pairs of ribs.
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Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy, Denise Fleming Holt, Ages 2 and up
Fleming’s dyed paper pulp painting glow in what is sure to be a bedtime classic.
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Brontorina, James Howe, illustrated by Randy Cecil, Candlewick
A dinosaur wants to dance, needs to dance, but is there a ballet studio big enough for her?
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The team that created On The Farm, an exquisitely illustrated volume of short poetry about domesticated animals, turn to their talents to animals from diverse wild habitats, including the savannah, the dense jungle and the snows of the arctic.
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Ninth Ward, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Little Brown, Ages 10 and up
Twelve-year-old Lanesha survives the devastation of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Her mother died in childbirth and she was raised by aging Mama Ya-Ya. Not to be missed. It will be a Today Show “Al’s Book Club” pick.
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Three Black Swans, Caroline B. Cooney, RH Ages 12 and up
Cooney is a favorite of Bank Street’s middle school children since they discovered The Face on the Milk Carton. They are going to eat this one up, a suspenseful mystery of twins separated at birth. Or, are they more than twins?
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Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins – Aug. 24, 2010
No one needs to be told to buy the final volume in the Hunger Games trilogy. The real question is “How many will be enough?” It’s a one-day laydown, so get those orders in, sign the paperwork so the library can circ the books on publication date.
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Glee: The Beginning: An Original Novel, Sophie Lowell, Poppy/Little Brown.
I read it the moment I got my hands on it; just right for a fangirl like me. We can look forward to five more, published twice a year (the next one, Glee: Foreign Exchange is coming in February).
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I just found the perfect gift for any book-loving adult — Lane Smith’s new picture book, It’s a Book.
The book’s trailer gives a sense of it (but the book is even better than the movie):
Of course, since this is Lane Smith, there is a small bit of subversion. One of the characters is referred to by a common name for a male donkey — as in the final line of the book, “It’s a book, Jackass.” It worries at least one chain bookseller, who is planning to put the book in the humor, rather than the children’s sections.
Libraries that have ordered it are not bothered; they have classified it as a picture book.
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Those wonderful folks who brought you the Twilight movies may now be bringing you Babar. According to the movie news site, Deadline, Twilight producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey have sealed a deal to produce a series that combines live-action and animation.
USA Today reports that Steven Spielberg begins shooting the movie of the children’s book War Horse this week.
Release date is scheduled for August 2011.
Spielberg is also finishing up The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, starring Daniel Craig, scheduled for Dec. 23, 2011.
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USA Today and Entertainment Weekly seem to be in a rivalry over who has the exclusives to various kids and YA books. USA Today has a lock on Wimpy Kid. Entertainment Weekly has featured several exclusives about the Twilight series, both the books and the movies. Now it’s featuring an exclusive trailer for Cornelia Funke’s upcoming book (we can’t embed it, so maybe it really is exclusive, although it’s also on the Little, Brown Young Readers Reckless site as well).
Lest you begin to suspect that Entertainment Weekly has a cozy deal with Little, Brown publisher of both the Twilight series and Reckless, they have also been running exclusives about the HarperCollins YA title, I Am Number Four, coming out next week. One of the exclusives is an interview with the author, who claims to be “an extraterrestrial Elder from Lorien named Pittacus Lore.”
That’s the name of the next Wimpy Kid novel, coming Nov. 9, as reported by USA Today, which seems to have a lock on everything Wimpy (as of this writing, the book is showing as Diary 5 on Amazon).
And, the DVD of Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie arrives Aug. 3.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules is in the works, with plans for it to be in theaters March 25, 2011
The star of The Neil Flambé Capers, a new series of middle-grade mysteries, is a fourteen-year-old who owns his own restaurant, has a line of cooking utensils, and is blessed with a super-sensitive nose (he can tell what side of the hill a particular spring of rosemary grew on). The nose not only makes him a great chef, but also useful to the Vancouver, Canada police department, currently baffled by the murders of the city’s culinary talent.
On NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Liane Hansen was clearly charmed by Flambé and his author, Kevin Sylvester. The book rose to #253 on Amazon, from a lowly #1,834,554.
The second book in the series, Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction, is coming in November. The author is working on the third book, Neil Flambé and the Crusaders Curse.
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The AP takes a look at a problem we are all familiar with; reluctant readers, particularly boys. Children’s librarians have the key,
Butts, farts. Whatever, said Amelia Yunker, a children’s librarian in Farmington Hills, Mich. She hosted a grossology party with slime and an armpit noise demonstration. “Just get ‘em reading. Worry about what they’re reading later.”
Fourth-grade teacher Ray Sabini, aka Ray Bean, used the same principle in writing a book for boys. Called Sweet Farts, it’s about a boy who invents a way to make farts smell good. Sabini says he uses boy humor to give boys lessons in history, science and bullying. The book rose to #3 on Amazon, catching the attention of AmazonEncore, the recently-formed publishing arm of Amazon, which will publish the sequel, Sweet Farts: Rippin’ It Old School in August.
Both books are also published in audio by Brilliance, which was bought by Amazon in 2007.
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Brilliance Audio, UNABR; On-sale Date, 8/2/10; Listen to sample
2 CD’s; 9781441883742; $39.97
1 MP3-CD; 978-1441883766; $39.97
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Sabini self-pubbed the original title with BookSurge (now changing its name to CreateSpace), which was acquired by Amazon in 2005.
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Brilliance Audio, UNABR; On-sale Date, 8/2/10; Listen to sample
2 CD’s; 9781441883636; $39.97
1 MP3-CD; 9781441883650; $39.97
The movie of Brian Selznick’s Caldecott Medal winner, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, began production this week in London. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jude Law has joined the cast of the live-action 3D movie being directed by Martin Scorsese.
Other cast members include Sacha Baron Cohen and Ben Kingsley
The movie, which is being called simply Hugo Cabret, is expected to hit theaters in Dec., 2011.
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Fans of both Rob Reiner and YA author Wendelin Van Draanen have been eagerly awaiting Reiner’s movie of Van Draanen’s novel, Flipped.
Reiner has changed the contemporary setting of the novel to the late ’50s and early ’60s. The story is about the love/hate relationship between two eighth graders; you can’t help but think “Stand by Me meets When Harry Met Sally.”
In an interiew in USA Today, Reiner credits his 16-year-old son Nick, for introducing him to the book.
The movie set will open in most theaters on August 27; it will open in a limited number of theaters in early August.
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Tie-in:
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It gives you hope for the book industry that the media is breathlessly reporting that a new Wimpy Kid book is coming in Nov. They don’t have much to go on — no title yet (that will be an opportunity for another media event in July), but the jacket will be …
(via Entertainment Weekly and the publisher’s press release)
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For years, it’s been the accepted wisdom that best sellers from other countries do not translate to the US. Carlos Ruiz Zafon is one of a new breed of writers that is disproving that old theory. His literary thriller, The Shadow of the Wind, called “the most successful novel in Spanish publishing history after Don Quixote” appeared on best seller lists when it was published here, as did his next book, The Angel’s Game. Originally from Spain, Ruiz Zafon lives in both Los Angeles, where he has been a script writer, and Barcelona.
He actually made his start as a YA novelist. His first book, The Prince of Mists, was published for young adults in 1993, when he was in his twenties. An award winner and best seller in Spain, it was recently published here and repeats the magic of his adult titles, landing on the 5/23 NYT Children’s Chapter Books list at #7. With touches of gothic and supernatural horror as well as a page-turning adventure, it’s about a boy and his two sisters, who relocate with their family from the city to a small town on the Spanish Coast to escape WWII, only to discover themselves in grave danger.
The author published three more YA titles in Spain. All have been acquired by LBYR for publication in the US, to be released on a yearly basis
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Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607883722;$ 24.98
BBC; UNABR; 5 CDs; May 20109781607887676; $44.99
OverDrive WMA Audiobook
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