Childrens Books

Lots of our favorite literary characters make their way to the silver screen eventually. But some heroic types, like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and James Bond, seem to capture our imaginations in a way that allows them to undergo reinvention in film and TV, time and again. The latest to soar to new cinematic heights? The original comic-book superhero, Superman! This latest (big, red) reboot of the Superman tale explores the alien angle of his story: After crash-landing on Earth as an infant, young Clark Kent grows up struggling with the knowledge that he’s different from those around him. His adoptive father encourages him to keep his otherness in the closet, so to speak, because Pa Kent is worried about how the world might react to him. It’s an interesting contemporary take on something most parents struggle with: wanting to protect their children from harm, but ultimately letting go so they can become who they were meant to be. Along those lines, the movie also touches on the ideas of fate and destiny. On the planet Krypton, every child grows up with a specific role or purpose in mind. This is yet another way our hero differs from his peers—he struggles with making moral decisions and trying to do the responsible thing. Ultimately, of course, he makes the right decision, so that we can see that famous red cape flapping in the breeze as he rises up to protect his adopted home planet from the villainous General Zod. For a summer blockbuster full of knock-down, drag-out fights and large-scale destruction, Man of Steel also has some heavy scenes, as Superman wrestles with the ultimate price of becoming Earth’s defender. Henry Cavill does a great job of letting us see Superman’s inner struggles, and the thought-provoking conclusion is sure to impact the character’s development in the inevitable sequel. To read more about how the young Clark Kent grew up to become Superman, check out Man of Steel: The Early Years Junior Novel, available now in Arrow June! Bio about Author: Sean is a managing copywriter for the Scholastic Reading Club print catalogs. An all-around entertainment junkie, Sean also DJs in his spare time.

Book: Happy Birdday, Tacky!Author: Helen LesterIllustrator: Lynn MunsingerPages: 32Age Range: 3-8  I love Tacky the Penguin. The board book was one of my favorites to read to Baby Bookworm when she was a little bit younger. I've not read all of Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger's books about Tacky, but I did quite enjoy the latest one, Happy Birdday, Tacky! Tacky the Penguin is a quirky bird who lives in Nice Icy Land with his companions, Goodly, Lovely, Angel, Neatly, and Perfect. The companions are all calm and orderly, but Tacky always keeps things interesting. In Happy Birdday, Tacky!, Goodly, Lovely, Angel, Neatly and Perfect spend weeks planning the perfect birthday party for Tacky. But when the big day arrives, things don't go exactly as planned (they never do, when Tacky is around). But, of course, it all turns out ok in the end.  I think it helps, in appreciating Happy Birdday, Tacky!, to have read at least the first Tacky book. For example, the other penguins make birthday cards for Tacky, "but since Tacky was an odd bird with an odd way of counting, it only made sense that he had told them odd things about how old he was." This odd way of counting is straight out of the first book, and a nice nod back to the launch of the series.  I love the vocabulary in this book. Tacky is "quite busy flippiting about". He then pauses in "mid-flapwaddle." And of course "birdday" instead of "birthday". There's enough of this sort of thing to make Happy Birthday, Tacky! fun to read aloud, but not so much as to be confusing. Here are a couple of bits that made me laugh: ""Everything's perfect!" declared Perfect.(This confused his companions, for as far they knew, Perfect was Perfect. But never mind.) " Guest dancer Twinklewebs announces: ""I vant to perform for you a denz peez from Swan Frozen-Body-of-Water." OK, kids might not get that one, but I thought it was funny. And finally: "They hovered over Twinklewebs, writing their flippers and becoming covered with perspiration icicles. What a dreadful end for their Perfect Party.They were ready to tear their hair, if only they had any." As you can see, this is not a book that offers a sophisticated humor. But I think it's perfect for three to five year olds. There is perhaps an implied message about going with the flow, but it's otherwise just pure, silly fun. There should be more picture books like that. Munsinger's illustrations add to the fun. The last quote above is accompanied by a picture of Tacky with a smushed cake on his head (and feet), surrounded by the other penguins. Twinklewebs, a penguin in a pink tutu and feathers, is priceless. There is, as befitting a book set in a nice, icy land, plenty of white space. And step by step vignettes showing Tacky's latest dance will have four year olds everywhere performing on makeshift stages.  I'm a long-time Tacky fan, and I found Happy Birdday, Tacky! to be an enjoyable addition to the series. A must-purchase for libraries, and a fine choice for anyone who could benefit from taking a less rigid approach to life. Recommended! Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (@hmhkids)Publication Date: May 14, 2013Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher FTC Required Disclosure: This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you). © 2013 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

Circus Smirkus, my favorite youth circus, is adopting an Oz theme this year: Grab your Ruby Slippers and click your heels together, as Circus Smirkus goes "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with a new spin on the Wizard of Oz. It will take acrobatic thinking, highwire hearts, and courageous clowns to embark on this Emerald City adventure! This time it’s all flying monkey business as we cartwheel down the yellow brick road to a new twist in the tale. Pull back the curtain and discover fun for the whole family as Circus Smirkus presents Oz Incorporated. This circus tours New England each summer, with venues and show times on its website.

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman (Nancy Pulsen Books, June 2013, MG). Imagine a library that's a repository of things--old things, fascinating things, mundane things--that you could check out. That's the New-York Circulating Materials Repository, where a teenager named Leo has come to study the history of robots (and how cool is it that the library has the actual early automatons and proto-robots in the flesh, as it were?). But Leo is interested in more than robots--he's also more than a bit curious about time machines. He has good reason--he just saw one in action. And it was in his room, and tiny, and he was in it, shrunk down, with a beautiful girl. Neither time travel nor girls are part Leo's normal life, spent tinkering with gizmos and playing computer games, the youngest, and least stellar (or so he thinks), kid in a family obsessed with scientific accomplishments.There at this strange and wonderful library Leo meets the girl he's going to travel through time with--Jaya, the head page. Leo begins to wonder what this wonderful library might have in the way of time-travel devices....and finds his way to the Wells Bequest, and H.G. Well's tine-machine. Because this library contains fictional devices, and the Wells Bequest is one of many collections from stories here in our world for real.Leo knows he and Jaya are going to time travel....but he doesn't know why, and the time-machine in the library has never worked. But when one of the other library pages turns twisted, and starts threatening to use Nikola Tesla's death ray to destroy New York, obviously Leo and Jaya are going to have to find a way to go back to Tesla's time, and keep the secret of the death ray from being stolen.A dash to London, to recover the miniature working model of Well's Time Machine as it materializes on its trip from the past, back to New York in Jule's Verne's miraculous steampunky ship, the Épouvante (from Master of the World), then off to 1895 New York, with the help of a handy shrink way....and then they must find Tesla while navigating the strange city of the past.It is an excellent book, and pretty much has it all--the appealing, believable characters (not the bad guy so much, but Jaya and Leo), the really really cool premise of fantastical objects being real, and the shear fun of the way the premise and the plot combine. There's a bit of romance, which Leo angsts believably about, there are grown-ups actively involved (which makes the plot more believable), but not taking over from the smart young protagonists, and there's Mark Twain. And Jaya's family is from India, making this multicultural sci fi/fantasy!What more can one ask for? Indeed, right from the first chapters, I was pretty sure this was going to be a good one, and I wasn't disappointed. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language:JA;} The Wells Bequest is a companion to The Grimm Legacy, which first introduced the Circulating Materials Repository, and one of its more magical collections. But there's absolutely no need to have read that one first.Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Publisher's description:"On a Boston street one warm spring day after a long New England winter, Hazel and Remy spot each other for the first time in years. Under ordinary circumstances, this meeting might seem insignificant. But Remy, a gifted violinist, is married to the composer Nicholas Elko-once the love of Hazel's life.It has been twenty years since Remy, a conservatory student whose ambition may outstrip her talent; Nicholas, a wunderkind suddenly struggling with a masterwork he cannot fully realize; and his wife, beautiful and fragile Hazel, first came together and tipped their collective world on its axis. Over the decades, each has buried disappointments and betrayals that now threaten to undermine their happiness. But as their entwined stories unfold from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each will discover the surprising ways in which the quest to create something real and true--be it a work of art or one's own life--can lead to the most personal of revelations, including the unearthing of secrets we keep, even from ourselves."So far, this summer has been great for those in-depth, character-driven novels that I love. Sight Reading featured two characters that were so different, but had such focus on the same passion that it was easy to become completely entwined in each. At the heart of the book is a complex love story, but it's so much more. It's music and travel and friendship. It's heartache and learning to live with choices. It's a heavy and complex read, but one I appreciated after a lot of lighter summer reading. Well-written and very well-developed. Check out the rest of the tour here and find out more about author Daphne Kalotay here.

Last July 8, a Cairn terrier came into our lives. We had been without a dog since Tinka, our beloved Golden Retriever, died in 2004. While in Pennsylvania for a party, we heard about a dog who needed a home, and even though we debated for seven years whether or not we could have a dog in the city (we lived in Bucks County, PA, during the Tinka years), we have not looked back. Ketzie is, as I tell her often, a value-adder in our lives. There is only one time when I feel at all doubtful about Ketzie. And that's the last walk of the night. Not because I'm too tired, but because the last walk of the night has become THE RATTING WALK. Before you get too grossed out (or maybe too excited), see below for one of the cuter aspects of the dog being a ratter. Here she is hiding under our bed. "Hiding." Why is she hiding? She has a new toy bone, and she doesn't want us to get it. OR rather, she'd like for us to try to get it, but she wants to put up a fight. She knows it is safe under there. (Why are there books there? Our bed is a little bit broken. Until we can get our friend Keith to make us a new one, we have to prop it up with something. We have more books than we have space for, so.....) Where we lived in Pennsylvania, there were mice and moles and skunks and deer. Where we live now, there are rats. Mostly they are hidden. But once in a while, at night, one will scamper across the street or sidewalk in front of us. While my instinct is to jump back, Ketzie's instinct is to become very alert. She assumes a posture we don't see any other time: alert in every cell of her body. It's as if her ratting genes coming to ATTENTION. Cairns were bred to get rats out of cairns (or maybe, truly, out of homes made of stones). And at night, just outside our lovely apartment building, Ketzie is ready to be OF SERVICE. I don't think we're going to train her to be on the rat-hunting squad. Yes. There is a rat-hunting squad in NYC and that link is to an article and a video about it. Please watch the video. It's only a minute and a half, and so worth it. I'll wait until you come back. Right? Ketzie really should be on that squad. But considering every night we're (husband and I) terrified she will catch a rat, I don't think it is in her future. When we have to force her to come back inside--Cairns are stubborn!-- I feel like we're thwarting her most basic nature. Which makes me sad. Tinka, our Golden, did not understand fetching in our Buckingham back yard. But the first time we threw a stick into the ocean, in Nova Scotia, she swam in, retrieved it, and laid it at our feet. Another clear sign of genes being able to express themselves. As parents and teachers and writers it is our job to help kids find their true selves. To help them express who they are, who they were meant to be. People who live their lives letting their innermost selves guide what they do are the ones we admire the most. Often those people have to fight inner and outer battles to do so. Paul Erd?s was one of those people. He was so lucky that his mother (and later his father) nurtured his love of math, and understood his true nature. Mama let Paul be home-schooled until he was ready for school. She challenged him with math from the time he showed the great interest and ability (when he was four). Later on, the love and support he got from his parents, and the great foundation he had in math, allowed him to go out into the world--on his own terms. (Shameless and excited plug: THE BOY WHO LOVED MATH is coming out next Tuesday. Check out my website for news, etc.) Even if we are not math prodigies or ratters or retrievers, we each have inborn strengths and talents that should be nurtured. We each have problems to overcome; everyone has to learn strategies for how to fit into the world. Some, like Paul Erd?s, have more of a challenge than others. But with adults in their lives who unde

...THIS JOB'S NO PICNIC.YOU GOTTA KNOW THE CUSTOMERS!NO TWO DINOSAURS ARE ALIKE.The Dino Wash Deluxe is doing business! Dinosaurs are lined up to get their scales scrubbed shiny, and our little proprietor knows just how to keep them all happy. Ankylosaurus' many knobby protrusions require detail work. Rinsing the top of Pachycephalosaurus' big bald head necessitates a long ladder. Spinosaurus' twenty-foot-tall spines require really sudsy scrubbing and polishing. And don't even ask about all the crevices to clean on a finicky Stegosaurus!But our little car wash manager keeps a nervous eye out for one down and dirty customer that his clients report is in town--Tyrannosaurus Rex! He's one customer you really want to leave happy!And then there he is, demanding the dino wash deluxe."GIVE ME THE WORKS" HE SNAPS.But when our little dino scrubber comes forward with his shampoo, the T. Rex gets very testy. Could it be that this big guy is afraid of a few suds in the eye?"IT STINGS!" HE WHIMPERS. How do you shampoo a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Very carefully, in Tim Myers' dandy Down at the Dino Wash Deluxe (Sterling, 2013). Myers' illustrations are big and bold and bright, with each scaly critter portrayed comically and yet authentically and a thumbnail drawing and summary of each dinosaur is appended for young dinosaur scholars. Pair this one with any of Jane Yolen's and Mark Teague's classic How Do Dinosaurs... books, such as How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Room? for a clean sweep of a double dino treat.

Normanday #81: There’s more to do in Ohio than you might think.Write for three minutes about……a place you’d like to visit.Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day June 23 (put “Norman is Adventurous” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want next Monday. Include your first name (or, even better, use a pen name) and age (unless you’re tortoise-old). If you’re a published children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about……something that might happen in a restaurant.BigfootI order the soup. When it comes, there’s a hair in it.“Waiter,” I say. “There’s a hair in my soup.”“Yes, sir. Can I bring you anything else?”“Yes, soup with no hairs.”“My apologies, sir. I must have given you the gentleman at table four’s order.”The waiter brings me a fresh bowl of soup. There’s a fingernail in it.“Waiter,” I say. “There’s a fingernail in my soup. And it’s cold.”“Yes, sir. Can I bring you anything else?”“Yes, hot soup with no fingernails.”“You didn’t order cold fingernail soup?”“No.”“My apologies.”The waiter brings me a fresh bowl of soup. It has a bat wing in it and it smells like two-day’s-dead skunk.“Can I get you anything else?” the waiter asks.“Yes!” I exclaim. “A second helping!”

Mouse Bird Snake Wolf by David Almond, illustrated by Dave McKean From the author and illustrator who brought us The Savage comes this new book.  Three children, Harry, Sue and Little Ben, live in a world that is calm and lovely, but also incomplete.  They look around and see gaps where objects or things could be, but are not.  Up above, the gods are sleeping.  They are quite proud of the world they have created and spend lots of time bragging about what they have already done.  None of them are interested in creating anything new or filling any of the empty spaces.  The children though do have the drive to do just that.  So they create creatures out of twigs and leaves and dirt.  Their ideas start small but quickly grow to a frightening level.  Can anything be done once a thing is created? Almond is not afraid to head right to the strangeness that keeps others at bay.  In fact, that’s right where he takes readers: to those dark and dangerous spots that others steer from.  Here he comes at that place through a mythological tale of bored gods and sparklingly intense children.  From the title alone, you know there is danger ahead, but what a ride it is!  McKean takes those dark ideas and makes them visible to all.  Lest we think that Almond is speaking in broad terms and using metaphors, McKean’s art makes it all completely real and tangible.  Done in sharp angles and lean faces, there is a marvelous hunger throughout these images that shows in the eyes and postures.  It’s such an ideal fit for the story.  Dark and dangerous, this book is not for everyone.  Fans of Almond and McKean though should cheer this new book from the team.   And once you start, I dare you to be able to look away!  Appropriate for ages 8-12.  Reviewed from library copy. Filed under: Book Reviews, Elementary School Tagged: animals, creation, creativity, gods, mythology

Brush of the Gods by Lenore Look and Meilo So This is a picture book biography of Wu Daozi from the T’ang Dynasty, who is considered China’s greatest painter.  As a child, Daozi is taught calligraphy, but his brush does not want to just create Chinese characters.  Instead, he creates the first stroke and then turns it into an animal like a fish or a horse.  Daozi began to paint on walls, painting so fast that his sleeves opened like wings, gaining him the nickname of Flying Sleeves.  He painted every day and people began to leave coins for him that he donated to feed the poor.  As time passed, his skills grew even greater until the creatures he drew and painted became alive and left the flat surface of the walls.  He was then commissioned to paint an entire wall for the emperor, a project that took him many years.  In the end though, he created an entire world on a wall, one that you could almost walk right into. Beautifully told and illustrated, this picture book biography takes a playful tone right from the beginning.  The sense that Daozi was not in control of his own gift makes for a wonderful insight into the drive and talent of artists and the way their talents can control them.  It is also a tribute to the skills gained by doing what you love and practicing a tremendous amount.  Daozi’s work and its lifelike quality is captured through a magical transformation to life in the story, making this feel much more like folklore than a biography. Look’s text will work best for elementary-aged children, as she tells the story of hard work and talent combined into something spectacular.  They will also be more likely to understand the juxtaposition of biography and magical realism that is in the book.  Her writing is clear and lingers in all of the right moments and moves quickly when those moments are right too.  So’s illustrations are a tribute to Chinese art.  Done with clear brushstrokes, they also have fine details and small touches that make them shine. This is a very impressive biography of an incredible artist that few children will be aware of before reading this book, making it perfect to share with children in art classes.  Appropriate for ages 6-8. Reviewed from digital galley received from Random House via Edelweiss. Filed under: Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Picture Books Tagged: artists, biography, China, history