I keep checking the blog hoping for a first posting! School’s been out for a week, so I haven’t managed to read much yet. But I did read a book of poetry last night. It’s a new collection by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer titled Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems. She’s one of my favorite poets. It’s a beautifully illustrated picture book (we never outgrow picture books) with factual information about elephants inserted beside the poems. Best of all, two of the adjoining pages have two of our Words of the Week! Check out the book and post back if you discover the words! If you want to read more about elephants, check out the copyright page in the back of the book. Your entries don’t need to be this long. Happy Reading! I’ll be looking for you on the blog.
Title: Keeper
Author: Mal Peet
Review: Matthew U. loaned me this book to read after he read it this past year. Unfortunately, it took me awhile to read it. What a treat! The entire book occurs in the course of an evening as Paul Faustino interviews El Gato, the World Cup-winning goalkeeper. During the course of the interview, there are many flashbacks to El Gato’s life. Just as Matthew promised, this book is about much more than soccer, and it has an interesting element of fantasy interwoven with the sports story. Please note that there are several books with the title Keeper, so be sure that you get the one by Mal Peet. If you like this book, you might want to explore other soccer books written by Mal Peet, an English author.
Tips for Locating the book at KCLS: When you enter Keeper as title, you’ll get 14 pages of books with Keeper in the title.
To avoid searching through all of these pages, go to advanced search.
Under search input, select the box for title, then select matches exactly in the center box and then type in Keeper.
Go to the next line and select the box for author, then select matches exactly in the center box, and then type in Peet.
Hit search and you’ll get two results – one for the book on CD and one for the book.
I just finished another great book! Where are my Superstars? None of you have posted to the blog yet!
Title: small as an elephant (The author didn’t capitalize any words!)
Author: Jennifer Richard Jacobson
Review: I loved this book about eleven-year-old Jack whose mother abandons him on a camping trip in the Acadia National Park. Read about his adventures in the wilderness and civilization (he spends a night in an L.L. Bean store). Discover why elephants are so important to him. The book needs a map because according to the author every place Jack visited actually exists. It might be fun to google Acadia National Park and follow Jack’s journey.
Genre: Adventure, Realistic Fiction
Are you noticing my elephant themed books – first Zimmer’s poetry book, Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems and now small as an elephant. Another elephant book that I read and enjoyed last year was The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo.
That’s it for now! Get out there, enjoy the gorgeous sun, and take along a book!
Then come back here and share. See you soon on the blog!
Title: The Wednesday Wars
Author: Gary Schmidt
Review: I chose to read this book because the author has a new book out and I felt that I should read this one before his new book, Okay for Now. The new book is not a sequel, but a companion book which features Doug Swietek, one of the characters from The Wednesday Wars, as the main character.
Wednesday Wars follows Holling Hoodhood (great alliteration) through his 7th grade year. The Wednesday Wars in the title refer to Wednesday afternoons that Holling must spend with Mrs. Baker because he doesn’t attend Hebrew School or Catechism. Schmidt is a master at creating humorous incidents and capturing the thinking of Holling, the main character in the story. The stories involving the rats and the cream puffs made me laugh out loud. This book also is filled with details that reflect the time period – 1967 and the Vietnam War era. This book was not a fast read for me, but I found it to be a satisfying read filled with many interesting characters and situations.
Genres: Newbery, Humor and Laughter, Historical Fiction
Title: Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze
Author: Alan Silberberg
Review: If you’re a fan of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, then check out this book about Milo. The author states that he “has been looking at the world through cartoon glasses ever since he could hold a pen”. Milo, a seventh grader, finds that nothing has gone right since his mom died. You’ll love the cartoons interspersed throughout the book and enjoy getting to know Milo’s friends at his new school – Marshall, the One-Eyed Jack of friends and Hillary, his next-door neighbor who leaves purple notes in his locker. This book deals with the changes that Milo faces in a humorous way and ultimately shows that Milo figures out the best way to say goodbye to his mom and bring her back to life.
Check out this review at KCLS Book Talk – http://blogs.kcls.org/booktalk/2011/01/milo-sticky-notes-and-brain-fr.html. Click the Kids Read or Teen Reads tab at the top for more book reviews from KCLS!
Genres: Humor and Laughter, Realistic Fiction
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