Bug in a Vacuum

This is a wonderful picture book that not only has an amusing story about an insect (and a dog's toy) sucked up into a vacuum cleaner, but also a primer on the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief, as the bug (and the dog) go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance in turn.

This book could be used with many ages to explain the stages of grief and help one going through death or another loss, disappointment, or traumatic event.  The very first page (even before the title page) sets the stage:

Bug (buhg)

• An insect

• An unexpected glitch

Vacuum (vak-yoom)

• A cleaning machine

• A void left by a loss

Each stage of grief is presented as a household item.  Denial is a can of repellent spray that “wipes out the ugly truth.” Bargaining is a box of detergent to “wash away your troubles.” Anger is a frozen dinner that is “quick and messy.” Despair is a book with "an unfair tale with an unhappy ending." Acceptance is a box of "gentle and comforting" facial tissues.  Then the reader sees the bug's reactions to each stage inside the vacuum cleaner, and the dog's reaction just outside it.

Mélanie Watt uses mixed media to create a winsome bug (and dog) against a background of old-style furnishings and equipment (like the vacuum cleaner). Children will enjoy spotting items, on the floor in the earlier pages, inside the vacuum cleaner (and used in delightful ways by the bug) as the story progresses.


© Amanda Pape - 2015

[Bug in a Vacuum is available on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library in the Curriculum Collection, call number EDUC PZ7 .W33225 BU 2015.]

2010 Scott O'Dell Award

The Storm in the Barn, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Matt Phelan, won the 2010 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction written for children or young adults.  It was also a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee in 2011-2012.

It's set in Dust Bowl Kansas in 1937, and it hasn't rained in four years, since now-11-year-old Jack would have been old enough to help around on the family farm.  Since there's no farming possible, Jack's father seems to perceive Jack as being useless.  Being picked on by the town bullies doesn't help.  The general store owner tells him stories of Jacks of folklore to bolster him.  His sister Dorothy suffers from dust pneumonia, and it seems the only bright spot is when she reads aloud from some of Frank Baum's Oz books. Like Oz, the only illustrations in the book that are not monochrome occur when Jack's mother reminisces about the past.

Otherwise, Phelan's pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings use muted tones, browns and beiges in the daytime, and blues and grays at night, inside the barn, and during the rain that finally comes.  In an author's note at the end, Phelan says some of his inspiration was the black-and-white images of Works Progress Administration photographers of the era such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.  He wrote,  "I began to imagine what the experience of living in the Dust Bowl must have been like through the eyes of a kid. Without the complicated explanation of the history of over-planting, soil erosion, and other factors, a young boy or girl would only know ... The rain had gone away. But where?"

While graphic novels are often good for struggling readers, the sparseness of the text in this story might be difficult for some.  It was difficult to interpret what was going on in a few of the textless panel sequences.  For this reason - and because of a (thankfully not-too-graphic) section about killing off jackrabbits that were overwhelming the area - this book would be best for somewhat older readers, age 11 and up.  The fantasy element in the book (the "storm in the barn" pictured on the cover), might make it more appealing for children.

© Amanda Pape - 2015

[The Storm in the Barn is available on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library in the Curriculum Collection, call number EDUC PZ7.7 .P485 ST 2009.]

2015 Texas Bluebonnet Award Winner

The Day the Crayons Quit was recently announced as the 2015 winner of the Texas Bluebonnet Award, a children's choice award by students in grades 3-6.   This hilarious fantasy by debut book author Drew Daywalt (who has lots of experience in film writing and directing) has the crayons in the box on strike and writing letters to their owner about their various complaints.  Oliver Jeffers' whimsical illustrations incorporate crayons (of course!) as well as mixed media.  This book would be a great mentor text for a lesson on letter-writing.

The Texas Bluebonnet Award is one of many children's choice competitions across the country.  Some of you Tarleton students probably remember participating when you were in grades 3-6.  Students are supposed to read at least five books on the list of twenty, and then vote for a favorite in January of the following year.

A Texas Bluebonnet Award has been given since 1981.  The master lists and voting results from all those years are still available.  We have all of the winners and 596 books from the lists in the Dick Smith Library (on the lower level in the Curriculum Collection).

The master list of nominees for the current year (2015-2016) was announced a few months ago.  We have these books in both the Dick Smith Library and the Texan Hall Library in the Hickman Building of the Fort Worth campus.  Students across the state are reading these books and will vote for their favorite in January 2016.  Here's a one-minute video of the covers of these books:



© Amanda Pape - 2015

[The call number for The Day the Crayons Quit is  PZ7 .D3388 DAY 2013.]

2013 Newbery Medalist

What a fabulous book, and most deserving of the 2013 Newbery Medal!  I was both laughing and crying by its end.
"The One and Only Ivan," as the billboard on the interstate calls him, is a silverback lowland gorilla who's been living in a cage (he calls it his "domain") at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade for 9,855 days (as recorded by Ivan - 27 years).  His best friends are Stella, an aging elephant, and Bob, a stray dog who shares his cage at night.   He also interacts with Mack, his (and the mall's) owner; George the janitor; and George's daughter Julia.  He is an artist, drawing with crayons and paper Julia shoves through a hole in his cage, and later with markers and fingerpaints.

One day, though, a new baby elephant, Ruby, arrives, and everything changes...

Ivan narrates this touching story in very short chapters and sentences.  The print book is easy to read as a result, and is scattered with charming black-and-white illustrations by Patricia Castelao.  Actor Adam Grupper is marvelous on the audiobook as Ivan, with his rich, deep voice, but also creates unique voices for the other characters.

Katherine Applegate, probably best-known for the Animorphs series so popular with kids when my son was young (1990s), based Ivan on a real animal - the infamous "Ivan the Shopping Mall Gorilla," who spent 27 years alone in a small cage in a shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington.  I was living in the Seattle area when Ivan was in the news, with a public outcry for a better home for him.  He eventually wound up in Zoo Atlanta and died in August 2012, just a few months after this book was published, at the age of 50 from a chest tumor.  The real Ivan did in fact fingerpaint.

This book was an excellent choice for the 2013 Newbery Medal.  The audiobook is recommended for ages 8-13, grades 3-7.  That's probably about the right age range, as some of the themes of the book might be difficult for younger children to handle.  The short chapters would make it work well for a read-aloud, and yet should not frustrate struggling readers.

© Amanda Pape - 2013

[The One and Only Ivan is available on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library, in print in the Curriculum Collection (call number EDUC PZ7 .A6483 ON 2012), and will be available as an audiobook in the Audiovisual Collection later. A variation of this review also appears on my blog, Bookin' It.]

1994 Newbery Medalist

The 1994 Newbery Medalist by Lois Lowry, The Giver has become a classic - one of the most popular Newbery winners, and one that is frequently challenged in schools and libraries, for reasons ranging from “contains graphic themes,” and  “contains blasphemous ideas and content,” to “depicts ideas and actions that are inappropriate for young readers,” and “inappropriate for [elementary] grade level.”

In a nutshell:  Main character Jonas learns his utopian world is really dystopian.

In his community, everyone lives a regimented life.  Birth mothers produce children for other families, which created by matching compatible men and women.  Medication is taken to eliminate sexual desire.  Old people, babies that don't thrive, and other misfits are "released." No one - except Jonas, and he only a little - sees color.  And twelve-year-olds - which is what Jonas is about to be - are given "Assignments," matched to a career or more menial job best suited to their abilities and temperament.

Jonas is selected to be his community's next Receiver of Memory.  All memories of past events and sensations have gone to one person - and he is now the Giver (who can also see color), and will pass these on to Jonas.

In a 2004 interview, author Lois Lowry said she got the idea for The Giver when visiting her parents in a nursing home. Her father was still in good physical health, but his memory was failing. Her mother was physically ill, but her memory was intact.

"I would travel home with that in my mind, and I began to think a lot about the concept of memory. When it was time for me to begin a new book, I began to create in my mind a place and a group of people who had somehow found the capacity to control memory," Lowry said.

Many other events in her life influenced the plot, and Lowry talks about them in her Newbery acceptance speech.  I found interesting that the old man on the cover of my audiobook and print copy is actually a photo Lowry took of artist Carl Nelson when she wrote an article about him in 1979.  She described him as a man whose "capacity for seeing color goes far beyond" others - and he later became blind.

Some people don't like the book's ambiguous ending, but I'm fine with it.  I think it fits perfectly with the whole theme of memory.  For those who don't like it, though, Lowry has since written three companion books (I've read one, Gathering Blue), the latest published just last year.

Broadway, movie, and television actor Ron Rifkin was okay as the audiobook narrator, better voicing male characters than female.  The background instrumental music played to emphasize important scenes was often too loud and distracting.


© Amanda Pape - 2013

[The Giver is available on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library, in print in the Curriculum Collection (call number EDUC PZ7 .L9673 GI), and as an audiobook in the Audiovisual Collection (call number AV-AUDIO PZ7 .L9673 GI 2000). A variation of this review also appears on my blog, Bookin' It.]

1963 Newbery Medalist

Although it won the Newbery Medal in 1963, I never read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle as a child.  Even then, I wasn't too interested in science fiction or fantasy.  However, this is one of the more popular Newbery winners out there.  If you liked Harry Potter, you will probably like this book.

There's adventure:  misfit high school freshman Meg Murry, her odd genius little brother Charles Wallace (named for L'Engle's father and father-in-law), and their new friend, high-schooler Calvin O'Keefe, take a journey through a "tesseract" (a "wrinkle" in time - there's the science fiction, time travel) to rescue Meg's and Charles Wallace's scientist father.  There's magic, in the form of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which.  There's dystopia at the planet Camazotz, and a battle with the evil IT.  What's not there for a kid to love?

Believe it or not, this book actually begins, "It was a dark and stormy night."  This book has also been challenged over the years for a number of reasons, including references to the occult, depictions of mysticism, characters possessing supernatural powers, and undermining religious beliefs.

L'Engle narrated the version of the audiobook (pictured at left) that we have at the Dick Smith Library, and that was a mistake.  Her voice is rough and she has a bit of a lisp, and her reading is uneven, with strange emphases and an odd rhythm.  Since L'Engle's death, a new audio version (with actress Hope Davis) has been produced - I wish I had waited to purchase that one for our library.  It was painful to listen to this book, which detracted from my appreciation of it.  I first listened to it in 2009, but cannot bring myself to listen to L'Engle's reading again.

© Amanda Pape - 2012

[A Wrinkle in Time is available on the lower level of the Dick Smith Library, in print in the Curriculum Collection (pictured at the top of this post, EDUC PZ7 .L5385 WR 1962), and as an audiobook in the Audiovisual Collection (AV-AUDIO PZ7 .L5385 WR 1993). A variation of this review also appears on my blog, Bookin' It].

Three Award-Winning Picture Books

Here are three picture books that won Youth Media Awards on January 10, 2011:

The Randolph Caldecott Medal, which "honors the illustrator of the year's most distinguished American picture book for children," went to A Sick Day for Amos McGee, illustrated by Erin E. Stead, and written by her husband Philip C. Stead.  This was Erin's first foray into book illustration.  She used "woodblock printing techniques and pencil" with, in her words, "subtle color and specifically for this book limited palettes," to illustrate this sweet fantasy of a zookeeper and his animal friends.  The soft but detailed drawings are reminiscent of children's book illustrations from my own childhood in the 1960s.  This book was named one of the ten best illustrated children's books for 2010 by the New York Times.  It's a bedtime story appropriate for younger children.

The Coretta Scott King Book Awards "honor African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults that communicate the African American experience."  One Illustrator Honor Book was named in 2011, Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe (daughter of John Steptoe), and written by Gary Golio.  The narrative stops before Hendrix' untimely death, but an afterword and author's note address some of those issues.  There are also a number of websites and books listed about substance abuse as well as about Hendrix, and a selected discography of music and video by and about him.  Steptoe used mixed media, including paint, collage, and silkscreen, and in an illustrator's note, says,

I thought about guitars--their sound, their vibrations, their look and feel--so I used plywood...I thought about how Jimi saw the world and how that differed from other people's views, so I painted Jimi one way and his surroundings another way.  I thought about the depth and texture of his music, so I layered and used bright colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple--rainbow colors.

The subject matter and complex illustrations make this book more appropriate for older children.  It would appeal to reluctant readers and could be tied into art and music curricula.

The Schneider Family Book Awards "honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences."  The 2011 award for children ages 0 to 10 went to The Pirate of Kindergarten, written by George Ella Lyon and illustrated by Lynne Avril.  In this simple yet empathetic story, the main character, Ginny, suffers from double vision, remedied with "exercises, glasses, and for a while, a patch."  She becomes a "Kindergarten Pirate."  The genius of this book is the combination of Lyon's descriptive text and Avril's chalk pastel, mixed with acrylic medium, and colored pencil drawings that let the reader see what Ginny sees - two of everything.  The only wish I have for this book would be for a brief afterword that explains more about double vision (diplopia), patching (used to treat other eye problems too), and author Lyon's "own experience" on which the book is based.  The book is obviously appropriate for kindergarten, but would work for children slightly older and younger as well.  This was my favorite of these three books.

© Amanda Pape - 2012

[These books are available in the Curriculum Collection of the Dick Smith Library.  A variation of this post was previously published at Bookin' It.]

2010 Newbery Medalist

When You Reach Me won the 2010 John Newbery Medal, awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

It's a quick read - at 197 pages, I read it in less than two hours while working out on my elliptical trainer. It's not easy to review, as it's part mystery, part realistic fiction, part science fiction, and part historical fiction (it's set in 1978-79 Upper West Side New York City). It's funny, but it's also very meaningful.

Newbery aficianados will get a kick out of the book right off. Miranda, the 12-year-old main character, reads her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, the 1963 winner, over and over. There are a number of parallels between that book (its title is not revealed until page 135) and this one. It inspires a discussion between Miranda and two other characters, Marcus and Julia, about time travel. I'm not sure if this 2010 winner will resonate as well with people who haven't read the 1963 winner.

Another plot device is Miranda's mother being selected to be a contestant on the TV game show $20,000 Pyramid. Variations of this show (with different dollar amounts) were on from 1973 though 1988, and a basic familiarity with the show is helpful. Kids today can find clips of it on YouTube and elsewhere, and the game is explained pretty well in the book. Most of the book's short chapters have titles that reflect the second "Winner's Circle" round of the game show, when contestants have to guess categories ("things that...") that a group of words fit.

I really liked this book. The interesting characters and their development (and the way the book started out) reminded me of Criss Cross. Like that book (set around 1970), in many ways it could be a contemporary story--although I doubt that sixth-graders in New York City today are allowed to leave campus and eat lunch at the nearby delis and pizza places. The story has a lot to say about friendships and family relationships in children of this age.

The science fiction part of the plot was carefully constructed, as it was in The Time Traveller's Wife (okay, not a Newbery, or even a kid's book, but another book I love and am reminded of by When You Reach Me). The mystery kept me guessing, although I had my suspicions.

The cover and title (which appears in the text on page 189) may not inspire kids to pick up the book. Its short chapters and intriguing plot make it great for reading aloud to a class or your own children - and that will probably be all it takes to hook them in to finishing it or re-reading it on their own. A New York Times reviewer found that her fourth-grade students loved the book.

This is only the second novel for author Rebecca Stead. There are some good interviews with her on Amazon, the Fuse #8 blog, School Library Journal, and Time Out New York Kids, all probably best read after reading the book. I've tried not to spoil it in this review, either. Just go read it. Highly recommended - five out of five stars.

© Amanda Pape - 2012

[This book was borrowed from and returned to the Dick Smith Library at Tarleton State University. It's downstairs in the Curriculum Collection, call number PZ7 .S80857 WH 2009.  An audiobook version is also available in the AV Collection.  A version of this review also appears on my blog, Bookin' It.]

Two More Picture Books

I picked up an advance reader's edition of 2003 Caldecott Medalist Eric Rohmann's Bone Dog at the recent Texas Library Association meeting. It will be available for sale on July 19. It's the story of how a little boy's recently-deceased dog comes back to help him when he runs into some problems on Halloween night. It appears to use the same media as the Caldecott-winning My Friend Rabbit, hand-colored relief prints.

This book would be a good Halloween read-aloud IF you know your audience.  My 82-year-old dad volunteers at his local public school, reading to kindergarten, and he said he would be hesitant to read the book to the group since he didn't know how some students might react to the dog's death, and how others would react to skeletons. The teacher or the parents can make a better call.

Higher! Higher! was written and illustrated by Leslie Patricelli. It's about a little girl on a swing and what she sees in her imagination as she goes higher and higher. Hand-lettered with simple, child-like drawings.in bright acrylics; some pages have no words, others only one or two.  Nevertheless, there's a lot going on in the pictures for a child to talk about. It was a 2009 Boston Globe - Horn Book Picture Book Honor Book.  Patricelli mostly does board books featuring a bald baby, and says she got the idea for this book from pushing her own two-year-old daughter on a swing. 

© Amanda Pape - 2011

[The advanced reader edition of Bone Dog will be passed on to someone else to enjoy. Higher! Higher! was borrowed from and returned to my university library.] 

New Display, New Books

The display area behind the lower level reference desk, which last week had traditional literature, now has fantasy books on display.

Also, we received 22 new books in March, most of which are on display on top of the low stacks next to the office downstairs. We'll be adding these books to the relevant genre lists as fast as we can!

In the meantime, you can find out about them in our LibraryThing account first. You can see the books at:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rdg301library&tag=2009. If, upon clicking the link, you get a page (it will be this one) that asks you to sign in, just try the link above again later. The sign-in page will also have “LibraryThing is experiencing high visitor load. To see the site, you need to sign in or sign up. This is a temporary issue” in a gray box near the top.

At the top of the list of books, you’ll see a message that says “rdg301library has a suggested style for viewing this library (use it).” Click on the “use it” link to get the books sorted by LC classification (also known as the call number). For each book, there is also a picture of the cover, the title, author, date of publication, and tags.

Under tags, I have listed the genre(s) and the book type (picture, chapter, etc.). I’ve also added some tags for ethnicity and for books that deal with other issues such as age, class, religion, gender, etc. The tag “text” means that the book is listed in your textbook. This latest batch of books is mostly award winners, so tags for the awards have been added as well.

You can click on a tag and it will pull up a list of all books with similar tags – if, for example, you are looking for fantasy, you will get a list of the last 33 fantasy books added to our collection. Please keep in mind that I only have the last 143 NEW books listed in LibraryThing. Please let me know in the comments if you find this tool useful!