So Many New Arrivals! 4/4: Planet Kindergarten

Planet Kindergarten

Sue Ganz-Schmitt, illustrated by Shane Prigmore

ISBN: 9781452118932

Blocky "space" graphics and fonts enliven this cutesy, funny rework of first-day-of-school anxiety.

I think my favorite part of this book is how the kindergarten students are all actually kids, but are designed and stylized to look like aliens in different ways.  My second-favorite is the comment about how gravity in kindergarten must be way different, because no one can stay in their seats properly.  Truth.

Overall, it seems a little "made-to-order" tidy and overdesigned, but it's cute, and I'm all for space-or science-themed anything, so I'm not really complaining.  Not as likely to use it in storytime just because most of the pages are so busy and stylized that I'd never keep my place while reading, and I worry that the kids would have a hard time following the action.  However, it's going to be a perfect book for display as soon as August hits! 

So Many New Arrivals! 3/4: Nana in the City & Lucky Ducklings

A pair of "life in the big-city" books for all of our small-town, small-city Southern kids.

Nana in the City
Lauren Castillo
ISBN: 9780544104433
Caldecott Honor: scratchy heavily-outlined figures navigate various locations in a lively big city.

We are in the shoes of a young boy visiting his Nana in the city, and he's not used to all the noise and bustle and chaos - he's decided that this place is no place for a Nana; it's scary and overwhelming.  The understanding Nana spends the night making a superhero cape for the boy, and then takes him around to all the places she loves in the city, showing that noise and bustle and chaos can be good, fun, interesting, lively things.  I love that the boy's feelings of unease and discomfort aren't negated, and that the Nana is shown as a lively active character who is part of the city.  I love that the scenes picked to show the life and happiness of the city are so varied, but I wish that all the people shown could have been more inclusive and varied.  Still, spunky and fun to look at, and short enough that I might could use it for storytime!


Lucky Ducklings (A True Rescue Story)
Eva Moore, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
ISBN: 9780439448611
Digital & charcoal artwork is simple; beautifully composed and framed.

A true account of a duckling rescue that happened in 2000 in Montauk, New York.  We're introduced to the Duck family, with matriarch (slightly on the overprotective side) and 5 baby ducklings.  On their outing, Mama makes it across the storm drain easily, but the ducklings aren't so lucky - being as tiny as they are, they slip through the cracks and fall down into the drain.  The repeated cadence "That could have been the end of the story.  But it wasn't, because..." encourages page-flips and reader/listener interest in the development of the story, and also helps hint that everything is trundling along to a nice ending,  Which of course it does, helped along by kind firefighters and clever truckers, and of course, one overprotective Mama Duck.  I know for a fact that this one will be in a storytime - possibly quite soon!

So Many New Arrivals! 2/4: Hannah's Night & Arto's Big Move

Two for gently explaining potentially-scary life events: moving, and waking in the night.

Hannah's Night
Komako Sakai (translated by Cathy Hirano)
ISBN: 9781877579547
Curiously-scratched and partially-effaced drawings (grease pencils?  charcoals?) are startling and enticing.

Hannah has woken in the night, and her sister and parents are all still fast asleep.  The translator uses British English (or perhaps New Zealander English?) instead of American English, which might give some people pause over phrasing or word-choice, but I thought was quaint and appealing.  Hannah's nighttime prowling may also upset some who prefer kids to immediately find parents for advice, but I liked that the self-sufficient little girl (and one self-important tabby cat) are unphazed by the darkness and solitude, and take care of their own needs quite handily before heading back to bed (but not before borrowing the sleeping sister's prized possessions.



 Arto's Big Move
Monica Arnaldo
ISBN: 9781771470667
Arto, from the cold North, is not thrilled when his parents move Southwest for a year.  A friendly fellow-traveling girl helps him adapt to changes.

Arto quite likes his winter routine of dressing in layers of socks, pants, coat, gloves, and hat, before going outside into the cold.  Now that he's in the hot, dry Southwest, his routine is not so useful, but he's having trouble giving it up.  A friendly girl comes by and over time, slowly gets him to adapt his dressing routine (and his attitude) about the Southwest, just in time for him to move back North again, and see if perhaps his routine there can't be adapted also.  Very sweet, and super useful for kids who are very attached to routines and consistent behavior patterns.

So Many New Arrivals! 1/4: Little Melba and Her Big Trombone & The Noisy Paint Box

A pair of lovely biographies to start us off:

Little Melba and Her Big Trombone
Katheryn Russell-Brown, illustrations by Frank Morrison
ISBN: 9781600608988
Biography of Melba Doretta Liston, trombone and jazz prodigy.

An excellently plotted and illustrated tale of a plucky and amazingly talented young woman from the early days of jazz, who took to the trombone, played and composed for many much more well-known names, and worked until the 1990s.  A Coretta Scott King Award book, and deservedly so.


The Noisy Paint Box: the Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art
Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mary GrandPré 
ISBN: 9780307978486
Lush illustrations with fantastic facial expressions show off Vasily Kandinsky's life to great impact. 
A fictionalized account of Kandinsky's childhood and his experiences with synesthesia that lead him to eventually create abstract paintings full of bright colors and dynamic movements.  GrandPré's illustrations really knock this one out of the park.  Beautiful and graceful biography of an influential painter, suitable for even the youngest.

New Arrivals: Wordless Picture Book: Quest, by Aaron Becker

Quest (sequel to Journey)
Aaron Becker
ISBN: 9780763665951
Wordless Picture Book

This follow-up to the beautiful Journey has our newly established duo thrust into an adventure when a King pops through a portal (drawn by his own bright orange magical wand) gives them a map, and is dragged back through by soldiers - dropping his wand in the process.  The map shows a rainbow of colors building as it passes through different locations, and now we're on a whirlwind quest to retrieve the magic color wands before the evil troops can get to them.

Beautiful and imaginative, and a lovely adventure story in fantastical locales with larger-than-life characters.  The ending especially makes me think longingly of how I would read and re-read Narnia as a child, wishing that it were real.

Simply stunning.  I truly hope he continues the adventure!

Tuesday Storytime: Penguins

Penguins are so cute.

One Cool Friend
Tony Buzzeo, illustrated by David Small
ISBN: 9780803734135
Reviewed here.

It's a little long, and I think the conceit goes waaaay over the heads of the little ones, but it's funny and cute and the pictures are inviting.  It's like a short illustrated Mr Popper's Penguins, with a funny twist at the end with the dad.


Polar Opposites
Erik Brooks
ISBN: 9780761456858
Reviewed here.

Still adorable.  I love how the story manages to deal with opposites, science facts, friendship, and the process of prepping/packing for a trip, without being long or cumbersome.  Just an amazing accomplishment.


If You Were a Penguin
Wendell and Florence Minor
ISBN: 9780061130977
Variety of penguins in soft-edged surroundings, very like the Karma Wilson "Bear" series.

Hey, a new penguin book!  Well, not new, exactly, but new to me!  This one is straighforward and sweet, although to me, the ending felt more like a transition than an end.  Lots of drawings of various types of penguins in action, with short snappy captions as to what they're doing (that presumably one would want to do if they were also a penguin).  Adorable, easy to read, and low-stress for a final story with a wiggly and noisy group.

Tuesday Storytime: Lions

Three fun lion books today, and a great length for my kids.

The Show-and-Tell Lion
Barbara Abercrombie, illustrated by Lynne Avril Cravath
ISBN: 9780689864087
Blurry watercolors and minimalist blocky backgrounds.

I can't believe I haven't used this book for storytime since I've been recording them here - it's a really sweet story, and I have used it for storytime, but it must have been a while back.  Matthew is on the spot for Show-and-Tell, but nothing interesting has happened, and he panics!  He invents a pet lion that lives at his house, and the story grows and grows over time, but he never quite gets up the courage to let his classmates in on the reality that it's really just a made-up lion.  With some help from his mom, and encouragement from his teacher, he figures out a way to "fess up" but still get to talk about his very interesting (imaginary) lion adventures.  It's a quick read, the emotions are explained and talked through (especially love the description accompanying the word "embarrassed") and Matthew isn't shamed or punished for his mistake.  Would also go well in a storytime about make-believe, or about telling the truth, or about differentiating reality from stories.


If I Were a Lion
Sarah Weeks, illustrated by Heather M. Solomon
ISBN: 0689848366
Watercolor and pen-and-ink illustrations are then cut out and placed in collages to make very punchy graphics.  If Lois Ehlert and E. B. Lewis combined.

Super cute new discovery for my Lion theme.  A precocious red-haired feisty childling (most likely a girl due to pink shirt, but not specified) has been put into "time-out" for being WILD.  Well, that's just not true!  Wild lions and bears and wolves and raccoons do much worse things than this lovely child - they storm and break and growl and bite!  She's sweet and polite, don't you know.  Lots of great language and rhymes;  "absurd"  "ferocious" / "precocious"   "rummage."  Lovely cadence also - very easy to read, and not many words to a page to convey the story.  I'll be using this one again for sure.  Easy match for "wild animals,"  "bad kids," "making messes,"  "compare and contrast."


How to Hide a Lion
Helen Stephens
ISBN: 9780805098341
Reminds me of a slightly more colorful Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile in both illustration and storyline.

A lion has come into town for a new hat, but the frightened townspeople chase him off with pitchforks and torches.  He hides in a playhouse in the suburbs, owned by Iris, who isn't afraid of lions.  She keeps and hides him for a good while, until one night mom makes a startling discovery.  The plot progression then is a little abrupt, as the lion flees, impersonates a statue downtown, and foils a crime, bringing the adulation of the townsfolk at last - and perhaps a chance to finally get that hat!  For the amount of story involved, a very short read, and the pictures carry a lot of the story, with little broken-up paragraphs on many pages attached to smaller cameo pictures.  Very cute, but not a favorite like the other two.

 

Tuesday Storytime: Animals Read Books

Because why not?

Three really long ones today, and a very active group, but the tone and the cadence of all of these was really good for a lovely quick flow.  Two of these are first-time storytime books, and I'm really happy with how they read for a group.  Nice to have more good books added to my backlist.

Wild About Books
Judy Sierra, illustrated by Marc Brown
ISBN: 037582538X
Seussical rhymes and exuberant colored-pen spreads with lots of action and movement.


Molly the librarian accidentally drives the bookmobile into the zoo, and slowly introduces the resident animals to reading, to caring for books properly, and finally to creating their own works themselves.  On the readers to writers angle, would go very well with Daniel Kirk's Library Mouse  for an older group.  This book is long, but juuust barely doable because of the trippy language, the packed and colorful pages, and how quickly the rhymes work (also I skipped the page of haiku).


A Library Book for Bear 
Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton (The Sniffles for Bear)
ISBN: 9780763649241
Grumpy Bear and perky Mouse head off to the library, over Bear's strenuous (and ever louder) objections.

I admit to partly liking this book because I get to yell in the library and enjoy the horrified expressions of all the kids as I do.  What can I say, get your thrills where you can!  Bear promised Mouse that he would go to the library, but he's really regretting it.  Mouse insists, but Bear ONLY wants a book about pickles, and gets very vocal about his not being happy about coming to the library in the first place.  When he gets shushed by a pair of moms sitting in on storytime, he loses it for real, but a chipper librarian and Mouse's persistence win him over in the end.  (Also, he gets a book about pickles, which helps.)


The Snatchabook
Helen Docherty, illustrated by Thomas Docherty
ISBN: 9781402290824
Weirdly-proportioned forest animals in scribbly environments remind me of a darker Steven Kellogg.

 Every night the forest animal children settle into bed with a good book, until they start vanishing!  Brave Eliza sets a trap for the book thief, figures out the problem, and works with the mysterious (and frankly adorable) Snatchabook to work out a better approach for the future.  Cute, straightforward, and the rhyme sequence gets your tongue moving double-quick, which is very helpful for the last book of the day.

New Arrival: Juvenile Fiction: Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny, by John Himmelman

Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny
John Himmelman
ISBN: 9780805099706
Black and white and red drawings show off fierce (but zen) bunnies learning the way of bunjitsu.

Brilliant.  I saw this because it came through the library, but I bought myself a copy, and I'm getting one for my friend, a black belt in Ki-Aikido who has a young daughter.  It's a brilliant way to explain the purpose and mindset behind the less-offensive of the martial arts.

Isabel is a great bunjitsu-kai, and she can kick harder, punch straighter, and tumble better than "anybunny" - but she also knows that the power of bunjitsu isn't in strength or fighting, but in using wisdom and knowledge and compassion to create a situation where a fight becomes simply unnecessary.

Himmelman is really good (like Jon J. Muth good) at teaching moral lessons without being preachy or "moralizing" at the reader.  Isabel is a great illustration, and a great character.  Her posture and her expressions, although done in thick outlines and blocky chunks of red, clearly show her emotions, from frustration to frazzled patience.  She isn't perfect, but she tries to do her best.  She practices and works at her bunjitsu, and plays happily with her fellow students.  She's not a teacher or an "example" but a fun little bunny who has interesting martial-arts-based, real life based, small child level adventures.

I can't wait for the next installment: Bunjitsu Bunny's Best Move, coming out this fall!

New Arrival: Alphabet Book: Take Away the A, by Michael Escoffier & Kris Di Giacomo

Take Away the A
Michael Escoffier, illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo
ISBN: 9781592701568
A combo alphabet and phonics procession, as if Edward Gorey worked in larger frames, with saturated, textured colors.

I really like this book.  I love this method of progressing though the alphabet, through phonemes and rhymes and subtractions.  Let me explain.  For the letter A, we begin with a lovely illustration of a trophy podium with first, second and third levels, with a hairy and be-toothed beast holding the trophy.  A duck is second, and a fish is third, while a vulture photographer commemorates the event.  What on earth does this have to do with the letter A?  Our text explains: "Without the A the BEAST is BEST."

Isn't that simply the coolest way to explain so many things about our language all at once?  I love it!

So, through the alphabet we go, with silly and sometimes slightly macabre illustrations guiding us to understanding: a pirate parrot illustrates that "Without the F, the SCARF hides a SCAR," a anthropomorphic empty glove follows an octopus through a crosswalk, because "Without the G, the GLOVE falls in LOVE" (with an octopus, of course, because there are many legs, tentacles, finger-sleeves, er, whatever!) and a very sweet spread leads us to see that "Without the I, STAIRS lead to the STARS."

The whole alphabet is like that, (well, except for z, because poor z just doesn't ever get any love.) although some of the latter, and less-well-represented letters have to stretch to get a story.

This would be excellent for teachers trying to explain phonemes and rhyming words.

Graphic Novel Collection: The Spirit, Volume 3, by Will Eisner

Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives, Volume 3
July 6 - December 28, 1941
Published by DC Comics
ISBN: 1563896761
Read April 10, 2015

Three down, twenty-four to go!  Well, twenty-two, because I'm not sure I care that much about the dailies, or about the various more modern reboots.

Still not seeing many signs of inventive formatting yet, and the stories for this half-year didn't seem as interesting and punchy as the ones from the first part of the year.  Fewer highlights, but the overall collection is still pretty solid.

There were quite a few uncomfortable characterizations and scenes this time around for me.  I was a little disconcerted by the shooting "death" and near-immediate miraculous revival of The Spirit in "Women!" (September 28, 1941), but I'm chalking the annoyingly supernatural recovery up to an unreliable narrator, as this one is given to us by an opinionated barkeep.  The mangled English given to Ebony was really distracting in "The Spirit Am Unfair to His Assistant" (August 17, 1941).  There was an even more uncomfortable scene in "Ellen Dolan, Fullback" (November 23, 1941) where a mob of women football players sexually assault a bound and helpless Spirit, who initially resists and cries out, but subsequently "decides he likes it" and therefore gets further physically assaulted by a jealous Ellen, which scene in total actually made my toes curl under.  Finally, there were two separate stories where an effeminate man impersonates The Spirit, and is the butt of many jokes thereby; "Pink Perkins" (July 27, 1941) and "Dorothy Heartbern" (September 7, 1941).

On the interesting story side, not so much this time around.  I enjoyed the Halloween story, which sees the one-night jailbreak of the mad Dusk and his even madder wife Twilight in "Hallowe'en Dusk" (October 26, 1941).  I also liked the totally-expected-but-still-fun bloody twist at the end of "The Oldest Man in the World" (October 19, 1941) which also was the only oddly-formatted story in the bunch, being framed by a team of archaeologists from 1,000 years in the future finding a preserved printing of the weekly insert of The Spirit out in the desert.  Finally, I enjoyed the odd little tale in "The Element of Time" (August 10, 1941) that has a mad scientist make the less-than-optimal decision to test his elemental form of Time itself on a gangster bent on murder (although if it wasn't for the stinger in the last panel, I don't think I'd be as keen on it, if I'm totally honest).  On the totally opposite side, I really thought I would love "The Last of the Minstrels" (December 7, 1941), but it felt choppy and rushed, and was not entirely coherent.  A sad letdown.

Recurring characters get thrown around fairly liberally in this volume.  We have the previously-mentioned mad hatters Dusk and Twilight, we have a few stories with Silk Satin (still a spy for England, and thus able to be both ally and antagonist depending on the story) and Ebony's personal sidekick Pierpont makes more regular appearances.  Our supporting cast of Ellen, Commissioner Dolan, Ebony, random unnamed foreign dictators, and the unending stream of gangsters and mob bosses are of course everpresent.

I've got some other modern comics to catch up on, and of course all my other reading, but I'm planning to keep on trucking through these regularly - they're a fun and informative bit of comics history, and so far, they're actually fun little stories overall.
  

Urban Fantasy: Vision in Silver, Anne Bishop

Vision in Silver

Anne Bishop

ISBN: 9780451465276

Continuing a series begun with Written in Red and Murder of Crows.  Next book upcoming is Marked in Flesh.

Read April 6, 2015

If you like, you can check out my reviews for the first two books of this series linked above.  

In this installation, our focus widens out into the larger world, and the implications of the previous books' action is coming to fruition.  The pacing and the characters are better, but there are still odd little gaps here and there that I can't tell if they are purposeful omissions or just jumps because of space/pacing constraints.  Odd, but not actively frustrating this time around.

We are starting to build our character list up, and that caused me a few moments of confusion here and there as I occasionally lost track who was where doing what with whom.  I will also say that the larger cast list made the losses of characters a lot less impactful for me, because we didn't ever get to spend that much time with them individually.  

The ponies were given their required few scenes to remind readers that they exist, but they weren't used to propel the story, which saddened me.  Likewise we learn more about a conspiracy and about humans fomenting a rebellion, but the main forward momentum was provided by the struggle to learn about the sweet bloods to try and help them recover and live happily, if not entirely sanely.

I'm honestly ok with that.  I like that the series focuses on the Courtyard and the residents, and scenes like the clearing out of the library and the gardening day and picnic are part of what makes this really enjoyable.  Sure the world is dark and gruesome, sure there are some awful events and people, but the author really makes sure to counteract that with repeated emphasis on the basic goodness of our heroes and the hope that they are trying to build something good.  Very Charles de Lint in seeing cautiously (perhaps rebelliously) optimistic characters persevering through and doing their best together.    

 

 

Science Fiction: Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword
Ann Leckie
ISBN: 9780316246651
Sequel to Ancillary Justice, followed (please hurry) by Ancillary Mercy.
Read March 31, 2015

Basically just read my gushy review for the first book in the series, and you'll have it.  I can't really talk about anything without spoiling the story, and a good part of the fun of the story is watching everything unfold.  It's amazing, Leckie is amazing, and I can't believe that the sequel is just as good (but not even remotely the same story) as the original.

Tuesday Storytime: Dancing

I found so many nice dancing books that just didn't quite fit my last dance storytime that I figured I could do a second round, and here we are!

Again, we were a little on the long side, and man did we have some active (and loud) kids today.  Lots of energy, maybe a bit less on the attentive side.  :)

Miss Lina's Ballerinas and the Prince
Grace Maccarone, illustrated by Christine Davenier
ISBN: 9780312649630
Very Eloise/Madeline drawings, lots of ballet terms and poses, tongue-twisting repetitive names.

I was torn between the original (Miss Lina's Ballerinas) and this one, because the original has no boys at all, and I try not to have books that exclude one gender or population entirely, but the original ALSO has a much better flow and storyline than this one.  I went with this one in the end for representation, but honestly, the group was so crazy today, and we had so many latecomers that I don't know that any of the kids even followed the story that closely.  I do still want to do Miss Lina's Ballerinas, but I'll wait a while, and perhaps save it for a class or a special event - hurrying through the names nearly killed me.


Deer Dancer
Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Lauren Stringer
ISBN: 9781442434219
Reviewed here.

Again, with such an energetic group, I'm not sure how much of the story got through, but at least by the time we got to this book, everyone was mostly settled in and were paying attention to the pictures (which are amazing).  I love the flow of this story, but it wasn't well suited for the energy levels today.


Giraffes Can't Dance
Giles Andreae, illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees (Dinosaurumpus)
ISBN: 184121681X
Vivid colors, similar to Dinosaurumpus, just sub-out jungle animals and add a dash of pathos.


Gerald the Giraffe is headed to the annual Jungle Dance, but he really can't dance, and the other animals aren't very polite about informing him.  He heads off into the moonlit night to be sad and alone (did I mention pathos) but a friendly cricket helps him find his own music and his own dance, and eventually the other animals also realize that he's got flair.  Short and snappy, gets right to the point, and the illustrations are wild and zany, even when the text is sad or quiet, so the kids have lots of bright colors and vivid compositions to look at.  This was the best tonal fit for my group's energy levels today, and I wish I'd had a whole set of books like it to match their energy.


Ahh well, if I knew the future, there'd be lots of other things I'd do instead of rigging my storytime books.

Next week:  either lions or penguins, haven't decided yet.

Two Serpents Rise, Max Gladstone

Two Serpents Rise
Max Gladstone
ISBN: 9780765333124
Sf/fantasy/urban fantasy/alternate world fantasy
Craft Sequence: Book 2 (following Three Parts Dead, followed by Full Fathom Five, with upcoming working title Last First Snow)
Read April 2, 2015

I read Three Parts Dead already, so I have no idea if someone new to this world with this book would be totally confused, but I think not.  The references to the past are not info-dumps, and they are subtly different from the ones in the previous book (which is natural, since we're across an ocean and in a very different society with a completely different perspective on the world's history) but I think they explain the background sufficiently.  I can't know, since I'm coming at this with that info already known.

If you did read Three Parts Dead, now we're across the ocean and in an openly Craft-ruled city, built on the ruins of a previously very Incan/Aztec society, complete with pyramid temples, heart sacrifices and soccer played with people's heads.

Our hero is Caleb, a gambler and mid-level "risk management executive" with Red King Consolidated, the Concern (craft-magic bureaucracy) that manages the city's water and power supplies.  It's a decent job, until the water in the city's major reservoir literally turns into bloodthirsty inky ooze demons.  That's despite the massive wards and guards, naturally.  Now Caleb has to balance his duty to the company with his fraught history with religion, with his family, and with his growing attraction to a runner (parkour!) who is most certainly more than she seems.

In addition to this, there's a huge Craft business merger going on between RKC and Heartfire, a smaller water/power Concern run by a former priest turned Craftsman.  Finally, Caleb's best friend Teo has to navigate the difficult currents of having a lover who is more politically (perhaps even radically) active than she is comfortable with.

Caleb is a gambler, but he's lost his nerve.  In the coming days, he'll either find it again, or die in the process.



I very much enjoyed the read, but I think that I liked the characters and characterization in Three Parts Dead a little more.  Teo was awesome, as was the RK himself, but I really would have liked to know Temoc and even Caleb himself a little better.

On the other hand, I feel like the setting and worldbuilding for Dresediel Lex is much more clear and vibrant than for Alt Columb.  There were times that AC felt very like a glossed-over "standard western european fantasy city" just because of how the world is set up, and with this location, that was very much not an issue.

Descriptions of magic and of magical effects are still strong and visceral, but on the flip side, the battles were still a little confused.

Some of the plotting is a little tenuous to think about after the book is finished, but the overall concept is so engaging that I didn't notice while I was reading.

Again, the power levels here are super crazy - humans who are able to kill gods, and power that can be used in ways only limited by imagination and reach.  Still, there are coffee chains, taxis, and people calling in sick on Mondays because they drank too much the night before.  An interesting and sometimes slightly uneasy combination, but I like it.

Teaching Resource: The Sounds and Spelling Patterns of English: Phonics for Teachers and Parents, by Phyllis E. Fischer

The Sounds and Spelling Patterns of English: Phonics for Teachers and Parents
Phyllis E. Fischer
ISBN: 1881929019
Read March 30, 2015

An older (1993) but useful compilation of phonics and phoneme-based instruction that drills in the basic English constructions and when and where they appear, and what they "say" when they are in certain situations.  Very short, but direct and to-the-point, wasting no time on tangents or side-trips into teaching philosophy or any of that.  Just straight instruction, aimed at adults who wish to help other people learn to understand the workings of English better.

Very useful.  I'll probably get a copy for my own personal library.  I never remember learning to read, and my husband is dyslexic, and wasn't diagnosed until after he had gotten into college.  He has great troubles with English structure, and my own background of picking it up so naturally is a handicap now, because I have troubles explaining how it all works - just that I know it does.  Dyslexia is heritable, so this is me preparing for the worst if I ever have kids.  I want them to enjoy reading and writing, perhaps not as a hobby or job, but at least enough to always be comfortable as a reader.

Graphic Novel Collection: The Spirit, Volume 2, by Will Eisner

Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives, Volume 2
January 5 - June 29, 1941
Published by DC Comics
ISBN: 1563896753
Read March 30, 2015

We're still slogging through the weeds - I just got Volume 3 in the delivery at work, so my timing is working out well so far!  My goal is to be finished with at least a few years worth by May when the free graphic novel class taught by Stan Lee begins.  I want to have at least some footing under me besides my random Marvel interactions.

Volume 2 has some really nice stories, and we're starting to see a few breaks from the traditional panels and good-guy vs bad-guy stories. I'll give my shout-outs below, but despite individual stories being interesting, the collection is still very visually traditional with old-school designs and lay-outs.


March 16, 1941: Introducing Silk Satin
     A clever, hard-ass lady villainess (literally her first scene is to extract a bullet from her own arm) is introduced, and given a convenient "death" offstage with no corpse.  Hmmm....

April 6, 1941: Introducing Scarlett Brown
     Our intrepid (and still visually stereotyped) Ebony gets a girlfriend!



These next two were interesting back-to-back, as neither of them really involved The Spirit except tangentially.  They were both visceral stories, and to have them so close together made me wonder if this was a first minor bout of getting sick of Spirit's normal shtick.
  
April 13, 1941: Croaky Andrews' Perfect Crime
     A criminal commits the perfect crime with his girlfriend, escaping the clutches of The Spirit to a private island he's secured with traps and guns.  His own conscience makes him believe The Spirit is on his tail until the last, when he realizes his error just before death.  Quite grim.

April 20, 1941: The S.S. Raven
     Another grim tangent.  A "killer ship" that murders sailors and captains and thirsts for blood, and plots revenge against those who have injured or slighted her.  Frankly, a little on the weird side.

May 25, 1941: Thomas Hawkins
     Our "moralizing" story for this half-year zeroes in on ex-convicts, blaming re-offenses on a society that marginalizes and penalizes them even after they've done their time.  Spirit offers a young man his own small business to help keep him on the straight and narrow, and the Commish helps out after a jilted mobster takes offense to young Hawkins going straight.  (This episode, more than any other, makes me really wonder how a dead guy makes so much money?)

June 1, 1941: Killer McNobby
     A bizarre illustrated jingle, mostly resembling a barroom musical round (it probably was based on one) focusing on McNobby, who killed at least one person per day until The Spirit had enough and challenged him to a... MMA match ?!?!  Lots of punching.  Very masculine, I guess.

June 8, 1941: Five Passengers in Search of an Author
     (Spoilers!) We see the return of Silk Satin, this time in drag as an English gentleman spy, working against the Third Reich (unnamed, but obvious) and outsmarting our own intrepid hero at every turn!  Hmm, I sense that Miss Ellen (the Commish's daughter, still popping up at random to incite plots or be threatened) has some serious competition here!

June 22, 1941: The Tale of The Dictator's Reform
     An obviously wish-fulfilling sequence shows a certain unnamed short, balding, German dictator visiting America incognito, offering military support to any disaffected segments of the population, but discovering to his dismay that not only are even the disaffected still insanely patriotic, they're actually ready to lynch him!  A short moralizing lesson from The Spirit alters the Dictator's heart, but sadly, when he returns home, he realizes that one man cannot stop the engines of war, and he's killed in cold blood and replaced with a body-double who thirsts for war and conquest.

New Arrival: Picture Book: The Very Inappropriate Word, Jim Tobin & Dave Coverly

The Very Inappropriate Word
Jim Tobin, illustrated by Dave Coverly
ISBN: 9780805094749
Cartoon-art, thesaurus, concepts presented as concrete objects.

Hooo boy.  I will probably never ever ever use this in a storytime, but it's a really fun and funny book, and I'm glad to have run across it.

Michael is our protagonist for this morality tale (because that's exactly what it is) and he loves words.  He collects them even (shades of Max's Words and Max's Dragon by Kate Banks) and loves to store them safely away under his bed.  Until he is on the bus one morning and hears a new word.  He tries it out on his sister, and quickly learns that this is a very inappropriate word.  So now what to do?  Of course, now that he knows it, he hears it everywhere; at the park, on the radio, even from a parent!  (His parents make me exceedingly happy, on a complete tangent.)  So he tries it out himself, and shares it with his friends, and of course gets in trouble with the teacher, who (and this is the best part of the book) realizes what has happened, and asks Michael for help collecting new and interesting words for some upcoming spelling tests she needs to create.  The time spent (and the new words learned) searching for good enough words just shoves the inappropriate word off out of mind, which is the best way for dealing with those sorts of words anyway.

So very cool, so not appropriate for storytime.  :)
  

Biography: Tim Gunn: The Natty Professor, Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun

Tim Gunn: The Natty Professor: a master class on mentoring, motivating, and making it work!
Tim Gunn & Ada Calhoun
ISBN: 9781476780061
Biography and inspirational memoir.



I love this man so much.  From the very first episodes of Project Runway, I thought that this would be a person I would be so happy to have as a mentor or guide.  His first book (Gunn's Golden Rules) was lovely, and showed a fun, somewhat snippy, side of his personality, one that wasn't as obvious with his carefully crafted "on camera" persona.  This book was fairly similar, and reveals how he's been shunned for plain-talking by lots of the "high and mighty" in the fashion world.

The focus of the book is on mentorship and teaching, and how he loves to help students be their best.  He offers a lot of good advice and encouragement to students, teachers, and mentors, and offers a lot of anecdotes from his time at Parsons and with his tv shows.  I have a feeling that some of the less positive anecdotal subjects won't be as thrilled to read the stories as I was, but anonymity is preserved, at least for former students.

The read was short, easy, and enjoyable.  I wish him all the best, and enjoyed reading about him and his ideas as much as I've enjoyed watching him help the contestants ton Project Runway and Under the Gunn.

New Arrival: Picture Book: Warning: Do Not Open This Book! by Adam Lehrhaupt & Matthew Forsythe

Warning: Do Not Open This Book!
Adam Lehrhaupt, illustrated by Matthew Forsythe
ISBN: 9781442435827
Naive art, interactive storytelling, interactive physicality of book.


This book is too cute, and a great addition to The Monster at the End of the Book, which is one of my all-time favorite classic childhood reads.

In a similar fashion, the reader is implored to stay out of the book, but as the pages turn the narrator gets more and more frantic; monkeys are appearing, and crocodiles, and bananas!  Bananas?  Yep.  A fun "interactive" trap at the end sorts everything out and preps the book (don't open the book!) for the next wild animal escape attempt.