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California Librarians: mark your calendars! Shen's Books will be at the annual California School Library Association conference again this year. The conference will be held November 19-21 at the Ontario Convention Center. We'll have copies of all our books for sale, at special conference prices. See you then!

Shen's Books at CSLA Conference
November 19-21, 2009
Ontario Convention Center
Ontario, CA

It's a sunny, cool Saturday morning up here in the wilds of New Hampshire, and I was filled with the desire to share some music this morning, but wasn't sure what. My recent discovery and obsession, Ted Hawkins? Couldn't choose just one song. The most amusing song I've heard this week, Marion Harris's "I'm a Jazz Vampire"? Tempting, tempting...

But then a finished copy of Alan DeNiro's novel Total Oblivion, More or Less arrived in my mailbox, sporting its fabulous cover, and Booklist gave it a starred review, and for various reasons that will become apparent the minute you read a synopsis of the book, I couldn't get a certain Andrew Bird song out of my head, and then found this lovely video someone had created for it, and my choice of music to share with you this morning was pretty much made for me. Enjoy--

If you check my minicomic shop you might have noticed I skipped issue 4. I finished it some time ago but have never been happy with the art so I'm still working away at it. This is a panel from that story.

My favorite part about Christmas is looking forward to it, and in that spirit, I've just signed up for the Book Blogger Holiday Swap! It's an annual book blogger secret Santa, now in its third year. I've never done this before, but it sounds like fun. The deadline for sign on is November 12, 2009.

Is there a lesson here?

We use so many Shakespeare cliches, and many times we aren’t even aware that these sayings came from his works. Do you think about Will when you are using these?

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart

1. Parting is such sweet sorrow (Romeo and Juliet)
2. Nothing can come of nothing (King Lear)
3. Method in the madness (Hamlet)
4. The world’s mine (my) oyster (Merry Wives of Windsor)
5. I am constant as the Norther Star (Julius Caesar)
6. The green eyed monster (Othello)
7. A pound of flesh (Merchant of Venice)
8. Cruel to be kind (Hamlet)
9. Double double toil and trouble (Macbeth)
10. Good riddance (Trolius and Cressida)
11. He hath eaten me out of house and home (Henry the Fourth)
12. I will wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)
13. Knock knock, who’s there? (Macbeth)
14. Masters of their fate (Julius Caesar)
15. One fell swoop (Macbeth)
16. Pomp and circumstance (Othello)
17. Strange bedfellows (The Tempest)
18. The be all and the end all
19. To be or not to be (Hamlet)
20. To thine own self be true (Hamlet)
21. Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)
22. We have seen better days (As You Like It)

If you did not have immense respect for Shakespeare before, perhaps you do now. And these are but a few of hundreds of famous quotes from the works of this literary master of the 16th century.

Source: http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/

I was on the Nanowrimo site the other day and found a thread about writing totems. I hadn't really thought about it much, but I think all writers probably have something that they like to keep within view to help them write, both as inspiration and a reminder of why we chose this path. This here is Mr. Socky. He's been with me throughout this whole writing adventure. My son made him for me when

NaNoWriMo Prompt Words:

Blown by the Wind
Fading Things
Chimes
Step Daughter
Peculiar Taste
Slugs
Hermit
When She was Bad
Secretive Sister
Without Walls

Have a fantastic weekend NaNoers.

Tiger Woods, athlete
Dec. 30, 1975-

Tiger Woods by David R. Collins, illustrated by Larry Nolte (Pelican, 1999)

Tiger Woods, the gifted young African American golfer, faced prejudice with positive character and determination as a child and as an adult. He won his first U.S. Amateur Championship at the age of 19.

Visit the Tiger Woods Official Website to learn more about this great golfer.

Got quite the menagerie for you all today. Enjoy!
My favorite title read this week, definitely goes to Jane Yolen's reissue of The Seeing Stick. She illustrator Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini have created a magical reading experience, just begging to be placed in the hands of children. This is definitely on my Christmas giving list this year!

We have a beautiful blind princess yearning to see and an elderly man that promises her father, the Emperor, he can give her the gift of sight. No one believes the old man, but with the help of his Seeing Stick, young Hwei Min is able to see the world as she could never see it before.

The truly magical part about this enchanting book is the illustrations. Beginning dark and gray, they become brilliant with color and texture, itching to be touched. I tried finding some info on how Terrazzini created the amazing pages to go along with Yolen's beautiful fairy tale, but didn't have any luck.

Definitely check this one out! Buy it for young girls for Christmas or add it to your library shelves. It was originally published in 1977, but has just been reissued. I have not had a chance to see the original book, but this one is absolutely beautiful.


The Seeing Stick
Jane Yolen
34 pages
Picture Book
Running Press Kids
9780762420483
September 2009 (reissue from 1977 edition)
Review copy received from publisher

Princess Hyacinth (the Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated) by Florence Parry Heide is  yes, another princess book, but this time on the funnier side. The Seeing Stick was much more serious...this one will have your kiddos laughing!

Told in a very humorous tone, this story follows Princess Hyacinth as she learns how to deal with being the odd kid out. If not weighted down, the Princess will float off, making it very hard to play with any other children, especially the young boy who wants to be her friend. When she decides she is just going to float anyways, no matter the danger, the Princess and the boy end up hatching a plan so they can play together and Princess Hyacinth is safe.

A very silly story, best read aloud. The illustrations, done by Lane Smith, definitely add to the humor, as the expressions on the characters faces are hilarious! A very cute read aloud.

Princess Hyacinth
Florence Parry Heide
32 pages
Picture Book
Schwartz & Wade
9780375845017
September 2009
Review copy received from publisher

The Jungle Grapevine, written and illustrated by  Alex Beard is one of those "lesson" books that doesn't quite feel like a lesson book. Which means your kids won't resent you for trying to sneak teaching into a story :)

When bird thinks he hears turtle say something, he tells another animal, who then tells another animal in the jungle. Panic begins to erupt amongst the animals, as the story becomes bigger and bigger until one of the animals discovers it isn't true. But then...it starts all over again!

Remind you of playing telephone? This is just how rumors get started and though the age group for this picture book is a bit young to be learning about the trouble of rumors, it's still a very cute book, a fun read aloud, and a nice one to discuss once you're finished. I liked the simple story line and the simple illustrations, making this a nice choice for even the youngest of listeners.

The Jungle Grapevine
Alex Beard
48 pages
Picture Book
Abrams Books for Young Readers
9780810980013
September 2009
Review copy received from publisher

To learn more about any of these titles, or to purchase, click on the book covers above to link to Amazon. I am an Affiliate and will receive a small commission from your purchase.

The pears came treasured in the web of their box, in the crush of their green paper, in the nearness of their time. Wait until they are ready. Wait.

All day long, they sat in the box and ripened, their juices rising.

Looking for a chance to get away from it all, but tight on funds? What if you could journey through the past on a trip through the Egyptian ruins with leading archaeologist and Egypt’s own “Indiana Jones,” Zahi Hawass, as your tour guide? Or learn about the “Calendars of Stone” and the “City in the Sky,” Machu Picchu? Or maybe travelling along the trail of Viking navigators is more your style?

What if you could search for the source of the Nile, go on a polar exploration, travel to the ends of the earth, go on a quest for mineral riches, or seek a new species of human known as “Hobbits”?

Sound like fun? There’s more.

You’re not limited to the past and present. Take a journey into space and the future. Map out Mars. Take a look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Or view the astonishing auroras’ magnetic rope tricks. You can even learn about NASA’s Kepler Telescope.

Now what if I told you it would only cost you around $35 to have all these incredible experiences? Impossible, right? Wrong. You can do all this and more.

TIME Great Discoveries: Explorations that Changed History is your one-stop source for all these great adventures, and it won’t break your budget. This beautiful coffee table book is 135 pages of fun and interesting facts. Plus, its large, glossy pages are loaded with visually stunning photography, making you feel like you’re right there.

This book would make a great addition to any collection, and with Christmas right around the corner, those hard-to-buy-for folks are now taken care of. Pick up your copy today at leading booksellers or online at Amazon.com.

Take the journey with TIME Great Discoveries . . . you’ll be glad you did.

word card by Samantha


Kid:  I want that.

Mom:  You want everything.

Kid:  Of course I do. I'm a KID!  

:-)

sandygrafik.blogspot.com

The Legend of Ninja Cowboy Bear by David Bruins; illustrated by Hilary Leung, Kids Can Press, 2009 (review copy supplied by publisher)

As I approached the school where I was to do a storytelling gig last week, I noted that the school's marquee was featuring the character program trait for October, Individuality. This book came to mind and it occurred to me that this is a perfect book to share that message.

The Ninja, the Cowboy and the Bear are good friends but they argue and face off against each other in a series of contests. Each one has a strength or ability, unique to them. Bear can build the tallest pile of rocks. Cowboy is sharp eyed and can gather the most berries, Ninja's quickness allows him to herd the most rabbits. They come to appreciate each other's abilities which are unique to them. A game of Ninja, Cowboy, Bear, which is played like Rock, Paper, Scissors, is described at the back of the book. This game is a whole body workout.

The illustrations distinguish this story. Hilary Leung's simple but winsome characters bring Japanese chibi designs to mind. The books is also sized to rest comfortably in a child's lap.

Lots of nice subject headings can be tagged to this book, Friendship--Fiction, Individuality--Fiction, Competition--Fiction.

Ninja Cowboy Bear Website

Dave Itzkoff on the "No. 1 Omission from Top Ten Book List". Yep, it's where in the world are the women (and oh the irony that the NYT would be asking). I do have to confess that while I'm finding Shop Class as Soul Craft interesting reading, I'm perplexed as to how it's a top ten of the year. (He's no Tracy Kidder, that's for sure.) (Sometimes I feel like I'm reading a graduate thesis.) Hat tip to @Gwenda

Moving right along, Tanita on an overlooked Philip Pullman: "Nothing is reliable anymore when half-remembered wisps of things she thought were dreams are perhaps a real part of Ginny's history. Bewilderment, isolation, and suspicion push Ginny out of her safety zone and into the world to find out -- something. Not knowing who to trust, she must repair the broken bridges of her life in order to go on."

Little Willow on books being dated by pop culture references; she nails one big problem with this: "When a book references a Top 20 hit or right-now story/gossip/whatnot every few pages, that bothers me, because what's popular and "hot" when the book is in its first draft will change by the time it is published. That just-missed dating can be worse, in a way, than a few years/a decade removed. A perfect example would be a YA title which shall remain nameless that referenced a celebrity marriage which, by the time the book was published, had dissolved. Even if you, like me, do not care a whit about celebrity gossip, you must admit that it is, to some extent, unescapable when it's plastered all over the covers of magazines that line the aisles in the grocery store."

The November issue of Bookslut is up which includes my latest column: Wars of the World. I have several nonfiction titles on conflicts around the world, also two MG books on kids with parents fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and a wonderful picture book that is perfect Veteran's Day reading. Sometimes a column really clicks and this was one of those times. Jason Armogost's essay "Things to Pack for Baghdad" from the anthology When War Becomes Personal continues to stay with me. Here's a bit from my review:

But what stood out for me overall was the essay by B-2 bomber pilot Jason Armagost who wrote “Things to Pack for Baghdad” about serving as the lead aircraft in the first airstrikes on the city in the Second Gulf War. Framed around the 20,000 mile long flight to his target, Armagost writes about the books he brought to engage his mind as he takes turns flying, walking, eating and sleeping before the crucial 208 seconds over the city. The author is a thoughtful man and he has given his reading -- all much loved titles -- much consideration. “In the middle of the Atlantic,” he writes, “I won’t be interested in the cheap plot-twists of the latest bestseller. I’m in need of art -- recklessness, patience, wisdom, passion and largess. I rifle through the titles, grab five and return to the seat. We are over Ohio -- me, my books and the colonel.”

The books Armagost reads vary from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried to Rick Bass’s Winter: Notes From Montana. He reflects upon Admiral Jim Stockdale’s memoir and the seven and a half years he was held as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. He quotes Clausewitz’s On War and Ezra Pound, Socrates, Thucydides, Xenophon. Over the desert it is Antoine de Saint-Exupery he reaches for, and then later Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. The combination of flight and war, literature and history that Armagost blends together is stunning; each paragraph is a different trip to some other time or place. The essay is incredibly personal but through the words of others he makes it that much more reachable for readers -- he brings what he saw and what he did on the flight down to earth so that we may understand it a little bit and also understand him.

Somebody needs to give this guy a book deal; we're talking a 21st century James Salter when it comes to war writing for sure.

Also see Elizabeth Bachner's "Blowing Down Bleecker Street" in the new issue, which has made me rethink my relationship with Kerouac:

He went to Big Sur and wrote another real novel on a single scroll of paper. It took him ten days. I just watched a new documentary on this -- One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur -- and it made me cry. He went out to the ocean and reckoned with writing again, he reckoned with himself again, and seven years later he died of cirrhosis. When I sit in the White Horse Tavern, even when I’m sponge-eyed, when my soft little body is loaded to the gunwales, I’ve never seen Dylan Thomas’s ghost in there. But every time I walk down Bleecker, stone cold sober on a grey day just as it’s starting to get cold, there’s Jack Kerouac blowing all around me.

Mark Sarvas has a significant object (joining many others in this delightful series).

Sara Zarr is reclaiming physical objects, an activity I wholeheartedly endorse....Sara Ryan went to France and didn't exactly pack right (this is funny)...Fans of Whip It get ready for Down and Derby coming next spring from Soft Skull (I'm all over this one)...And finally, via The Morning News:

“The most damaging deficit with which poor and minority children must cope is their deficit of hope.”

—Dreams of Better Schools - The New York Review of Books

Yeah, it made me angry, sad and ready to take on the world too. Tomorrow's my birthday - here's hoping the next 12 months are as productive as the last.

Lucia likes to hear the story of her birth. Sometimes she wants to hear what "rrrrrreally happened" at the hospital, and other times, she wants to hear about when she used to be a bunny or a sweet pea. For today's LoStoWriMo post, here is the story of when Lucia was a star:BEDTIME STORYOnce upon a time, a man and woman took a walk at night. They held hands, looked up into the sky, and said, "Oh,

Lauds

Yeats poems (Second Coming, To a Squirrel)

Rescuers chap 1 & 2

K: read Landmark History, Instant Cities/newspapers

Rilla painting

Bean read Jean Fritz Pilgrims book

Rose working on story

Bean read Round Buildings, chap about rooves. "They make you feel a bit more connected to the building because you can see the rooves no matter what. You might not be able to see the actual building. There was this church, and it had you looking down from the Tower of Pisa, and I got to look at how it would actually look if you were on the Tower. "

Bean did typing lesson

K painted with Rilla

Bean: cursive

snacks & stuff

choir