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By: Jason Boog,
on 4/15/2012
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The American Library Association (ALA) has released its annual list of the most frequently challenged library books of the year. We’ve linked to free samples of all the books on the list–follow the links below to read these controversial books yourself.
During the past year, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received 326 reports of “attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.” The list was part of the ALA’s 2012 State of America’s Libraries Report.
Here’s more eBook news from the report: “The rapid growth of ebooks has stimulated increasing demand for them in libraries, but libraries only have limited access to ebooks because of restrictions placed on their use by publishers. Macmillan Publishing, Simon and Schuster and Hachette Book Group refused to sell ebooks to libraries. HarperCollins imposed an arbitrary 26 loans per ebook license, and Penguin refused to let libraries lend its new titles altogether. When Random House raised ebook prices, the ALA urged it to reconsider.”
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
By: Jason Boog,
on 4/8/2012
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The American Library Association (ALA) has released its annual list of the most frequently challenged library books of the year. We’ve linked to free samples of all the books on the list–follow the links below to read these controversial books yourself.
During the past year, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received 326 reports of “attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.” The list was part of the ALA’s 2012 State of America’s Libraries Report.
Here’s more eBook news from the report: “The rapid growth of ebooks has stimulated increasing demand for them in libraries, but libraries only have limited access to ebooks because of restrictions placed on their use by publishers. Macmillan Publishing, Simon and Schuster and Hachette Book Group refused to sell ebooks to libraries. HarperCollins imposed an arbitrary 26 loans per ebook license, and Penguin refused to let libraries lend its new titles altogether. When Random House raised ebook prices, the ALA urged it to reconsider.”
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
By: Jason Boog,
on 4/8/2012
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Schiel & Denver Book Publishers Blog
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The American Library Association (ALA) has released its annual list of the most frequently challenged library books of the year. We’ve linked to free samples of all the books on the list–follow the links below to read these controversial books yourself.
During the past year, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received 326 reports of “attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.” The list was part of the ALA’s 2012 State of America’s Libraries Report.
Here’s more eBook news from the report: “The rapid growth of ebooks has stimulated increasing demand for them in libraries, but libraries only have limited access to ebooks because of restrictions placed on their use by publishers. Macmillan Publishing, Simon and Schuster and Hachette Book Group refused to sell ebooks to libraries. HarperCollins imposed an arbitrary 26 loans per ebook license, and Penguin refused to let libraries lend its new titles altogether. When Random House raised ebook prices, the ALA urged it to reconsider.”
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 5/18/2011
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From sopping wet New York City here is your philosophical question of the day: If April showers bring May flowers, what the heck do May showers bring? Ponder that while I hand you a piping hot plate o’ Fusenews.
- My library branch is turning 100 next week (you may have noticed the pretty New Yorker cover that referenced this) but it’s acting pretty spry for a centennial. For one thing, NYPL is coming out left and right with fancy dancy apps! Here’s one for the researchers. Here’s another that’s a game. Here’s a third that lets you reserve books. Insanity!
- This week’s Best Post Ever: Travis Jonker is a genius. A full-blown, certified genius. He’s come up with a Middle Grade Title Generator that leaps on the current trend of titles that sound like “The (insert word ending in -ion) of (insert slightly off kilter first and last name for girls)”. He came up with a couple examples like “The Gentrification of Geraldine Frankenbloom” but his commenters really picked up the gist of the idea and ran with it. Rockinlibrarian’s “The Zombification of Apple McGillicutty” (which I would read in a red hot minute) may be my favorite but a close second was Lisa’s “The Excommunication of Willow Diddledeedee.” I got nothing so cool. The best I could come up with was “The Computerization of Sarasota McNerdly.” I doubt it would sell.
- Adam Rex recently penned a post that works as An Open Letter to Everyone Who Thinks It Must Be Easy, Writing Children’s Books. It’s in response to Paula Poundstone (whom I also like) and her recent faux pas on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me when she told Brenda Bowen that she thought it would be easy to write a picture book. Note, if you will, that Poundstone has not actually attempted to do so. In fact, the only stand-up comedian picture books that immediately come to mind are those by Whoopie Goldberg, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jeff Foxworthy. And weren’t those memorable! Not in a good way, of course. Particularly the Leno. *shudder*
- She wrote it back in 2006 but it still applies today (particularly in conjunction with Adam Rex’s post). Meghan McCarthy asks the age old question What makes us qualified to write for children? I believe Anne Carroll Moore once asked Ursula Nordstrom the same question about editing for children (a cookie for everyone who remembers Nordstrom’s response). Yet another reason why we need to follow-up on Peter Sieruta’s suggestion to create an Anne Carroll Moore/Ursula Nordstrom crime solver series. I envision Moore as the Bert to Nordstrom’s Ernie, don’t you?
By: James Preller,
on 4/28/2011
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This is amazing good news. Great news, in fact. I’m happy and proud to say that my book, Bystander, is included on the ballot for the 2012 New York State Reading Association Charlotte Award.
To learn more about the award, and to download a ballot or bookmark, please click here.
The voting is broken down into four categories and includes forty books. Bystander is in the “Grades 6-8/Middle School” category. Really, it’s staggering. There are ten books in this category out of literally an infinity of titles published each year. You do the math, people.
For more background stories on Bystander — that cool inside info you can only find on the interwebs! — please click here (bully memory) and here (my brother John) and here (Nixon’s dog, Checkers) and here (the tyranny of silence).
Below please find all the books on the ballot — congratulations, authors & illustrators! I’m honored to be in your company.
-
GRADES pre K-2/PRIMARY
Bubble Trouble . . . Margaret Mahy/Polly Dunbar
City Dog, Country Frog . . . Mo Willems/Jon J Muth
Clever Jack Takes the Cake . . . Candace Fleming/G. Brian Karas
Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes . . . Margie Palatini/Barry Moser
Memoirs of a Goldfish . . . Devin Scillian/Tim Bower
Otis . . . Loren LongStars Above Us . . . Geoffrey Norman/E.B. Lewis
That Cat Can’t Stay . . . Thad Krasnesky/David Parkins
Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! . . . April Pulley Sayre/Annie Patterson
We Planted a Tree . . . Diane Muldrow/Bob Staake
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GRADES 3-5/INTERMEDIATE
The Can Man . . . Laura E. Williams/Craig Orback L
Emily’s Fortune . . . Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Family Reminders . . .
Alice in Charge Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
It's Alice's senior year and she seems to think that now she's almost an adult, and off to college next year, she can no longer ask for help with anything, because "doing it yourself" is part of being grownup. So, there were a lot fewer conversations where her dad and Lester only talk as a way to impart VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT LIFE STUFF to the reader. So that was nice, but Alice's attitude bothered me and just led to a lot of "I'm so stressed out and can't handle this" self-invented drama.
Along with this, Alice befriends a Sudanese refugee and teaches him our American ways, battles a hate group at school, battles a sketchy teacher, and is (rather condescendingly/patronizingly) nice to a student who seems to be on the autism spectrum, but it isn't specified.
The ending, as usual is a little pat, and Naylor's explanation as to why people join hate groups is over-simple to the point of being insipid* but Alice is so gosh-darn EARNEST and reminds me a lot of me at that age that I really like her, even though Naylor has no eye for little details.
For instance:
Pam wants to go to school in New York, it has to be New York, the implication being New York CITY. She lists all these schools she's thinking about, and they're all in the city, except then she mentions Cornell. Which is in New York STATE, not City. (And according to Google maps, is the same distance, time-wise, from the city as Silver Spring is.)
It seems really, really weird that Kay's parents would have had an arranged marriage. Arranged marriages aren't that common in modern China and are most likely to take place in rural areas among classes that would be unable or very unlikely to have the money and skills necessary to immigrate to the US. So, unless Kay's parents are 100 years old, this is just... no.
Molly has a boyfriend who's "Indian. Pakistani, anyway." Because they're TOTALLY THE SAME THING. And I bet he's totally ok with his girlfriend thinking they are.
Why are 2,714 people graduating with Les? And why are they all WALKING? Speaking as someone who has gotten a Master's degree from Maryland in the past few years, grad students are invited to the big ceremony, but no one walks and most don't go. Each school has its own graduation ceremony where they walk. And I highly doubt that 2,714 people are earning a Masters in Philosophy at a December graduation. Naylor does get points for pointing out the totally true ridiculousness that graduation is 2 days before Christmas. (I walked on the 22nd. FOR REALZ.)
What is with Alice enjoying cheesy school presentations by outside groups on various dangers facing teens? Does Naylor really think most kids think these are actually funny and cool?
So, yeah, I've often blogged about my love/hate relationship with this series. Why can I love a character, but hate the books so much? Alice deserves better than poorly-researched after-school specials she gets thrown into.
*SPOILER ALERT! It's because his father is emotionally abusive! And says he's too wus
Intensely Alice Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
I've talked before about my love/hate relationship with Alice McKinley. On the one hand, Alice is one of the most real characters in YA lit. On the other, her voice is no where near real and each book is an after school special. It's a really weird mix.
And the latest installment is no exception. I won't say what the After School Special is, because, like in most of the books, it happens at the end. They all tend to follow this formula: life-life-minor conflict-life-minor conflict-life-life-minor conflict-life-life-BAM! MAJOR WTF EVENT!
It's the summer before senior year. Patrick's off to University of Chicago. Carol's getting married. Alice is trying to figure out what to do after school...
Minor things-- Naylor seems to think that campus fliers are day specific-- "Everytimg we made a turn, it seemed, there was a poster of a bulletin board promoting an organization or a lecture, a concert, a play. Being Sunday, there were notices about religious services and discussions..." Um, no. They'd be there all week long.
Major things-- after Carol's wedding, Alice refers to them as Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Swenson. REALLY?! Only Aunt Sally would think that's appropriate. Why would Alice, who has spent previous books so obsessed with the "Sisterhood" say something so outdated?! Especially in relationship to CAROL of all people?!!!!!! ALSO, Alice lets Patrick order for her, because "I wanted to try whatever he liked best." I mean, just ask him and then order dude. When did she get so... subservient?
While the book was fine, I do not like who Alice was when she was in Chicago. And I don't think it's that Alice changed, but that Naylor just really lost touch with things when writing this and thought it was 1950 or something. While the voice issues usually just annoy me, this just made me angry.
Copy from: the library
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on 9/24/2009
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photo by carrera911e www.flickr.com
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is a Newberry Medal winner and the beginning of a series about a beloved dog and a young boy, Marty Preston. I chose it for today’s “Timeless Thursday” because animal stories, especially well-written ones, are always a big hit with kids. This book, which I taught in a fifth-grade classroom, was a big hit with boys. Many of them were very upset at the treatment of Shiloh. Many of them can’t help talking and journaling about their own pets while reading Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s classic.
Don’t worry about Shiloh being outdated or not relating to today’s generation. It does. You can read this book out loud to students or use it in literature circles. While reading, discuss the themes of love, loyalty, friendship, honesty, and integrity. Discuss the characters of Marty and Judd Travers, and compare and contrast them. Let students make personal connections between the ideas in the story and in their own lives. You can do these same skills at home if you homeschool.
If your students love Shiloh, then they might want to check out Shiloh’s Season, too.
Oh how much I want to hug Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. She has created the book that I needed to rejuvenate my love of middle grade fiction. I haven't found many in this genre that I've really felt the need to shout out about in the past couple of months, but Faith, Hope, and Ivy June is a book I hope you all will run out and read and then hand to your kids and friends and coworkers to read. The message is one that we all need to hear.
Publisher's description:
"Ivy June Mosely and Catherine Combs, two girls from different parts of Kentucky, are participating in the first seventh-grade student exchange program between their schools. The girls will stay at each other’s homes, attend school together, and record their experience in their journals. Catherine and her family have a beautiful home with plenty of space. Since Ivy June’s house is crowded, she lives with her grandparents. Her Pappaw works in the coal mines supporting four generations of kinfolk. Ivy June can’t wait until he leaves that mine forever and retires. As the girls get closer, they discover they’re more alike than different, especially when they face the terror of not knowing what’s happening to those they love most."
The message of friendship and hope, despite differences in social status is overpowering in this story, in the most wonderful of ways. The characters, both Ivy June and Catherine, as well as Mamaw and Papaw, brothers and sisters and parents, were all realistic and incredibly charming and each reacted to the exchange program in a manner true to their character.
Naylor's descriptions of life in both Lexington and Thunder Creek were enough to make me feel as if I was there, in the story with the girls. I absolutely loved this powerful story and would highly recommend it to both school's and public libraries for their shelves. Know a middle grade reader? Buy it for her. Now.
Thank you to Random House for the review copy :)
To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover to link to Amazon.
Faith, Hope, and Ivy June
Phyllish Reynolds Naylor
288 pages
Middle Grade
Delacorte Press
9780385736152
June 2009
This is good! Peace reigns throughout the galaxy! The mutual love of reading has made even a Sith and Jedi call a truce--for now! The CARLMAN wonders what will happen when they meet face-to-face at WordPlay Saturday. Stay tuned to find out!
BTW, I've started reading
The Boys Start the War by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, the first book in the Girls Against the Boys series. I've read only four chapters but I've already laughed so much that my coworker at the next desk wondered what was going on! AND I've read
The Maze of Bones. WOW!!! It's one fantastic book. The CARLMAN would say more,
but he is busy stopping clone-vs-droid wars, so I'll write about it later.
The Great and Powerful CARLMAN
If you ever needed proof that boys are generous, noble, peaceloving souls, let no further than this blog!! We have a comment from our friend Anonymous who posted a review last week but didn't say if he were for the boys or girls. (I tried to post this last Thursday, but a lot of computer problems stopped me) Here's his comment:
Anonymous here! Put my vote with the guys! Girls are ok and I too hope we all simply read and share that love for reading. I thought reveiwing a book with both a girl and a guy as the main characters should show if we work together we all can win! PEACE!
Well done,
Anonymous! Here is the proof of the greatness of
boys; even though the girls went for a
mean and sneaky hostile takeover of our blog, a
boy extended the olive branch of peace to them.
How noble! How... excuse me--
sniff, sniff--I'm just overcome with the goodness of
boys, even to their
mean and sneaky opponents. Well, now that I've got control of myself, I think it's time to put this battle to an end. No girls have written back to us, so they are obviously ashamed of their low behavior and ceased their hostile taeover. Besides, we have made them Honorary Guys and...I'm sorry, I'm getting choked up again--
sniff, sniff, snifffffflllee!--it's time to let us all read together as brothers.
All this, of course, reminds me of books. Specificaly, it reminds me of the Girls Against the Boys series by
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. She wrote that great book Shiloh, one of the great boy-and-his-dog stories of all time. Well, in this series, the Hartford brothers, who live in Buckman, West Virgina, are waiting for their new neighbors to arrive. Their best friends, the Benson brothers, have moved to Georgia and the Hartfords are expecting some more boys to move into the house. Imagine thier surprise when three girls move in!! The boys decide to amke the girls' lives so miserable by playing practical jokes on them that they'll move away, but they didn't count on the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the Malloy sisters! They use their smarts to match the boys trick for trick! Who finally wins? You'll have to read and find out! There are twelve books in the series, one for each month of that school year:
These books are supposed to be funny. To be honest, since I'm a boy, I have to let you know that I haven't read them. But, also since I'm a boy, I'll lead by example and start reading the first one. Who's with me? Any one out there want to read them with me and tell us what you think?
Carl
Before we get to our regularly scheduled reviewing, some announcements.
Quiescit anima libris has an excellent post today about catalogers and how, despite popular library-world sentiment, we are NOT the enemy. (Ok, I'm not a cataloger, but I do love cataloging and have been a cataloger and might be one again someday. Mmmmm... cataloging...)
Also, there's still time to enter my drawing for a free (hardcover! not an ARC!) copy of Playing with Fire by Derek Landy. Information can be found here.
AND! I haven't done my Top 9 for [insert month here] since April! So, click on the store and see my top 9 for July!
Anyway, some books, yes.
I've been reading lots of Alice lately.
Alice the Brave Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
It's the summer before 8th grade. Alice is excited to be an 8th grader, but the summer's being spent at Mark Stedmeister's pool and Alice is TERRIFIED of the deep water. Can she deal with her fear without doing something absolutely mortifying?
Lots of angst about over coming various fears. Also, the typical Alice banter with questions about bodies, sex, and growing up.
>
Alice in LaceWell, it's a critical choices unit in health class. Pamela has to pretend she's having a baby and do her report on all the options she has and the effects. Elizabeth has to do hers on buying a used car. Alice and Patrick are supposed to plan a wedding, honeymoon, and set up an apartment with only $5000, plus set up a monthly budget.
And here the differences in Patrick and Alice's background start to come out. Also, there is some serious drama surrounding the assignment (and not the made up teen drama that surrounds everything in Alice's life, but real drama)
Also, this one was initially confusing, because I accidentally read
Outrageously Alice first. Whoops!
Outrageously Alice Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Alice wants to stand out and be noticed. But, there are so many weird things going on. Alice is a bridesmaid, Halloween goes dreadfully wrong, and Pamela's family has hit the fan. Plus, it's pretty obvious Miss Summers has two boyfriends!
Will any of Alice's attempts to shine in her own way NOT end in disaster?
Of course not.
Achingly Alice Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Miss Summers is spending Christmas with the McKinleys! Yay! Right? Well... she's spending New Years with Mr. Sorringer so... who does she like more?
Alice is starting to understand though, because Sam from Camera Club pretty obviously likes Alice. Alice likes Sam too, he's nice and caring, but what about Patrick?
So, here's the deal. Alice is a very real character. I wish I had discovered her when I was 12. I don't know why I didn't, I mean, she was around then. But her constant worrying about boys, and sex, and bodies, and her mortal embarrassment over everything... basically, the very things that make her such a true and honest character, as an adult grate on my a bit after reading 3 books in a row.... so... the lesson is... space your Alice, so she'll just be winning. But you should read her. And you should give her to all the younger teens in your life (because Alice is one of those series that ages up, so they'll be friends with her for a long, long time.)
Hours read: 4 hours, 15 minutes
Number of books read: 3
Number of pages read: 514
WARNING: I am reviewing series books. While this review contains no spoilers for this book, it probably contains spoilers for previous volumes in this series. It’s the nature of the beast.
Reluctantly Alice Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Well, 7th grade has started, and every thing's different and harder, both academically and personally. Alice already has an enemy that's making her life hard but no matter what, her personal problems are nothing like her dad's and Lester's romantic woes!
Seriously though, Alice needs to stop taking advice from Aunt Sally. Geez. And stop talking to Lester's girlfriends on the phone...
Anyway, I just want to say how much I freaking love Pandora, which you need to check out if you haven't yet.
The new challenge is to make a button. I've never made a button, but I think I'll try!
Hours Spent Reading: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Books read: 2
Pages read: 332
Alice in Rapture, Sort Of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Having a boyfriend is so hard! Especially when there's kissing involved! What if you just ate garlic pizza?!
The thing about being twelve is that you bawl a lot... Between the sixth and seventh grades, something happens to your eyes. They water a lot. I think it's so you can get all the watering out the way before you start wearing mascara. pp.160-161
There'll probably just be more plot summary, less reviewing until tomorrow when I'll review the series as a whole. Unless, of course, I feel like yelling at some characters a la Princess Diaries, which is rather likely, especially as I become more sleep deprived.
Anyway, the mini-challenge right now is to go take a walk, so I'm off to 7-11 to get a slushie. Yummy.
Hours Spent Reading: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Books Read: 1
Pages Read: 166
So, I finished up Lovingly Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor!
It's Alice's 5th grade year and things aren't going so well. First of all Sara moved away without telling everyone-- rumor has it her family has been evicted. And everyone's being mean to Rosalind because she's fat. Things just go down hill from there.
Naylor has a way of capturing the bittersweetness of childhood. The confusion and giggles over where babies come from, the hurt involved in popularity...
I do like this series.
Dan got back from his business trip yesterday.
Me: Hey! So, I ended up winning the 48 Hour Challenge for most hours read!
Him: How many hours did you end up doing?
Me: Um... 42
Him: Yeah... some people have lives.
And just to prove that I really, really don't have a life, I've already read 3.5 books since then...
So let's review one of them, shall we? Ok.
Alice in Blunderland Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
This is one of the Alice prequels.
Alice is in 4th grade and things aren't going so well. Lester tells her that they're really escaped Russian royalty and that her real name is Alicia Katerina de Balencia Blunderbuss Makinoli. When she tells her friends at school this, she finds out that "blunderbuss" means someone who messes everything up.
Alice thinks that sums her up perfectly. Whether she's accidentally messing up Lester's chances with the ladies or having a very loud stomach at a slumber party, she can't do anything right. She's pretty sure that Lester would trade her for almost anything.
Then she and Lester mess up so badly, they have to get a horrible housekeeper!
4th grade has to be the worst year yet!
I love Alice and I'm really looking forward to growing up with her. Naylor remembers the agonizing details of the age and renders them with humor, but well enough that we all can cringe along with Alice.
The Alice series has been around since I was in elementary school and there's a reason they're still heavily in print! I really recommend them for kids and for adults, especially fans of Clementine or Ramona who are looking to move up to harder (and edgier)* books.
Not that I'd really call the early Alice books edgy, especially the prequels. But this one does feature Alice learning about babies and wondering about babies growing inside you. Not sex so much, but babies. The first book in the proper series
The Agony of Alice deals with periods and stuff. Presumably they'll deal with even bigger issues as Alice goes through junior high and high school. I'll keep you updated as I read them!
adfa
I’m slowly making my way through Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series for the Themed Reading Challenge hosted by Caribou’s Mom and I’m enjoying each book that I read. I know I read them all years and years ago, but it’s always fun to revisit old favorites. I guess that’s what challenges are for.
In Alice in April, our ever-so-lovable main character has decided that since she is about to turn thirteen, she is now the Woman of the House and needs to take on more “womanly” responsibilities, such as doing her dad’s and brother’s mending, making dinner, and all the other lovely things that come along with growing up. As usual, disaster ensues and Alice is left more confused than ever! While all her planning is going on, Alice is also desparetly waiting for the boys in her class to give her a state name based on her chest size, the more mountainous the state, the more appealing her breasts are, I suppose and Alice also gets a glimpse into tragedy after a student in her class takes her own life.
In Alice-in-Between, poor Alice gets the blues over not fitting in. She isn’t maturing quite as fast as some girls, but not quite as slowly as others, causing her to feel left out and lonely. She becomes romantically interested in Patrick again and their “in-between” status is not helping her feel any better at all. Lester’s girlfriends make another hilarious appearance in this sixth book in the series and Alice’s dad begins to get more serious with her teacher.
Though the Alice books are more mature material than a lot of parents want their girls reading at 11 or 12, they really do cover realistic experiences and emotions that the girls go through. The books are funny, well-written, and always enjoyable. Two more down!
Now Reading: This is Paradise!
Just Finished: An Abundance of Katherines
So... Dan came home after a freakishly long business trip. I could tell he had been away for quite some time, because he sent me a coupon for Borders. Obviously, he had forgotten how crazy the stacks of books in our house are and how they are threatening to EAT MY HOUSE.
Needless to say, I went and spent it. When it comes to books, you know I have no self control. My two purchases I'm most excited about are Sister Bernadette's Barking Dogand the The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature: The Traditions in English.
Anyway, let's talk about some books I've read, not ones I haven't yet (but I will say I started Sister Bernadette and it's awesome so far.)
Rosy Cole's Memoir Explosion: A Heartbreaking Story about Losing Friends, Annoying Family, and Ruining Romance by Sheila Greenwald came out around the time Oprah was pistol-whipping James Frey, which was timely.
Anyway, Rosy Cole (who has lots of books about her, but I haven't read the others) is writing a memoir for her writing assingment in school. She was supposed to write about the most interesting person in her family, so she chose herself! The problem is, her life is pretty boring, so she embellishes it a bit. She gets a lot of bad advice, especialy from her Uncle Ralph and when her friends see it, hoo boy, that's when things really hit the fan.
Rosy is a likeable herione. She is confident everyone will eat up her memoir and love it just as she does, and is genuienly shocked and suprised when everyone stops talking to her. Rosy's funny and incorrigible-- a cross between Eloise and Ramona Quimby.
The text is well-complemented by Greenwald's line drawings-- I especially likes how well she captures the facial expressions of her audience everytime Rosy reads her memoirs out loud.
I am looking forward to reading some of the other titles in this series.
Ursula Nordstrom: (might not be exact) “I’m a former child and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” it is my mantra.
Love the bookmarker! And just yesterday I was telling someone how I long for a pair of red, sparkly shoes….
Reading French is one (fun) thing, but not long ago we spent the evening reading an Icelandic picture book (also available in French from the same great publishers as Tibois http://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/livres/livre/40870-non-dit-petit-monstre, but for some reason we had the Icelandic version) – neither of us have any Icelandic, but I have some Swedish, husband has Dutch and good German, and we both studied linguistics so we reconstructed some sort of proto Germanic and used that for the Icelandic. It was a lot more fun than it sounds! And the book was great – another one I hope gets picked up by an English language publisher.
I think a book in Arabic script, however, might be a step too far…. (although I’d loved to be able to read Farsi and enjoy Iranian picture books properly – I think they have an amazing illustration culture)
Ah, the Arabic was an old John Holt trick to put parents in the shoes of their child learning to read. To help them understand why their child might not recognize a word they had already read further up the page, Holt had a page of Arabic and asked the parent to to find the same word twice on the page.
The article about the LA librarians was beyond horrifying. Indeed, my hands are shaking as I type this. I hope those lawyers and district stooges end up in that special circle of hell where they spend eternity getting thwapped by wooden rulers wielded by every teacher ever.
And what KILLS me is that hearings like that are REALLY EXPENSIVE. The lawyer, I’m sure, bills the district at around twelve hundred an hour. Interrogating every librarian in the district would have been a ridiculous money waster, and would do nothing more than to humiliate the people who dedicate their lives to educating children.
But really, that’s the point, right? To humiliate.
Do you think that lawyer has to justify his job? Prolly not. We don’t do things like that to men in our society. Only to those “lady” jobs.
Being a teacher in L.A., I will just add that some 4,000 teachers are going through the same thing this spring. This is after getting a letter that says you can bring a lawyer and evidence to your hearing, and another letter that says you can file a “Denial of Accusation.” Apparently the accusation is that you work in a district that has no money, in a state that has no budget.
40,000 educators have been laid off statewide in the past 3 years, including librarians. This trend is scheduled to continue for the nest 3-4 years, till the kids will no doubt be taught in one giant classroom in the auditorium, like an endless school assembly–by the one remaining teacher.
So yeah, stick to New York and those excellent lions!
Thanks for telling everyone about the baby, Betsy! I was pleasantly startled to learn you have a similar birthmark to baby Ingrid. That’s delightful! Or perhaps ominous?–The mark of a kind of librarians’ Bene Gesserit?
*sigh* Yes, NYC I’ll stay for now. I am pleased that these library interrogations are getting as much news as they are, though. How much worse it would be if this passed unnoticed (or worse, uncared about) by the general public and press.
And yes, James. She bears “the mark”. All members of my occupation have already duly noted her name and placed it in The Big Book of Future Librarians. She will attempt to escape her fate for years, only to find herself filling out MLIS school application forms in her sleep. This future I foresee for your child.
For some reason your blog auto-corrected the word “weird” with “a genius”. Strange…
Beautiful baby, James! Hey, I’m not an anatomist or anything, but I wouldn’t say that birthmark is on Ingrid’s thigh. More like her waist. Are you sleep deprived or something? Congratulations!