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I wanted to feature books on gingerbread. The multitude of gingerbread man, baby, girl, woman, twins, doll, bear, dog, computer mouse (joke) books out there have raised my blood sugar to dangerous levels.
Cookies are less sweet but there are some winners available - and most of them are holiday free! Read them now. Read them months from now. Still tasty.
The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems. The cheek of that little duckling! He asked for a cookie - politely - and he got one. The Pigeon wants a cookie. Does anyone ever give HIM a cookie? Another delightful meltdown by the world's favorite pigeon! And cookies. And a very cute Duckling. (And too many sentence fragments.)
Cookies : Bite-size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Jane Dyer. Oooooh, Jane Dyer artwork. Now that IS sweet! Rosenthal uses the process of baking and eating cookies to introduce concepts such as the difference between "fair" and "unfair" or what it means to cooperate. And the pictures? Well, they are by Jane Dyer.
Read
Christmas Cookies : Bite-size Holiday Lessons by the same team to feel all warm and yule-tide cozy.
Gingerbread bunnies, gingerbread husbands, gingerbread hearts, wives, foxes, ponies, dreams, AAAHHH!!!
Still...
The Gingerbread Boy by Paul Galdone. This is the version I grew up with. The text is straight forward and the illustrations are bright and snappy.
The following book is for teenagers. Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn. Cyd Charisse - no, not the long-legged actor from the '50s - is a young teen with a lot of attitude. She's been thrown out of school - again. Her mother and stepfather are fed up. So across the country to NYC, Cyd goes, to meet her biological dad and her half-siblings and, hopefully, get straightened out. There are not many cookies in this book. There is a lot of smart-a** dialogue and convoluted thinking. Cyd makes some blunders but the reader cheers her on. There might be some dated phrases here (c2004).
BTW, Gingerbread is her rag doll, her talisman and best friend. I relate. I still have my kid-hood best friend. (In the attic.)
By:
Bianca Schulze,
on 11/2/2010
Blog:
The Children's Book Review
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By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 2, 2010
Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases, the bestsellers, and kids’ book events.
THE HOT SPOTS: THE TRENDS
Fall Books for Kids: 2010
Interview with Lian Tanner, Author of The Keepers Trilogy
2010 Children’s Choice Book Awards Nominees
Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online
20 Sites to Improve Your Child’s Literacy
THE NEW RELEASES
The most coveted books that release this month:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth
by Jeff Kinney
(Ages 9-12)
Hero
by Mike Lupica
(Ages 9-12)
Pegasus
by Robin McKinley
(Young Adult)
Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)
by Anthony Horowitz
(Ages 12 and up)
You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Fables to Read Together
by Mary Ann Hoberman
(Ages 4-8)
THE BEST SELLERS
The best selling children’s books this month:
PICTURE BOOKS
Llama Llama Holiday Drama
by Anna Dewdney
(Ages 0-5)
Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares is the story of two people who first meet on the pages of a red moleskin notebook. One day Dash is perusing the shelves of his favorite bookstore, the Strand, and instead of a first edition Salinger, he finds a notebook challenging him to follow the dares left for him by a girl named Lily and leave some of his own in return. As they follow the clues (and dares) of a total stranger, Dash and Lily end up everywhere from NYC’s Macy’s during the week before Christmas to a club in the middle of the night (listening to a band called Sorry Rabbi, Tricks are for Yids). Each dare reveals something new about Dash and Lily and brings them closer to the day they will actually meet. When that day finally arrives, they are forced to reconcile the versions of each other they had in their heads with the real thing.
This book has a frenetic energy about it, like everything is happening so quickly that neither Dash nor Lily can keep their changing opinions straight. It’s like an explosion of hormones and opinions and pretentious language and really honest emotion, all barely contained within a shell of insecurity and feigned apathy. It’s like this book is screaming, “READ ME IF YOU ARE A TEENAGER. NO, SERIOUSLY.”
In true Levithan-Cohn style, this book is full of snarky dialogue, the craziest and most awesome array of characters ever (from a gay Jewish hipster couple to a family not unlike the mafia, if you replace violence with Christmas cheer), and a plotline so ridiculous and serendipitous that it’s almost impossible not to enjoy yourself.
Even with all of this to choose from, what I love most about this book is that it is a romance that isn’t really a romance. In most YA romances, the narrator is usually a girl who develops an all-consuming crush on a boy, they meet, and then lots of sexy scenes are spliced together with lots of mushy, let’s-express-our-feelings scenes. While these books are definitely fun to read, they aren’t always the most honest or healthy portrayal of what a couple can be like.
For most of this novel, Dash and Lily never actually occupy the same space. The promise of romance is always there, but it takes a backseat to the emotional development of the characters. Because of the dares they challenge each other with, both Dash and Lily are forced to look at the world through someone else’s eyes: they challenge each other’s ideas, they unknowingly push each other outside of their comfort zones, and they ultimately help each other form a better understanding of themselves.
NYC Teen Author Festival--My First Day...
I arrived in New York on rainy Thursday to catch the last few days of the Teen Author Festival. That afternoon I met my friend Aaron Hartzler (who is the Director, Communications & Design for SCBWI) for a 4 o'clock reading at the 67th branch library featuring Rachel Vail, Courtney Sheinmel, Martin Wilson, Lisa Ann Sandell, and Cecily Von Ziegesar (pictured below in my rather dark photo, L to R, holding up their books).
Oh...I really adore listening to authors reading their own work. There's something sort of magical about it. I'd love to have a continuous bedtime rotation of YA authors reading me a few chapters every night before I fall asleep. Courtney Sheinmel told us she got the idea for her book My So-Called Family, featuring a girl whose father was a sperm donor, from a "The Today Show" story. Cecily Von Ziegesar read a scene from an early Gossip Girl title showing us the book version of why Blair Waldorf didn't get into Harvard (no cocktail parties or text messages involved). Rachel Vail's reading from her upcoming book Lucky offered humor and a great character. Lisa Ann Sandell's writing was lyrical and beautiful and I wasn't surprised to hear that her book A Map of the Known World is her first first prose work, her previous books written in verse. As for Llambda Literary Awards finalist Martin Wilson--after the reading teens were fighting over who got to read his book What They Always Tell Us first as he gave his copy to the library.
And that was another wonderful thing about this reading: teens. There were a bunch of them. And they (pretty much all) paid attention and they asked thoughtful questions and they seemed to have a relationship with the YA librarian which was wonderful to see.
After the reading we were off to Books of Wonder for the debut of Tiger Beat, the first-ever all-YA-author band including Libba Bray, Daniel Ehrenhaft, Barney Miller, and Natalie Standiford. Tiger Beat's opening act was David Levithan and Rachel Cohn (rockin a flannel shirt and eye liner) offering readings from their book Naomi and Eli's No Kiss List (in both English and German!) and a reenacted scene from the movie version of Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.
Then Tiger Beat seriously rocked (they were, like, good) and everyone cheered.
And waved foam Tiger Beat rock'n'roll hands.
Oh--and attached to Books of Wonder: a cupcake place! Aren't they pretty. (The chocolate icing was fantastic.)
Last, here's a reenactment of part of Aaron's conversation with the girl who sold us cupcakes. (I forget her name. I will call her Kara.)
Aaron: Hi Kara. Are you excited about the authors here in the store?
Kara: Oh. I'm not really into young adult books.
Pause.
I'm sixteen.
Aaron: What do you read?
Kara: Neil Gaiman.
After Cyd Charisse is expelled from her boarding school, she returns to California to live with her mother, step-father, and sibilings. When she falls in love with Shrimp and starts getting into trouble again Cyd finds herself sent to New York to live with her biological father, a man she has only met once in her life. Her father disappointed her, but Cyd gets to know her father's other
Pfssss... look at me, where I'm all like I'm going to review review review! And then, what do I do? Carry around a stack of books to review and build muscles, but no reviewing.
But first, SNOW! YAY!
Second, I was writing a post on Puffery on products I wish they'd bring back. When researching it, I found that British LUSH will bring back the World Piece ballistic if enough people order it. Shipping and handling is stupidly expensive, BUT this is the greatest bath bomb ever. Order here. Help me out--you only have 3 more days and 8 hours...
In book-related news, the new the Edge of the Forest for November/December is out! There's lots of super cool stuff in it (one of my favorite issues this year!) and I review Martin Bridge: Out of Orbit! (Martin Bridge) by Jessica Scott Kerrin, illustrated by Joseph Kelly and Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn.
So, go check those out to get your reviewing fix and I'll be back shortly with more reviews. Hopefully today, but I can't promise anything... :)
My talk for the New England Roundtable of Teen and Children's Librarians is in good shape (I think), I made two inquiries in the last few days and one fiction submission. Okay, it's not the kind of accomplishment Jane Yolen would even bother mentioning, but for me it was a big week!
So after doing so very, very much, I took a little time off this afternoon to finally take a look at the most recent The Edge of the Forest. My favorite articles? You care? You really want to know?
Well, I particularly liked Little Willow's (Allie's?) piece on Rachel Cohn because it led me to this interview with Cohn and David Levithan. (They wrote Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, of course.) Get this: Levithan edited sixty of the Baby-sitters Club books. Perhaps I should read one. If memory serves me, I recall a young male relative reading one or two in his younger days.
Another article I found particularly interesting was Michele Fry's Introduction to Penelope Lively's Works for Children. My knowledge of Penelope Lively is limited to her book for adults Moon Tiger. I have to admit that I don't remember a great deal about it. Except that at the time I thought it was fantastic.
So that's another author I need to read more of, should I live long enough to do so.
Ok, so this past year I discovered Rachel Cohn and I am in love. True love.
First off, she wrote
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with David Levithan, and y'all know I'm also in love with him.
So... this is a fun book chronicling the madcap adventures of one night told in alternating points of view. Levithan wrote Nick's chapters and Cohn wrote Norah's. Nick is the only straight member of a queercore band, and sees his fairly recent ex-girlfriend come into a show he's playing with a different guy. In order to pretend it doesn't bother him, he asks Norah to be his girlfriend for 5 minutes.
Norah needs to get her drunk best friend back to New Jersey and figures Nick's good for a ride. She also sees an ex she wouldn't mind pissing off. So she kisses him. And so begins a night of falling in and out of love and running around New York City.
Unshelved also did a great
book talk of this.
It's sweet and fun. Cohn and Levithan's writing styles work amazingly well together-- it's hard to tell that the author keeps changing. The characters are fun and although many of them aren't very fleshed out, instead of seeming flat, they appear to be like everyone else you randomly meet one night as you follow Nick and Norah on their non-date. I liked it a lot.
But, I liked
Gingerbread even more (and it's one of my top picks for 2006).
I know she would probably hate me when she met me, but I really feel like Cyd Charisse and I could be best friends. I want to be her best friend. (No offense to my current friends-- you'd like her too! Promise! We could all hang out and drink coffee and eat cupcakes!)
So, Cyd just got kicked out of her posh east coast boarding school and sent back to San Fransisco to live with Nancy (her mother) and Sid-dad (her step-father). Storming around the house and generally causing trouble, it's a tense situation. The only things that liven it up are her surfer boyfriend Shrimp, her old lady pal Suger Pie, and Shrimp's brother's coffee house Java the Hut. But then she gets confined to her house for bad behavor and Shrimp thinks they need to go on a break.
Cyd finally goes to New York City to be with her biological father, Frank-dad, and to meet the half-siblings she's never known, Danny and lisBETH.
The beauty of this book is Cyd-- her outlook on life and how she views the people in it. She's cynical and hilariously funny and really, I think she would hate me, but I want to be her best friend. This is a book I couldn't put down and I had already picked up the sequel before I had even finished the first book-- I knew I would want to read it.
Which brings up to...
Shrimp Cyd's back in San Fransisco and she and Shrimp have some... issues to work out-- like Cyd's crush on his older brother. But Nancy and Shrimp are starting to get along? Maybe? And Shrimp's parents are back in town, at least for a bit. The best part is that Cyd finally makes some female friends! Helen and Autumn (who Shrimp may or may not have had some fling with while Cyd was in New York) are welcome additions to the cast of characters and...
Lack of Helen was the main flaw in
Cupcake which finds Cyd living in New York with her brother Danny. I also really missed her little brother and sister as well as Sid-Dad. The new characters of Mold and Max are great and this book will make you crave cupcakes like NO ONE'S business. I had to make a special batch just to meet my cravings. (FYI-- devils food cupcakes with mocha buttercream frosting? Both from
How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food? Simply
divine!)
Cohn's other YA novel is
Pop Princess. This tells the story of the rise of a pop star one summer and how she deals with the fame and the death of her sister and the strain that caused on her family. This wasn't nearly as good as
Gingerbread et al. but was fun. The ending was totally predictable but one I was rooting for anyway.
Cohn also has two books for slightly younger readers. In
The Steps Annabel is off to Sydney, Australia. This was not her idea and doesn't sound like fun--she had a perfectly lovely winter break planned in New York, thank you very much. But Annabel's dad has remarried and lives in Australia now with his new wife, two kids from her first marriage, and their new baby. Annabel's mission? To bring her dad back to the US where he belongs. With her. Of course, it doesn't end that way and we have several heart-warming moments about the meaning of family. On the cover of the edition I read, there was a very helpful family tree because there are a lot of crazy relationships!
Two Steps Forward finds everyone in LA for the summer where it turns out that maybe we didn't learn all the necessary lessons last time around. This one's different because every chapter is told from a different point of view, instead of Annabel's not-always-reliable vantage point. I think I liked this one better than the first one.
Cyd Charisse describes what she's up to in Cupcake:
Proving miracles do indeed happen, I'd passed through the first stage of the Plan for the new life by graduating high school. (Pause for moment of shock and a giant sigh of relief from my parents.) That mission accomplished, my Plan laid out that I would then celebrate liberation from my parents' college dreams for me by (1) moving into the empty bedroom in my half brother Danny's apartment in Greenwich Village (done); (2) possibly enrolling in some culinary school classes (working up to it), where I'd definitely win all the important awards like Student with Most Potential to Perfect the Art of the Peanut Butter Cookie, or the coveted So Culinarily (shut up, it is too a word) Blessed She Can Jump Right into Building Her Own Sweets Empire After Only One Class; and (3) the linchpin of the whole Plan--I would not obsess over turning down the marriage proposal from Shrimp, the love of my former high school life, so he could move to New Zealand like he wanted and I could move to Manhattan like I wanted (not there yet with achieving the non-obsessive part of the goal).
Yes. Our Cyd is finally living in New York City, doing her usual Cyd thing: drinking coffee, hanging up on her mother, skipping class, going to Central Park and ogling* hotties, finding work as a barista, drinking more coffee and angsting about Shrimp.
But it isn't all just the same-old-same-old: she breaks her leg and scores a date with an EMT, befriends the middle-aged crankster downstairs, reconnects with Luis (her extremely easy on the eyes driver from Gingerbread), angsts about her brother Danny's ill-advised dumping of his long-term boyfriend, spends more time with her bio-dad and her half-sister lisBETH, helps to improve business at the local LU_CH_ONE_TE and eats loads of cupcakes.
Everything is going pretty well (except for that whole discovering-it-isn't-always-easy-to-live-with-your-older-brother thing).
And then, of course, Shrimp shows up on her doorstep.
Of the three books, Shrimp is still my favorite. But. Even including the bit that the nit-picker side of me found a bit contrived, Cupcake is a totally enjoyable read and solid follow-up. The contrived-ness of the ending wasn't a huge deal for me -- more Cyd is more Cyd is more Cyd, and that's a good thing. Period. For me, the real strength in these books is in Cyd's narration -- her voice is sassy and likable and so-real-she's-almost-audible. That isn't to say that her voice is the only strength -- across the board, I love the other characters, old (Sugar Pie and lisBETH and Helen) and new (Johnny Mold and Max).
Recommended reading for teens who like realistic fiction that features off-beat characters, who embrace the swearing and the issues and who don't fear the punk rock. Do yourself a favor, though, and start from the beginning of the series -- the books are certainly readable as stand-alones, but are better together.
Spoiler-laced-freakout in the comments.
*I always thought that word had two os, but according to Merriam-Wesbeter, there's only one. Maybe because two os look like a pair of breasts (or a butt). My mind is a strange and frightening place.
Wow! This is really great! I just bought this book today for my sisters birthday and this post is really cool. Thanks!
-Arielle.
I'll check out the website. YOu've listed a lot of great songs. Good way to spice up the blog. Nice job!