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We’re trying some new today, kids.  Bear with me.

Today marks the official re-release of one of the greatest storytime picture books of all time.  Ladies and gentlemen, I have been a one-woman-band for the power, glory, and overall wonderfulness that is The Noisy Counting Book.  It is my storytime staple.  I might forget the Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.  I might eschew the Old MacDonald lift-the-flap book by Jessica Souhami.  But never will I ever give up my Noisy Counting Book.

Until today, literally today, The Noisy Counting Book (written by Susan Schade and illustrated by her husband Jon Buller) has been out-of-print.  But as of RIGHT NOW it has appeared back on the market.  At long last, you too can buy a couple copies.  I won’t have to rely on New York Public Library’s single, dilapidated, near-death circulating edition for much longer.

Which got me to thinking about how I could properly celebrate this release.  What would be a proper send-off into the world?  Then it hit me.  For a while I have toyed with the notion of a regular series called Storytime Suggestions.  These would be fairly simple.  Children’s librarians are constantly in need of new ideas for their storytimes.  I know I am.  I have some fun staples on hand, but I always need new books.  Yet even when a fellow librarian tells me how great a book is to read for kids, sometimes I want to see them present it firsthand.  I mean, if you read Bark, George by Jules Feiffer while wearing rubber latex gloves for effect, I wanna see how you pull that off!  How do you modulate your voice for Snip Snap, What’s That? by Mara Bergman?  The solution?  Video.

Here’s the notion.  Starting with this book, I intend to regularly film myself reading some of my favorite picture books for different audiences.  My ultimate hope is that other children’s librarians will start doing the same thing.  Then maybe we could have an exchange of different ideas.  I’m sure people have been doing this on YouTube for years in some capacity, of course.  I’ll just dip my toe in.

Now first, I’ll show the video of me reading the book.  You won’t be able to see the pictures in the book all that clearly thanks to my use of a Flip Camera, but at least you’ll be able to get a sense of how I like to read it.  Then, I’ll offer background on the book and some alternative reading ideas.

We begin.

Name: The Noisy Counting Book
Author: Susan Schade
Illustrator: Jon Buller

He tells you HERE.

Here is my list for the Unread Authors Challenge. It ends in February 2008.

1. Tamar by Mal Peet
2. Total Constant Order by Crissa Jean Chappell
3. Before, After, and Somebody In Between by Jeannine Garsee
4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
5. Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey
6. Does My Head Look Big In This by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Alternates

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. Leonardo's Shadow by Christopher Grey
3. The Book of Time by Guillaume Prevost
4. Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell
5. A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban
6. Memoirs of A Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Garsee, Jeannine. 2007. Before, After, and Somebody In Between.

This book is a good book. But it is essentially the story about a young teen girl with an identity crisis. Her name is Martha. Martha Kowalski. Never has a teen girl hated her life more. Her drunk and neglectful mother. Her mother's abusive mother. Her equally impoverished neighbors living in the tenements. Her school. Her classmates. Nothing at all is going right in her life. She has one or two friends. But their lives are equally messed up. One has a mother dying of AIDS, one has been abandoned my a mother addicted to drugs. The last one also lives in an abusive environment where they beat a toddler. So who would want to be that girl if given another option. Certainly not Martha. When Martha is given--through dire circumstances--the opportunity to transform into Gina Brinkman, she jumps at the chance. Gina lives in a nice neighborhood. A rich neighborhood. Gina goes to an elite school. Gina has nice clothes and a bathroom all her own. (If I recall correctly.) Gina is a material girl. She can have a thousand luxuries that are new to her. And most of all, she feels like she's escaped the harsh realities of her life. But life is never that easy. Never that black and white. Never that clear cut. Who is she really deep down inside? What kind of girl is she?

This book has many ugly sides to it--the alcohol, the drugs, the physical and verbal abuse, sex, violence, etc. Martha is a character that doesn't really embrace the truth if she can get away with a lie. She lies. She lies a lot. Sometimes to other people. Sometimes only to herself. This is another book that shows that actions have consequences. Big consequences. And that life is full of hard choices. Choices you'll have to live with the rest of your life.

Overall, I liked it. It was well-written. This is a very human, very frail, sometimes cruel, sometimes naive narrator.