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The school year is coming to a close and it’s time to stock up for summer reading. We have five great books for you!

This month, our book list features a sweet story about an unconventional animal family, an adorable picture book that celebrates determination, a nonfiction guide to becoming a backyard scientist, and a book that teaches you how to stand up to their fears. For mature readers, the first-ever graphic novel to receive a Caldecott Honor will make for an engrossing read.

For Pre-K –K (Ages 3-6):

Little Pink Pup by Johanna Kerby

Get ready to say “Awww!” every time you turn the page! The real-life photos of a tiny little pig being raised by dachshunds is a heart-warming story that promotes acceptance and reminds us that everyone deserves love.

For 1^st and 2^nd Grade (Ages 6-8):

A Balloon for Isabel by Deborah Underwood

This adorable picture book is both a perfect read-aloud and an ideal graduation gift! It’s a joyful celebration of creativity, determination, and creative problem-solving. We can’t get enough of this one!

For 3^rd & 4^th grade (Ages 8-10):

Citizen Scientists by Loree Griffin Burns

Anyone can be a scientist in this kid-friendly, non-fiction gem! Kids will learn how to observe, conduct research, collect data, and be part of four unique scientific discoveries that can happen anywhere — in a backyard, a field, or even a city park.

For 5thand 6^th Grade (Ages 10-12):

The Liberation of Gabriel King by K.L. Going

Warm, wonderful, and unforgettable, this is the terrific story of a boy whose best friend teaches him to stand up to his fears – from spiders to bullies and more. A perfect read for summer!

Grades 7 & up (Ages 13+):

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

Both hopeful and heartbreaking, this beautiful book is the first graphic novel to be awarded a Caldecott Honor. Mature teens will find it captivating and will readily relate to its coming-of-age explorations of complex friendship and family relationships.

The post Monthly Book List: Our Favorite Books For May appeared first on First Book Blog.

        

Are you ready for some Sweeter-than-Sweet Buzz?

It's official release day for The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Disaster by Loree Griffin Burns (Houghton Mifflin, 2010)!! Yay!

Move over Michael Bond and A.A. Milne -- the resident bears here at alphabet soup are hopelessly in love with Dr. Loree for writing this honey of a book! And who can blame them? After her amazing, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award winning debut, Tracking Trash (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Loree has written another compelling book about a critical issue that affects us all -- why are honey bees mysteriously disappearing?


 photo by wolfpix.


photo by rusto.

You may have heard about this phenomenon in the news -- back in 2006, commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg discovered twenty million of his bees had vanished without a trace.

This was not an isolated incident due to mismanagement; other beekeepers in the country (and around the world) reported similar losses without any logical explanation.


 photo by ~ cloudy ~

Can you imagine a world without honey bees? It would mean no honey for consumption or beeswax for candles and creams, but well beyond that -- barely any fruits, vegetables or nuts! Because honey bees are the most efficient pollinators of many plant crops, our food supply depends on them. In The Hive Detectives, Loree profiles four of the scientists who are investigating the possible causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a potential ecological and agricultural disaster. Could it be viruses, mites, pesticides, or malnutrition? 

Through Loree's clear, engaging prose and Ellen Harasimowicz's beautiful, fascinating photographs, we see how live bees are collected and tested, how results are recorded and interpreted. Chapters featuring hobbyist beekeeper Mary Duane anchor the book, giving us a first-hand look at the care and maintenance of hives and the collection of honey, as well as providing answers to common questions: What kinds of tools are used? How is a modern hive constructed? What is stored in the cells besides honey? What would draw someone to beekeeping and what are its unique pleasures and rewards? 

       
      

For the 11th question of her What a Girl Wants series, Colleen Mondor asked a number of us one of her typically challenging questions: What does it mean to be a 21st century feminist, and on the literary front, what books/authors would you recommend to today's teens who want to take girl power to the next level?

Lorie Ann Grover, Laurel Snyder, Loree Griffin Burns, Margo Raab, and Zetta Elliott all came through with reliably interesting responses. I was caught up in a series of corporate projects and could not respond in time.

Today, however, I'd like to put my two cents in by recommending Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx to readers of any age, gender, or race who wish to understand and celebrate just how hard women have had to work to put their voices on the page—and how women's voices have and will continue to shape us.

Anne Bradstreet, one of this nation's first women writers, entered print, in Showalter's words, "shielded by the authorization, legitimization, and testimony of men." In other words, Showalter continues, "John Woodbridge, her brother-in-law, stood guarantee that Bradstreet herself had written the poems, that she had not initiated their publication, and that she had neglected no housekeeping chore in their making."

No vanity allowed, in other words, and no leaving those dishes in the sink.

Showalter's book—which yields insight into the stories of Phillis Wheatley, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston, Pearl Buck, Shirley Jackson, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, S.E. Hinton, Grace Paley, Joan Didion, Lorrie Moore, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sandra Cixneros, Amy Tan, Louis Erdrich, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gish Jen, and so many others—is itself a piece of history, for it is, unbelievably, the first literary history of American women writers.

Showalter suggests that the development of women's writing might be classified into four phases: feminine, feminist, female, and free. Anyone who wants to know just how we got to free (and to ponder, with the evidence, whether or not we're really there) should be reading this book.

The kids at my school are still talking about plastic tub toys, floating sneakers, the garbage patch, and reducing their use of plastics, thanks to a phenomenal author visit with Loree Griffin Burns this week. 



Loree held the kids spellbound with her fascinating, high energy presentation on Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion.  They're hungry for more high-interest nonfiction now and are waiting (impatiently) for Loree's next book on honeybees.  Thanks, lgburns, for a great, great day with our students!

And a related note that writers, especially, will appreciate...  Loree and I went out to dinner Sunday night to talk writing for a couple hours.  We ended up at a Japanese steakhouse where they have hibachi tables.  Our waitress came over at the end of the meal and remarked that they'd never, in the history of the restaurant, seen two people just keep gabbing away like we did while the guy at the grill was tossing knives and spatulas in the air.  In our defense, we did pause to say "Oooh...Ahh...." when he made the flaming volcano out of the onion... Read the rest of this post

My middle school students are getting a dream team of visiting authors this month. 



This Wednesday, Linda Urban (lurban) will spend the day with us, talking about A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT and her writing life.



And on March 31, Loree Griffin Burns (lgburns) will visit to talk trash -- TRACKING TRASH -- with our middle school kids.

Are you jealous yet?

Meanwhile, HUGE congratulations are in order for both Linda and Loree today!   Both of their books have been selected as finalists for Vermont's Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award.  Kids in Vermont will read as many books from the list as possible, and then they'll vote to choose the winner next spring.  For the full list of 2008-2009 DCF titles, visit the blog of Steve Madden, librarian extraordinaire at Camels Hump Middle School.   It's a fantastic, fantastic  list -- one that will make you want to be a Vermont student, too. 

We considered ourselves wildly fortunate to land some impressive volunteers our first year out. Inevitably, a few decided not to return this year. But in the case of Loree Griffin Burns, we can't be too sad; after all, she's back as a finalist in nonfiction MG/YA books.

Fiona Bayrock at Books and 'Rocks had a major advantage going into her recent Q&A with Loree: the two met several years ago online and have been best virtual buddies ever since. The resulting post is more low-key banter than eggheaded policy debate, as some might fear from a science book about ocean currents. And yet there's enormous depth throughout.

Knowing her subject so well also meant Fiona could aim straight for the heart of matters. Even in a standard question about process, she skips the usual Q&A cliches to find what might be "organic" about trash. Loree's answer is a dramatic story in itself:

[Books and 'Rocks]: Let's talk a bit about process. I know a book like this takes a tremendous amount of planning. I also read on your website that some parts of the process were "organic". I'd love to hear how the planned vs. organic balance shifted at various points along the way.

[Loree Griffin Burns]: There was a point when the book was ostensibly done, but not finished: I had told Curt and Jim's story, and Charlie's story, and well, then the book just sort of ended. It was not a satisfying conclusion and, worse still, I didn't know how to fix it. While I was struggling with what to do about this, I got a call from a friend. He had heard an NPR piece about scientists collecting net debris in Hawaii and wanted to be sure I had heard it too. I was too worried about my bad ending to be listening to the radio (!) and hadn't heard the story. But I quickly found the report online, learned about the work of ghost net hunters Jim Churnside, Tim Veenstra, and Mary Donohue, and began to envision a new ending.

Several weeks later I interviewed Jim Churnside by phone and asked him how he and his colleagues knew where to look for the ghost nets. His answer gave me goosebumps: "Our first step was to talk to Jim Ingraham about where in the North Pacific Ocean we should look for the ghost nets." These trash trackers -- people I knew nothing about when I started writing the book -- were using computer programs perfected with Curt's tub toy data to find their ghost nets. The story had come full circle ... and I had no idea in the beginning that it would.

I am anal by nature, and so had the writing meticulously planned: proposal, check; interviews, check; drafting of chapters, check; collection of photographs, check; meeting deadline, check. But I found that each step caused me to reexamine the step before.

Read the rest here.

Okay, we had a bit of excitement last night. What with all the changes, the full moon lunar eclipse and more, it seems my um, "girl" rhythms are a bit off and scared the heck out of me, so my husband freaked and next thing we are in the ER! (Oh, I just had huge de ja vu!) I am THE worst patient in the world and refused a ton of stuff I felt unnecessary. In the middle of all this, it was like a comedy routine because both my daughter and myself were wide open and seeing things in the ER like mad! Our nice paramedic was actually hooked and fascinated when I blurted out, "Oh, you have a hard time believing this because you were a soldier and very left brain." After that he came in and out of the room and asked for more--asking both myself and my daughter about the spirits surrounded him. Turns out in spite of so many old doctor traumas I carry around and major fears I didn't know I had, the doctor said tests were fine and the problem would settle itself out soon enough. I realized I had been pushing myself horribly and frustrated by not seeing enough reward. Can anyone relate to this? I've felt the old message in my head and have thought, "Is this enough yet?" Awful, huh? I think my body is only talking loudly to myself.

On a very nice note, check out Carlene's blog. She did the most lovely tribute to my work that touched me deeply! Big thanks to Carlene.