I Need My Own Country!

I'm not a political gal, but I'm thinking... there are days when I need MY own country!
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Author: Rick Walton    rickcreation.com

Illustrator: Wes Hargis   weshargis.com

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's Books

175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 www.bloomsburykids.com

Hook: "There comes a time in all kids' lives when they need to create their own country."

Our cute main character is having issues with a brother =) she needs to create a space (country) all her own, complete with her own flag, rules, and national anthem. She prepares for civil unrest, visits from foreign dignitaries, and past invaders who now come in peace. 

I love that this story begins in the endpapers, and carries through the title page to the first actual page of the book. The darling illustrations tell even more of the story than the words, and my kids loved finding the funny-faced goldfish on each page (he's the Secretary of the Navy =)

rating:  (5 stars)

I Hate Picture Books!

I really don't - I LOVE picture books, but Timothy Young's "too cool for school" character Max "HATES" them! I can't even begin to imagine what that's like.

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Author: Timothy Young ihatepicturebooks.com

Illustrator: Timothy Young 

Publisher: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

4880 Lower Vally Road Atglen, PA 19310 schifferbooks.com

Hook: "I HATE picture books!"

Cute (and frustrated) Max hates picture books. Mainly, because each time he tries to mimic something that a picture book character does HE gets into trouble. For example, after his mom read  Harold and the Purple Crayon to Max, HE drew on the wall and got sent to bed without dinner! When HE tried eating "green ham" he threw up all over the kitchen. I guess I can see where he's coming from =)

My favorite part of the story is when Max is retelling the story "Are You My Mother" and he says "So you know what this book made me do? It made me cry! Like where you think the 'snort' is going to eat the bird, but then puts it back in it's nest...I LOVE THAT BOOK! I MEAN I HATE THAT BOOK! It was the first one I threw away. Wait...I do love that book.
I GOTTA FIND THAT BOOK!"

Cute story, cute illustrations, cute idea.

rating:  12345 (5 books)

The Miniature World of Marvin & James

The Miniature World of Marvin & James - The Masterpiece Adventures, Book 1

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Author: Elise Broach elisebroach.com

Illustrator: Kelly Murphy kelmurphy.com

Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books  Henry Holt and Company LLC

175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010  mackids.com

Hook: "Marvin is sad."

I would be sad too if my best friend was leaving me for a whole week! 

We met Marvin & James in Elise's novel, Masterpiece. I LOVED that book, so I was thrilled when I discovered this new little series! I say "little" because it's only 104 pages of large print and darling illustrations, just right for your "comfortable with reading" first grader, or your more reluctant second or third grader. This book does have chapters, so they can feel like they are reading a more "big kid" book, but at their vocabulary level. Cute story about friendship, missing important people when they are absent from your life, and the wonderful feeling you experience when they return. PLUS, you get a fantastic adventure inside a pencil sharpener! How can you beat that?

rating: (5 beetles)

 

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Library Mouse

We have a mouse in our library!!!

And he's SO cute, don't you think?

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We've started writing our own stories as well, just like cute Sam...

 

and we have our very own library mouse, although no one has seen him yet...

(you can get your very own "mouse hole" HERE)

The best part? There are MORE Library Mouse books for us to read!!

This week...

In The Wild, by David Elliott ... one of our Beehive Book Award nominees in poetry, is our book of choice this week.  Can YOU guess what animal each poem is describing?

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Don't forget - ballots are available on the circulation counter when you are ready to vote for your favorite books!  We will be tallying up votes in the next couple of weeks to submit to CLAU (Children's Literature Association of Utah)

Reading Contest

An update on our Jazz Reading Contest...

Tuesday is the day your teachers need to turn in to me all your reading minutes over the last few weeks... TUESDAY!!  Wow! This has whizzed by!  We have a looooong weekend to READ, so get busy reading!  We need to accumulate as many reading minutes as we possibly can before Tuesday!  READ, READ, READ!!

SUMMER LIBRARY!

Click on the image above to learn of 5 ways to make time for reading this summer... great ideas from Scholastic!