Book Review: The White Giraffe

The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John. (Grades 4-6.)

When 11-year-old Martine's parents are killed in a house fire, she's shipped off to South Africa to live with a grandmother who doesn't seem to want anything to do with her. Unspeakably sad and somewhat of an outcast at school, the only thing Martine can be happy about is the lush African wilderness that surrounds her new game reserve home. When she hears stories about a mythical white giraffe that supposedly lives on the reserve, Martine is skeptical... until one rainy night when the white giraffe appears to her and Martine finds out that she must meet her destiny.

My favorite thing about this book is the rich setting. Lauren St. John lived on a reserve in Zimbabwe when she was a child and her experience with the animals and plants really shows in this book. It's quite a pleasant thing to be reading in cold, wet Chicagoland and find yourself transported to a lush jungle.

The White Giraffe kept reminding me of Lionboy, another kid-talks-to-animals fantasy book that I really enjoyed. Martine's a likeable character with a special gift that many kids will envy - the ability to speak to (kind of) and heal animals. I wish the background characters were a little more well-developed and, to be completely honest, I found some parts of it to be a little hokey. Overall, I think this is a story that will appeal to kids and I think the cover and title alone are enough to intrigue.

For those who do pick up the book and enjoy it, Ms. St. John has penned a few other adventures with Martine - Dolphin Song (2008) and The Last Leopard (March, 2009). It looks like a fourth book - The Elephant's Tale - is due out in the UK in August, but I don't know when it'll be hitting the shelves in the US.

Check out Lauren St. John's beautiful website to find out a bit more about her and her books. Read more reviews at Fuse #8 (where Betsy addresses the issue of Martine's race) and Deliciously Clean Reads. There's a booktalk posted at Booktalks - Quick and Simple. And definitely worth noting is that it looks like Walden Media is making a movie starring AnnaSophia Robb (yeah you know her; she was Leslie in Bridge to Terabithia). As far as I can tell, it's slated to be released this year. Read an interview with Ms. St. John on Walden Media's site.

Addicted to...?

Trisha tagged me for the five things I'm addicted to meme. So, without further ado...

1. America's Next Top Model. It is true! I am not ashamed! I really started watching this show about a year ago when my best friend came up here to visit me and now we're both obsessed. They've been rerunning past seasons of it on Oxygen and I've been recording them. In the past few weeks I've watched 3 or 4 seasons in their entirety and portions of other seasons. I love hate love it when they cry over their haircuts. :)

2. Books about medical issues. Maybe it's because my mom's a doctor, but I've always been interested in novels about diseases, surgery, psych hospitals... you name it! (Anyone have recommendations? Amanda and I already bonded over our shared childhood love of A Night Without Stars!)

3. Gag reels on DVDs. They are my favorite extra and I get really disappointed when they're not included.

4. Musicals. Ohhh how I love them! My all-time favorite is Miss Saigon. Runner up is Phantom. My sophomore year at IU, I was an usher at the IU Auditorium and got to see a whole bunch of shows for free. Ahhh, how I miss that perk... Since I moved to Chicagoland (just over two years ago), I've seen Wicked (twice), The Color Purple, Jersey Boys, and Sweeney Todd.

5. Shopping at Trader Joe's. Before I moved up here, I'd never lived in a place that had Trader Joe's. I love their tomato soup, their tomato-broccoli pesto frozen pizza, and pretty much every kind of cookie they have. Every time my friends or parents come up to visit, we have to stop at Trader Joe's. One time when a group of friends came up, we went three separate times over one weekend.

I'm not so into the tagging, so if you wanna do it or you're looking for something to do this weekend, consider yourself tagged!

And the winners are...

My sources just texted me (thanks, J*!) and I'm happy to announce the winners of the 2009 Monarch Award and Rebecca Caudill Award.

The 2009 Monarch winner is Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude!

The 2009 Rebecca Caudill winner is The Lightning Thief!

Congratulations to the winners!!

(No word yet on the runners up, but I'll post that info as soon as I have it!)

ETA (11:03p) - The runners up for the Monarch are Skippyjon Jones in 2nd place and Superhero ABC in third place. The runners up for the Caudill are The Invention of Hugo Cabret in 2nd place and Shug in 3rd place.

*It was literally perfect timing. I had just turned to N and asked when she thought they would announce the winners. And she said that it would probably be a little bit later. And I said "I want to know now!" and like 60 seconds later I got the text. We are obviously made of win.

Around the interwebs

Oh my gosh, y'all. I feel so behind. I've been a little under the weather lately and I feel like I haven't actually written a blog post in forever. What I have been doing is rereading The Hunger Games (and I loved it even more the second time around, if that's possible). Who is going to be a dear and swipe me an ARC of Catching Fire from BEA? ;)

So let's catch up on the blogging world, shall we?

This wonderful thing's been going on - the Share a Story, Shape a Future Blog Tour. I'm a little bit late as it started, um, two days ago, but that link will take you to the complete schedule. Bloggers around the Kidlitosphere are posting about early literacy, selecting books, reading aloud, libraries, and reading & technology. Definitely worth checking out.

Mary Lee's just posted the 2009 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts. From her post:

Books considered for this annual list are works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry written for children, grades K-8. The books must meet one or more of the following criteria:

• deal explicitly with language, such as plays on words, word origins, or the history of language;
• demonstrate uniqueness in the use of language or style;
• invite child response or participation.

In addition, books are to:

• have an appealing format;
• be of enduring quality;
• meet generally accepted criteria of quality for the genre in which they are written.

Looks like a great list! I'm quite happy to see Ringside 1925 on the list as that's one of my favorite 2008 books that didn't seem to get much recognition.

Sarah's posted A Day in the Life of a Teen Librarian, which was lovely to read. One fascinating thing about librarians is that we each spend our days very differently. (Or maybe that's not fascinating... It's fascinating to me, anyhow.)

Waaaaay back in February, 100 Scope Notes posted an interview with author/illustrator Laurie Keller. I love Ms. Keller's books (especially The Scrambled States of America) and it's a great interview.

Sarah Miller pointed me to Editorial Anonymous's series - Definitions for the Perplexed. How exactly does an advance work? What's an F&G? If your book is strippable, is that good or bad? What do the numbers in an ISBN mean? If you've ever wondered about any of that, head on over there.

And also waaay back in February, Jennie posted about why she thought We Are the Ship shouldn't have won the Sibert Award. (Finally! Someone else who was bothered by the omission of the women who played in the Negro Leagues! Although she has many more reasons than just that!) Now, I liked We Are the Ship and I don't know that I completely agree with Jennie, but she's definitely got some interesting points.

Last, but not least, Shannon Hale posted (over three weeks ago.. sigh. I am not on the ball) about Confusion vs. Mystery in writing. I think it sums up pretty perfectly why I did not like Jellicoe Road. I didn't trust the author to explain everything, so I felt confused and frustrated instead of intrigued and invigorated. Maybe it's all my own fault because the Printz committee and most of my Cybils panel vehemently disagreed with me... Ah, well.

Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

8:30a - Arrive at work, turn computers on, etc. Check email.

8:45a - Set up story room for a class visit.

9:00a - On desk, wait for class to arrive. Look through storytime database to find felts for storytime.

9:15a - Class arrives, do booktalks. This class is a special ed class from one of the local middle schools and they come once a month for booktalks and to check out books.

9:30a - Class looks for books and I help them find things.

10:00a - Class leaves, clean up the room and talk to coworker about storytime. We get our books together, go over the stories and felts, pull browsing books.

10:30a - In office, check email.

10:55a - Open the doors for storytime - we have a big crowd today!

11:00a - Storytime. We read the following books: I Ain't Gonna Paint No More (sung), Who's in the Tub, I've Been Working on the Railroad (sung), and Leo the Late Bloomer, plus we did a felt story of The Cake That Mack Ate and sang Old MacDonald Had a Farm with puppets.

11:30a - Storytime's over, let everyone out. Clean up room.

11:45a - Meet with boss about our website.

11:55a - Lunch time! A new Jimmy John's opened up down the street, so a couple of us head down there. Yum!

1:00p -3:00p - Back from lunch and on desk. Between questions I work on my collection development list. Here's a sampling of questions I'm asked:

Can you give me info about this program that I missed?
Who wrote the books in this series?
I need to request a book to be checked out on a teacher card.
What order do the books in this series go in?

3:00p - Off desk, head down to circ to solve school loan bag mystery. (It has since been solved.)

3:30p - Work on some preschool loans.

4:00p - On desk again.

Can you put these two books on hold for me?
Can I register for this program?
Do you have nonfiction books on this topic?
Can you help me with this computer program?
Do you have this CD-ROM?

5:00p - Time to head home!

Book Review: A Small White Scar

A Small White Scar by K.A. Nuzum. (Grades 5-8)

Ever since Will's mom died, Will's been the one to look out for his feeble-minded twin brother Denny, but at fifteen Will has had enough. He's leaving his dad's ranch. He's leaving Denny behind. He's going to La Junta by himself and he's going to win first place at the rodeo and get a job with another ranch. He's going to start his own life. Finally. But when Will leaves for the rodeo, Denny tags along. And Denny gets in trouble. And Will has to save him. Again. How can Will hope to have his own life if he's constantly stuck with Denny?

Set in Colorado in 1940, this is a great western adventure story complete with roaring rivers, rattlesnakes, bull riding, and more. Will's a conflicted main character, trapped between finding his own happiness and fulfilling his familial responsibility. It's not an easy place to be and Will doesn't have an easy time of it.

Ms. Nuzum paints a vivid picture of the rough Colorado landscape and Will's struggle to decide between his family and his future is one that will stick with me for a long time. One slight critique I have is that I didn't really understand why it was set in the past. Maybe they don't have rodeos like that anymore, I don't know, but it seemed like a story that could have worked just as well in the present day.

Anyhoo, that's just me being persnicketty. This is a great adventure story with strong characters and a lot of action.

Check out K.A. Nuzum's website (which, I swear, just barked at me)!

Book Review: Starclimber

Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel. (Grades 5+)

If you haven't read Airborn and Skybreaker, I'm quite sure I don't know what you're waiting for. Talk about excellent fantasy adventure... I can't recommend these books enough. I was so very excited to find out that Kenneth Oppel had written a third book and I absolutely wasn't disappointed.

In Starclimber, Matt Cruse is offered the chance to qualify for the first ever team of astralnauts. The Space Race is on between Canada and France and Matt is determined to be on the first ship into space. To sweeten the deal, his beloved Kate will be going on the expedition to search for extraterrestrial life. But Matt's not sure he'll make it through the extremely tough qualifying trials and Kate's sufferagette antics cause her father to think twice about allowing her on the expedition. Will they both make it into the ether? And what is waiting up there for them?

Okay, so I loved this book. I love the characters of Matt Cruse and Kate de Vries so much that there was no way I wasn't going to love this book. It's full of action. There are tons of details about the alternate history that Oppel has created for us. It's an incredibly intriguing world in which airships rule the sky and people are finding ways into space around the turn of the century.

That said, I had to suspend my disbelief a lot. I mean, it's a fantasy world and an alternate history, so some suspension of disbelief is definitely expected. But while in Airborn and Skybreaker I could buy that the fantastic stuff could work with the inventions and discoveries Oppel worked into the world, in Starclimber I repeatedly thought to myself that there's no way this space travel would ever have worked. Now, I've read a little about space travel but I'm by no means an expert. Plus, I trust that Mr. Oppel has done his research. But a lot of the space stuff just really seemed like a stretch to me.

Even with my disbelief suspended all out of whack, I loved this book. That'll tell you just how much I loved the characters and the writing. I couldn't put it down. And I don't read series*, but I would definitely read more stories about Matt and Kate if Mr. Oppel chooses to write them. :)

I have to give mad props to my fellow blogger Sarah over at GreenBeanTeenQueen for sending me her ARC (my library still hasn't received its copies, so you saved me from a lot of agony).

You'll want to check out Kenneth Oppel's website, which has a lot of neat stuff, and check out another review at Reading Rants!

*Okay, I say that I don't read series, but I can think of lots of series that I do read. Like Percy Jackson and Chronicles of Ancient Darkness and Luxe. So maybe I should stop saying that I don't read series. I still really appreciate standalone books, though.

Mini-Review: Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis. (Grades 4-7)

I listened to the audio recording of this one on my way back from Springfield in October 2007 (pre-blog). Here's what I wrote about it:

"Emma Jean sees the world a bit differently from most of the seventh graders at her school. She is a master of observation, though she doesn't always understand why people act the way they do. She remains detached and it's very hard to get under her skin, so even though she doesn't have any friends her age, she's not bothered by that fact. When she comes upon Colleen crying in the bathroom, Emma Jean discovers that she can use her problem-solving abilities to help her fellow students. And so she proceeds to "help" Colleen with a project that eventually backfires mightily.

Colleen is pretty much the exact opposite of Emma Jean. She lets EVERYTHING get under her skin and is quite prone to crying in the bathroom (or her bedroom or her church or the car or...). At first grateful for Emma Jean's listening ear, Colleen is horrified when she finds out what Emma Jean's done to help. Colleen is certain her life is over. When she's finally able to talk out her problems, she finds that maybe what Emma Jean did was not so bad. And maybe Colleen needs to take another look at her own perceptions of the people in her life.

I feel like I say this about every book I like, but Emma Jean has unforgettable characters and it's both funny and touching. This book explores the meaning of friendship and popularity without being preachy or scandalous. I really enjoyed it."

Read more reviews at The Reading Zone, Fuse #8, Kidsreads.com, A Year of Reading, Shelf Elf, A Patchwork of Books, and Semicolon. Check out Lauren Tarshis's website and be aware that there's a sequel coming in May: Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love.

History Night at Anderson's Bookshop

Last week my friend J and I headed down to Anderson's Bookshop for a history night. They had Sally M. Walker (author of Secrets of a Civil War Submarine), Larry Day (illustrator of the Cybils finalist Duel!), and Candace Fleming (author of The Lincolns).

All the authors gave great talks, but I was especially excited to see Sally M. Walker because I so loved Secrets of a Civil War Submarine. She talked a bit about her newest release: Written in Bone. I wanted to read it before, but hearing her talk about it makes me want to read it even more! She accompanied a forensic anthropologist who excavated graves at the colony of Jamestown. By studying the bones in these unmarked graves, scientists found out all kinds of information about the people who lived and died there. It kinda makes you think... what might your bones say about you?

Larry Day talked about his research for the illustrations in Duel! and about the special details he put into the pictures. And Candace Fleming totally made me want to read a book about Lincoln (which is something I never thought would happen... no offense, but in Illinois, Lincoln is kind of shoved down our throats...). She talked about her unique approach to capturing the stories of Lincoln and his wife by including Mary Todd Lincoln.

All of the authors gave great talks and answered questions and signed books. It was another great author event by Anderson's Bookshop (what would we do without them?).

Happy Nonfiction Monday! The roundup is over at Books Together.

Keeping my Readers' Advisory skills sharp

I want to post today about a local middle school assignment that I think is really interesting. I don't know the exact parameters of the assignment, but the kids are required to go to a library and/or bookstore and ask for three book recommendations - two fiction and one nonfiction. They'll take the recommendations to their teacher for approval and do a book report on one of the recommended books.

As a librarian, it's a great opportunity to speak with kids about what they like to read and to recommend some of the great books we've been reading. We don't always get a chance to do readers' advisory for these middle school kids because a lot of them are able to find what they want to read on their own. It's interesting to see what diverse subjects and genres they like and hopefully we can suggest something great that they might not have found on their own.

It's also a great chance to brush up on our readers' advisory and practice impromptu booktalks. I've booktalked The Hunger Games, Phineas Gage, Perfect You, Freeze Frame, Bodies from the Ice, Into the Wild, and others this week. I make sure to tell them that we're always happy to make book recommendations, either for book reports or pleasure reading.

There are two things that I really like about this assignment:

1. It brings kids into the library, so of course I love that. It gives us a chance to talk with kids and it gives them a chance to see what we can do for them. Hopefully they'll keep coming in to the library to get books or just to say hi.

2. It gives the kids a chance to read and write about a book that hopefully they will really like. I can't think of a better way to inspire a lifelong love of reading than helping kids find books they love and giving them school credit for it!