The Year We Fell From Space is a searing portrait of a young girl in conflict.
​Liberty Johansen distances herself from her classmates when she refuses to participate in school playground activities such as marriages and excommunications. And she’s not afraid to let her views be known.
​It’s stupid...We’re in sixth grade. Having weddings is stupid.

​She shoulders a massive self-imposed burden, trying to keep her family together, attempting to maintain peace and a sense of normalcy in situations which are beyond her control.
She is fascinated with astronomy and creates her own star maps. Her interest in the stars becomes her safe place. She discovers an unusual rock and believes that it is a meteorite, sent from the skies directly to her. The rock becomes her solace, her companion, and her confidante.

Lib views herself and her world through the lens of her current circumstances: sixth-grade outcast, protector for her younger sister, and dutiful daughter to her separated parents.

Liberty's life is filled with hikes, gazing at the night sky, campfires, and s'mores. And smeelings.
​
Smeelings are "smells that make feelings."
I'm sending a toasted gooey s'more with lots of smeelings to King. Thanks for this poignant portrayal of a young girl and her family coping with mental illness. Its a story that has found a home in my heart.

Following up on her hit picture book 7 Ate 9: The Untold Story Tara Lazar brings readers another clever take on our alphabet system, specifically capitalized letters.

The super sleuth begins to search for clues, hoping to enlist the assistance of punctuation marks. They are busy. Hyphens dashes around, apostrophe gathers personal possessions, while ampersand minds her p's and q's. Lazar is a master of the well-placed pun.
Eventually Private I returns to waitress little b at Café Uno. Together they locate the missing letters and rescue them from a theater marque. "I'd always wanted to see my name in lights."
Tranquility is restored. Or is it? The final page suggests that there will be more mysteries for Private I.

The Upper Case trailer

Alphabuild magnetic blocks

Bake alphabet cookies

I maintain the Book Shop for our community’s Ronald McDonald House. The facility offers children and their families a welcoming residence when a child requires ongoing medical treatment at local hospitals and treatment centers. The purpose of the Book Shop is to provide books of interest to children and teens during their stay.

As I monitored book usage patterns, one thing became clear: the current collection was not meeting children’s interests. It was time to rethink the Book Shop. What would appeal to young residents?
Here are some things I discovered: Youngsters undergoing therapy want materials that will quickly engage them. While there are differences according to age and interest, I found books with the highest use fell in these general categories: board books, picture books featuring popular characters from T.V. and movies, nonfiction animal books with large color photographs, books celebrating holidays, teen romance, picture books with an engaging cover, and easy-to-read bilingual books.

I decided to try a test run with Tiny World: Pins! and document my experience. After opening the kit and examining all the items, I read through the directions and assembled the additional items needed to complete the project.
The step-by step instructions are easy to follow. Detailed illustrations are helpful. I was pleased with the finished product. It's a fun project!

There are enough supplies to make three pins. Zoo provides three pin designs within instructions. Other suggestions are in the back of the booklet. I'm considering the crab motif for my next pin. But maybe I'll get creative and try my own design.

Nina Soni’s life just got more complicated. She accidentally destroys her best friend's art project. Nina fears that Jay will no longer be her friend. She is stymied when her teacher assigns a Personal Narrative Project. She has nothing to write. Her life is as boring as plain rice.
​Then she discovers an interesting phenomenon that will be the basis for her person narrative. To her dismay, she learns that her idea is the same experiment used by  Jay at last year's science fair. She is discouraged.

When her sister's birthday party plans fall through, Jay and Nina come together and develop a clever solution to the birthday dilemma. Upon reflection, Nina realizes that retelling events of the past twenty-four hours will make an interesting writing project. 

Reynolds has penned a novel comprised of interconnected stories. Read independently they are insightful vignettes, zeroing in on the ten city blocks students attending Lattimer Middle School traverse each day. Collectively the stories reveal the hearts of those bound together by geography. The lives of these unique individuals intersect in unexpected ways.

In the push and pull of everyday life, we meet students affected by life-altering events such as sickle cell anemia, cancer, dementia, incarceration, and gay-shaming.

These ten blocks are jam-packed with a rich assortment of sensory details.

Can a counting book be a thriller? In the capable hands of Kate Read the answer is an emphatic YES.
The title page features paw prints, stealthily walking across the two-page spread and heading into... the first page and one famished fox. Page two zooms in on the face of said fox, shifty eyes focused on its prey. A single feather floating at the bottom of the page is a tantalizing hint as to what will follow.
The page turn confirms our suspicions.
​Three plump hens.
The tension builds as readers follow the items enumerated on subsequent pages: snug eggs, silent steps, on ominous tapping, beady eyes shining in the darkness, and a set of sharp teeth.

Read has elevated the simple counting book format to high drama.  Debut author/artist Kate Read is one to watch. 

Morag Hood is back with another inventive tale of friendship. She still manages to spend some time in at the grocers where Carrot and Pea hang out. However, for this book broccoli and cheese play a supporting part.

Starring roles belong to two aardvarks. Aalfred and Aalbert. Name spelling is a playful nod to the species nomenclature.

Although the two aardvarks have neighboring burrows, they have never met. Each has a very distinct lifestyle, one active during the day and the other nocturnal. They seem destined to remain apart.

Until an observant bird decides to intervene.

A note about the primarily blue and orange color palette. These are traditionally referred to as complementary colors. This color scheme emphasizes contrasts between the two mammals.

​Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre is an insightful and well-researched portrait of young Charlotte Brontë.

Following the death of her mother, Charlotte is sent, along with her three sisters, to an austere boarding school. Both of her of older sisters die from "consumption" and the two younger girls are withdrawn from the school.

The four surviving Brontë children remain at home, where their imaginations take flight as they create an elaborate world based on a set of toy soldiers. They call their fantasy world Glass Town. It becomes the basis for their early ventures into writing.

Eventually Charlotte and Emily return to school and prepare to become teachers. Both girls find the life of a teacher and governess to be distasteful. They want to write. Assuming constant care of young charges leaves no time for these accomplished siblings to pursue their passion for writing. They receive this advice: women cannot support themselves as authors.

Eventually the sisters determine that they will find a way to see their work in published form. All three women submit novels for consideration. Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights are accepted. Charlotte's The Professor is rejected. Fortunately Charlotte receives this encouraging response: perhaps she might write another novel for consideration. She gets to work on a story set on the moors. The main character is neither wealthy nor glamorous. She has endured a painful childhood. Despite difficulties the heroine is determined to succeed. Her name is Jane Eyre.

Brontë writes, pouring her life and her heart into the work. When she is ready to submit her final clean copy of Jane Eyre she learns that if the publisher rejects the novel she must pay both sending and returning shipping fees. She risks a double payment if the novel is rejected. She decides to send the manuscript.

Fawkes line drawings and ink wash are an excellent medium for the pastoral British Isles ​setting.

Meet Glynnis Fawkes as she discusses two of her recent projects.

Sorell's cumulative verse begins beneath a hickory tree at the base of a mountain. The scene zooms in to reveal a cabin beneath the spreading branches of the tree. Stepping inside the cabin, readers see a simple yet welcoming home. Generations of Cherokee women watch as a grandma picks up fibers and weaves a pattern. She is intertwining more than strands of colored wool. She is weaving together a family, bound by love and tradition. 
Her threads extend beyond the walls of the cabin and encompass a family member far away.
A pilot flying far away in war-ravaged skies senses the influence of her grandma's songs and prayers. It is a prayer is for peace and a safe return.

An Author's Note explains that while this story fictional, it is based on the service of one Native American woman, Ola Mildred "MIllie" Rexroat an OgLaLa Lakota pilot. 

In 1939 Germany invaded Poland, creating ripples of conflict throughout Europe. Hostilities intensified when the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany and the Germans began relentlessly bombing London. British parents sought to protect their families from these attacks. One option was sending children out of the country. Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB) arranged to transport youngsters ages five through fifteen to relative safety in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. A luxury ocean liner, the SS City of Benares set sail on September 12, 1940 departing from Liverpool and bound for Canada. The ship carried 406 people. Passengers included 90 CORB children along with their chaperones. Terror struck five days into the journey when a German U-boat fired a torpedo, sinking the City of Benares.
​Torpedoed: The True Story of the Sinking of “The Children’s Ship” chronicles this catastrophe and the fate of its few survivors.