Friday, February 29, 2008

New Award Books

Spiders - Nic Bishop
Text and photographs introduce readers to different types of spiders and their behavior. Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor book; Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children Honor book

The White Darkness - Geraldine McCaughrean
Taken to Antarctica by the man she thinks of as her uncle for what she believes to be a vacation, Symone--a troubled fourteen year old--discovers that he is dangerously obsessed with seeking Symme's Hole, an opening that supposedly leads into the center of a hollow Earth. Michael L. Printz Award book

Repossessed - A. M. Jenkins
A fallen angel, tired of being unappreciated while doing his pointless, demeaning job, leaves Hell, enters the body of a seventeen-year-old boy, and tries to experience the full range of human feelings before being caught and punished, while the boy's family and friends puzzle over his changed behavior. Michael L. Printz Honor book

Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe
With a determined plan to reunite his mother and father, the 10-year-old boy named Wataru knowingly enters a fantasy realm inhabited by a goddess who has the power to change destiny. With the help of the Lizard Boy, the Cat Girl, and the Fire-breathing Dragon, Wataru faces a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. One way or another, the young hero must reach the Tower of Destiny and bring his mother and father back together again. Mildred L. Batchelder Award book

New Videos

The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's: The Story of a Prodigal Son - VeggieTales
Darby, the son of a Kansas floss farmer, travels to the Wonderful Land of Ha's, an amusement park where he is able to do whatever he likes, but he finds that his newfound freedom may not be worth all that he's given up.

How to Use Dinah Zike's Big Book of Books - Dinah Zike
Informative, fact-filled presentation shows viewers how to get the most from Dinah Zike's Big Book of Books. (The book is being processed and will be available in the CMC soon.)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

New Children's Books

President's Day - Anne Rockwell
Mrs. Madoff's preschool class learns about President's Day and puts on a play about the men who inspired the holiday, particularly those featured on Mount Rushmore.

Stand Tall, Abe Lincoln - Judith St. George
Growing up poor in the backwoods of Kentucky and Indiana, Abraham Lincoln lost his mother before he was ten. But Sally Johnston, who married Abe's father a year later, brought a library of books to their log cabin home and turned young Abe's life around.

Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly - Jane O'Connor
Nancy is furious when she cannot go to her friend Bree's butterfly-themed birthday party, but her family's outing might just be extraordinary enough to make her feel better. Includes facts about butterflies.

Monday, February 18, 2008

New Children's Books

St. Valentine - Robert Sabuda
Recounts an incident in the life of St. Valentine, a physician who lived some 200 years after Christ, in which he treated a small child for blindness.

Creation - Gennady Spirin
The story of creation from the NIV.

When Sheep Sleep - Laura Numeroff
Rhyming text suggests other options when one tries to count sheep but discovers that they are all asleep.

Stick - Steve Breen
An independent young frog goes on a wild adventure when he accidentally gets carried away by a dragonfly.

Thanks for Thanksgiving - Julie Markes
At Thanksgiving time, children express their gratitude for the people and things in their lives.

When Randolph Turned Rotten - Charise Mericle Harper
Best friends Randolph, a beaver, and Ivy, a goose, do everything together until Ivy is invited to a girls-only birthday sleepover party and Randolph, full of bad feelings, tries to spoil her fun.

Thelonius Turkey Lives! (on Felcia Ferguson's Farm) - Lynn Rowe Reed
As Thanksgiving Day approaches, Thelonius Turkey becomes worried when Felicia the farmer starts to fatten him up and pluck his feathers.

Tuttle's Red Barn: The Story of America's Oldest Family Farm
- Richard Michelson
In 1632, John Tuttle set sail from England to Dover, New Hampshire and there he set up a farm on seven acres of land. From those humble beginnings the Tuttle family story became America's story.

1 2 3: A Child's First Counting Book - Alison Jay
A little girl awakens to scenes from fairy tales in which she can count familiar characters or objects from one to ten and back again.

Tough, Toothy Baby Sharks
- Sandra Markle
Photographs and text introduce students to the development of baby sharks, describing how different types of shark pups grow from eggs to mature adults, the ways they avoid predators, and their ascent up the ocean's food chain.

Wolf's Coming! - Joe Kulka
All of the animals in the forest go into hiding because the wolf is coming, but why they are hiding is the big surprise.

Vinnie and Abraham - Dawn FitzGerald
The true story of Vinnie Ream's courage and persistence in the service of art, and in the service of a friend.

Eleven - Patricia Reilly Giff
When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered.

Lenny's Space - Kate Banks
Nine-year-old Lenny gets in trouble and has no friends because he cannot control himself in school and his interests are not like those of his classmates, until he starts visiting Muriel, a counselor, and meets Van, a boy his age who has leukemia.

The Trip - Ezra Jack Keats
Louie's takes an imagined trip back to his old neighborhood. While there, Louie runs into a group of strange monsters who turn out to be his old friends in imaginative Halloween disguise; and their friendly cries of "Trick or treat," while Louie wafts home in his bright red airplane, blend with the real voices of his new neighbors as, helped by his mother into an ice-cream-cone costume, Louie goes outside to join them.

New YA Books

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules - Jeff Kinney
Greg Heffley tells about his summer vacation and his attempts to steer clear of trouble when he returns to middle school and tries to keep his older brother Rodrick from telling everyone about Greg's most humiliating experience of the summer.

Bone - Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border - Jeff Smith
Fone and Smiley Bone encounter complications in the form of Rock Jaw, an enormous mountain lion, and baby animals orphaned by rat creature attacks as they journey through the wilderness with a lost rat creature cub they are returning to the mountains. (Graphic format)

The Castle Corona - Sharon Creech
Two orphaned peasant children discover a mysterious pouch, the contents of which lead them to the majestic Castle Corona, where their lives may be transformed forever.

Interworld - Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
At nearly fifteen years of age, Joey Harker learns that he is a Walker, able to travel between dimensions, and soon joins a team of different versions of himself, each from another dimension, to fight the evil forces striving to conquer all the worlds.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood - Ibtisam Barakat
A memoir in which the author describes her childhood as a Palestinian refugee, discussing her family's experiences during and after the Six-Day War, and the freedom she felt at learning to read and write.

Grimpow: The Invisible Road - Rafael Abalos
Grimpow finds a stone on a dead knight and begins a quest that will change his life forever.

Undercover - Beth Kephart
High school sophomore Elisa is used to observing while going unnoticed except when classmates ask her to write love notes for them, but a teacher's recognition of her talent, a "client's" desire for her friendship, a love of ice skating, and her parent's marital problems draw her out of herself.

Runaround - Helen Hemphill
In Kentucky in the 1960s, partly as revenge against her older sister for publicly embarrassing her, eleven-year-old Sassy decides to make the handsomest boy in the neighborhood her boyfriend, but first she has to find out what makes a boy like a girl, and how to know when he does.

The Rogues - Jane Yolen
After his family is evicted from their Scottish farm, fifteen-year-old Roddy forms an unlikely friendship with a notorious rogue who helps him outwit a tyrant landlord in order to find a family treasure and make his way to America.

Whale Port - Mark Foster
Detailed illustrations and narratives describe the history of the fictional town of Tuckanucket and the importance that whales played in the development of towns along the eastern seaboard.

New Audiobook

A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin - David A. Adler
Surveys the life of Benjamin Franklin, highlighting his work as an inventor and statesman.

New Children's Books

Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who Pop-Up! - pop-ups by David A. Carter
Horton finds an entire city of Whos on a speck of dust, but, since no one else can see them, no one believes they exist.

Thanksgiving Is fcr Giving Thanks - Margaret Sutherland
A child lists all the things for which he is thankful, especially at Thanksgiving.

The Groundhog Day Book of Facts and Fun - Wendie Old
Every February 2nd, people in the United States wait to see if Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog living in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, will see his shadow and predict six more weeks of cold weather. But how can a groundhog predict the weather? And if it's winter, shouldn't he be hibernating? Are such predictions really accurate? Why is February 2nd so special? And do other groundhogs predict the weather?

Some Porcupines Wrestle and Other Freaky Facts about Animal Antics and Families - Barbara Seuling
Not only do fish play jokes, but badgers play leapfrog and deer play tag. Who knew the animal world was filled with so many fun games? Find out more interesting animal antics along with freaky facts about animal survival tactics, mating habits, and much more in this wild animal book!

One President Was Born on Independence Day and Other Freaky Facts about the 26th Through 43rd Presidents - Barbara Seuling
Which president was a male model? Which first lady kept a little red book that listed her and her husband’s enemies? Which president never attended college? Find out answers to these questions and hundreds more in this book about seventeen presidents and their families.

The Tree with Eyes - Hubert Ben Kemoun
Lionel begins to turn into a tree after eating seeds that Sam's uncle brought from the Amazon. Sam tries to bring him to the hospital, but when he puts Lionel next to the river for some water, Lionel becomes planted there and the tree grows around him. Sam and his uncle must get Lionel out of the tree.

Master of the Weather - Hubert Ben Kemoun
Sam and all his friends love Terror Universe trading cards. Sam trades a galactic soldier card to Gavin and receives some interesting cloud cards in return. When the cloud cards are played, they change the weather. During a blizzard, one of the cards is lost. The weather cannot change, and Sam and Lionel must search for the card.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Someone Named Eva - Joan M. Wolf
From her home in Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in 1942, eleven-year-old Milada is taken with other blond, blue-eyed children to a school in Poland to be trained as "proper Germans" for adoption by German families, but all the while she remembers her true name and history.

Red Glass - Laura Resau
Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.

The Real Benedict Arnold - Jim Murphy
Drawing on Arnold's surviving writings and on the letters, memoirs, and political documents of his contemporaries ... a fascinating portrait of a brilliant man, consistently undervalued by his peers, who made a choice that continues to reverberate through American history.

Pompeii - Richard Platt
Traces the rise and fall of the city of Pompeii, describing the daily lives of the city's people, as well as their culture, beliefs, working lives, historical significance, and devastating end.

New Children's Books

Not in Room 204 - Shannon Riggs
A teacher tells the children in her class to talk to an adult if they are being sexually abused.

Penguins
- Seymour Simon
A photo-illustrated exploration of penguins that covers their physical traits, behavior, reproduction, diet, and predators and the unique characteristics of various species.

Nothing but Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson - Sue Stauffacher
A biography of Althea Gibson, the first black tennis player to ever compete in what is now known as the U.S. Open, and in the Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, England.

Skippyjon Jones - Judy Schachner
Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat with an overactive imagination who would rather be El Skippito, his Zorro-like alter ego.

Groundhog Gets a Say - Pamela Curtis Swallow
Two groundhogs describe their various characteristics to a skeptical squirrel and crow. Text includes various facts about groundhogs.