Biographies are about people who have done extraordinary things and/or changed the world in some unique way. Kids connect with the fact that a biography’s subject, whether famous, or from far away, or even from the past, is just like them in many ways. And we can all be inspired by a glimpse of the… Read more »
October 2012
Finding Home
I don’t think anyone knows for sure how it happens that books sharing a similar theme – published by different houses – seem to come out in the same, or nearly the same, year. But it does happen. Earlier this month, ReaderKidZ featured Joan Bauer’s newest book, ALMOST HOME, about a young girl, Sugar Rae,… Read more »
Librarian’s Corner FAQ: Why are some books banned?
Every autumn for the past 30 years, the American Library Association has celebrated your right to read whatever you choose with an event called Banned Books Week. Banned books are materials that have been removed from a library “based upon the objections of a person or group… thereby restricting the access of others.” You have… Read more »
The Templeton Twins Have an Idea
THE TEMPLETON TWINS HAVE AN IDEA by Ellis Weiner, illustrated by Jeremy Holmes (Chronicle, 2012) The ReaderKidZ have been talking all month about “Families in Change” and there have been many terrific recommendations. Books about a child living in foster care, the difficulties of divorce, the loss of a family member to cancer, the reality… Read more »
Halloween Treats: Pigmares and Animal Epitaphs
PIGMARES: PORCINE POEMS ON THE SILVER SCREEN by Doug Cushman No Halloween will be complete without author/illustrator Doug Cushman’s hilarious hog tribute to some of the best beasts ever to star on the silver screen. Whether young readers imagine they’re like Dr. Hogg mixing potions that taste like dirty underwear or a werehog oinking at… Read more »
EDDIE’S WAR by Carol Saller and PLAYING WAR by Kathy Beckwith
Families in Transition Perhaps nothing disrupts families more deeply than war. Young people go off leaving siblings and sweethearts behind. Parents return from war, changed. When a soldier is deployed, his entire family is affected. Our country has been in military conflict for over ten years. As children experience the many transitions that are part… Read more »
HOPE AND TEARS, ELLIS ISLAND VOICES
Ellis Island’s very first “processed” immigrant was fifteen-year-old Annie Moore from Ireland. She arrived on January 1, 1892 after two years of separation from her parents as they worked to save enough money to pay for her passage. Her story is one of many told with narrative, verse and photographs in this remarkable book, HOPE… Read more »
