Bookology Magazine

Vicki Palmquist

Ten Ways to Hear Snow

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Ten Ways to Hear Snow
When you grow up in Min­neso­ta, snow is a part of your world. From play­ing in it until your feet are so cold and wet that your grand­moth­er will scold while you drink hot cocoa to lift­ing your feet high as you trudge through knee-deep snow to a bus stop that’s far­ther away than it has ever been, snow is a fix­ture in your thoughts. 
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Deb Andries and Her Reading Team
February 2021

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Snow Uri Shulevitz
Reading teams do read together, and my Reading Team(s) and I have been doing just that. However, as you view the photos of the twins, Hayes and Myles, now seventeen months, you see them reading by themselves.

Bookstorm™: Virginia was a Spy

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Virginia Was a Spy
World War II spy Vir­ginia Hall was born and raised on a farm in Mary­land. Her par­ents took her abroad when she was three, awak­en­ing a life-long fas­ci­na­tion with trav­el and adven­ture. She was in France when Hitler was rec­og­nized as the threat he was. When Ger­many over­took France, she became a part of the French Resis­tance. She used the skills she learned on her fam­i­ly farm to dis­guise her­self as a hum­ble milk­maid who couldn’t pos­si­bly be a spy.… more

Curiouser and Curiouser with Mike Wohnoutka

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Mike Wohnoutka
I’ve known Mike Wohnout­ka for many years, from his first SCBWI meet­ing when he intro­duced him­self and showed sam­ples from his port­fo­lio. His adorable char­ac­ter in Cow­boy Sam and Those Con­found­ed Secrets (Kit­ty Grif­fin, Kathy Combs), an ear­ly book, cap­tured my atten­tion. Here was an illus­tra­tor who infused humor into the visu­al sto­ry. Han­nukah Bear (Eric A.… more

Tracy Sue Walker

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Tracy Sue Walker
This month we wel­come Tra­cy Sue Walk­er, author, pub­lic librar­i­an, and pro­fes­sion­al storyteller. She’s recent­ly been reveal­ing “the truth about” a series of mys­ti­cal crea­tures, so far includ­ing drag­ons, Big­foot, and uni­corns, for Scholas­tic Book Clubs. Tra­cy describes her­self this way, “A booklover, day­dream­er, and goof­ball, I’m pret­ty qui­et unless I’m telling a sto­ry, then I’m pret­ty loud.”
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Love is Powerful

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Love is Powerful
This book will lift you up in its arms and make you believe that “Love is Powerful”! It’s the right choice to help us under­stand what a group of peo­ple can accom­plish if they are unit­ed in their pur­pose and mov­ing toward treat­ing all peo­ple with love and kindness. Writ­ten by Heather Dean Brew­er from Michi­gan and illus­trat­ed by LeUyen Pham from Cal­i­for­nia, both of whom marched in the 2017 Women’s March­es, this book is inspired by Mari, a real lit­tle girl who trav­eled with her moth­er from Harlem to Mid­town New York to march with large crowds of peo­ple who were protest­ing inhu­mane actions and poli­cies of a pres­i­dent who reviled many people.
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Planetarium

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Planetarium
My fas­ci­na­tion with out­er space is well-doc­u­ment­ed. I had star charts on my child­hood bed­room walls. But this book would have enthralled me … in fact, it still does. The illus­tra­tions by engraver and print­mak­er Chris Wormell are detailed in a way that aids under­stand­ing. Scale is a tough con­cept for our com­pre­hen­sion but this book tack­les that with info­graph­ics that give a sense of how enor­mous our uni­verse is.
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Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration

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When Mar­sha Qua­ley began this col­umn six years ago, she had us all on the look­out for books about children’s lit­er­a­ture. What would add to our under­stand­ing of this very par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty of edu­ca­tors, stu­dents, col­lec­tor, and cre­ators? This book about Helen Oxen­bury by Leonard Mar­cus is a gem, filled with the wis­dom of a revered author-illus­tra­tor as well as her illus­tra­tions and deli­cious pho­tos that help our understanding.… more

The Range Eternal

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The Range Eternal
I am delight­ed by the re-issue of The Range Eter­nal, a pic­ture book that reach­es back into his­to­ry and con­nects with our sens­es, our fam­i­lies, our fears, and our reas­sur­ances. I have read all of Louise Erdrich’s books for adults and chil­dren. She nev­er fails to bring me new ways of look­ing at the world. So it is with this book.
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An Antidote to Holiday Cookies

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Nature's Yucky
The Nature’s Yucky! three-book chil­drens non-fic­tion series fea­tures ani­mals doing what we humans per­ceive as gross behav­iors. My co-author Karen Shragg and I then describe how these yucky actions help the ani­mals survive. Karen likes to cook and does a lot of exper­i­ment­ing, whip­ping meals togeth­er. Since she likes cook­ing so much, we include a kid-friend­ly recipe in every book.… more

Books about the Night

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The Tinaja Tonight
Night­time is a mag­i­cal time for kids. It’s a time for explor­ing the night skies. It’s a time for dream­ing cozy dreams.  It’s a time of mis­chief when it comes with the thrill of being allowed to stay up late. Night­time pic­ture books have always had an allure for me because of the top­ics they explore and the amaz­ing and var­ied art by illus­tra­tors chal­lenged with the task of draw­ing the dark.
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You Should (Not) Read These Books

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You Are (Not) Small
I remem­ber my neigh­bor­hood friends stand­ing on oppo­site sides of a dri­ve­way, angry, yelling loud­ly at each oth­er. I don’t recall why, but I can still feel those emo­tions. That’s how strong feel­ings are. Our chil­dren deal with a mul­ti­tude of emo­tions every day. You were prob­a­bly remem­ber­ing sim­i­lar instances from your child­hood. And what hap­pened after­ward? Most like­ly you were all friends again, because you need­ed to be.
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Wild Girl

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Wild Girl
WOW!*!&! I want to car­ry a back­pack with me wher­ev­er I go, hand­ing out a copy of this book to every per­son I see. I loved every dare­dev­il, detailed, aston­ish­ing minute of read­ing this book. I believe you will, too. Mind, I grew up at a time where I heard two phras­es con­stant­ly: “Sit still” and “Ladies don’t rough­house.” Rough­house meant any kind of run­ning, climb­ing, jump­ing, or play­ing in the dirt.… more

Candice Ransom

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Candice Ransom
One green thing I wish every­one would do:  Give up plas­tic bags. It’s hard, I know, to remem­ber to car­ry a bag into a store. I wish we could give up oth­er forms of plas­tic, like the blis­ter packs encas­ing every­thing from Bar­bie dolls to Bic pens. Back in the days of five and ten stores, it was so nice to sim­ply pick an item out of a bin or off a shelf, pay for it, and not wres­tle with tin snips to get it open.
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The Book Rescuer

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The Book Rescuer
I have had The Book Res­cuer on my desk for sev­er­al months. I imme­di­ate­ly knew I want­ed to write about it because I feel such a strong attrac­tion to this sto­ry (a true sto­ry) but I had a hard time putting into words how deeply I am moved by the actions of this book hero. The sto­ry begins this way: “Kum aher. Sit down.… more

Gennifer Choldenko

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Gennifer Choldenko
I’m so pleased to have Gen­nifer Chold­enko grant Bookol­o­gy an inter­view about all the ques­tions I’ve bot­tled up since read­ing Orphan Eleven, her newest nov­el. Each one of her nov­els is a page-turn­er from first to last, often intro­duc­ing his­to­ry we didn’t know but can’t wait to learn more about. Those are my favorite sorts of books.… more

Caren Stelson

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Caren Stelson
Caren Stel­son The book I wish every­one would read: I love Make Way for Duck­lings writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Robert McCloskey, and I wish every par­ent and child would read this age­less pic­ture book togeth­er. Why do I love Make Way for Duck­lings? Let me start with the fact that my fam­i­ly is from Boston and Make Way for Duck­lings takes place in the city of Boston. In
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Curiouser and Curiouser with John Owens

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One Summer Up North
Once in a while a debut book comes across my desk and I’m too curi­ous to put it into a to-be-read pile. I glance at the cov­er through­out the day until I can’t resist open­ing the book. What is it about? Am I going to like it? Then I keep turn­ing the pages, mar­veling over the illus­tra­tions … and there are no words!… more

Honey Peanut Butter Popcorn Balls

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Author Gen­nifer Chold­enko con­tributes this recipe, which is just right for autumn, Hal­loween, or curl­ing up with a good book. Have you read her Orphan Eleven yet? It’s num­my, too. Hon­ey Peanut But­ter Pop­corn Balls ½ cup honey 3 T peanut butter 2 T water 4 T butter 12 cups popcorn 1 cup salt­ed mixed nuts Toast­ed Sesame seeds (option­al) 1. Melt hon­ey, peanut but­ter, but­ter and water.… more

Picture Books Minus the Age Stereotypes and Ageism

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Nature's Friend
Modern day children’s books riddled with negative stereotypes of age? Sadly yes, they are all too easy to find.

Picture Books Minus the Age Stereotypes and Ageism

by
Nature's Friend
Modern day children’s books riddled with negative stereotypes of age? Sadly yes, they are all too easy to find.

“Science + History = Whole Picture”

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Author Candice Ransom
On my “final” draft of Bones in the White House: Thomas Jefferson’s Mam­moth, I drew a line of lit­tle mastodons troop­ing across the bot­tom of the man­u­script pages. Each ani­mal bore a date that matched a side­bar fact or ref­er­enced the main text. I thought this was a clever way to remind read­ers of the march of time.  The first lit­tle mastodon (or “mam­moth,” as the crea­ture was called in Jefferson’s day) was labeled “700 mil­lion years ago,” the sec­ond “13,000 years ago,” the third “11,000 years ago,” inch­ing along like an Ice Age glac­i­er to the time peri­od of the sto­ry. … more

Bookstorm™: Orphan Eleven

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Orphan Eleven
Four orphans have escaped from the Home for Friend­less Chil­dren. One is Lucy, who used to talk and sing. No one knows why she doesn’t speak any­more; silence is her protection. The orphans find work and new friends at a trav­el­ing cir­cus. Lucy loves car­ing for the ele­phants, but she must be able to speak to them, and to warn oth­ers of dan­ger.… more

The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs

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The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs
Our col­lec­tion of cook­books is vast. Some of them are in use more than oth­ers, and some of them are in rough shape from too much use. I’m always on the look­out for good cook­books that will encour­age young peo­ple to cook and to read about cook­ing, just as I did with the gift of my first, Bet­ty Crock­er’s Cook­book for Boys and Girls.… more

A Good Word

by
Margo Sorenson
As teach­ers and writ­ers, we all love words. Would­n’t we love to be able to infuse that same love into each and every one of our stu­dents! Teach­ing Eng­lish to mid­dle school­ers and high school­ers for years gave me plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to try out dif­fer­ent ways of attempt­ing to kin­dle enthu­si­asm in my stu­dents for becom­ing avid lexophiles.… more

How the Heather Looks: a Joyous Journey
to the British Sources of Children’s Books

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If any good has come from the quar­an­tine of 2020, it’s made me a heavy library user — my per­son­al library, that is, since the pub­lic libraries are closed. I found this book in a dress­er draw­er. (When I redid my office, I didn’t want the clut­ter of book­cas­es, instead opt­ing for vin­tage dressers and armoires — love­ly to look at but I for­get what’s in them).… more

Picture Book Salute to Blue

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Rare & Blue
Blue is beloved for the awesome beauty of its various shades on display in the natural world, and for the feelings of calmness, security, loyalty, and friendliness, it evokes. So, without further ado: a collection of ten lovely and compelling books, plus one, that celebrate blue.

The Next President

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The Next President
Who the next U.S.A. pres­i­dent will be is pre-occu­py­ing many minds around the world right now. This book takes a stance by telling us about the dis­tinc­tive pres­i­dents of the past, a cou­ple of sen­tences about every one of them, #1 through #45, and asks us to real­ize that the next ten pres­i­dents are prob­a­bly alive right now.… more

Dead Ends on the Long Road of Nonfiction Research

by
Susan Latta
Researching in nonfiction isn’t much different. You run into many dead ends. But the key may be in knowing when to find a different route and when to change up your purpose. Is the story important and viable? Then I believe there are ways to work around those dead ends and get the car moving again.

Girls Garage

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Girls Garage
Don't miss adding Girls Garage by Emily Pilloton to your bookshelves. It's a terrific book specifically written to help young women gain the confidence they need to build anything they want to build. Highly recommended.

Shhhhhh

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This is the sound of walk­ing into retire­ment for me and so many teach­ers this spring. Although friends are already email­ing to con­grat­u­late us on this new jour­ney, we’re all alone while pack­ing up our offices and class­rooms for the last time. There will be no big par­ties, no for­mal farewells, no cozy get-togeth­ers where every­one dredges up the good, sad, and fun­ny days of our teach­ing careers.… more

Curiouser and Curiouser with Kao Kalia Yang

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The Shared Room
When A Map into the World found its way to my desk last year, I had to remind myself to breathe. This gem of a book cap­tures feel­ings of love and friend­ship in a way that cross­es gen­er­a­tions and speaks to each of our hearts. What else had she writ­ten, I won­dered? Her mem­oir for grownups, The Late­home­com­er: a Hmong Fam­i­ly Mem­oir, caused quite a stir when it was pub­lished in 2009.… more

Books Set in Bookstores

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Bookwanderers
 For many of us, wan­der­ing around inside a book­store is our Hap­py Place. It can also be a place of mys­tery, sur­prise, romance, adven­ture, how-tos, and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to tap into the knowl­edge of the uni­verse. Here then are fif­teen books for chil­dren that are set in bookstores.   Archie Greene and the Magi­cian’s Secret
writ­ten by D.D.
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Playing Your Troubles Away

by
Margo Sorenson
“Fan­ta­sy and feel­ing lie deep­er than words… 
and both demand a more pro­found, more bio­log­i­cal expression, 
the prim­i­tive expres­sion of music.” 
(Mau­rice Sendak in “The Shape of Music”) Tied up in knots — nots — er — words? Are sen­tences slith­er­ing past you and para­graphs para­chut­ing from your brain? If so, maybe it’s time to step away from the writ­ing task, or any chore that has you flum­moxed, and give your­self a break, isn’t it?… more

Ferris Wheels

by
Fabulous Fair Alphabet
These are books about Mr. Ferris or his Ferris wheel, which debuted at the 1893 World Colombian Exposition. Grand in scale, rising up into the sky, the Ferris wheel is a focal point wherever it appears.

The Mozart Season

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The Mozart Season
Fresh Lookol­o­gy fea­tures books pub­lished sev­er­al years ago that are too good to lan­guish on the shelf. At the end of soft­ball sea­son and the begin­ning of sum­mer, 12-year-old Alle­gra Leah Shapiro learns that she has been select­ed as a final­ist in the Ernest Bloch Young Musi­cians’ Com­pe­ti­tion. She is the youngest final­ist, some­thing she wor­ries about as she spends the sum­mer prac­tic­ing Mozart’s fourth vio­lin con­cer­to.… more

Fried Rice and Ohana

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fried rice
Imag­ine a clus­ter of smil­ing keikis, (kids), sit­ting around a cal­abash filled with mouth-water­ing Hawaii local-style fried rice. Shar­ing deli­cious food from a cal­abash serv­ing bowl is a Hawaii tra­di­tion. As it does every­where around the world, not just in Hawaii, eat­ing meals togeth­er cre­ates com­mon bonds for every­one, chil­dren and adults alike, solid­i­fy­ing the feel­ing of ohana, or fam­i­ly.… more

Quirky Book Lists: Time

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Noisy Clock Shop
Mar­garet Wise Brown once wrote that chil­dren won­dered about “mys­te­ri­ous clock time.” I cer­tain­ly did as a child. I sim­ply could not learn to tell time. This was back in the dark ages of ana­log clocks that seemed to hold secrets oth­ers could deci­pher but elud­ed me. I could have used any of the books on this list, but one in par­tic­u­lar is perfect.
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Lesa Cline-Ransome

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Lesa Cline-Ransome
Author Lesa Cline-Ran­some is known for her pic­ture book biogra­phies of poets, anti-slav­ery cru­saders, musi­cians, ath­letes, and math­e­mati­cians. Her nov­el Find­ing Langston received a Scott O’Dell His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion Award and a Coret­ta Scott King Author Hon­or. We impa­tient­ly wait­ed for the com­pan­ion nov­el, Leav­ing Lymon, which was pub­lished in ear­ly 2020. Lesa is a won­der­ful sto­ry­teller and a stel­lar non­fic­tion researcher and author.… more

Jen Bryant

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Jen Bryant
Author and poet Jen Bryant is known for her pic­ture book biogra­phies of artists, poets, word­mon­gers, com­posers, and play­wrights. Her verse and prose nov­els are well-researched, often focused on an his­toric event like the Scopes tri­al or the Lind­bergh kid­nap­ping tri­al or Cap­tain Kid­d’s buried trea­sure in New Jer­sey. Always focused on her next book, we’re thank­ful Jen took time from her sched­ule to answer our Skin­ny Dip questions. … more

Cardamom Scones

by
Melanie Heuiser Hill
I adore books that have food details. I like to know what the char­ac­ters are eat­ing. Even bet­ter, I like to know what they’re cook­ing and bak­ing. And if there’s a food or feast that plays a promi­nent role in the plot, I’m hooked. Turns out, these are the sorts of books I enjoy writ­ing, as well. My nov­el, Giant Pump­kin Suite, has a grand­moth­er who is quite ded­i­cat­ed to the culi­nary arts.… more

What Gets Left Out

by
Jen Bryant
In my three decades as a pro­fes­sion­al author, I’ve writ­ten about many intrigu­ing, accom­plished peo­ple: the Wyeth fam­i­ly of artists, painter Geor­gia O’Keeffe, abo­li­tion­ist Lucre­tia Mott, author Peter Mark Roget, poets William Car­los Williams and Mar­i­anne Moore, self-taught artist Horace Pip­pin, inven­tor Louis Braille, and most recent­ly Pulitzer Prize-win­ning play­wright August Wil­son. In every case, I’ve focused my research on the words and the work of the sub­ject them­selves and have cre­at­ed what I hope are poet­ic and acces­si­ble books about these impor­tant men and women for young readers.… more

Catherine Friend

by
Catherine Friend
We wel­come author Cather­ine Friend to our Skin­ny Dip col­umn this month. You may know her for her pic­ture books The Per­fect Nest and My Head is Full of Col­ors, or her chap­ter book Barn Boot Blues. You may have thought about becom­ing a farmer after read­ing Hit by a Farm, Sheep­ish, and The Com­pas­sion­ate Car­ni­vore.… more

The Gems: Revolutionize Your Teaching of Writing

by
Margo Sorenson
The stack of stu­dent papers lurks on the cor­ner of your desk, just wait­ing to be marked and grad­ed. Yes, the rubrics and grad­ing stan­dards will be applied con­sci­en­tious­ly, paper after paper. Your stu­dents wait, some in dread, some in hope­ful antic­i­pa­tion, for your final judg­ments on their papers. But wait — there’s anoth­er way to eval­u­ate stu­dent writ­ing — one that I read many years ago in the Eng­lish Jour­nal.… more

Bedtime for Sweet Creatures

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Bedtime for Sweet Creatures
Such a charm­ing book! From Nik­ki Grimes, we hear the sto­ry of a young boy stalling his bed­time, all the while col­lect­ing a menagerie of imag­i­nary crea­tures. This is a child who has well-prac­ticed ploys for avoid­ing bed­time. His par­ents respond with play­ful­ness and good humor. Mom and dad are patient but, final­ly, the child is too sleepy to stay awake.… more

Susan Fletcher

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Susan Fletcher
Sto­ry­teller adept Susan Fletcher’s mind has giv­en us The Drag­on Chron­i­cles, Alpha­bet of Dreams, the star­tling Fal­con in the Glass, and most recent­ly Jour­ney of the Pale Bear. As you’ll read below, she has trav­eled to amaz­ing loca­tions and had envi­able expe­ri­ences as she researched her nov­els. Susan taught at the Ver­mont Col­lege of Fine Arts’ Mas­ter of Fine Arts in Writ­ing for Chil­dren and Young Adults pro­gram but now she lives full-time in Texas.… more

Timeless Tales Program

by
Rachel Snyder, Lemont Public Library
Cre­at­ing a Con­nect­ed Com­mu­ni­ty of Read­ers: Inter­gen­er­a­tional Storytime After see­ing a hand­ful of arti­cles about nurs­ing homes open­ing up preschools in a shared space, as well as the ben­e­fits from this part­ner­ship, I want­ed to find a way to cre­ate the same inter­gen­er­a­tional con­nec­tion in a library set­ting. We already had a rela­tion­ship with our local retire­ment home as our Cir­cu­la­tion Super­vi­sor does month­ly out­reach and book check­outs for the res­i­dents, so I approached their staff with the idea.… more

For the Love of Pickles

by
Connie Van Hoven
Know some pick­le crazy kids? I do! A favorite birth­day din­ner that my grand­kids request is Pick­le Pas­ta (recipe below) — not the cold pas­ta sal­ad vari­ety, mind you, but warm but­tery noo­dles dot­ted with briny pick­les. My daugh­ter cre­at­ed this sim­ple but oh-so-sat­is­fy­ing dish dur­ing her col­lege days when the cup­boards were some­times near­ly bare. I guar­an­tee you will have eaters who pick the pick­les out to savor sep­a­rate­ly; and eaters who will pre­fer bites of pas­ta with their pick­les — either way it’s the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to chant: “Peter Piper picked a plate of pick­led pas­ta.”… more