Virginia Was a Spy

Bookstorm™: 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
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Orphan Eleven

Bookstorm™: 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
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Just Like Rube Goldberg

Bookstorm™: Just Like Rube Goldberg

Edu­ca­tors across the coun­try have been inspired by Rube Goldberg’s intri­cate, clever, engi­neer­ing-based, but unlike­ly-to-be-made-in-real-life car­toons. Stu­dents are gath­er­ing to cre­ate their own Rube Gold­berg machines, using every­day objects in fun and inno­v­a­tive ways to accom­plish sim­ple tasks with fun results. Just Like Rube Gold­berg inspires all its read­ers with the details about Rube’s child­hood and his trip into adult­hood.… more
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The Stuff of Stars

Bookstorm™: The Stuff of Stars

Before the uni­verse was formed, before time and space exist­ed, there was … noth­ing. But then … BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that they explod­ed, fling­ing star­dust every­where. And the ash of those stars turned into plan­ets. Into our Earth. And into us. In a poet­ic text, Mar­i­on Dane Bauer takes read­ers from the tril­lionth of a sec­ond when our uni­verse was born to the sin­gu­lar­i­ties that became each one of us, while vivid illus­tra­tions by Ekua Holmes cap­ture the void before the Big Bang and the ensu­ing life that burst across galax­ies.… more
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Giant Pumpkin Suite

Bookstorm™: Giant Pumpkin Suite

Com­pe­ti­tion is a part of young peo­ple’s lives: art, sports, music, dance, sci­ence, cup-stack­ing … many chil­dren spend a good part of their day prac­tic­ing, learn­ing, and striv­ing to do their best. Giant Pump­kin Suite is about two types of com­pe­ti­tions, a Bach Cel­lo Suites Com­pe­ti­tion and a giant pump­kin grow­ing com­pe­ti­tion. Rose and Thomas Bruti­gan are twelve-year-old twins … but their per­son­al­i­ties and inter­ests are quite dif­fer­ent.… more
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Creekfinding

Bookstorm™: Creekfinding

We were very excit­ed to read Creek­find­ing: a True Sto­ry because it tells the sto­ry of restor­ing a long-ago creek in an Iowa prairie set­ting. Just imag­ine: bring­ing back the bur­bling waters, the fish, the insects, the grass­es … every­thing that makes up the health and char­ac­ter of the land. It took bull­doz­ers and deter­mi­na­tion, part­ners and imag­i­na­tion, but it was a project that brought eco­log­i­cal success!… more
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Giant Squid

Bookstorm™: Giant Squid

Giant Squid pro­vides an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to teach about one of the most myth­i­cal, unknown, and yet real crea­tures on earth, the Giant Squid. The incred­i­ble illus­tra­tions by Eric Rohmann help the read­er’s per­cep­tion of how large this deep sea crea­ture is and how mys­te­ri­ous. Found so deep with­in the sea, there is very lit­tle light.… more
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Presenting Buffalo Bill

Bookstorm™: Presenting Buffalo Bill

Pre­sent­ing Buf­fa­lo Bill pro­vides an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to teach dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between fic­tion and non­fic­tion, mythol­o­gy and fact, as well as the dis­cern­ment, research, and dis­cus­sion skills that are nat­u­ral­ly born out of this type of close read­ing. Buf­fa­lo Bill’s life and Wild West Show are excit­ing and the author makes them all the more vivid and engag­ing with her writ­ing.… more
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Let Your Voice Be Heard

Bookstorm™: Let Your Voice Be Heard

Whether you include social jus­tice, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, activism, or social action in your cur­ricu­lum or at your library, this is the ide­al book for you. A biog­ra­phy of Pete Seeger, recip­i­ent of our Nation­al Medal for the Arts, and cham­pi­on of the peo­ple for his 94 years, our Book­storm this month, Let Your Voice Be Heard: The Life and Times of Pete Seeger, cel­e­brates his life while it inspires each read­er to car­ry on his work.… more
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No Monkeys, No Chocolate

Bookstorm™: No Monkeys, No Chocolate

  We are pleased to fea­ture No Mon­keys, No Choco­late as our August book selec­tion, in which author and sci­ence writer Melis­sa Stew­art, along with Allen Young and illus­tra­tor Nicole Wong share the inter­de­pen­dent ecosys­tem that cre­ates the right con­di­tions for cacao beans to be grown and har­vest­ed so we can pro­duce chocolate. This ecosys­tem is set in the rain­for­est of the Ama­zon, but there are inter­de­pen­dent ecosys­tems all over the world, vital ani­mals, rep­tiles, birds, insects, humans, and plants that are nec­es­sary for our lives to con­tin­ue on this earth.… more
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Jazz Day

Bookstorm™: Jazz Day

  This month we’re fea­tur­ing Jazz Day, a book that’s all about jazz and a pho­to­graph that record­ed a moment in time, peo­ple at the top of their musi­cal careers and peo­ple who were just get­ting start­ed. Author Rox­ane Orgill is famil­iar with the jazz cul­ture; she’s writ­ten sev­er­al books about the music and the peo­ple. Illus­tra­tor Fran­cis Valle­jo took ele­ments of pho­tog­ra­phy, graph­ic design, acrylic, and pas­tels to illus­trate his first book.… more
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Miss Colfax's Light

Bookstorm™: Miss Colfax’s Light

  We are pleased to fea­ture Miss Col­fax’s Light as our June book selec­tion, in which author Aimée Bis­sonette and illus­tra­tor Eileen Ryan Ewen tell the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of a woman who served as the Michi­gan City Light­house keep­er from 1861 to 1904. Cap­tains and nav­i­ga­tors on Lake Michi­gan relied on her light­house to keep them from founder­ing on the rocks or crash­ing onto the shore in rough weather.… more
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Turn Left at the Cow

Bookstorm™: Turn Left at the Cow

  Who does­n’t love a mys­tery? Whether your find them intrigu­ing puz­zles or can’t-wait-to-know-the-solu­tion page-turn­ers, a good mys­tery is engross­ing and a lit­tle tense. Throw in a lit­tle humor, a detailed set­ting, and well-drawn char­ac­ters and you have a book you can con­fi­dent­ly hand to young read­ers who are already hooked on the genre and those who have yet to become fans. We are pleased to fea­ture Turn Left at the Cow as our May book selec­tion, writ­ten by the expert plot­ter Lisa Bullard, replete with her char­ac­ter­is­tic humor.… more
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A River of Words

Bookstorm™: A River of Words

  Author Jen Bryant and illus­tra­tor Melis­sa Sweet have teamed up on a num­ber of pic­ture book biogra­phies about cre­ative artists. We’ve cho­sen to fea­ture their very first col­lab­o­ra­tion dur­ing this month in which poet­ry takes the spot­light. By telling us the true sto­ry about poet William Car­los Williams’ child­hood and grow­ing up, with his clear poet­ry sur­round­ing the pages, they awak­en inter­est in young peo­ple who may think this no-longer-liv­ing, ancient (he was born in 1883 and died in 1963) poet is not with­in reach.… more
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Little Cat's Luck

Bookstorm™: Little Cat’s Luck

  Many peo­ple love cats. You might be one of them. Many chil­dren con­sid­er their cat or their dog to be one of the fam­i­ly. Mar­i­on Dane Bauer under­stands that. She wrote Lit­tle Cat’s Luck, the sto­ry of Patch­es, a cat, and Gus, the mean­est dog in town, out of her deep affin­i­ty for both cats and dogs.… more
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Chasing Secrets

Bookstorm™: Chasing Secrets

  Don’t you love a good mys­tery? Set it in an exot­ic but famil­iar city like San Fran­cis­co at the turn of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Cre­ate a main char­ac­ter who’s a smart and adven­tur­ous young girl with inter­ests frowned upon dur­ing that time: sci­ence, math­e­mat­ics, and pur­su­ing a col­lege edu­ca­tion. Pro­vide a fam­i­ly and friends who are immense­ly inter­est­ing because they’re so vivid that you’d like to know each one of them.… more
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Princess Posey and the Crazy, Lazy Vacation

Bookstorm™: Princess Posey

  There have been many papers writ­ten about why chil­dren, teens, and adults like to read books that are pub­lished as part of a series. From The Bobb­sey Twins to Nan­cy Drew to the Box­car Chil­dren to Ency­lo­pe­dia Brown to Goose­bumps to The Babysit­ters Club to Red­wall to War­riors (draw­ing in a long breath) … okay, you get the idea.… more
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Firekeeper's Son

Bookstorm™: Firekeeper’s Son

This month, we are pleased to fea­ture Fire­keep­er’s Son, writ­ten by Lin­da Sue Park and illus­trat­ed by Julie Down­ing. Set in Korea in the 19th cen­tu­ry, it’s a book about an his­toric sys­tem of sig­nal fires that served as nation­al secu­ri­ty … and one fam­i­ly who is respon­si­ble for light­ing a bon­fire each and every night.  The young boy at the cen­ter of the book dreams of see­ing sol­diers, but it’s his father’s job to advise the king that all is clear.… more
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Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall

Bookstorm™: Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall

This month, we are pleased to fea­ture Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall, writ­ten by Ani­ta Sil­vey, with pho­tographs and book designed by the incred­i­ble team at Nation­al Geo­graph­ic. This book is not only fas­ci­nat­ing to read, it’s a beau­ti­ful read­ing expe­ri­ence as well. It’s not often that a book offers us a glimpse into the child­hood of a woman who has fol­lowed a brave, and car­ing, career path, but also fol­lows her through more than 50 years in that cho­sen pro­fes­sion, describ­ing her work, dis­cov­er­ies, and her pas­sion for the mam­mals with whom she works.… more
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Bookstorm™: Bulldozer’s Big Day

It’s Bulldozer’s big day — his birth­day! But around the con­struc­tion site, it seems like every­one is too busy to remem­ber. Bull­doz­er wheels around ask­ing his truck friends if they know what day it is, but they each only say it’s a work day. They go on scoop­ing, sift­ing, stir­ring, fill­ing, and lift­ing, and lit­tle Bull­doz­er grows more and more glum.… more
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Chasing Freedom

Bookstorm™: Chasing Freedom

In this Bookstorm™: Chasing Freedom
The Life Jour­neys of Har­ri­et Tub­man and Susan B. Antho­ny, Inspired by His­tor­i­cal Facts
writ­ten by Nik­ki Grimes
illus­trat­ed by Michele Wood
Orchard Books, 2015
As Nik­ki Grimes writes in her author’s note for this book, “His­to­ry is often taught in bits and pieces, and stu­dents rarely get the notion that these bits and pieces are con­nect­ed.”… more
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Catch You Later, Traitor

Bookstorm: Catch You Later, Traitor

In this Bookstorm™: Catch You Later, Traitor writ­ten by Avi
Algo­nquin Books for Young Read­ers, 2015
The ear­ly 1950s in the Unit­ed States was a time when sol­diers and med­ical per­son­nel had returned home from the two the­aters of World War II, Com­mu­nism was talked about as some­thing to be feared, and col­leagues and neigh­bors were asked to tes­ti­fy against peo­ple who were sus­pect­ed to be Com­mu­nists in Amer­i­ca.… more
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Shadow Hero

Bookstorm: The Shadow Hero

In this Bookstorm™: Shadow Hero writ­ten by Gene Luen Yang
illus­trat­ed by Son­ny Liew
First Sec­ond, 2014
As we become a cul­ture adapt­ed to screens, visu­als, and mov­ing pic­tures, we grow more accus­tomed to the sto­ry­telling form of the graph­ic nov­el. For some, their com­fort with this com­bi­na­tion of visu­als and text telling a sto­ry sat­is­fies a crav­ing to “see” the sto­ry while they’re read­ing.… more
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Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled

Bookstorm: Scaly Spotted …

In this Bookstorm™: Scaly Spotted
Feathered Frilled:
how do we know what dinosaurs really looked like?
writ­ten by Cather­ine Thimmesh
HMH Books for Young Read­ers, 2013
No human being has ever seen a tricer­atops or veloci­rap­tor or even the mighty Tyran­nosaurus rex. They left behind only their impres­sive bones. So how can sci­en­tists know what col­or dinosaurs were? Or if their flesh was scaly or feath­ered?… more
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Lowriders in Space

Bookstorm: Lowriders in Space 

In this Bookstorm™: Lowriders in Space
writ­ten by Cathy Camper
illus­trat­ed by Raul the Third
pub­lished by Chron­i­cle Books, 2014
Lupe Impala, El Cha­vo Flap­jack, and Elirio Malar­ia love work­ing with cars. You name it, they can fix it. But the team’s favorite cars of all are lowrid­ers — cars that hip and hop, dip and drop, go low and slow, baji­to y suavecito.… more
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Catherine, Called Birdy

Bookstorm: Catherine, Called Birdy 

In this Bookstorm™: Catherine, Called Birdy writ­ten by Karen Cush­man
pub­lished by Clar­i­on Books, 1994
New­bery Hon­or book
Cor­pus Bones! I utter­ly loathe my life.” Cather­ine feels trapped. Her father is deter­mined to mar­ry her off to a rich man – any rich man, no mat­ter how awful. But by wit, trick­ery, and luck, Cather­ine man­ages to send sev­er­al would-be hus­bands pack­ing.… more
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Bookstorm: Leroy Ninker Saddles Up 

Leroy Ninker has a hat, a lasso, and boots. What he doesn’t have is a horse — until he meets Maybelline, that is, and then it’s love at first sight. Maybelline loves spaghetti and sweet nothings, and she loves Leroy, too. But when Leroy forgets the third and final rule of caring for Maybelline, disaster ensues. Can Leroy wrestle fate to the ground, rescue the horse of his heart, and lasso loneliness for good? Join Leroy, Maybelline, and a cast of familiar characters — Stella, Frank, Mrs. Watson, and everyone’s favorite porcine wonder, Mercy — for some hilarious and heartfelt horsing around on Deckawoo Drive.
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