Reading Ahead

If Da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur

If Da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur 

At once ridicu­lous and sub­lime, If da Vin­ci Paint­ed a Dinosaur is mag­net­ic. Which dinosaur will be fea­tured in whose paint­ing? Quick, turn the page! Amy New­bold, author, and Greg New­bold, illus­tra­tor, fol­low up If Picas­so Paint­ed a Snow­man with this vol­ume com­bin­ing a herd of his­toric and imag­i­nary dinosaurs includ­ed in 19 famous artists’ famil­iar paint­ings: Degas’ ballerinas

Storm by Sam Usher

Storm 

That irre­sistible urge to jump into a cush­ioned pile of waist-high leaves, sink­ing into the vivid col­ors, the smell of earth and sky, the sounds of nature embrac­ing you? Don’t miss Storm by Sam Ush­er (Tem­plar Books). The glow­ing reds and golds of fall jump off the cov­er, invit­ing you to open the book and set­tle in

History's Mysteries

History’s Mysteries 

You pick up the bright­ly col­ored book lying on the table and open it near the mid­dle. What’s this book about? In 1848, the HMS Ere­bus and the HMS Ter­ror set out to find the link between the Pacif­ic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean by sail­ing into the Arc­tic waters. The ships and the crews

A World of Cities

A World of Cities 

A World of Cities text by Lily Mur­ray illus­trat­ed by James Brown Can­dlewick Stu­dio, 2018 ISBN 978−0−7636−9879−9 Those kids in your life, your school­room, your library who are Fact Hunters? They col­lect facts to savor, share with oth­ers, and build their knowl­edge of the world around them. This is a book for them. Not every child can trav­el to

Explorer Academy

Explorer Academy: The Nebula Secret 

Explor­er Acad­e­my: The Neb­u­la Secret Tru­di Truett illus­trat­ed by Scott Plumbe (with a blend of pho­tos) Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Part­ners, 2018 ISBN 978−1−4263−3159−6 Done with the Har­ry Pot­ter series, maybe not quite ready for the Alex Rid­er series, what do you sug­gest? Explor­er Acad­e­my. Emphat­i­cal­ly.  The book opens in Hawaii, where Cruz Coro­n­a­do (not quite 13) is getting

imagine 

There are times when I open a new book that my pulse quick­ens and times when I need to be con­vinced. Some­times I can sense myself slid­ing com­fort­ably into the sur­round­ings of a pic­ture book, feel­ing wel­comed, under­stand­ing every­thing about the book because it is so well craft­ed. That’s this book. First off, this is an auto­bi­og­ra­phy … so as a men­tor text

Anna and Johanna

Anna and Johanna 

Anna and Johan­na: a Chil­dren’s Book Inspired by Ver­meer Geral­dine Elschn­er illus­trat­ed by Flo­rence Koenig Pres­tel Pub­lish­ing, 2018 pub­lished in French in 2016 ISBN 978−3−7913−7345−4 Delft. Delft blue. The book begins with blue and yel­low. 1666. Two friends born on the same day. This day, their birth­day. They are each mak­ing gifts for the oth­er. Lace and choco­late. One the daughter

Summer Reading 

When I say “sum­mer read­ing,” you think about … a good nov­el, right? I have a cou­ple of sug­ges­tions. Every kid should have these two books tucked in their beach bags, ready for a car trip, or packed for sum­mer camp. Seri­ous­ly. In between the read­ing out loud of those nov­els you’ve been sav­ing up all year, or the listening

What’s So Special about Shakespeare? 

We cel­e­brate William Shake­speare’s birth­day on April 23rd (or there­abouts). Con­sid­er read­ing excerpts of this book to your class­es. In What’s So Spe­cial about Shake­speare?, the author, Michael Rosen, walks into a house with us, peek­ing into rooms where Shakespeare’s plays are being enact­ed. Such vari­ety! It’s an inspired way to place young read­ers among the

The Enchanting Boggarts 

When­ev­er any­one asks the title of my favorite book, it’s a toss-up between two: A Wrin­kle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and The Dark is Ris­ing by Susan Coop­er. A Wrin­kle in Time because it opened the whole wide uni­verse to my young mind and The Dark is Ris­ing because I under­stood for the first time what a per­fect story

With My Hands 

Some­times, a book comes across my desk that sparkles like a gem, attract­ing my atten­tion, insist­ing that I stop what I’m doing and read it. This hap­pened when With My Hands: Poems about Mak­ing Things arrived last week. I thought I’d take a peek. Next thing you know, I was clos­ing the last page of the book, sigh­ing with con­tent­ment. And then

The Magic Misfits

The Magic Misfits 

I’m one of those peo­ple that often reads a cele­bri­­­ty-writ­ten book because I’d like to find one that defies the odds. How about you? Did you get over the won­der­ing at a cer­tain point? Or do you still give a new star-pow­ered book a try? Sad­ly, I don’t often find a celebri­ty book I can rec­om­mend. This time, though, I’m prac­ti­cal­ly shouting:

The Secret Kingdom

The Secret Kingdom 

This book is irre­sistible. For all kinds of rea­sons. Remem­ber when you were a kid, or maybe you do this now, how you’d take what­ev­er was at hand and cre­ate a house, a camp, an entire set­ting for you to play in? Where you could act out your sto­ries? Did you do this with found items from nature?

Mighty Jack and the Goblin King

Mighty Jack 

We are thrust into the midst of the action, which nev­er stops until the epi­logue. This is how Ben Hatke tells a sto­ry. We don’t know what’s going on. There’s no set­up. Instead, we quick­ly learn that Jack is climb­ing some veg­e­ta­tive mat­ter to find the ogre who kid­napped his sis­ter Mad­dy and take her home.

Maurice the Unbeastly

For The Beast in Us All 

The theme of being your­self is famil­iar. Many books, movies, and plays are devot­ed to this idea. When it’s done well, we all sit up a lit­tle straighter, laugh more con­fi­dent­ly, and dream about all the things we’d like to do to be true to who we are. Chil­dren need to hear this mes­sage often so

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