Staff Picks for Children

Dan Gutman (author of "Babe and Me" and "Return of the Homework Machine") offers a humorous look at the lives of elementary age students in The Talent Show. After a tornado rips through the small town of Cape Bluff, Kansas, the residents need a way to raise money to rebuild their town and raise morale. The town decides to put on a talent show, with students from the elementary school providing the talent. Everyone wants to get in on the action, talent or no talent! Will the talent show raise the much needed funds for the town?  This book is recommended for 4th grade students and up.

This award winning non-fiction book is part of the Scientists in the Field series.  It's full of amazing photographs of a variety of mostly cute frogs.  There are a few exceptions.  One is a photo of the Sororan Desert Toad held by Dr. Tyrone Hayes who says, "He looks like a cow turd."   The Frog Scientist follows Dr. Hayes, his students and his son,Tyler, on a day of field biology where they collect 50 frogs as part of an experiment.  Dr. Hayes is studying the effects of a pesticide on the development of leopard frogs.  He attributes the decline and extinction of frog populations to habitat reduction, global warming, disease, herbicides and pesticides.  The many contrasts in this book add to the overall impact. While being introduced to the personal life of this scientist and his love of frogs, readers are also introduced to key concepts of scientific research.  While some pictures lovingly show us the beauty and variety of frogs from around the world, other pictures show frogs in the lab and frog dissection. This stunning book includes a glossary, an index of featured frogs and toads, recommended websites and multimedia, as well as a bibliography of further reading. This book is recommended for ages 9-14.

The story is an enjoyable dystopian fantasy centering around the city of Quill and the hidden magical city of Artimé. In the city of Quill, every year the thirteen-year-olds are sorted into categories: the Wanteds – the strong, intelligent children that attend the University; the Necessary – the children who do manual labor; and the Unwanteds – the artistic, creative children who are sent to the “Death Farm”. Alex and Aaron Stowe are twins who are separated into different categories. Alex is sorted into the Unwanteds and is sent to the death farm, while Aaron is sorted into the Wanteds and will stay in Quill.

When Alex and the other Unwanteds arrive at the Death Farm they find a secret world known as Artimé. Artimé, governed by Mr. Marcus Today, a magician, is a magical world filled with magical creatures. Just a few of the amazing creatures found here include animated origami dragons; giant talking tortoises; talking blackboards; intelligent statues; and a winged cheetah named Simber. Each student in Artimé is taught to use their individual creative abilities magically, weaving spells through paintbrushes and musical instruments. There is a struggle between Alex and Aaron, in which Alex wants Aaron to come to his world and leave Quill.

The future of Artimé is threatened and eventually there is a showdown between the magical weapons of Artimé and the military strength of Quill, with the brothers divided. The ending leads into a future sequel to continue the saga. Readers who enjoyed reading Harry Potter and the Hunger Games will enjoy this story and look forward to continuing sequels.

The recommended reading age level is grades 4^th  through 7^th.

Everyone will find something to giggle about with this great CD, one of many produced in celebration of the 25^th anniversary of the“Music for Little People” Company.  From great action songs like Raffi’s “Shake Your Sillies Out,” and “Everyone Loves to Dance” by Aaron Nigel Smith; funny story songs like “I’m My Own Grandpa,” sung by the late great Chet Atkins, and “My Name is Cheech, the School Bus Driver” by comedian Cheech Marin; new treatments of old favorites such as Tom Glazer’s “On Top of Spaghetti,” sung by the Persuasions; and other great tracks by Buckwheat Zydeco, Taj Mahal and Linda Tillery, Maria Muldaur, Dan Zanes, and the Music for Little People Players.  Music and laughter go together well--check this out and hear for yourself!

 Fun for all ages, especially 3-8.

This installment in the Bad Kitty series which began as a picture book series and then morphed into chapter books, is a look at Bad Kitty’s birthday party. We meet many different breeds of cats all coming to the party bearing gifts, none of which make Bad Kitty happy. Interspersed with scientific facts about cats, this heavily illustrated book is laugh out loud funny, and is recommended for 3rd grade and up.

An inspirational and engaging biography of award-winning author, Avi.  The story of how he became fondly known as only “Avi”, which is not his real name, is revealed. It describes his poor childhood in New York during the war years and how he learned to survive. He fights a lifelong battle with dysgraphia. (“Dysgraphic people have trouble writing. They mix up or invert letters and misspell words.” p. 9).  Growing up in a family of professional storytellers, singers, musicians and writers, and being read to as a child, helped Avi to learn to love stories and history and to teach himself to read before he started school. Because of his dysgraphia, he was a poor student and his teachers did not understand. They believed he was just not trying hard enough. He painstakingly manages his dysgraphia and continues to write and to inspire young people, especially those with learning disabilities, when he speaks in schools and libraries. In spite of many early warnings that he would never succeed at writing, Avi proved critics wrong and through hard work and perseverance, won the Newbery Medal for Crispin: The Cross of Lead and numerous other awards.  Avi’s love of history and writing fueled his choice of a double major in history and playwriting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Avi pursued a Library Science degree from Columbia University and worked for many years as a librarian in New York and New Jersey. History plays a big role in many of his novels such as Captain Grey, Night Journeys, and Encounter at Easton which are set in the time of the American Revolution. He won a Newbery Honor for his historical fiction work The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. His works appeal to young people because of the common theme of children confronting obstacles in adult worlds, much like Avi’s struggles. He writes adventures, historical fiction, fantasies, mysteries, animal stories, ghost stories and more.

Thirteen year old Gen doesn't want to spend her entire summer vacation with her family at an 1890's styled frontier camp.  It's her mother's idea to commit the family to this experience in living history and the owners of this camp take their social experiment very seriously.  To preserve her sanity, Gen smuggles in a cell phone so that she can text her friends about every painful experience of forced frontier life, including the details of meeting Caleb, a very cute fellow camper, and Nora, the very jealous and bitter daughter of the camp owners.   Gen discovers that the zealous anti-technology camp owners have a secret technology hideout.  Not only do the camp owners discover Gen's phone, they discover that her text messages have been transcribed by Gen's friends into a blog that has attracted a national following.  This humorous look at our dependence on modern technology also offers some compelling life lessons through the voice of a very believable teenage voice. Recommended for age 12 and up.

Illustrator Ed Young, winner of the Caldecott Medal for his book Lon Po Po, tells the unique story of his childhood in wartime China through award-winning author Libby Koponen. Young’s father, Baba, an engineer, devises a way of protecting his wife and five children and numerous other relatives and friends by constructing a bomb-proof house that becomes a playground for the children complete with a swimming pool. Lacking the funds for building, Baba makes an agreement with the landowner that he would build the extravagant home, live in it for twenty years, and then give it to the owner. Baba designs and constructs the home in the safest location in Shanghai in the vicinity of the embassies. Young’s imaginative play makes a riding horse out of the family rocking chair. The family shares many games, both physical and mental. The children hatch silkworms and force crickets to battle. When no money is available to refill the pool, the children ride their bikes and scooters in it. Baba tells stories in the protected room where they are allowed lights during air raids: it is really a bomb shelter. This is a fascinating recollection of a close family growing up in poor, dangerous times, yet safe from the destruction of war, and of the raising of an award-winning contemporary artist. Young’s graphics, drawings, photographs, and an architect’s renderings of the home’s floor plan recount the artist’s childhood in a captivating manner.

Book two of the Ring of Five trilogy

Danny Caulfield has been recruited to a school known as Wilsons Academy of Devious Arts, a mysterious and secretive school for the training of spies. Danny is caught up in the struggle between the Upper and Lower World. The Ring of Five, the ruling power of the Lower World is struggling to control the entire Lower World in order to invade the Upper World. They must defeat the officials of Wilsons Academy to successfully complete this mission. The Ring of Five tries to persuade Danny, through trickery and deception, to become the true fifth. They believe he is the one to complete the Ring and give them extreme magical power.

In this second book, Danny is sent on a dangerous mission to find a way to protect the Treaty Stone that keeps peace between the Upper and Lower worlds. The Ring of Five is also after the stone and they also have sent two children to retrieve the stone. These children arrive at the Kingdom of Morne, where the stone is kept, before Danny and Dixie. Now the four of them are sent on a contest by the king and whoever solves his riddle will get to leave and whoever doesn’t must stay forever with the “living dead” of the kingdom. Thus there is conflict on both sides to find the answer to the riddle and to be the first ones to find the stone. Lilly, a Cherb, sent by the Ring, tells Danny that she is his sister and they must retrieve the stone and bring it back to the Ring. He must betray his friends Dixie and Les and all of the teachers of Wilson’s. This presents a big dilemma for Danny. Whose side is he on – Wilsons or the Ring of Five? Should he trust Lily? Does he betray his friends? What happens to the Treaty Stone? Some of these questions are answered in this book, but many are left for the last book of the trilogy.

The story is full of secrets, betrayal, friendship, and spy inventions. Fans of the Harry Potter books will enjoy this series.

I recommend this book to both boys and girls in grades 6th and above.