Book Order Highlights: May 2009

One of the best parts of my job is selection. I get to choose and purchase the books for four elementary schools serving Pre-K up to 6^th grade. Indeed, I’ve learned to always have a big list going.

Today, our last book order of the school year came in to my K-4 building, and looking through the stacks, here are some that I am especially excited about:

Twelve Terrible Things by Marty Kelly.

I first heard about this one from the first-rate children’s lit blog Literate Lives. You know how you see the cover of a book a bunch of times, and start to build a wildly off-base concept of what’s inside? That happened to me with this book. I was expecting a story about a boy who goes through a day and experiences 12 bad things. Not so. It’s not a story as much as an insanely well-illustrated list of 12 terrible things that can happen to kids. Dentist, over-affectionate grandma, you get the idea. It’s very funny and very cool – kids will love this.

One Voice, Please by Sam McBratney.

I think the wonderful children’s lit blog MotherReader clued me in to this one. I am a huge fan of the story collection. They can be such a great read-aloud resource when you have limited time, since the stories usually move quickly and pull kids in right away. For this reason I love books like Betsy Byars’ The SOS File. This collection of very short (one to two page) stories looks like another good one for any library to have on their shelf or teacher to have in their desk.

Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight.

Ever since I saw it in the Simon & Schuster Spring catalog, I’ve been looking forward to this one. This was another title I misjudged. I thought it was going to be a straight up 741.5 (graphic novel), but it is definitely more of an illustrated novel (or whatever the kids are calling books with lots of pictures these days) either way, I’m excited to read it.

Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli.

The blog Bookends turned me on to this one, and Lynn and Cindy certainly know how to call ‘em. It’s great. This book nails the child’s perspective. When you were little, did you ever think you could swing hard enough so that you would do a complete rotation around the bar? Just me, heh, heh? Never mind. This book doesn’t actually cover that particular feat, but it does present the childhood feeling of being able to reach impossible heights while on the swing set.

Redwoods by Jason Chin.

Click here to look inside the book. A classic “going into the book” story with a bit of a twist – it’s nonfiction. I can see this title working wonders in a classroom setting since it has plenty of facts but presents them in a picture book format that reads as a story. When I was looking at Spring/Summer upcoming titles, this one from Roaring Brook Press stood out.

Roadwork by Sally Sutton.

I don’t want to say too much about this one because I love it and I’m planning on reviewing it ASAP. I just wanted to give it an extra plug here.

I’m going to give voice (I mean text) to what you are thinking and say “Enough already!” Friends, I’ve got some cataloging to do.

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