Morning Notes: Negative, Positive, Foolish Edition
MANY STARS FOR YOU
ShelfTalker posted their first installment of The Stars So Far. This tally of books that have received starred reviews is always an interesting read. Think you can guess the two books that have already received 5 starred reviews? They were a surprise to me. Click here to check out the list.
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NO STAR FOR YOU
Switching gears from positive reviews to negative, the always excellent Bookshelves of Doom blog has adapted the One Star Review Guess Who? format for the YA crowd. I don’t know YA, so I hadn’t a chance to get these, but I realized that this sort of thing is pretty fun even if you don’t know the book getting skewered. Click here to read the first one. Click here to read the second one.
KIDS, CAST YOUR BALLOTS
Voting for the Children’s Choice Book Awards is open – go, kids. It’s worth the price of admission to take a gander at the books up for consideration – some unexpected titles you won’t find on any other list (Big Mean Mike! Stickman Odyssey!). This year they have a way for a teacher or librarian to quickly enter votes for an entire class. Click here to go.
APRIL FOOLED
The Horn Book is always up for an April Fool’s joke, and this year was no exception. It’s a full-on mock issue. They even introduce a new genre in the process – supernatural bromance. Probably coming to a Barnes & Noble near you soon. Click here to read.
FOR THE LIBRARIAN IN YOUR LIFE
This may win the award in America’s favorite game, “joke or not a joke?”
Filed under: Morning Notes, News
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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That’s kind of funny about Penny & Her Marble. I was gaga over the first two Penny books. But I didn’t give Penny and Her Marble a star, because I was too mad at the adult giving Penny the marble by putting it on her lawn. All that guilt could have been avoided! Though the book is still charming, and still true to a child’s sensibilities. I’m glad Penny’s getting some recognition!
I finished the other 5-star book last night, Midwinter Blood, by Marcus Sedgwick. WOW. It’s hard to imagine one of the review magazines not giving it a star. (I guess I don’t need to!)
That’s good to know, Sondy – I’ll be keeping an eye out for it
It is YA — but your upper end might like it. And if you want some good reading, I can’t recommend it highly enough.