Margaret Mahy

a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/614678.Down_the_Back_of_the_Chair" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Down the Back of the Chair by Margaret Mahy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This hoot and a half of a picture book makes me sadder still that Margaret Mahy no longer graces our world, makes me long to be a New Zealander where bandicoots and skinks and conger eels are probably not alien to children as they might be here in NY (and they have the sea the sea the sea everywhere and libraries plum full of her even her most obscure books I would hope), and mostly makes me laugh with her take no prisoners gleeful rhyming.
Raising a (pretend, the best kind) glass to you, Margaret!

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A mud and frog loving good read

The Mud Fairy by Amy Young
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A big hit with the preschool story time crowd especially timely as it is Spring and it is tadpoles and baby turtles in the large ponds near the library and so much of the froggy area resembles our lovely outdoor setting here at the library. An great story that takes some of the pink gunk out of fairies and shows a girl triumphing using her individuality, her compassion, and her smarts. A definite buy for the library.

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Nursery Rhyme Time Basics

A good morning song (sung vaguely to This Old Man)

Peek-a-boo, I see you! I can clap and you can too.
Clapping hands is what we do, clapping hands just me and you.

Peek-a-boo, I see you! I can tap my feet and so can you.
Tapping feet is what we do, tapping feet just me and you.

Peek-a-boo, I see you! I can roll my arms and so can you.
Rolling arms is what we do, rolling arms just me and you.

Peek-a-boo, I see you! I can reach up high and so can you.
Reaching up high is fun to do, reaching up high just me and you.

Peek-a-boo, I see you! I can say hi and so can you.
Saying hi is what we do, saying hi just me and you.


Fee Fi Fo Fum, Here's my fingers and here's my thumb.
Goodbye fingers, goodbye thumb!

a good segueway to:

Where is Thumbkin? Where is Thumbkin?
here I am, here I am.
How are you today, sir?
very well, I thank you.
Run away, run away.

Another fun thumb song is:

Tommy Thumbs up and Tommy Thumbs down
Tommy Thumbs dancing all around the town
dance 'em on your shoulders, dance 'em on your head,
dance 'em on your knees, and tuck him into bed.

Also for the wee ones:

two little eyes to look around
two little ears to hear each sound
one little nose to smell what's sweet
and one little mouth that likes to eat!

and the classic (count your fingers at the end!)

Open, shut them, open, shut them,
give a little clap clap clap
open shut them, open shut them,
put them in your lap, lap, lap

creep them, crawl them, creep them, crawl them,
right up to your chin chin chin
open wide your little mouth -
- but do not let them in!

in the middle of the program, I like to do a book, a flannel board, a puppet, all with a theme, but with similar beginnings and endings.

A good ending song is this one sung (vaguely) to London Bridge:

Baby hands are rolling round, rolling round, rolling round,
baby hands are rolling round, my sweet baby.

Baby hands can clap a sound, clap a sound, clap a sound,
baby hands can clap a sound, my sweet baby.

Baby hands can pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake,
baby hands can pat-a-cake, my sweet baby.

Baby hands can wave bye bye, wave bye bye, wave bye bye,
baby hands can wave bye, bye, my sweet baby.

more to come...

Story Poems good for Readers' Theatre

The Oxford Book of Story Poems by Michael Harrison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A thoughtfully compiled book of story poems, many of which will not be immediately familiar but are worth knowing. The illustrations add just the right note, a blend of black and white sketches and colorful spreads. Opening with the brief Fairy Story by Stevie Smith proving that a story poem need not be long to be effective. I think a good deal of these would be very effectively transformed into readers' theatre for performance.



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Library Window Painting

The Summer Reading Program was on "the Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!" theme - a forest scene, jungle, ocean, and pastorial. Then they were covered with paper cut-outs of animals, one per each book read. It is a testament to the great reading of the kids that by mid-August, the windows and these painted images were entirely hidden under little paper squares. Good Reading, everyone!

I heart Daniel Handler

Catching up on a stack of New York Times book reviews, I open DH's review of a batch of new kid at school books under the heading of Settling In. (August 21).
His opening lines make me remember why I think he is just the hoot of all time - "Will you be my friend? With the possible exception of "Does this look infected?," there is no more off-putting question."
Plus he uses the word "alas" all the time, a word I am quite fond of...I think it would be lovely if he dedicated himself to rewriting all the tedious manuals in the world so learning how to operate my new camera or how to assemble an Ikea bookshelf that seems to be missing screws had a certain lightness of wit to the work. Alas, I fear he will not be doing this any time soon.

Books that should be movies

Why The True Meaning of Smekday isn't a movie by now is beyond me. Great adventure and characters and imagination and wit. The main character is the kind of girl that girls need to see more of in movies - brave and strong (even when terrified) smart and true. A novel by Adam Rex I have been recommending to kids ever since it came out.
And Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle - years ago the then young Winona Ryder would have been perfect for it. Everyone who reads this becomes another fan of this underground cult classic. Made into a play, it still deserves major Hollywood or Indie treatment.
And then of course, Fledgling by Octavia Butler. You want action? We got action? You want kick ass? We got kick ass. And pathos, drama, humanity.
Moviemakers - where are you?

Brief round-up and a monkey and friends

The library summer windows have been up since mid-June and I still haven't gotten around to uploading them; summer does come in swinging. Well, here is at least one of our animal themed windows (now merrily covered with paper animals, one per each book read, from our eager summer readers. Here's an oldish but nice interview with a librarian and writer, Barbara Ann Porte (yes, I know, I am just fileboxing here for my own selfish pleasures),
a good blog to know for rockin' music for the young set...argh, dog chewing his biscuit on the bed, OFF! and Off to sleep as well. (terrible round-up and have scads more to share...another time when it is not past the midnight hour).

a whiff of old books, a hush, a pensive air...

Sometimes it seems that the aim of modernity is to flush the romance out of life. the library, with its Daedalian labyrinth, mysteroius hush, and faintly ominous aroma of knowledge, has been replaced by the computer's cheap glow, pesky chirp, and data spillage.

- P.J. O'Rourke

A Palooza, you say?

Lithgow Party Paloozas!: 52 Unexpected Ways to Make a Birthday, Holiday, or Any Day a Celebration for Kids by John Lithgow

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sea poems on a Monday Morning

The Mermaid and Other Sea Poems by Sophie Windham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A very nice collection of sea-themed poetry. Old favorites like Kipling's Seal Lullaby and Ogden Nash's the Eel (a childhood favorite) sit side by side with ones less familiar - My Other Granny by Ted Hughes, and Grim and Gloomy by James Reeves. The art by Sophie Windham (who compiled this collection) has a charming, somewhat British-y (as she is), storybook appeal.



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Sea dreams

A House by the Sea by Joanne Ryder




Obviously this library mermaid loves the sea - and as a person who has written quite a lot of odes to dream houses by the sea - I can firmly state that this one is just terrific. With great imagination (an Octopus nanny, a playdate with seals)and rollicking rhymes and somewhere in there seems to be a poetic nod to the great beach poem by e e cummings - this is a perfect summer treat to offer up to sandy-toed (or dreaming of) little ones. The art is by one of my favorites, Melissa Sweet, who has a way with seaside dreams.



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Imaginary Menagerie

Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures by Julie Larios

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Exploring magical creatures from mermaids to phoenix with brilliant illustrations (remind me of illuminated manuscripts), this book is good fun. I can easily see teachers using it as a jumpstart for poety workshops - the poetry is accessible and yet evocative, full of warnings and wonder - from Trolls "Troll arms will grab you and put you in a pot - in with the turnips and the dung and the spuds, in with the beetles and thistles from the ditch...". A full page glossary in the back rounds it all out.



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Greed is good

When you are at the library.

My favorite question - "how many books can I take out?" and the answer here is: "As many as you want."

And the eyes light up. The eyes of a true reader discovering treasure, unbounded, bountiful.

It isn't good to be greedy, yes, but that rule goes out the window at the library. Here greed is good. I want you to carry out a stack of books, surround yourself with them, and read to your heart's content.

One of my favorite patrons is a mother who brings a rolling suitcase with her, empties out her returns, and sends her children to gather up new treasures to bring home.

And while you're at it - take all my display books because I put them up there for you to be tempted by new offerings and old favorites. Read! (Hmmm...rhymes with greed, just sayin').

Excellent book on bullying

Just Kidding by Trudy Ludwig

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really liked this one - it breaks away from the pack of bullying books which almost invariably have the bully be some kid who was just lonely and they all become friends...for children who are bullied, those kind of books are never helpful and make them feel even more isolated.

This book is spot on for sharing when a child is being picked on - and having the bully say "just kidding" is so on the mark - the frequent way bullying really picks away at children because it is not considered a dangerous situation, just words, just kidding around, and meanwhile the bullied child starts to feel their world get smaller and sadder and they feel they have few places to turn. Having had special needs children who were bullied on all levels - from the "just kidding" to the all out attack, I am especially pleased to find this book. I will be ordering it pronto for my library. note - there is a helpful foreward by Stan Davis, a bullying prevention consultant.



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parity and the poster boy

He used half the tape and a mess of staples, the boy trying to put together a poster for a class project. His posterboard is a squashed box pummelled to an unruly flatness and over it he has taped sheets and sheets of old flyers from our scrap paper box, taped together in the haphazard way only a ten year old boy can manage.
I can only imagine the remarks of the other children when he hands in his poster board project. This is not the first of its kind. I have mooched old box parts from our custodians for similar fixes.
Teachers - do you know not every parent will run out to the local stationary store and buy posterboard? Or the trifold posters - they cost up to twelve bucks or more of big foamy board pieces to display a few sheets of paper about a project. Not green at all either.
Schools - when you ask children for these outside of school purchases, when you assemble your ginormous school needs list in September, when you insist any child provide something besides himself at the school, you are setting some members of the community up for failure. Poor children cannot buy posterboards, fancy notebooks, special calculators and the like.
The little girl telling me sadly last year that the reason she was at the library and not at school was there was a class trip and her mother couldn't afford it - and she was too embarrassed to go to school and be placed in a different classroom (for those who didn't go).
Forget the big fundraisers for three day trips to some amusement park or the pricey D.J. you hire for a dance or whatever else...raise the money for the trips to museums etc. but only hold the trips if EVERYONE CAN GO. Kids do not need fancy notebooks in different colors to learn. They need a pencil, some paper, and a good teacher. Stop assigning mandatory computer homework to those who don't have internet access. Are you aware many of them cannot make it to the library as their parents both work long long hours?
I will never forget the kindergarten teacher who remarked to me at the end of the year that it was sad to see the kids who didn't get the milk and cookies at snack watch the others. I was sending in the requested 75 cents or so a week for milk and cookies snack. I looked at her - do you mean there are children who have no snack and have to watch the others snack? Well, yes, she said. Mind you, this was the end of the school year - and why hadn't she told us this in September? She thought we knew. Every mom in that school I knew did NOT know and we would have gladly taken turns baking cookies, paying for milk and juice for EVERYONE, not just a select few. In all the fuss raised about schools and the need for change that is going about lately - address the disparity between the have and have-nots. If one child gets something, EVERY CHILD GETS SOMETHING. We are all in this global family together, we better start acting like it.

Kudos to the great kid at the library..

After helping him get some books on tying knots - for practice, he told me, so he could get his boy scout badge, he thanked me and added "you're a really good librarian and you have nice hair."

Who's Reading?

An owl inviting booklovers to post the name of their favorite or recently read books has been a modest success. Half of the little owls have been carried home after being colored in, but I think it has been a nice autumn-y visual in the library.

a weekend round-up

My favorites are choking up AOL - so here are a few things of interest - homeschoolers might find this site useful, I just love everything about this wonderful site and blog - and gimme some of those popcorn balls please! Want cuteness? Check out her (first attempt at, sigh) felting creations...really some people are annoyingly talented (scroll a post or two down). Speaking of talented - this blog seems to collect them - need craft ideas? Look no further. (Okay, look further, one of the beauties of the 'net is all the creative people just SHARING. Big wow.)
Did I ever share this fun Beethoven site?
I have listed this in other places (I think on other blog) but I love it so - the note "I will not start fires", I mean, really...so interesting. Unfortunately all I have found is old gum stuck in the pages of picturebooks but I'm full of hope.

Eva Ibbotson

An interesting NYTimes obit on the writer Eva Ibbotson - I like her late publishing start and her magically inclined books as well as the adventurous ones, residing on our library shelves.