It's Monday - New Books!

  

         Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.   

         I added many books to my list of those to find from the #NFPB10for10 last Friday, did you? What a fun day to read everyone's favorite ten non-fiction picture books!

Here are the rest of the Cybils poetry finalists. I reviewed a few earlier in the year, but couldn't post these until the winner was announced. If you want to read the full review, click on the titles.

House Arrest - K.A. Holt

Full Cicada Moon - Marilyn Hilton

Paper Hearts - Meg Wiviott

National Geographic bookof Nature Poetry: more than 200 poems with photographs that float, zoom, and bloom! - edited by J. Patrick Lewis

And here again are all the Cybils winners.

Here's some of what I read last week. I've been reading a lot of books to the granddaughters, too, but will review a few of the favorites over the next weeks. I did read Bloom by Doreen Cronin, will review later. It's good!

Four new books from 2016!

Surf's Up - Kwame Alexander and Daniel Mayares
              Dude and Bro are headed to the beach, but Bro continues to settle in to read his book. He can't pull himself away from Moby Dick. Dude thinks books are boring, and cannot understand the delay. It's a celebration of reading and the illustrations show some of the excitement of Moby Dick while the spare text keeps the argument going. You'll like how it all turns out, and they do get to the beach, too!

Arctic White - Danna Smith and Lee White
            Everything, well, almost everything, in the Arctic is seen in shades of white. This lovely family story finds a young girl on a journey with her grandfather after saying that all she sees is white. Across the tundra they go, where the grandfather shows her where colors can be found. There are family scenes in the house, and across the tundra, ending with the beauty of the Northern Lights. Lee White shows the variations of white and the swirls of color found at the end in beautiful watercolors.  

Two beautiful poetry books for children are out! And they are poems written from non-fiction topics!

When The Sun Shines on Antarctica: And Other Poems about the Frozen Continent - Irene Latham and Anna Wadham
         You may remember this writer/illustrator pair published Dear Wandering Wildebeest: And Other Poems from the Water Hole in 2014. They're back, and have created another beautiful book of poetry and illustrations for a non-fiction topic. I loved this look at the "summer" of Antarctica, "when the sky peels/itself of darkness/and stretches awake." From October to March, the sun never sets, and although the temperature is still below freezing, this is the chance for animals to "feed and breed". Each poem's page is accompanied by a paragraph of information, illuminating the information along with Wadham's gorgeous illustrations. Although the range of living creatures is limited, the unique qualities among the penguins and seals, the few plants and small sea creatures, are shown beautifully in Irene's poems. For example, we learn that the chinstrap penguin baby taps its parents' beaks when it wants more food: "with oak-shaped wings/that flap without sound/tiny beak a miracle/peeping/more, more, more." The petrel behaves like vultures, and when it over-eats, in order to fly, it must vomit some of what it's eaten: "Careful/don't come/too near--/or Petrel/will spew/a rotten brew/all over you." There is much to learn within this lovely book of poetry, and there is a glossary and a "further reading" page also. The endpapers show hints of what's included "inside". 
      For studying Antarctica, and as a non-fiction poetry text for mentoring other research projects, this book, like the earlier one, is a must-have in the classroom. And, it is there for all to enjoy no matter the age.

Now You See Them, Now You Don't: Poems About Creatures That Hide - David L. Harrison and Giles Laroche
         With David's whimsical and accurate poems setting the stage, Giles Laroche's cutting, painting, layering collages fill out the information, and one does see exactly how each creature in this amazing book protects itself. The book is divided into five sections: Sea Life, Reptiles & Amphibians, Mammals, Insects & Spiders, and Birds. 
         The poems and illustrations stand alone, ready for us readers to marvel at each creature's adaptation. A favorite is the first one, showing the ghost crab's fast and wily ways. David's poem uses few words, and they take off like the crabs: "List of words/ghost crabs know:/danger, freeze,/blend, slow,/look, run,/stop, go." When my family goes to the beach, we go out at night to try to spot these crabs, and feel excited if we spot just one! The scariest, with a most beautiful double-page spread calls us to find the copperhead. The middle of the poem says: "Find me/if you can,/atop thissss/ledge,/a broken sssstick,/a branch/along thissss/edge." Beautifully written words that match the camouflaged page. David also shows some new to me, like "Bumblebee Moth", where he names it "nature's gimmick".  There are sections at the back that give more information about each animal, with an added "Learn more" for each page, too. 

Still Reading: Red by Liesl Shurtliff  and it's time to choose another from my #Must Read In 2016 list. I also need to begin Isabel Allende's The Japanese Lover for my book group.

Happy Reading!