It's Monday! - Don't Miss Books!

    

        Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!  We had a bit of snow yesterday, but the mountains got a lot. Skiers will be happy! I'm glad to share some 'snowy' books plus a few more!

      It's snowing as I write this, but only flurries, nothing like the snowstorm that has closed the library early, forcing Hubert Cumberbund to go home. He needs a shortcut and chooses to go by way of The Hollow, scary though it is. Soon, a lady fox holds out her hand to lead the way through the challenging and frightening mountains. Hillenbrand's illustrations include a map of Hubert's countryside, but his imagination also shows what "might" be monsters in this hollow. Readers will shiver as they watch the travelers cross a crevasse, then see what frights live in those snowy woods. A double gatefold includes more of this huge storm. The book also holds some mystery at the end that might make readers return to the beginning in case they missed something. Breathtaking illustrations with brief text will allow imaginations to run wild! It's a great story perfect to read together one wintry night!

            Bob Raczka's books delight, no matter what he's writing about. This time he says it's his first one about math. Yes, it's also about snow, a "flurry" of snow, in rhyme, and showing with accumulating fun, how exponents work! From "two flakes" to a wintery snowstorm of 16,384 flakes, he shows the flakes' growth and Bryony Clarkson illustrates the power as the storm grows! Note: she tells how she did it in the author's note! And, the lovely endpapers are filled with birds, in snow, of course. It's terrific!

        I've always loved Jonah Winter's books and this time when I started reading, I thought the story was of an eccentric mountain hermit, living most of his life near Crested Butte, Colorado, even though the sub-title says "A True Story". He traveled there one summer as a student researcher, and after the summer went back home, per Winter's note at the back. He found that he missed the solitude and returned, This isn't a made-up story, but about the real man, billy barr (he chose no caps) who stayed, eventually out of boredom began collecting information about snow totals, when animals arrived in the spring, and so on. His sharing to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory made them realize how valuable the data he had collected for years was. This was all in notebooks, all because billy needed something to do. He had been there five decades, continues to collect information, now lives in a house he built, powered by solar. You can find out about him by researching "billy barr" living in the ghost town of Gothic, Colorado. The illustrations show the mountain beauty, billy's isolation, and the animals that do appear, and they focus on the changes as years pass by. It's a fascinating, beautifully presented story! Here are two examples!

       Wouldn't it be fabulous if every classroom had this book in 2024? Award-winning     

       Winsome Bingham and E.B. Lewis have written a story close to my memories, a story of a grandmother and her granddaughter going for "the walk", a mystery to the young one at first. They step outside and begin. The granddaughter remains curious as different people join them while they walk. And as those people join in, some historical references are included. The illustrations by E.B. Lewis show people who are wonderfully vibrant, happy, and smiling. They are going to the young girl's school, their polling place. They're "walking" to vote! It's a terrific "exclamation" of the importance of voting and voting rights.

       Thanks to Deborah Hopkinson, readers can learn about The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by Eleanor Roosevelt and signed on December 10, 1948. It was the first time that countries agreed on a comprehensive statement of inalienable human rights. This book by Hopkinson is adapted for children and illustrated by Kate Gardiner with people and children in scenes of family, community, and really all the world highlighting various rights for everyone. And it all starts at home, with family and then the human family. Divided into the parts titled "Me", "My School and Community", "My Country and World", it will inspire lots of important conversations.

Still Reading! Continuing Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver and put Alebrijes by Donna Barber Higuera aside for a while. I'm a Cybils Poetry judge, 2nd round, and starting to read some poetry books, this time, it's My Head Has A Bellyache by Chris Harris, illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi.