Episode 25 Heather Bouwman - PCS Reads

Author Heather Bouwman (H.M. Bouwman) visits PCS Reads and shares about her novel Crack in the Sea.

Visit pcsreads.blogspot.com/2018/06/ep25.html to listen and for more details about the episode, 

or subscribe to PCS Reads through Apple Podcasts.

Episode 24 Melanie Heuiser Hill - PCS Reads

Author Melanie Heuiser Hill visits PCS Reads and shares about writing her novel Giant Pumpkin Suite. 

Visit pcsreads.blogspot.com/2018/06/ep24.html to listen and for more details about the episode, 
or subscribe to PCS Reads through Apple Podcasts.

PCS Reads - Episode 15 with Author Abby Cooper

Author of Sticks and Stones Abby Cooper joins PCS Reads for Episode 15!





Episode 15:
(Don't see the embedded audio player below? Click here)


Mentioned in Episode 15:

Author Abby Cooper


Sticks and Stones



Bubbles
(out in stores and libraries July 2017)



Rat Prince
by Bridget Hodder

Read an Excerpt of The Rat Prince

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Music used in the episode:

Dirt bike Lovers, A Path Unwinding and Wingspan by Blue Dot Sessions

Copyright: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Friday5: 5 Fabulous 2013 Middle Grade Books by Minnesota Authors

#Friday5 for January 17th:

5 Fabulous 2013 Middle Grade Books by Minnesota Authors

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures
by Kate DiCamillo
illustrated by K.G. Campbell

 

The Real Boy 

by Anne Ursu

Anne signing my book last fall!

Ghoulish Song
by William Alexander



(psst... I am in the crowd in the early views around the room. Do you see me?)

The Strangers
Book # 4 in the Books of Elsewhere Series
by Jacqueline West

Moose Tracks 
by Mary Casanova

Ok... so technically not a 2013 book, but I am excited that as of 2013 it is back in print - thanks to University of MN Press.

Whew! First Decade Down

Caldecott Challenge Total so far: 56 Caldecotts Read (not counting those I read before starting the challenge).

At this point I have read all the Award Winners and Honor books through the first decade of the award to the end of the 1940s.

I have to say, I am a little tired of picture book pages that look like this:

and this:

and this:

At times it is hard to believe that these picture books won the same award that these did on January 23.

I sorted through my goodreads shelf of Caldecott Challenge titles by rating to see what floated to the top from these early winners, and there were three clear favorites for me:

The Little House

by Virginia Lee Burton

Caldecott Medal (1943)

I remember my elementary school librarian reading this one.
I love the facial expressions on the house, and how the text is not in plain blocks, but more free form on the pages. I also love that it is a circle story with big circles on the front and back cover.

Make Way for Ducklings

by Robert McCloskey 

Caldecott Medal (1942)

I love the sweet realistic ducks, and the list of rhyming baby duck names always makes me smile.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

by Wanda Gág

Caldecott Honor (1939)

Ok, this one does have a lot of text, but I am a huge fan of Wanda Gág and fairy tales.

I love her quirky sense of humor. 

Her pen and ink drawings always pull me in. 

AND she is from Minnesota!

I was really excited to find out that the University of Minnesota Press has reprinted this book and a few other collected tales from Grimm.

My small Wanda Gag Print

What are your favorite Caldecott winner and honor books?

Have you posted about the Caldecott Challenge, link up below.

Interested in joining us on the Caldecott Medal and Honor Book Reading Challenge? Find out more here.

I'm a Chair!

A dream I have been working toward (for what feels like a long time now) came true yesterday when the executive board of the Minnesota Youth Reading Awards voted to start a new Children's Choice Picture Book Award.

For the past 30 years, MN has had a wonderful Children's Choice award for Novels - the Maud Hart Lovelace Award, but not one for picture books.

The following order of business at the meeting was to vote me in as the chair of this new award!
I still want to squeal a little bit each time I think about it.

I am thrilled and honored to be leading the creating and shaping of this new award for Minnesota.

This next year will be a lot of work behind the scenes with nominees announced for participants in April of 2013.

Would YOU like to be a part of this new Minnesota award?
Over the next few months we will be looking for Representatives from around the state who would like to provide input on the potential nominees. If this sounds right up your alley, click here.

Rooting for the Home Team

I am really looking forward to the award announcements from ALA on January 23rd.


I love to root for the home team, so here are a few books with Minnesota connections I am hoping will get some notice by awards committees.


Perfect Square
by Minnesotan Michael Hall






Blogged earlier this year here: http://liblaura5.blogspot.com/2011/06/perfect-square-by-michael-hall.html




Celebritrees
by Minnesotan Margi Preuss



What I love about this book: 
The premise is fabulous, it's not just a book about types of trees, but specific trees that are celebrities among trees - 14 trees so beloved they have earned names for themselves, including:
Methuselah - the oldest tree (4,800 years old)
General Sherman - the biggest tree (the biggest living inhabitant of the earth by volume)
and my favorite... The Tree That Owns Itself!
Official Site for Celebritrees
Review from 100 Scope Notes


Sparrow Road
by Minnesotan Sheila O'Connor



What I love about this book: 
I met Sheila O'Connor at Red Balloon Books last fall where she spoke about her 20 years of working with students as a poet in the schools through COMPAS. She explained that this book was her gift to the students, everything that she would want to say to them now that she was retiring. 


There is so much more loveliness to to this book - wonderful characters, and rich setting...
The Lemme Library explains it wonderfully here in her spoiler free book talk. 
Official Site for Sparrow Road




Luck of the Buttons
by Anne Ylvisaker, Raised in Minnesota



What I love about this book:
Luck of the Buttons reminded me a lot of one of my favorite musicals: The Music Man.
Also The town library and the fabulous librarian Miss Lucy play a wonderful part in Tugs' story. 
Offical Site for Luck of the Buttons 
Fuse #8 Review of the Day




Breadcrumbs
by Minnesotan Anne Ursu




Book trailer created by Julie hembree (@mrs_hembree), Librarian at AG Bell Elementary, Kirkland, WA


What I love about this book: 
I love the enchanting magical realism, the allusions to so many other stories from Narnia to Star Wars, and the brave, beautiful character Hazel.
Listen to NPR's Backseat Book Club session on Breadcrumbs
Official Site for Breadcrumbs






I have high hopes for this year, due to Minnesota's strong showing last year.
Last year's ALA award winners with ties to Minnesota included:

Geisel Award Winner

Bink and Golly 
by Alison McGhee and Kate DiCamillo

Newbery Honor winner
Heart of the Samurai 
by Margi Preus

Newbery Honor Winner
Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night
by Joyce Sidman






Do you have any hometown favorites from 2011?

Book Trailers for Maud Hart Lovelace Nominees

With the help of Anna from http://azlibrarylady.blogspot.com/ and a few of my other colleagues, we've been making book trailers for the 2011-2012 Maud Hart Lovelace Nominees that didn't yet have one.

I've linked and embedded all of our work here: http://mhl2012.wikispaces.com/

Here are two I just finished:

Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel by Nikki Grimes




Football Genius by Tom Green

One Dog Canoe by Mary Casanova

One-Dog Canoe

by Mary Casanova

I just shared this with Kindergartners. I have read this book countless times - and every time it makes me smile, and every time kids clamor to check it out... so I had to add it here.

What it's about:

A young girl goes out for a canoe ride with her dog, larger and larger animals keep asking to come along (ending with a little frog), until they capsize and end up having a "good swim".

What I love:

One Dog-Canoe just feels good to read out loud - it's like a meal of good words - the writing flows with lyrical rhyming and onomatopoeia.  

I love good repeating lines and predictable patterns that students can join in on. Each new animal arrives on the scene asking "can I come too?" And the girl's response becomes a pattern of all the animals met along the way.

My favorite line:

"and with a push-a-swoosh --glide-- ..." - because not only is it a perfect description of pushing off with the canoe, it's just darn fun to say.

Other connections:

The Kindergartners at my school "research" Minnesota in the spring, this book is great to share during that time because its MN connections. Since the students learn about native animals, we end up talking about the bear - which is brown and not black in the book (brown or grizzly bears are no longer native to MN).

I like to pair One Dog-Canoe with Jan Brett's The Umbrella, set in a Cloud Forest. The pattern of the story is similar, but the setting makes a nice contrast for a discussion of "what's the same?" and "what's different?"