Hello! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or get each post delivered to your e-mail account. Thank you for visiting!
and the moon shone light on the silent broom
and the dark Cat beside you purred, Soar,
would you too, begin to cry
because of your longing to fly?
It’s always great to find a book that has halloween stuff that is not a halloween book. Halloween is a great holiday, maybe my favorite, but there are lots of books about the holiday parts and not enough about the excitement and thrill and being in the spirit of the day. I would guess that the urge to fly is a fairly universal thought, and this book, with swoopy, lyrical text delivered in the form of a sestina in which the words at the ends of the lines are arranged in a rotating order. Complex and beautiful work from Alison McGhee.
The art really grabs me in this book. Taeeun Yoo laid out some mysterious stuff in The Little Red Fish. This time, she picks a sort of pale earthy palette that reminds you of standing in moonlight, which is exactly where the story leads. You could read an underlying note of ‘try, try again’ here or something like that, but if you do get this book, please read it with the idea that you would like to get on a broom and SOAR.
Only A Witch Can Fly by Alison McGhee
illustrated by Taeeun Yoo
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends; First Edition edition (August 4, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0312375034
Jon Klassen has my heart forever (Have you read Extra Yarn yet?). Alternate title of this book might have been I Want My House Back if you’re just looking at the cover. But the story has a lot of heart to it and really is worth a look. It’s the story of a house, a home, built by a single father where he can raise his son and daughter. They grow up in a place that feels wild and comfortable at the same time, the woods you love to get lost in and explore, rather than get lost in and panic.
Eventually the kids grow up, as kids do, and the old man moves away from the house to be near them in the city, hoping to sell the house. Who wants to buy a house way out in the middle the woods? Maybe someone, maybe no one. One of my favorite parts of this story is that it feels true, like something that could really happen, which sets up the finale (which is revealed in the title) perfectly. Great story, more excellent art from Mr. Klassen.
House Held Up By Trees by Ted Kooser
illustrated by Jon Klassen
isbn-10/isbn-13:
0763651079 / 9780763651077
Watch an interview with the author, Ted Kooser, on youtube. He’s standing in front of the house, and relates that he’s been thinking about writing this book for 30 years! This book has been steeping for a long time, folks.
Wow, things have been pretty quiet at Charlotte’s Weblog lately! But we have been reading and we promise to update you with all of our latest discoveries. I just finished a great book and felt the need to share it.
Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth by Jane O’Connor is the first in a fun new series. Nancy Clancy, though you may know her better as Fancy Nancy, decides that she wants to be a detective. She’s got the trench coat, which all great detectives wear. She’s inquisitive, a fancy word for nosey. She knows all about investigating, finding clues, and dusting for fingerprints.
The only problem: she can’t find a mystery. Unfortunately, no criminals seem to live in her town. Just as she’s about to despair, not one but two different mysterious happenings occur. With the assistance of her best friend Bree, her knowledge of the art of detection (mostly gained through reading mystery novels), and her wits, it’s up to Nancy to solve the mysteries.
Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth is a wonderful and promising beginning to a new series. The book is sure to appeal to all the kids who’ve read and liked the Fancy Nancy picture books and is likely to gain a legion of new fans as well. It’s funny and clever and pays homage to that other great detective named Nancy…Drew, that is!
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness is a haunting and heartbreaking story based on an idea by children’s author Siobhan Dowd, who passed away from cancer before being able to write the story herself.
The novel’s protagonist is 13-year old Conor O’Malley. Ever since his mother was diagnosed with cancer, Conor has been having the same nightmare over and over again. Conor doesn’t want to tell anyone about the nightmare; he doesn’t even want to think about it. He blocks it out as he endures days of going to school amidst bullying and isolation and nights of hoping for a miracle that may never come.
All that is about to change as he looks out his bedroom window one night and sees a monster standing there. This monster isn’t like other monsters. It’s part scary giant, part ancient yew tree that stands in Conor’s front yard. And it only wants one thing: to tell Conor three true stories in exchange for Conor’s own truth–the one he dreams about night after night.
Though it may seem like just a simple monster story on the surface, AMonster Calls is much more than that. The book is also a testament to the burdens of responsibility, loss, and grief. Although a dark story, where the reader can feel and taste Conor’s pain and fear, the book is also about family, hope, and love. It’s about the love between a son and his mother. The hope that keeps both of them alive and won’t let them give up. Among all the darkness, the novel offers real beauty and light.
The startling, gripping black and white illustrations by Jim Kay are as integral to the story as the words on the pages. They seem to leap out of the book. A mixture of relief printing, black pen and ink, and various printed textures, the pictures grab your attention and add to the story’s dark and somber mood.
A Monster Calls is a darkly lovely book that will have you thinking about it long after you finish its pages. Still not convinced? Check out this cool book trailer:
Brrr! Have you seen the snowflakes coming down recently? Now that the weather outside is turning frightful, it got me thinking about things that can help make it a bit more delightful. Such as putting on your favorite fuzzy sweater. Or drinking hot chocolate in front of a cozy fire. Or reading a good book, [...]
Turns out that there quite a few Benjamin Bears out there, but I don’t think there are many with the whimsy and charm of the one imagined by Philippe Coudray. This new Toon Book is deceptively simple – one page comics made up of several panels each. Benjamin and his friends (and whoever else) are [...]
Heyo! We’ve been messin’ around with the new-ish library catalog, bibliocommons. We’ve known for a while how to create lists of books on a topic or in a genre, and that’s been a big hit over at Explorastory the blog where we blog about our art-focused storytimes. Here at CW, the keen new idea is [...]
Sometimes books with a particular subject come in flurries. Did I say flurries? I have no intention to speed the oncoming winter so let’s just say they come in…droves? Scads? A plethora! That’s it, there are a plethora of books this month about artist biographies. I’ll start with the autobiography Drawing from Memory by Allen [...]
On Charlotte’s Weblog these days, it’s more like “Where’s Charlotte’s Weblog?” We were oddly radio silent during banned books week, an absence for which we beg pardon with this offering: a list of the top banned books between 2000-2009. It’s an excellent reading list. So now back to regularly scheduled (shhyeah right!) blogging. Planning for [...]
Ahoy mateys! Today, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Inspired by the satisfaction one gets from a well-throated “YAAAARRRRR”, today is celebrated by many people who love to carry a parrot on their shoulder and tell silly pirate jokes such as “Would you like to buy some pirate corn? It’s cheap: only [...]
