Kids Lit
Books and More for Children and Teens

The Boyfriend List is E. Lockhart's blog and her new teen novel. Her blog focuses on books, publishing news, and recommended sites.

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The Independent Online Edition has an article on the new wave of spy fiction for kids. Best of all, it had a list of the upcoming releases complete with descriptions. Perfect for making sure you have ordered the best of the bunch.

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Technology Blackout Day on April 20th, is a way for classrooms to examine the power of technology in today's world. Participation is free and the site includes lesson plans for Kindergarteners through high school.

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Cognitive Dissonance offers a nice blog entry on Marvel's group of teenage super heroes. This is definitely a list for those of us building graphic novel collections to consider.

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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants looks to be a wonderful movie based on the popular series of books. The site offers the trailer, photos, downloads, contests, message boards, and much more.

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Powerful Libraries Make Powerful Learners is a study done by the Illinois School Library Media Association. The report speaks to the importance of school libraries in the overall learning of students.

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First inductees into new Science Fiction Hall of Fame announced has the list of the first four inductees: Philip K. Dick, Steven Spielberg, animator Ray Harryhausen, and artist Chesley Bonestall.

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Strange Author Encounters is a blog done by children's series author, Linda Joy Singleton. Her series include The Seer, Strange Encounters, and Regeneration.

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Resources for School Librarians is a great site filled with lots of top resources. They cover subjects like teaching, information access, program administration, technology, employment, and continuing education.

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Everything Preschool is a great site for children's librarians as well as preschool teachers. If you have ever searched for theme ideas, especially very basic coloring pages, this is the site for you!

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Horn Book has a great href="http://www.hbook.com/editorial.shtml">magazine editorial that is available on their website. It asks Mrs. Bush to face the evolution vs. creation issue head-on, like a librarian should. It ends:

"Covering students’ eyes and ears to the things we don’t want them to see or hear does not make those things any less true. Perhaps, Mrs. Bush, you could paraphrase a predecessor of yours and Just Say Know."

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ALA has a nice list of their Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Electronic Discussion Lists. These include some lists that I had never heard of, like CHILDTECH.

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Flamingnet is a great resource for kids' book reviews. It offers book reviews written by kids from middle school through college age. From new advance reviews to classic books, it covers a wide range of book types.

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The National Post has an article covering the death of Andre Norton at age 93. She was a science fiction author who wrote over 130 books during her 70 year career.

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Shurtugal :: A New Generation Of Dragon Riders is a wonderful fan site for the Eragon series. The second book in the series is Eldest and will be released in August. This site already has some information about the second book, a cool selection of international book covers, information on the characters and the author, fanfiction, forums, a newsletter and much more.

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The Portland Press Herald has an article covering the two sides of the manga in libraries debate: Racy fluff or reading aid? Make sure you scroll down to the bottom to read at least some of the over 100 responses to the article by manga fans. Many of them demonstrate the intelligence and quality writing of manga readers.

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Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award has been awarded to Phillip Pullman, author of many fantasy novels for children and teens, and Ryoji Arai, a Japanese illustrator of children's books. The award is given to a person's body of work regardless of thier language or nationality. The prize of five million Swedish crowns is the largest children's book prize in the world.

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The Safe-Keeper's Secret by Sharon Shinn.

Sharon Shinn is the author of the Archangel series for adults. I enjoyed the first several books in the series, but after that it got stale. I think that this book for young adults really returns to the freshness of her first Archangel books. The society she has created is unique and vivid. Her characters, including the adults, are complex and real. This is a real gem of a book where the reader may guess the secret from the beginning, but becomes the safe-keeper of the secret as well. It is a moving and magical book.

This would be a good booktalk book with its themes of secret keeping and dream making. Encourage girls who enjoy light fantasy in their books to try it. Also kids who like medieval stories will enjoy this one, because the touch of fantasy and magic is not overwhelming.

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Ted Rand, 1915-2005: A prolific and generous artist

Ted Rand, illustrator of many great picture books, died on Saturday at age 89. He didn't enter the field of children's books until age 65, yet he illustrated nearly 80 books. The article goes on to describe his life and considerable achievements.

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TimesDispatch.com | Library mission is honored

Caitlyn Day, at age 18, has just been honored by the Virginia Foundation for Women, for making Virginia history. Caitlyn grew up in rural Virginia in Craig County where there wasn't a library. At age 15, Caitlyn decided that she could bring a library to her county. And she did!

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CNN.com - British author chosen for 'Peter Pan' sequel

Author Geraldine McCaughrean has won the right to create an authorized sequel to Peter Pan. The sequel will mark the centenary of the classic.

McCaughrean, overjoyed at being picked, told Reuters: "It scares the living daylights out of me but once the hype is behind me, I shall settle down and enjoy writing it.

"This is a thing infinitely worth doing."

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The Galveston County Daily News has a nice article about manga in the U.S. The writer obviously understands manga and its appeal, remarking on its sophisticated storylines and art. Nice to see an article that understands manga rather than questions it.

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Random House has created an amazing website for The Five Ancestors, a seven-book kung-fu series by Jeff Stone. The first book Tiger has just been released. The site offers historical information, online activities and information on the author and the series.

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TOKYOPOP holds an annual competition for amateur manga creators. Now is the time to vote in the 5th competition for your favorite. Manga Player lets you take a close look at the art style and writing.

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Librarians@Random is a website to turn to for booktalk ideas. Yes, it is coming straight from a publisher, but because of that, the brief booktalks are of very current titles and new releases. Other booktalk sites tend to focus more on classic titles or backlist favorites. The site also offers booklists, theme ideas, and news items.

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Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists have been announced for Young Adult Fiction:

Benjamin Alire Saenz, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood (Cinco Puntos Press)
Melvin Burgess, Doing It (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful (Scholastic Press)
Adam Rapp, Under the Wolf, Under the Dog (Candlewick Press)
Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now (Wendy Lamb Books / Random House Children's Books)

That is quite a selection of books! Very impressive list of some of the edgier and best-written books of the year.

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The cover art for both versions of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were released earlier this week. Above is the cover for the American edition and below are two articles, one covering the American version and the other the chidren's edition for the rest of the world. The American market has a different publisher for the book and therefore different art. The other countries of the world will also have an adult version of the book with different cover art.

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Kansas City Star -- Children don't need adult help to tell fiction from fact is a heart-felt defense of The Giver by Lois Lowry and all children's literature that leads readers to question and learn. If you are as dismayed as I am by the recent rash of book bannings in schools, then you too need to read this.

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Theme Curriculum is a nice site filled with seasonal themes. Each theme has recommended books, fingerplays, recipes, related links, and crafts. This is the a great resource for folks looking for story time ideas.

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Hungry Hen by Richard Waring, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church, is another of my favorite preschool/Kindergarten read alouds. I usually read a more conventional chicken and fox story right before it, like Hattie and the Fox. Then I say that there are other ways for a book like that to end.

Hungry Hen is the story of a fox that waits and waits for the hen to get bigger and bigger. As he waits, he gets skinnier and skinnier and the hen becomes enormous. Finally, he can wait no longer, so he runs to the henhouse and... Well, you just have to read it. And the stunned silence that the kids give you after the end is so great. And then the laughter. I usually have problems taking the book away with me afterwards because they want to read it again and again.

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Bolinda Publishing is a publisher of audio books for teens. Their prices are amazing, under $30 for unabridged Books on CD. And best of all, both YALSA and Booklist have included Bolinda titles on their best of 2004 lists.

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Sequential Tart's "What's the Best Comic Starting Point is a very helpful article for libraries building comic or graphic novel collections. The focus on what books will stimulate people to read more of the genre is a perfect match for us. Best of all, Sequential Tart asked some of the top names in comics what ones they would recommend. Beware, some of the graphic novels have adult content, but all of them are great reads.

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Teacher Librarian Magazine has a great article about girls and gaming. The article covers six issues: the computer gaming gender rift, negative representations of females in computer games, gaming and academic achievement, the negative effects of violent games, girls' preferences in computer game content, and girls' preferences in computer game design. For each issue, there are three sections: what the research says, implications, and practical suggestions. This structure makes the article very readable and useful for librarians.

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Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen is a newish book that I used for the first time with a story time this week. It is the tale of a crocodile, named Guji Guji, who is raised by a family of ducks. He is surprised to be told by three other crocodiles that he should be eating ducks, not living with them. The crocodiles tell him to bring his duck family to the bridge and have them dive into the crocodiles' mouths. But Guji Guji comes up with a plan to save the ducks.

I shared this book with two classes of kids: four year olds and Kindergarteners. Both classes adored it. Often at this young age, books with complete stories in them are too wordy, but Guji Guji moves along at a brisk rate that is just perfect for kids this age. My own toddler son shared it with his grandma and couldn't wait to tell me all about the wonderful story.

This one is highly recommended and goes on my list of great read alouds for this age group.

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no flying, no tights is a great site for graphic novel reviews. I have mentioned them before here. Now they have just completed a major update with new reviews, new sections, and lots to look at.

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YALSA has the list of the first batch of Titles Nominated for the 2006 Best Books for Young Adults list.

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Overbooked has a handy list of Youth All Stars 2004. These are the books that got at least three starred reviews last year from one of the following journals: Booklist, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, School Library Journal, Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, or Horn Book. Overbooked also keeps an ongoing list of current starred reviews, but so far this year it has not been updated.

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The 2005 Ezra Jack Keats Awards have been announced!

Winner of the New Writer Award is Janice N. Harrington for her picture book, Going North.

Winner of the New Illustrator Award is Ana Juan for the picture book, The Night Eater.

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The CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center) now has a page dedicated to Graphic Novels. It offers a list of journals that review graphic novels, websites for reviews, resources, vendors, publishers and listservs. A great way for librarians to find their way into collecting graphic novels!

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Kevin Henkes has won the 2005 Charlotte Zolotow Award for Kitten's First Full Moon. The award is given annually by the CCBC for the picture book with the best text. Kevin Henkes and Kitten's First Full Moon also won the Caldecott this year for the best illustrations in a picture book.

Three Honor Books were also chosen:

Coming on Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson

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Libraries across the country are starting to play role playing games (RPGs) with their teens. From D&D to Star Wars, the RPG Sheets site carries character sheets for all of the popular and obscure RPGs. The sheets are free to print and will save a lot of time and effort for gamers.

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