Press enter after choosing selection
Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Are We There Yet?

by manz

Long car rides can be downright boring. Especially for the kids in the backseat calling out “are we there yet?” The picture book, Are We There Yet? is by Caldecott medalist Dan Santat (The Adventures of Beekle) and is a funny look at one family’s road trip adventure. The beautiful illustrations set the backdrop for a looooong ride to Grandma’s house that's filled with imagination. The book has you turning it round and round, upside down and backwards to follow the adventure, in a way that won’t make you carsick. The moral of the story is, you never know where life may take you, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Election Day Reads for Kids

by evelyn

Want to talk to your kids about election day and civic engagement? Look no further than your library!

For a basic primer on voting and democracy, check out Every Vote Matters or School House Rocks: Election Collection.

Help your little ones learn about the people who fought for the right to vote with these great titles. I especially recommend the beautiful and moving book Lillian’s Right to Vote, which is about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. With lovely illustrations and stirring text, this book will help kids learn understand how hard citizens have worked to earn the vote.

For even more books on voting and democracy, take a look at this list!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

New Beautiful Fall Picture Books

by manz

I found two cute picture books on the NEW shelf recently and they happen to have the same illustrator. The illustrations are the main reason I grabbed each of these books! The images by Susan Gal are made with charcoal on paper and digital collage and the result is bold colors in broad strokes of oranges and reds that fully illustrate that fall feeling. Looking through these books makes you want to head outside and look all the lush fall colors this October.

Hocus Pocus, It’s Fall! takes the reader on a fall tour and finds things like dried pods, squirrels, red leaves, apples and more fall staples. It’s a darling rhyming story.

With a similar palette, Bella’s Fall Coat is an actual story. Young Bella has a favorite coat, and her Grams urges her throughout the story that it’s time for a new coat, as Bella is getting too big for her old one. “But it’s my favorite,” cries Bella. And out the door she runs to play. As fall turns into winter, it might just be time for a new coat after all, and what should happen to Bella’s old favorite coat? Well, it finds a precious new home. A lovely, lovely book!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

An Encounter with the Elegant and Sensitive Verse of Misuzu Kaneko

by mansii

Early 20th century Japanese poet Misuzu Kaneko inspires wonder and compassion in her writing. Her poems ask questions close to the heart of a child, and step into the slippers of things as plain as the snow under our shoes. The tale of her short life is clouded by hardship, but her poetry brims with a celebration of being alive.

"Snow on top
must feel chilly,
the cold moonlight piercing it.

Snow on the bottom
must feel burdened
by the hundred who tread on it.

Snow in the middle
must feel lonely
with neither earth nor sky to look at."

For the first time, Kaneko's poetry is being made available in North America by a team of translators and journalists passionate about sharing her legacy with the world. Kaneko's work is highly respected in Japan, being standard material in literature classes, and now English speakers have the opportunity to see what is so special about her in the book Are You An Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko.

Written at a child's level, this book narrates Kaneko's life story while presenting a whole collection of her poems in translation, with the original Japanese verse alongside. Besides providing an encounter with this lovely woman of words specifically, Are You An Echo? subtly teaches children how to understand and appreciate poetry in general. This is personally one of my favorite publications of the year.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

A Child of Books

by manz

I am a child of books. I come from a world of stories and upon my imagination I float.

That is the first line in a beautiful new picture book, A Child of Books, written by Oliver Jeffers, with Jeffers collaborating with Sam Winston on the illustrations, which are done in watercolor, pencil, and digital collage.

Amid the words that tell the “story” are more words typed and piled up in shapes such as a wave, a mountain, a tunnel, a tree, and a monster. Also in the tiny words are nods to children’s classics – Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Gulliver’s Travels, and many more.

The book encourages readers to explore and imagine through books and reading, which can take you so many places on so many journeys! It’s a quiet thinker of a book, and will also be adored by adult audiences who enjoy these types of picture books, and who love books and children’s literature. The cool kids' books aren’t just for kids!

Definitely look at the catalog page for this book to check out a preview of the book just at it appears.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

New Interactive Kids’ Books

by evelyn

We’ve just received two great interactive books for kids! Storyworlds: Nature will help your little ones tell their own stories. Who Wins? pits historical figures against each other in a text that is as much game as it is book.

Created by Thomas Hegbrook, Storyworlds: Nature, is a wordless book full of gorgeous illustrations of animals in the natural world. The pictures are lovely and related to one another only by layout and color. The multiple panels on each page feature animals moving through time in a single image. In one, an anglerfish is shown luring small fish with her light; in another, a kangaroo joey hops into his mama’s pouch and away they go! The book is designed so that children will be inspired to tell their own stories of what they think the images shows. At the end of the book, text describes what the animals are actually doing in each picture, so children curious to know the science behind the images won’t be disappointed. If your kids like this one, check out one of our other great wordless picture books!

What Who Wins?: 100 Historical Figures go Head to Head and You Decide the Winner! lacks in a snappy title, it makes up for with clever design. By Clay Swartz, with bright, cartoony illustrations by Tom Booth, this book is spiral bound and separated into three independently moving sections. The outer sections feature historical figures, complete with a brief biography, little-known facts, and a ranking of the following characteristics: wealth, fitness, wisdom, bravery, artistry, leadership and intelligence. The middle section has a variety of challenges, including the Indy 500, solving world hunger, and pulling off a bank heist. Moving the three sections results in two historical figures competing to win the challenge. Kids can use logic and biographical information to puzzle out who they think would triumph. This is a great and innovative way for kids to learn about historical figures. For other lovely biographies, take a look here!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

A Magical Wordsmith and a Kaleidescoping Artist

by mansii

What happens when one of the most cherished children's authors of all time gets written about by one of the most creative book illustrators of all time? You get Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White. Caldecott winning artist Melissa Sweet, who creates unique scrap-booked worlds of kaleidoscopic color, depicts the creator of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little in a biography written for the young, but treasured by all.

E.B. White is known as a wordsmith like no other, using one choice phrase to paint whole, vivid pictures. His works are fantastical, blending the impossible with the ordinary so smoothly that we might easily believe he paints the real world while we are the ones dreaming. His characters may not aggrandize wealth or change the world, but they are rich in kindness, brave in friendship, and they transform homesteads and barns into places of hope and joy. Given the stamp of approval by White’s grand-daughter Martha White, Sweet reveals how White's three novels and numerous writings for the New Yorker came to be. She pays special attention to how the details of White's "real life" shaped the fictional worlds he spun. Especially with the numerous photographs, illustrations from the original books, letter excerpts, and draft excerpts that Sweet includes, reading this book feels like meeting a friend.

Melissa Sweet's illustrations are filled with details you can linger over, and images that have an atmospheric quality that let's you immerse yourself in White's world. Her words celebrate a man who had an appreciation for the miracles of nature, a reverence for life, and a passion to tell straight what bubbles out of ones heart, without trying to please the crowds.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

One to Make You Cry, One to Make You Spy

by manz

Here are two new and absolutely fabulous picture books from the new shelf in the youth department. And yes, one will make you cry and one will get you to spy!

Let’s spy first. Search and Spot Animals is a beautifully illustrated book that invites young readers to look at the illustrations and find assorted animals! One moment you’re searching for dogs on their morning walk, and the next you’re searching for animals that belong in the forest. It is a wonderful book to read and seek together.

Okay, time for the grown-ups to cry. Perhaps. I love You Always starts out with a little boy being put to bed by his mother. He asks, “Mom, will you love me my whole life?” Her reply: “Well, let me tell you a secret.” And she goes on to tell the child how she has loved him from the day she met him and even before then. How she loves him when he can see it and when he can’t. The book goes on and on in this manner, and it is tender and dear and may just pull on those heart strings. This book would also make a great readaloud, especially in a quiet moment, or before bedtime.

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Sing a Song of Nonsense!

by krayla

Here's a new picture book for the young at heart, perfect for dancing to the beat from your head to your feet! Sing with Me features popular action rhymes and mini songs, illustrated with soft colors and soothing textures by Naoko Stoop. This title includes storytime favorites "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider," and also introduces some lesser-known but equally-fun tunes. Check this book out to get movin' and groovin'!

For even more titles to stay active no matter what the weather, check out this list of Action Rhymes and Songs!

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Books Made Into New Movies!

by manz

Three new movies that came out this year were based on books and are now coming out on DVD and just hit the catalog! They are all great adventures for kids and families to enjoy together.

The BFG
This new animated film is based on the novel by Roald Dahl. A young girl named Sophie accidentally sees a giant out her window, and he then whisks her away to the land of giants. At first afraid, she soon learns that he is a Big Friendly Giant and not one who eats children like the other giants do.

Alice Through the Looking Glass
Loosely based on the classic Lewis Carroll novel, and is the sequel to the 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland. The film is produced by Tim Burton and once again stars Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. Alice slips through a looking glass and finds herself back in the Underland and on more wild and trippy adventures.

The Jungle Book
Based on Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 book The Jungle Book. There have been many adaptations and this newest animated film features voices of Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Sir Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, and Christopher Walken. It’s a continuing adventure of Mowgli deep in the jungle with a band of animals with personality.