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Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann

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  Informational Book Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera  written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Eric Rohmann. Published by Holiday House (2020) This non-fiction book narrates the lifespan and stages of a western honeybee From one female worker bee's birth through the many tasks in her short lifespan, climaxing with a double foldout spread where she takes flight, and working hard until one day she remains still. Then, a new honeybee pushes through the cell they hatched in and starts a new life. I really appreciate a good picture book, and I really appreciate accessible non-fiction so this is the best of both worlds. When I want to learn some broad strokes about a subject but don't want to invest too much time, I like to check out the children's nonfiction. Here Fleming has packed a great deal of information into a picture book, that was really a pleasure to read (and kind of emotional, from Apis's flight into the great blue sky above a field of wildflowers,
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Guts Book Discussion

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  Book Discussion In my group, we talked about Raina Telgemeier's most recent graphic memoir, Guts . I prepared by reading the book, refreshing myself on some of Raina's biographical information from her website, and seeing what she is up to right now. At the moment, her art is on exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. The exhibit, "Facing Feelings," is all about the emotions Raina is able to convey in her art. Raina's use of emanata came up in discussion, a term made up by cartoonist Mort Walker in his Lexicon of Comicana  originally to describe the squiggly lines above a character's head, but now more generically applies to all sorts of squiggles, marks and symbols in comics. We all agreed that Raina was able to convey a lot of emotion, and did focus on the facial expressions used, some like subtle shifts of the eyes, and others an aura of dread with eyes changing color and teeth clenched (big emotions here). My only expectations going i
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I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott

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Audiobook   I Talk Like A River written and narrated by Jordan Scott. Published by Dreamscape Media (2020). Jordan Scott speaks from his own experiences with stuttering in this audiobook, originally published as a picture book. In the book, a boy is full of language but cannot get the words out, he has a stutter and hides in the back of class to avoid talking. He is picked to talk in front of the class, and he doesn't feel great about it. Later his father takes him to the river and likens the way he talks to the way the river rolls over rocks and "stutters" like the boy. The boy goes to school and talks about the river. I really like the book to begin with, Jordan Scott uses some beautiful language in the book, and Smith's illustrations are fantastic as usual. Here, in the audiobook, we lose the illustrations but they've added ambient music and sound effects for things like the river, most importantly (I think) we get to hear Scott narrate the book. The book helps
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Guts By Raina Telgemeier

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  Graphic Novel Guts  written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier. Published by Graphix (2019) This is the third graphic memoir Raina has written. This installation deals with Raina's increasing anxiety and stomach aches during her fourth and fifth grade years of school. Raina finds ways to cope with the anxiety, but as she notes in her author's note, both the anxiety and stomach issues are an ever-present part of her life. Raina Telgemeier is a bit of a trailblazer in the children's comics/graphic novel scene. Within the format, she has become an expert in expressing emotions on character's faces, and in this novel it is hard not to at least sympathize with Raina when her character is surrounded by a sickly green aura that seems to crush her and make her grit her teeth (23). This is her latest book, and even 4 years later it is still a book that is unlikely to sit on the shelf. I really like Guts because it may give some kids the means to communicate what they may be f
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Poetry Collection Evaluation and Findings

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I looked at every 6 books in the 811 section of our non-fiction (North American poetry). I first found that we have a lot of books with incorrect Dewey numbers...almost all the books I looked at were in 811.54 (North American poetry of the latter half of the twentieth century), but some were written in different centuries, and some not reviewed here but observed were from authors outside of North America. One might be inclined to simplify the children's poetry section to just 811, but then that leaves out the English (not North America) poets in 821. We also have one Spanish poetry book in 861. I don't have a great solution for this problem at the moment. I do see another problem in our collection: our collection has a lot of older titles, but not so many titles from the last ten years. I don't think we've done a great job of keeping up with new titles in the poetry section, and we often only get the breakthrough books (award winners like The Undefeated, or books that r
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Science Verse by Jon Scieszka

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  Poetry Book Science Verse  written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. Published by Viking (2004) When the science teacher says "they can hear the poetry of science in everything" one student is cursed/gifted to hear poetry in a variety of scientific topics. Scieszka adapts many different classic children's songs (It's Raining, It's Pouring, I've Been Working on The Railroad) and nursery rhymes (Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hey Diddle Diddle) into silly science verses in this collection of science poems. Scieszka uses many classic tunes that kids would be familiar with, and the adaptations don't lose too much of the cadence of their original works. This is a follow-up work to Scieszka and Lane's 1995 book, Math Curse , and the duo have only improved here. Scieszka and Lane have collaborated on over a dozen projects, and both can provide bizarre and hilarious moments in this book and others. Smith uses mixed media here, as he did in one of their
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Big Cat, Little Cat by Elisha Cooper

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  Picture Book Big Cat, Little Cat  by Elisha Cooper published by Roaring Brook Press (2017) Cooper tells a simple story of change, and the inevitable passing of a loved pet. Big cat enjoys their days, and then a new companion is added to the mix, little cat. They enjoy their days together, getting up to the usual cat activities (cleaning themselves, staring at birds, and occasionally acting wild). One day the older cat goes away and doesn't come back. The cat's passing is hard on the other cat, and the human family who hadn't been seen until now, but they continue with their lives, a new cat comes along, and the cycle begins again. Cooper keeps both the text and the illustrations simple, mostly just using black and white colors except on full page spreads and after the older cat's passing. It's a tough topic to broach, but Cooper does an excellent job in conveying the joy in life up until the older cat's passing and, despite how hard it is after a loved one pas
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