TSS and Weekly Geeks: Top 10 of 2009

Whew!

I'm edging toward 300 books read this year.

Hard to pick my favorites.

Okay, I'll just jump in.

Here's my list of favorite books published in 2009, along with genre:


Zeitoun (Nonfiction)


Catching Fire (Young Adult: Fantasy)


What I Thought I Knew (Memoirs)



Tales from Outer Suburbia (Graphic Novels and Manga)



Guess Again! (Children's)



Thing Around Your Neck (Contemporary Literature)



Also Known as Harper (Young Adult)



The Help (Women's Literature)



Bad Things Happen (Mystery)



The Guinea Pig Diaries (Nonfiction)

Disclaimer: Since I am serving as a Cybils judge, I purposefully omitted any children's nonfiction picture book titles (my category) from my list.

The Champion of Children

The Champion of Children: The Story of Janusz Korczak by Tomek Bogacki



Serving on a panel for the Cybils Award has been wonderful for me; I have visited many intriguing places, I’ve learned about many fascinating events in history, and I have met many exemplary people.

Janusz Korczak is one of those exemplary people. He ran an orphanage for poor children in Poland during the Nazi years. His orphanage was a model for others. He allowed the children to make their own laws which everyone, even the adults, were expected to follow. He started a newspaper to which children were asked to contribute. He spent time with the children and taught them gardening, sports, and, most importantly, love.

The author of this book of Korczak’s life tells his story in simple words, with simple pictures. There are historical notes, author’s notes, and a list of sources and acknowledgments to provide information about how the book came about.

River of Dreams

River of Dreams: The Story of the Hudson River by Hudson Talbott



I must be honest. I was not really interested in finding and reading this book. What did I care about the Hudson River?

I was wrong. This is a fascinating story of a river and the life it has supported over the years, Native Americans, the Dutch, those who used its link with the Erie Canal, the railroaders, writers, artists, and, now, environmentalists.
The pictures are beautiful paintings. The author also includes diagrams and maps and timelines to help the reader better understand the story.

Thankfully Reading Weekend

A Kindle read.

One on CDs.

Tried this four times. Fifth time is the charm?

Poems. Good poems.

A mystery. Unusual for me.

Make a Kid Happy...Buy Him a Book for Christmas!

I'm crazy about the idea of giving everyone you know a book for Christmas...in theory....The truth is the whole thing could backfire and you could end up with fifty friends and relatives who are furious, quietly steaming because they didn't get anything they wanted for Christmas.



But can you really go wrong giving a kid a book? A book and a toy, of course.

And I've got just the list of kid Christmas book recommendations for you.


First, some words of advice:

(1) No big enormous chapter books you loved as a kid. You giftee may be a poor reader and this will just drive him farther and farther away from Book World.


(2) No big enormous classics. See above.

(3) No books made from popular tv series or celebrities (for example, skip all the awful Hannah Montana books). The cover is great, but it's the only good thing about the book.

(4) No books to teach lessons. Please don't make kids think books are just another way to sneak up on you and try to talk you into following our rules.

(5) Funny is usually best if you are not sure.

(6) The truth is there are boy books and there are girl books.
Girls will read girl books or boy books, but boys rarely read girl books. Just look at the cover. Read the title. You know the difference.

(7) Thinner is better than thick. Lots of pictures is good.

(8) Just because the book says it is a level 1 book doesn't mean
it is a level 1 book or that your giftee can read it. Read it to him one time as part of the gift (or, even better, start reading it and then leave him hanging..."I'm so sorry, but I'm out of time.")

(9) With boys, if you are not sure, stick to nonfiction with lots of pictures. Scary, if possible.

Now, the ideas:

Ages 3-8...Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus...Fancy Nancy...How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night by Jane Yolen (any of this series)...If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (any of this series)...Diary of a Worm...How I Became a Pirate...The Kissing Hand...any dinosaur book...any true book about
animals...Biscuit...No, David!...books about trucks and cars...David Scarry books...princess books...Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?...fairy tales...short Seuss...

Ages 6-9...Frog and Toad books...Henry and Mudge books...Mr. Putter and Tabby series...Magic Tree House series...Junie B. Jones series...A-Z Mystery series...Secrets of Droon series...Horrible Harry series...Arthur chapter books...still with the animal books or dinosaur books...joke books...fairy tales...princess books...book on CDs...In a Dark, Dark Room...

Ages 8-12...Judy Blume books...Roald Dahl books...Harry Potter series...The Lightning Thief series...Andrew Clemens
books...My Weird School series...Diary of a Wimpy Kid series...Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark...Series of Unfortunate Evens books...Tale of Despereaux...Spiderwick books...space books...science experiment books...joke books...Where the Sidewalk Ends...I'm Still Here in the Bathtub...Guinness Book of World Records...Ripley's Believe It or Not...download a book for his Ipod...Jack Prelutsky poetry
books...

I'm sure I left some great choices out, but this should be a pretty good place to start.

(Reposted from November 2008)

Horses and Space and the Human Body

We want to give children books for Christmas, right? But what can we give that can compete with all the cool toys out there?

Well, cool books, of course.

Cool books like the three I received this week in the mail. Cool subjects: Horses, space, the human body. Cool formats: 3-D, see-through layers, giant foldouts. Cool additional materials: stickers, info cards, masks.

And to those who say, That's all just bells and whistles....I say, That's the way kids learn these days. Give these and more a look-see at the publishers' website, Silver Dolphin Books.

Dragons Love by Stephen Parlato

Last year, I received an unexpected gift in my mailbox. It was The World That Loved Books by Stephen Parlato. I was delighted with it. But what, I wondered, would kids think?

I took it to school and showed it to the first class. They, like me, loved the stunning pictures. It has been continually checked out ever since.

So what a happy surprise to find Parlato's latest book, Dragons Love, in my mailbox this week. It is just as delightful as World. What do dragons love? You will be surprised to find out.