Peace through Catastrophic Sneezing

Last week in the library for storytime I was reading Chu's Day by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Adam Rex.  The target audience of this book is very young but it was universally enjoyed by kinders as well as 4th graders.

The story is about a cute little panda who makes bad things happen with a sneeze, such as destroying a circus.  After reading the story to a third grade class, one boy raised his hand very enthusiastically to make a comment.  I'm paraphrasing here now because it's been a few days but I think it's worth sharing.  He said if he was the author of this book, he would put in an army general and then if there was a war, the general could put Chu in front of the army and blow pepper in the panda's face and then Chu would sneeze away the other army.

I guess it wouldn't take long for the other army to counter with a sneezing sloth or marmoset or something.  And then we'd have to come back with a sneezing lemur and so on because we cannot allow a cute-sneezing-animal gap.  Still, I can't help but think that the world would be a slightly better place if wars were fought with cute sneezing animals.

Three books and a weird knitting project.

I have some catching up to do!  I've been busy knitting and listening to audio books and they are starting to pile up in my mind so it's time to put them to blog page.

You may remember a few weeks ago I saw Tony DiTerlizzi at Hicklebee's for a book signing.  He was promoting his new book A Hero for WondLa, which is the sequel to The Search for WondLa, which I read last year.  I was so excited about this book that I bought one for the library, then I bought the ebook for my iPad, then I bought the audio book so I could knit while listening to it.  The story picks up right where the previous book leaves off; Eva Nine and Rovee are on their way to New Attica to find a new home for Eva Nine.  However, New Attica is not all it's cracked up to be and while in the city, Eva learns more about her past, the planet's past, and the terrible future plans of the city's leader.  This felt very much like a bridge book.  Some questions from book 1 were answered but more questions arose.  The main conflict in the book is resolved however, the larger conflict of the story remains to be dealt with in the next book.  I liked this book, but not quite as much as the first one.  It was worth buying the ebook for the illustrations.  Beautiful!

The next book I listened to was Cold Cereal, by Adam Rex.  Adam Rex is a fantastic author and illustrator.  He wrote one of my very favorite books The True Meaning of Smekday and wrote and illustrated Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Frankenstein Takes the Cake, both very funny books of monster poems.  In Cold Cereal, fairy folk and mythical creatures are popping up in the real world and an evil cereal company is trying to exploit them for their magic. There is a lot of spoofing of real life cereals and their commercials in this book.  If you like Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books, or Tony DiTerlizzi's Spiderwick Chronicles, or J. T. Petty's Clemency Pogue books, I think you'll like this book as well.

Finally, I just finished listening to The Mysterious Howling; Book 1 of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series by Maryrose Wood, illustrated by our old pal Jon Klassen (I Want My Hat Back). This audiobook had been sitting on my iPod for quite some time.  I don't even remember when I downloaded it.  The first time I tried to listen to it, it just didn't grab me.  I couldn't get into it.  But having finished Cold Cereal, I was looking for something else to listen to.  There are several audio books sitting on my iPod that I plan to revisit because they didn't hook me the first time.  So I finally gave this book my attention and found that it's delightful!  The story takes place in England in the mid 1800's, a time when wealthy families hired governesses to care for and educate their children.  Penelope Lumley is a young lady, newly graduated from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, who has accepted a position as governess at Ashton Place.  What she doesn't know is that the children who will become her pupils were found roaming the forest completely naked and obviously raised by wolves.  Undaunted, Penelope accepts the challenge with all the pluck she can manage.  This book is the first in the series and so the mystery of the children is not wrapped up at the end.  I have book 2 queued up and ready to listen to.

As to what I've been knitting all this time, well, I've been doing some test knitting for a sort of crowd sourced design project.  I've talked about Nerd Wars here before, I'm pretty sure.  The nerd warriors are designing a scarf.  Each team that participates in Nerd Wars was asked to design a 6x6 inch square - both knit and crochet - to contribute to a larger project, the scarf.  The design of the square is supposed to represent your team's theme or nerdery.  I helped design the knit square for our team, Team Macabre, which is the eyeball you see to the left.  Once all the teams had their designs submitted, the designs needed to be tested, to make sure the patterns were written clearly and that the square would turn out as written.  So I've been testing squares for the last week or two.  Some of them are so creative and fun to knit!  The next picture is one designed by Team Fraggle who are muppets fans.

Cute, huh? So I ended up testing about 12 squares out of 24.  Now they are working on designing the border and how to connect all the squares together.  Once that is done, they'll need test knitters to try that out.  I'll be on the knitting team that will be testing the final scarf pattern so I'll be working on that this summer.  It's going to be epic!  I'll keep you apprised of my progress.

That's all for now.  The library is closed for the rest of the year but you can still leave book reviews by logging in to the library catalog from home.

Right. Back to books.

Whew! I feel like I'm consuming a lot of media these days. But there are so many great stories being told!

I found out that a Judy Moody book is coming out this summer so I decided I had better read the book since I've been meaning to for so long. I read it on the Kindle app on my iPad, it was on sale for $0.99! I enjoyed it. It was cute story and Judy Moody is quite a character. If you like Judy Moody (by Megan McDonald), you might also like Clementine by Sara Pennypacker, Moxy Maxwell by Peggy Gifford & Valorie Fisher, and Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry. All funny girls with unique perspectives.

I want to tell you about my new favorite book to read aloud. It just came from Junior Library Guild today and it's called Press Here by Herve Tullet.

This is an interactive book that seems almost magical. On the second page, the reader is asked to press a yellow dot. On the next page, a second yellow dot appears. Press the dot again and a third dot appears on the following page. Gently rubbing the dots changes their colors and shaking the book scrambles the dots. So far, I have read this book to kinder, 2nd, and 3rd classes and they all delighted in it equally. I can't wait to read it to the rest of the classes this week!

Another book I've been reading, well, listening to, is A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. This book is not yet in the Marshall Lane Library, I wanted to read it first because I'd heard that it's pretty dark and grim. I'm about half way through it and I'm finding that it's not so much grim as it is gruesome. This is in keeping with the original Grimm's fairytales, which were not actually meant for children. They were grown-up tales, some of them pretty horrific, that were sanitized or 'bowdlerized' for children. I tend to think this book would fit better in a middle school library. Though, if you are a 5th grader with a taste for blood, you can check it out from the public library. I would recommend reading it rather than listening to it. I don't care for the reader of the audiobook, I think the voice in my own head would sound better. Um, I think you know what I mean here.

Other stories I've been enjoying: Doctor Who. If you aren't watching this series (Saturdays on BBC America), you must start now! Last Saturday's episode was written by my favorite author Neil Gaiman, I may have mentioned him before in this blog. You may also have seen a picture of him signing a copy of the Graveyard Book on my Author Shrine in the library. If you are a Doctor Who fan and haven't read anything by Mr. Gaiman, you need to pick up a copy of The Graveyard Book or Coraline immediately! I've also been really enjoying Game of Thrones which is based on a series by George R. R. Martin and it's Totally Not For Children so I won't discuss it here. In comics, I'm still working my way through Sandman, Walking Dead, and Transmetropolitan. These titles are also Totally Not For Children, but I still check in with the Comix for Kids app to see if anything interesting pops up. I think I'm going to pick up Atomic Robo and see how that goes.

And finally, while I've been doing all this media consumption I've been working on a baby blanket for a dear friend's first baby. Here is a picture:

Lastly, you should follow Adam Rex (Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, The True Meaning of Smekday) on Twitter. Today he tweeted a really funny poem about a smelly elephant in an elevator. Well, that's all I have to say for now. The library will be closing soon but the blog will continue on through the summer like it did last year. If there is anything you think I should read, tell me about it!