Category: kidlit

• books to give, books to get

  Books to Give If you need ideas for holiday gift giving this year, and want to give a book, I highly recommend going over to Mother Reader’s site and utilizing her “Ways to Give a Book” series. Quality stuff, and if you have to participate in the craziness of STUFF exchange, you might as well…

  Miss Julie

  December 7, 2011

  awesomeness, books, different ways to read, kidlit, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, picture books, reviews

• story hacker

  So this week on of the books I was using for my outreach storytimes wasn’t quite working for my groups for some reason. It seemed to be missing a crucial action in the text, which made it not quite pop for the children. It was as though there was a three step action sequence missing…

  Miss Julie

  November 10, 2011

  authors, be the best you can be, books, early childhood, early literacy, ethics, kidlit, kids, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, OPINIONS!, participation, personal experience, picture books, professional development, programming, storytime

• picture book-a-loo

  I’ve had a pile of picture books that I’ve been meaning to talk about, so here we go, in no particular order: A Wild Father’s Day by Sean Callahan Inspired by a card that reads “Have a Wild Father’s Day,” the dad and two kids in this book act like various animals–running like cheetahs, swimming…

  Miss Julie

  October 29, 2011

  authors, awesomeness, folk & fairy tales, kidlit, kids, picture books, weirdnesss for the sake of weirdness

• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

  In 2012, A Wrinkle in Time will be fifty years old, and I’ll be one of many people celebrating this marvelous, mind-bending, heart opening piece of children’s literature. It’s been a dark and stormy week here in a Chicago, which makes it a perfect time to reminisce about this, one of my favorite books of…

  Miss Julie

  September 29, 2011

  backlistbeauties, be the best you can be, bibliotherapy, books, fantasy, fathers, J fiction, kidlit, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, personal experience, publishing, reading, reviews, scifi, weirdnesss for the sake of weirdness

• boundtracks: any which wall & “summer evening”

  Boundtracks, a music and book pairing for multi-media enjoyment: “Summer Evening” written by Greg Brown, performed by Gillian Welch* “On a summer evenin’ when the corn’s head-high,/ And there’s more lightnin’ bugs than stars in the sky. Ah, you get the feelin’ things may be alright,/ On a summer evenin’ before the dark of night.”…

  Miss Julie

  April 20, 2011

  authors, books, fantasy, J fiction, kidlit, music, reading

• new storytime favorites

  Preschool-2nd grade storytimes Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker I love cats. I love cats in boxes. I love weird books. So, it seemed inevitable that I would love Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker. Eula is the square cat of the title. She is, literally, square. She wishes she were round like her friends Patsy and…

  Miss Julie

  March 12, 2011

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, kidlit, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, music, picture books, preschool, programming, reviews, storytime

• shortlists!

  The short lists for the Cybils are out today! I was so pleased and honored to be a panelist for the Easy Reader/Early Chapter Books category. Go see what made the cut and maybe find some great new reads for January!

  Miss Julie

  January 1, 2011

  early chapter books, easy readers, kidlit, professional development, reading

• Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same

  It would take a cold, cold person to resist the charm* of Grace Lin’s Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same. Ling and Ting are twins who are, as the title implies, similar but not completely the same. In the first story, The Haircuts, we see Ting get terribly butchered bangs because she can’t sit…

  Miss Julie

  November 17, 2010

  easy readers, kidlit, reading, reviews

• Rick and Rack and the Great Outdoors

  Rick and Rack and the Great Outdoors by Ethan Long Rick and Rack are a raccoon and a deer, respectively, and in this slight graphic novel they go on three different outdoorsy adventures, including fishing, tracking, and paddling around the lake in a canoe. There is really no through-line to the three anecdotes, and this…

  Miss Julie

  November 3, 2010

  easy readers, graphic, kidlit, reviews

• Porky and Bess

  Porky and Bess by Ellen Weiss, Marsha Winborn, Mel Friedman (link to Goodreads book page) Porky and Bess is the story of two best friends–Porky, a bachelor pig, and Bess, a single mother with three kittens. They could not be more different, and really, I could not puzzle out why they were friends, or if…

  Miss Julie

  November 3, 2010

  easy readers, kidlit, reviews