This charming story of the complexity of family life, written and illustrated by Leslie Helakoski, celebrates the notion that there’s always room for one more. The funny thing about this book is that it is told from under the kitchen table from a dog’s point of view. Doggone Feet! begins with a stray who follows a lanky set… Read more »
Tool Box
You’re Doing Fine, Oklahoma. Oklahoma – OK!
In Miriam Glassman’s charming Call Me Oklahoma!, fourth-grader Paige Turner’s life is altered when she sees the Roger’s and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma! with her high-spirited cousin during the summer break. The music has her bouncing in her seat, bubbling with the desire to be like the “spunky women twirling around,” and “all the people onstage waving their hats and… Read more »
My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood by Tameka Fryer Brown
My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood is an expressive tale about the diverse range of colorful emotions generated by everyday sibling rivalry. In the story, Jamie, a naturally creative boy, finds cool green pleasure in creative expression and dark-toned frustrations when his older siblings relentlessly tease him. He works hard to keep his frustrations under control until,… Read more »
Hope’s Gift, by Kelly Starling Lyons
As gifted storytellers do, in Hope’s Gift, author Kelly Starling Lyons gently reveals unsettling truths during a tumultuous time in our nation’s history through the tender eyes of an impressionable young child named Hope. In this multi-layered tale, the reader emotionally connects with Hope’s anguish due to her father’s absence during the Civil War, for he has joined the Union Army in hopes of… Read more »
A Boatload of Bustard Biographies
Biographies are author Anne Bustard’s passion, so much so she has blogged about them for years. In her blog entitled Anneographies, not only is her list of picture book and middle-grade biographies extensive, she’s categorized her posts in order of the featured person’s date of birth. What an amazing resource! Ready to celebrate some November biography birthdays?… Read more »
Noah Webster & His Words – Word Play!
To my fellow citizens… for their happiness and learning… for their moral and religious elevation… and for the glory of my country… ~Noah Webster Why did Noah Webster devote his entire life to understanding the empowering qualities of the written word – all words? Why did he scour all corners of this glorious earth to… Read more »
From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World by James Rumford
From the Good Mountain: How Gutenberg Changed the World is an artistic testimony of how one man’s visionary idea and tenacious fortitude forever altered the way the world communicates. And, from the eye of an educator, James Rumford’s biography of Johannes Gutenberg is lapis-stoned, madder-planted, saffron-stamened gold mine (pg. 23). The way Rumford built suspense… Read more »
