Summer Reading Rocks!

Summer reading programs are awesome, because reading is already awesome, and getting prizes for doing something that is already awesome is awesome squared. Is that too many awesomes? NO! Impossible. That is how awesome summer reading programs are.

Why should you care? Because we have one this year! Finally! Yay! Here's how our summer reading program works:

1. Come in, sign up (just give a name and e-mail, no money or long questionnaire-answering or microchipping of your children required) and you'll get a reading log to keep track of the books your child reads, a lanyard on which to keep said reading log, a button that says some variation of "Summer Reading Rock Star," and a coupon for 20% off an entire book purchase. Then y'all set about filling that reading log up. You do not have to only write down books you've bought from us. Library books and books you have at home are a-okay. We just want to make it easier to stock up on new lit with those coupons.

2. When the kids have read five whole books (read-alouds are okay, especially for the Pre-K set) come back in and show us the reading log, and they can choose from a bin of prizes scientifically designed to drive elementary schoolers wild—silly bandz, erasers shaped like sushi, tiny slinkies, those giant pink bouncy balls (and honestly, we could all use a giant bouncy ball). They also get another button, and y'all get another coupon.

3. After ten books, kids get a big button that says "I Rocked Summer Reading at University Book Store," and they get to pick out a FREE book from our selection behind the Kids Desk. And hey, what's this, another coupon? These things'll be saving you money till September.

4. If any industrious readers want to go on from there, they can get another reading log and start over, and keep getting those fabulous prizes. At the end of the summer, we'll have a drawing for all the folks who've signed up, and someone from each participating branch will win a backpack full of school supplies! (All the school supply-loving children like me say, Yeeeeeaah! All the other kids'll groan, I know. How can you not love the smell of fresh binders and pencils, huh? It's the best.)

5. We're also encouraging readers to write and turn in Young Reader's Review cards, because we put those up on the shelf to help recommend books that you liked to other kids. And also because it's really fun to talk and write about the books you love. (And also because we do a monthly drawing of those cards and the winner gets a gift card to the store.)

And that's it. You're welcome. We are loving this program. So many people have signed up already we can hardly believe it. It's super exciting. And if you want some book recommendations from our professional book recommenders in the Kids Department, head over to the Summer Reading page on our website. Three cheers!


--Anna,  Kids

Ask A Bookseller!

Big (medium-sized?) news around here: we've added an Ask A Bookseller button to our website. It looks like the green square above. Now, that one's not a link, because I'm not quite savvy enough to do that, but if you go to our books homepage, it'll be there on the right-hand side and clicking on the real one will make your computer send us an e-mail. Here are some kinds of questions you could ask us through e-mail:

1. Do you have any used copies of that new hardcover that was just on the radio? (Maybe.)

2. What's the perfect book for a precocious six-year-old who likes adventure-y or fantasy books? (David and the Phoenix.)

3. Can you put Zeitoun on hold for me at your U District store? No, wait, in Bellevue? (Absolutely. Do you want the paperback for $15.95, or the remainder hardcover for $9.98?)

4. Are you guys going to do a summer reading program? (Yes!)

5. What was Lewis Carroll's real name again? (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.)

That's it! Easy as pie. And if that button doesn't work for you, you can e-mail us at ubs [underscore] askabookseller [at] earthlink.net. Except you should put an actual underscore and an actual @ sign instead of those brackets. I think if I write it out fully, robots from space will start sending us e-mails about certain medications and princes who need our bank account numbers.

Ask us a question!

-Anna, Kids Books

Twenty Twenty Twenty Four Hours Ago...

Does anyone else ever get songs stuck in their head while shelving because of the titles/authors/covers/subjects of the books? I was just shelving this:

Starfish by James Crowley

...and I without realizing exactly why, I left the kids fiction section with this song stuck in my head (for people who can't/don't follow links, that's Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne). Knowing that I haven't listened to that song since high school, I had to think for a second about how in the world that popped into my head, and it made me laugh to realize my brain was quietly making those kinds of connections while all I consciously thought about was the alphabet.

The other titles I can remember getting me are parenting books, which seem to be really big on this, for some reason:

I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers
edited by Faith Conlon and Gail Hudson
(this one used to drive me crazy- that song is so hard to get out of your head!)

Beautiful Boy
by David Sheff

Does this happen to y'all? I imagine this is one of those librarian/bookseller phenomena that we all endure at some point.

--Anna, in Kids

#YAsaves

This is old news but important anyway, so we apologize for getting it up here late. On June 4 the Wall Street Journal ran an article by Meghan Cox Gurdon on the topic of young adult fiction. Specifically, she asserts that most young adult (YA) fiction is dark, violent, horrible, etc. The article contains stuff like this:

If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is. There are of course exceptions, but a careless young reader—or one who seeks out depravity—will find himself surrounded by images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds.

I stopped reading the thing somewhere around there, annoyed by the whole tone and not interested in feeling defensive about this category I spend much of my life reading and selling. It doesn't sound like she even reads YA for fun, so I felt okay dismissing the whole thing to save myself from a weekend of teeth-gnashing.

Well, one of the reasons I love YA is that the community of people who read, write, publish, review, and sell these books are particularly awesome and loyal people, and I should've known that the responses to this article would be worth keeping an eye on. Compiled below are some of my favorite responses so far.

Graduation Gifts for Girls In Between

This post started out as a guide to gifts for fifth and eighth grade graduates, two graduations I know lots of people think are kind of overkill. I happen to think these graduations are incredibly useful little milestones, because there's a dearth of real coming of age rituals, and graduations make good moments to honor the end/beginning of certain stages of life. It sets time aside to celebrate and contemplate what's just happened and get ready for something new (and often terrifying). But when I put together the list, I accidentally picked a bunch of stuff that's specifically for girls. So I'll make another short list of books for boys this age soon, and I'm sorry for the oversight. Here goes:

Just Between Us: A No-Stress, No-Rules Journal for Girls and Their Moms

by Meredith & Sofie Jacobs

This is one of my favorite gift-y books for preteen girls, and would make a fantastic fifth grade graduation present. Created by a mother and daughter who had great success keeping a joint journal, it's a journal meant to be passed back and forth between a mother and daughter, with prompts, questions, checklists and a lot of blank pages. The authors say their experience with a shared journal was rewarding for various reasons. From Sophie's introduction:

Because of the journal I can talk to my mom about all that awful, awkward puberty stuff and not have to face the embarrassment of saying it to her face.

Another thing about the journal is how well we get to know each other through it. Do you know your mom's favorite dinner? [...] Or who she had a crush on in middle school?

Her mom adds:

I love that we communicate a little differently when we write because we have time to think. My mind often wanders when I write, so I think I share even more than I do when we talk. It's quite possible that she "hears" me better when I write. And, she's braver when she writes.

Anyway, I kind of want to do this with my mom, even though I'm all grown up. Also, even though it has some mom-specific stuff, it'd be just as fun to use with an older sister or aunt or grandma. With a great cover, sweet illustrations and a well-executed format and design, this is an excellent gift.

It's a Money Thing: A Girl's Guide to Managing Money
by The Women's Foundation of California

Another pick for fifth grade grads is a Moonjar, which is a kind of piggy bank made of three separate-but-connected banks: Spend, Save, and Share. It works fine for younger kids, too, but in conjunction with a book about handling money (or a congratulatory raise in allowance) it'd be awesome for an almost-middle-schooler. A great book for tween and teen girls about money is It's A Money Thing, by The Women's Foundation of California. It'd be fine for most 12- to 14-year-olds, so whether you give it to a sophisticated fifth grade grad or an eighth grader, it's a great introduction to financial words and concepts. It's heavy on starting your own business and investing your money to make it grow, but it is a book on money so that seems fitting. It also has some organizing principles (financial journaling pages, charts, a pocket for receipts) that'd be useful to begin keeping track of saving, spending, investing, and giving.

My Little Red Book
by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff

Body Drama
by Nancy Amanda Redd

Are you someone's rebel aunt? Come on. Everyone has one, and if you have a niece (or a young cousin or just your friend's kid who you know), it might be time to check yourself out. Are you planning on buying her tickets to concerts in a couple of years, or sneaking her into R-rated movies? Maybe you just occasionally let a curse word slip out around her? Buy her clothing made out of leather? Were you the one who bought her that skull-and-crossbones onesie? Well, then you're the perfect person to get her one of these books. If her mom gives them to her, the shine is off. But they contain a lot of really life-changingly great information, and the just-right cool person giving them to her could mean she actually reads them. My Little Red Book, which is not aimed exclusively at young people and would make a great gift for grownup friends too, would be an amazingly sweet gift for a fifth grade graduate (yes, they will be SOOOO embarrassed, but they'll probably read it cover to cover). It's a collection of first-person accounts of first period stories. You'd be surprised, if you think about how common this experience is, how little we talk about it, especially to gals who are just about to or have just experienced it themselves. Seriously, this book is awesome. The subject index in the back cracks me up: "Caught Between Two Cultures," "Disposal Challenges," "I Was Dying," and "Judy Blume" all have their own list of stories. Ha! PLEASE GET THIS NOW (for everyone).

Body Drama would be better for eighth grade grads (or at least middle schoolers). Written by a Harvard-educated beauty queen, it's full of color photographs illustrating all the body questions and answers a teenager could ask (it was quite educational for grownup ladies in our department). Because of the graphic pictures and the really direct language, it's one you should page through first to make sure you're comfortable giving it as a gift. But man, is it chock full of information, and the photographs of all different kinds of bodies and body issues are the kind of education everyone needs and we rarely get as teens. From "I bathe every day but I still smell" to "I'm a virgin, but I missed my period" to "My piercing isn't healing well," there are a lot of questions it'd be embarrassing to ask a knowledgeable adult and this book answers lots of them. It has step-by-step instructions for how to make the best emergency pad out of toilet paper, for goodness sake (with photographs)! I love this book.

In Their Shoes: Extraordinary Women Describe Their Amazing Careers
by Deborah Reber

Chill: Stress-Reducing Techniques for a More Balanced, Peaceful You
by Deborah Reber

Local author Debbie Reber has two books (at least two, she writes a lot for young women and girls, see her website here) that I'd comfortably give as a gift to any teen or tween girl. In Their Shoes is a comprehensive and conversational set of profiles of women who have successful, rewarding careers. Unlike some career books that are just quizzes about your personality, this one works hard to uncover what a day in the life feels like, what the actual work is, so that you can really get a feel for what a job entails instead of just getting a quick explanation somebody looked up online. Some of the women kept diaries of what they did all day, some gave in-depth interviews. All of the profiles include sections on other jobs in that field and what you can do as a teen to prepare for a job like this. It's a feel-good read whether or not one is interested in future careers, since if you read the whole thing, you've just met around fifty happy, smart, successful women.

Chill is just what it sounds like, and if you know any high-strung gals who are looking toward middle or high school with a certain amount of perfectionist dread (or scatterbrained dread) this would be a sweet thing to pair with a gift certificate for something relaxing (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's a manicure or parasailing, everyone's different). Full of varying tips and tricks on managing stress and practicing good self-care, I love this book's focus on the importance of creating healthy boundaries. Lots of people talk to teens about stress—"Gee whiz, young people these days, with all their iTalking and their Spacebooks!"—without offering specific, direct advice and strategies. This one is straight-shooting and helpful.

-Anna, Kids Books

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Around graduation time (and believe it or not, the season is almost upon us) we stock up on Dr. Seuss's classic Oh, the Places You'll Go! It's a pretty popular graduation gift, and while the idea of a picture book as a grad gift is really charming, once you see the same book go out the door a certain number of times, you kind of wonder what alternatives everyone's missing out on. This year our graduation display, instead of being just a huge stack of OtPYG, is a wall full of great gift ideas, and I wanted to share them in case anyone wants to get started shopping early. (If you still want to get Seuss, we are totally fine with that. No snooty bookseller looks, I promise. Just take a second glance at these before you make up your mind.)

Knuffle Bunny Free
by Mo Willems

If you've been following and loving the Knuffle Bunny series, this one could make you feel a little weepy. Parents have gone pretty misty after reading this book in the store, and with good reason. Trixie's spent the last couple books getting separated and reunited with the beloved bunny. But in this one, as Trixie gets older, it may be time to let Knuffle Bunny go altogether. A note to Trixie from her dad at the very end is the real tearjerker.

All the World
by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee

This extra large picture book is a fun read-aloud for three- to five-year-olds, but works really well as a graduation gift because of its beautiful art and its simple poetry about the world around us. Seriously, it gives me goosebumps every time I sit and read it through. Maybe because I have a lot of family memories that look like the ones in the book? It opens at the beach:

Rock, stone, pebble, sand
Body, shoulder, arm, hand
A moat to dig,
a shell to keep
All the world is wide and deep

and closes on the line, "All the world is all of us." It's swoony.

Pouch!

by David Ezra Stein

Stein's illustrative style is the kind of simple, splotchy watercolor that keeps surprising you with its expressiveness (Raschka comes to mind as a similar talent). In Pouch!, a little joey named Joey is wanting to leave his mama kangaroo's pouch, but keeps getting scared by the new creatures he meets out in the world. Every time he sees a new animal, he cries out, "POUCH!" as he hops back to mom in full freak-out mode. Finally, he meets another joey, and before they can each run to their mothers, they realize there's nothing to be afraid of. The second-to-last page says they "hop, hop, hop, hoppity-hopped everywhere!" And if you look closely, you can see a mama kangaroo peeking out from behind a tree, looking on with both pride and a little hint of losing-your-kid-to-the-big-wide-world grief. You can see it in her eyebrows, I think. How does he do that?!

Scaredy Squirrel

by Mélanie Watt

For people who are nervous, shy, scared, or just graduating into a frightening world, Scaredy Squirrel is here for you. He never leaves his tree. His main fears are: "green Martians, killer bees, tarantulas, poison ivy, germs, and sharks" (so we have a lot in common). He even has a first aid kit in case of emergencies. But when he falls out of the tree one day, due to panic from the sudden appearance of a bee, he finds out something fabulous about himself that he never knew.

Other titles that are fun for grads of all ages are: My Book about Me, by Dr. Seuss and Roy McKie; Forever Young, by Bob Dylan and illustrated by Paul Rogers; and President Obama's picture book Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, illustrated by Loren Long.

Non-picture book options for older grads are coming this way soon. Keep in touch.

-Anna, Kids Books

When Did I Get Like This?

I just spent a lengthy vacation in Honolulu, which is, by many orders of magnitude, the largest city in Hawaii. I assumed that it would have at least a few bookstores to roam, and didn't think too hard until I got there about where I would browse for books when I got the urge (not that I needed to, since my suitcase was fully one-third packed with books). In fact, I forgot that I would have the urge to browse for books. I had it in the back of my mind that I'd look for bookstores and/or the nearest library as soon as I got my bearings, just for fun, but I forgot that I would start to feel strange, unmoored, feverish, and claustrophobic if I couldn't find a house-of-books pretty soon. I visited a chain bookstore in the mall to ease the pain, but it wasn't my fix. I found the downtown library, and sat on a shelving stool in the B's of fiction, devouring Aimee Bender's Willful Creatures until my time was up. But I was a visitor and couldn't get a library card (are there visitor library cards? I didn't actually check). I knew I'd need to have books to carry around, and I'd made the terrible decision to bring too many serious and dark books with me to a beautiful place. The mood didn't fit, I needed a refill, I needed to wander some stacks, and I was getting itchy.

I had mistakenly anticipated stumbling upon bookstores accidentally on a regular basis, like I do in San Francisco, but this city required a search. Thank the internet for IndieBound, which you should use if you ever find yourself in a similar situation. IndieBound has a big red button on their website that says "FIND BOOKSTORES and other indies" and when you click on it (or on that link, you're welcome lazies) you can enter your address or zip code, a radius (50 miles, for example) how many results you want, and BAM! out pops a list of independent bookstores near you. I had known about this theoretically, but had never had to use it, and was both heartened and a little worried to see one result for my whole island: Rainbow Books & Records, near the U of H at Manoa. I mapped a bus route and went forth to smell pages (cliche or not, you know we all actually do it).

This is what I found:


A little shop hidden in a strip mall, tall messy shelves painted in rainbow order (the store was too small for me to get red in the frame) with stacks of books in front of and on top of them. There were a couple of scattered stepladders, almost no other customers, and they were playing The Cure. It was heaven. Even though they shelve all their books horizontally (seriously, what?), it was fun to wander through, or rather to spend hours wandering, touching favorite spines and almost giggling with relief at finding those friends sitting, waiting for me to see them, waiting for me to hold them and open them, waiting for me to take them home. I was lucky to have instant text message access to a friend who could recommend the perfect mass market mysteries, and I had to search through pile after pile to find the right ones. The kids section had somehow merged with humor which had bled into graphic novels, so I was finding Pippi Longstocking next to Margaret Cho next to Marjane Satrapi, which I can't say feels entirely wrong. Without meaning to, my eye would catch on local authors— Sherman Alexie, David Guterson, and I almost whispered "Hi" out loud. I found books I was compelled to take down and find certain pages in, reading poems I already know almost by heart. It was more comforting than I'd ever expected.

I know I work in a bookstore, and I know I've always loved reading and books, but I have no idea when I became this sort of a person: I cannot feel comfortable without regular access to a decent bookstore. And even though it makes me feel a little crazy, it also feels sort of like a passport to calm. It's a secret thrill to know when I set foot in the door, no matter what city I'm in, that I'll feel a little bit home.

So mahalo for saving me, Rainbow Books & Records (they don't have their own website, as far as I can tell, so I can't link to them). If you're ever on Oahu and need an indie bookstore fix, they are, like us, located on University (Ave, not Way), which I found very amusing. Aloha!

-Anna, kids books

Demetri Martin In Store Saturday at 6:30!

So, maybe you've heard of this Demetri Martin fellow? If you have not, go find out using the internet (or phone a friend). I'll wait.

Okay, so Demetri Martin has written a book, and he's coming to the store to promote it this Saturday at 6:30. It's called This is A Book, and like much of his comedy, it is really really funny. Good, right? Funny person writes funny book, yay. But just like Tina Fey's new book, Bossypants (which you should go read immediately if you haven't already), there's something super duper great about this that is not quite contained in all the author's other forms of entertaining-you-with-jokes. This is, I'm quoting the jacket, "prose comedy," a phrase that makes me want to barf but is describing something that it turns out is awesome if done well. The book has sections of prose but also graphs and charts, drawings, and a crossword puzzle where every answer is just the letter A repeated a certain number of times (it made me laugh out loud repeatedly, then marvel at the fact that I was laughing at the same punch line over and over again).

I kind of don't want to excerpt anything here, because I don't want to ruin the funniest parts, but I also want you to get all intrigued and come take a look at this book (see how difficult a book blogger's job is? You should buy me a beer). Below are some things inside of it that made me really incredibly happy (and/or laugh so hard I cried and ruined my eyeliner. Seriously, Mr. Martin, you owe me some eyeliner).

Palindromes for Specific Occasions:

Gently informing a DJ that there is a problem with the sound system:

No music is, um, on.

A comment said to a friend about the size of his old jeans, after he's lost a lot of weight:

Massive Levis, Sam.

A guy explaining to his friend how he feels about operas as he accidentally runs into a beehive:

See, bro, operas are poor--Bees!

Optimist, Pessimist, Contortionist

Take a look at this glass of water.
OPTIMIST: The glass is half full.
PESSIMIST: The glass is half empty.
CONTORTIONIST: I can fit both of my feet in there, no problem.

We found a lump on your neck.
OPTIMIST: It's probably just a cyst.
PESSIMIST: Oh God, I'm going to die.
CONTORTIONIST: That's my toe.

Your luggage has not yet arrived from Phoenix.
OPTIMIST: I'm sure it'll be here soon.
PESSIMIST: It's gone.
CONTORTIONIST: I know. I'm inside it.

Describe yourself in two words.
OPTIMIST: "Hopeful idealist."
PESSIMIST: "Cautious cynic."
CONTORTIONIST: "Fisherman's knot."

Protagonist's Hospital

DR. BARNES: We've got a Caucasian male, gunshot wound to the shoulder. Minor injury.
DR. STONE: Okay.
DR. BARNES: We're treating another Caucasian male who has a gunshot wound in his arm. It's not serious, though. He is actually in excellent physical condition despite having been in a high-speed car chase for hours after being shot.
DR. STONE: Sounds familiar.
DR. BARNES: Yep. Now, in those beds over there we have three Caucasian males, two of whom were shot in the leg, but only in the fleshy part and not near any joints.
DR. STONE: And the third?
DR. BARNES: Knife wound.
DR. STONE: Let me guess...in his shoulder?
DR. BARNES: Right.
DR. STONE: So, these patients are essentially all fine then?
DR. BARNES: Yep. And every single one of them also has an incredibly high tolerance for pain.
DR. STONE: Uh-huh.
DR. BARNES: And, incidentally, they are all remarkably good with quips, even while receiving medical treatment.
DR. STONE: I've seen a lot of that lately.

If this has not made you want to come see him talk, then probably either I've mistyped it or your eyes are broken. Either way, give it the benefit of the doubt and come anyway. He'll just be chilling in our little events space upstairs, you get a priority signing line ticket if you buy the book from us, and the event is free and open to the public. Here. Saturday. 6:30. There, I've said it three times now. See you there!

-Anna, kids books

On Reading Out of Doors

I have always loved to read outside. It probably has something to do with Anne of Green Gables, or whatever other freckled and bespectacled heroines used to hang out in the nooks of trees reading. As a kid I climbed the big maple in our backyard, toting a book, to find a comfortable Y to nestle in (there wasn't really a comfortable spot, and it ended up being more of a stoic execution of a great-sounding idea) while I looked out over the prairie, the big woods, Prince Edward Island, or whatever place I was reading about at the time. I used to "caddy" for my dad when he golfed with friends, which mostly involved curling up under an out-of-the-way tree reading Nancy Drews while they played a game whose appeal mystified me, but which allowed me the incredible, decadent pleasure of wandering those vast manicured lawns surrounded by bushes and forests, finding the exact perfect greenery to hide under and read (and no, I never got hit by a stray golf ball, don't worry). I still think golf courses should have no-golfing days where they let bookish girls aged approximately 8-12 roam around for a day in prairie dresses, carrying picnic baskets full of books and walking barefoot and lying down getting grass in their hair while they lose themselves in fiction.

As an adult, I still love to read outside. An apartment with a porch or balcony, a folding chair, and a glass of wine are all that's required. When I go out into the world, I'm often unconsciously searching for a lovely place to sit and read, and having recently spent a long vacation doing just that, I've been thinking a lot about the perfect outside reading spot.

The beach is a lot of people's favorite for outdoor reading, but it holds less appeal for me. Obviously sand getting forever stuck right where the pages meet is a problem, as is sunscreen and saltwater and other paper-ruining disasters. But you're not taking your favorite signed hardcovers outside in a crappy tote bag anyway, right? No, the beach is less than perfect simply because it's a bit too pretty to look at, a bit too bright. The scenery is moving and sparkling, waves are crashing or boats are going past, there's a lot of noise from kids doing whatever kids who don't read the whole time do (I wouldn't know). It feels kind of rude to read a novel while a sunset forms in the sky over the water. Nature made this just for you, can't you pay any attention?

Golf courses, as previously mentioned, would be lovely if they were not expensive and also of course, there's the whole "FORE!" problem. Cemeteries are one of my favorite quiet, calm places to spend time, and I would love to sit in a cemetery and read, except...I don't know. It kind of puts some pressure on exactly what you're reading. It feels a little sacrilegious, a little disrespectful, to read a cheesy murder mystery next to someone's actual headstone, doesn't it? I mean, I'd love it if people came and read on my grave (someday! not right now, thanks), but what if they were reading something I hated? It's better than if someone came and played iPhone app games on my grave, or bickered with their spouse, but still. I think my spirit would be offended by a certain kind of book being read six feet above my bones. Eh, there's just a little too much to consider when graveside reading.

Parks are really the only perfect outside reading place for me. Calm, pretty enough but not too pretty, and there are usually trees to sit under (protection from sun with the added possibility of squirrel/bird friends reading over your shoulder like a cartoon). An expansive park with large-canopied trees and benches directly under these trees would be ideal, and that's exactly what I found on my recent trip to Honolulu, in the park near Iolani Palace:


So that when you look up from your pages, or if you're lying down to read, you see this:

See? Perfect.

-Anna, kids books

The World is a Deaf Machine

That title is a quote from a favorite picture book of mine, Shaun Tan's The Red Tree. It's being reprinted soon (coming in April, as part of a bindup of three Tan-illustrated picture books), and I'm glad to hear it. The Red Tree is really a picture book for grownups, as many are, and it combines Tan's rich paintings with simple, poetic text about how bad a bad day can feel.

It seems like this past winter, a lot of people around me are having a really hard time for various reasons, and I thought about posting terrible, horrible, no good very bad day picture books in solidarity, then realized I've done that post before. So I've decided to do a post about bright, exuberant, celebratory picture books, the kind with irrepressible protagonists that somehow work even though there's not a ton of conflict, or the ones that just warm you up, even if you try hard to stay Eeyore-y. Let's go:


#1: Keisha Ann, from Keisha Ann Can! Lots of picture books, especially ones about school, are about the dark side. Separation anxiety, bad grades, bullying, scary new experiences, etc. And those are great. But other than Keisha Anna Can! I can't think of one that is just a whole book about a totally capable kid celebrating how proud she is of herself. And sometimes I need to read it to myself, to pick up some Can! when I'm all can't.


Who knows all the weekdays?
Who can read the alphabet?
Who can sharpen pencils?
Who can feed the classroom pet?

Who can count how many days
it's been since school began?
Who can pass out paints and brushes?
KEISHA ANN CAN!

Oh my gosh, Keisha Ann, meeeee tooooo!!! Now let's go kick some butt at tetherball just you and me! WOOHOO!!!


#2 Brand new Forsythia & Me, by Vincent X. Kirsch (what does the X stand for? I must know!). Forsythia is the narrator's best friend, and is rambunctious and creative and brilliant. It opens like this: "Forsythia and I are best friends. She does things that amaze me." Aw, man! I want my friends to describe me that way. What a lot in one simple sentence. And who hasn't had someone like that in their life? The next thing we hear is: "Forsythia can decorate the most incredible birthday cakes I have ever seen. This year she flew out of the cake she had made just for me." So we know it's going to be one of those wackadoodle stories that's just over-the-top enough to be worth a picture book. She performs in the circus, they have tea with zoo animals, and throughout the whole book she's wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and sticky-outy braids ('cause that's how she rolls). When she's feeling sick, it's Chester's turn to pull out all the stops to entertain his friend, and when the book heads toward the finish line with Forsythia saying, "Chester, you amaze me!" my little heart gets all squooshy.


#3 is Millie's Marvellous Hat and I cannot believe none of us has blogged about it before. The Kids Department loooooves this book, and so does everyone we sell it to (right, guys? Back me up). Great for two- or three-year-olds on up to early elementary, this'd be a perfect preschool read aloud (and it often is around here). Sometimes I find books about imaginative play kind of weird, like they're almost redundant or something. Kids know how to play make believe, and books are already fiction, so books about make believe often fall flat for me. But not Millie— for one thing, just look at her cheerful little face. Satoshi Kitamura's illustrations are always pretty and interesting, but sometimes too busy or with too many jagged angles for me. This time, the palette is great, the faces and bodies expressive, and the story is a winner. Millie can't afford the beautiful hat in the window of the hat store, so the man sells her a hat (for free) that "is a most marvellous hat, Madam...It can be any size, shape or color you wish. All you have to do is imagine it." So she goes outside, starts imagining her hat into all sorts of great things, and then moves on to imagining everyone else's hat all through the park, until she gets home and gets her parents to imagine their own hats (a penguin hat and a flowery one, if you're curious). I want the cake hat!

#4 would be Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon, by Patty Lovell and David Catrow, but we don't have a copy right now and I don't want to just write about it from memory. She's a great character, though, and just a reminder that if you embrace being weird, it can be empowering. I always need to learn/remember that.

-Anna, Kids Books

Black History Month: Picture Book Edition

It's Black History Month, and in the Kids Department, the display looks beautiful. Local blogger Kitri and the Animals recently blogged about one of the coolest books on our display, Bad News For Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshall, here (have I mentioned I'm a sucker for a super-long subtitle?). A coworker says he has to stop and look through that book almost every time he passes by. Cover art success!

Anyway, even though that display is mostly nonfiction, honoring the History part of Black History Month, there's another thing that Black History Month reminds me: there are just not enough picture books with black protagonists that aren't historical, or biographical, or dealing specifically with the topic of race, or with a focus on sports or music. It's pretty startling, if you start to go and look for a regular old narrative picture book. So I thought I'd highlight some favorite titles that do what narrative picture books do best: capture small moments in a meaningful way, keep the voice and perspective true to the age group, make the text and pictures interact and complement each other well, and work well as a read aloud. They also happen to have black main characters.

Who doesn't remember Ezra Jack Keats's Peter? From The Snowy Day to Peter's Chair to my favorite, Whistle for Willie, these books were published in the '60s and were, for a lot of people, the only African American picture book character in their house/library/school. Whistle for Willie is my favorite of them all because learning to whistle is this sort of meaningless but fun and empowering milestone for kids that grownups mostly forget about. Most kids at a storytime aren't old enough to whistle, so we often all end up trying together, and when Peter finally whistles at the end, there's a lot of triumphant smiles. Keats's stories do a great job of highlighting specific sensory and emotional experiences that stay in the realm of small moments but are really fun to read about. In The Snowy Day, Peter (in his unforgettable red snowsuit) makes lines and footprints in the snow for pages. "Crunch, crunch, crunch, his feet sank into the snow. He walked with his toes pointing out...he walked with his toes pointing in...then he dragged his feet slowly to make tracks."

In Willie, Peter tries whistling but can't. "So instead he began to turn himself around— around and around he whirled... faster and faster...." until Keats's iconic stoplight at the end of the block looks like this:

On his way home, Peter draws a chalk line all down the sidewalk, all the way back to his house. I always love Keats's brick walls and neighborhood scenes:


Once Peter gets home...

"He went into his house and put on his father's old hat to make himself feel more grown-up. He looked into the mirror to practice whistling. Still no whistle!"

Over 40 years later, Keats's books are still some of the most beloved narrative picture books around. And his life story is pretty interesting, too.

Next: The Boy Who Didn't Believe in Spring.

--Anna, Kids

The Boy Who Didn't Believe in Spring

Continuing my mini-quest to document spectacular picture books with African American protagonists...


The Boy Who Didn't Believe in Spring is one of those books I stumbled upon one day, I think on the bargain shelf. It's still in print, and I was thrilled to discover that we actually carried it. It's the kind of book that is totally of its time (published in 1973) but that still shines decades later. Written by Lucille Clifton and illustrated by Brinton Turkle, it's the story of a boy named King Shabazz and his friend Tony Polito, who go through their neighborhood trying to find Spring, which grownups keep assuring them is "just around the corner."

"'Where is it at?' he would holler every time his Mama talked about Spring at home."

"One day after the teacher had been talking about birds that were blue and his Mama had started talking about crops coming up, King Shabazz decided he had just had enough. He put his jacket on and his shades and went by for Tony Polito."

Just like Ezra Jack Keats's books that I talked about last post, this story is set in an urban environment that is a major character in the story. On their walk to find Spring, King Shabazz and Tony Polito go past chain link fences and mailboxes and a bakery. "They passed Weissman's. They stopped for a minute by the side door at Weissman's and smelled the buns." Fire hydrants, street signs, other people walking the sidewalks. "They passed the Church of the Solid Rock with high windows all decorated and pretty." Here's the decision to cross a street they've never crossed before:

"Then they were at the streetlight. Tony stopped and made believe his sneaker was untied to see what King was going to do. King stopped and blew on his shades to clean them and to see what Tony was going to do. They stood there for two light turns and then King Shabazz grinned at Tony Polito, and he grinned back, and the two boys ran across the street."

They finally come to an empty lot with an abandoned car in its middle. (No Spring has yet sprung, thus far.) "Then they heard the noise. It was a little long sound, like smooth things rubbing against rough, and it was coming from the car. It happened again. King looked at Tony and grabbed his hand."


WHAT DO THEY FIND??? I'm totally not telling. You'll have to come by the Kids Info Desk to find out.

--Anna, kids

Nerdfighters in the Store!

Dear Reader,
Do you like this book? If so, you are probably a NERDFIGHTER! Don't be alarmed— this is a good thing! Go to youtube.com/vlogbrothers (John Green's youtube channel with his brother) to find out more. ♥ Your Neighborhood Nerdfighter

If this picture and note are meaningless to you, let me be the first to tell you: There are people in this world called Nerdfighters. They are made of awesome, and they fight worldsuck. They are also known to leave notes in John Green's books, since he and his brother started the Nerdfighter community via their mindblowingly awesome video blog series Vlogbrothers. See their introductory video (made long after they started to clue new folks in on all the in-jokes) here. I love when we find these notes, and I never take them out. The Green brothers started their video project as just that, a project, and it evolved into a worldwide community that has many permutations, supports various charities in creative ways, and generally reminds me that the internet has the potential to facilitate things that I love (instead of just helping me keep tabs on people who were on my elementary school soccer team and giving me the ability to know virtually any song lyrics that I forget).

And if you are a nerdfighter, two things: first, DFTBA, And second, you should know that we have multiple nerdfighters on staff, if you ever want to talk about nerdfighteria. Just saying. We might even own t-shirts...

-Anna, Kids Books


Links to John's books:
Looking for Alaska
An Abundance of Katherines
Paper Towns
Let it Snow
Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Against the Odds

Against the Odds
by Marjolijn Hof

Sometimes from the outside small children appear all precious and tender and in need of protection from the terrible corrupting world. They're actually pretty complex and dark little creatures, and books that write authentically from a child's perspective about darkness often freak out adults. We forget how early and how directly kids have to face pain, and how creatively they try to rationalize painful experiences. In kids fiction, the treatment of tragedy can easily fall too far on one side of either overly sensational or too careful. But every once in awhile, (think Bridge to Terabithia, Olive's Ocean, Silent to the Bone, Missing May) a book for young readers about fear, grief, or tragedy can leave even adult readers breathless. Against the Odds is that kind of book, and it's one that will definitely creep some people out. But the way it honors the protagonist's confusing fight to regain some sense of control in her life is spot on, and will resonate with kids who have been or are in the same state of suffering.

Translated from the Dutch and coming in at a tiny 124 pages, this masterfully written middle grade novel is about Kiki and her missing father. It opens like this:

My father was on his way to a war. His suitcase was packed. He just had to say goodbye.
Every now and then he went off to a war. At least once a year. You're heading the wrong way when you go off to a war. It's better to stay as far away from wars as you can. But my father is a doctor, and they need doctors in a war. My father likes to be needed.

Within a few chapters, her father stops calling, and Kiki and her mother are thrown into the uniquely horrible chaos that comes along with uncertainty. Even before her father is officially missing, Kiki is obsessed with death. Her mother tries to calm her down by explaining the concept of "odds," meaning that the odds of her father not coming home are small. But Kiki misinterprets the explanation, thinking that if other bad things happen the odds are even better that the one thing she's really afraid of won't. She gets a pet mouse with the possible intention of killing it or letting it die (although she can't actually bring herself to treat Squeaky with anything but love), then goes back to the pet store and gets a runty, sick mouse, who does perish. She also vividly imagines her farty old dog's demise. These moments are dark and weird and will probably turn off some adult readers. But the eventual conversation she has with her mother about what we think about when we're scared or stressed, and the difference between the things we think or imagine and the things we actually do, is a marvelous thing and totally worth the ick factor. This is a dark book with plenty of humor and a consistently impressive voice, and it deserves as much recognition as the previously mentioned classic sad books.

-Anna, Kids Books

Authors (and Illustrators) In Love, Kids Book Edition

Um, have I mentioned how much the Kids Department loves themed displays? Well, the above photo is the sign for the display we've got up on the wall right now, and I'm mighty proud of it. Every year for Valentine's Day we make a display of the requisite heart-covered red and pink books, and every year we want to do something a little different. We also have a young adult fiction display of love stories and not-so-love-stories: breakup/tragedy/unrequited/singleton tales. One year there was a full display for each kind of love story (happy and sad, I mean). But we've always figured there has to be a slightly more unique take.

This year we've finally done it up right! The following pictures are from our first ever display of authors and illustrators of kids books who are also couples. Some of them (Peter Dickinson & Robin McKinley, Helen Oxenbury & John Burningham) totally blew my mind; some are pretty well-known as couples (hey Scott & Justine!). In any event, we hope you enjoy them.

There were actually way more than we originally thought.


Scott and Justine, sittin' in a tree...

Awwwwww.


Like I said, this one blows my mind. Too much talent in one household, come on!


Somebody loves YOU, Mrs. Spinelli! (And it's Mr. Spinelli, of course. And we love both of you.)

Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) & Lisa Brown

Kevin Henkes & Laura Dronzek: Their joint effort, Birds, is one of my favorite picture books of all time.


Arnold Adoff's Black is Brown is Tan is actually a poem about his and Virginia Hamilton's multiracial family (their marriage was illegal in half the country when they married), written and published in the 1970s.
"this is the way it is for us
this is the way we are"
and
"kiss big woman
hug big man
black is brown is tan"
are quotes from the book. Please come take a look at it; it makes me tear up every time.

Also included in the display: the married author/illustrator team behind Curious George (Margret and Hans Rey, who, I am not kidding, escaped Nazi-occupied Paris on bicycles with the manuscript for Curious George tucked away), The Dillons (who have been married for over 50 years!), this year's married Caldecott winners the Steads, collaborative graphic novellers Shannon and Dean Hale, the Pinkwaters, the Pinkneys, Donald Crews and Ann Jonas (and their author daughter Nina Crews), local couple Steven and Carmela D'Amico, Sarah Stewart and David Small (squeal!!!), and one couple who book world gossip says has broken up and who shall remain unnamed. Probably not an exhaustive list, but definitely long enough to remind us all that books are the best way to get a date for Valentine's Day, whether you're reading them or writing them (or illustrating them). So I guess what I'm saying is, come in and see if it works for you.

-Anna, Kids Books

Picture Book Valentines

It's February, which means it's time for displays of books covered in hearts, lace, foil, and every shade of pink and red (and sometimes purple, and occasionally, somehow, a pale yellow). It's also Black History Month, and more blogging will be done about that, but for the moment let's take a look at this valentine business.

People often stand on one side of a love/hate line when it comes to Valentine's Day, which I genuinely don't understand. There's something that irks people about either the commerciality of it, or the sort of forced-display-of-affection thing. For other people it's a super important day and you'd better propose via ring-in-food or something, or at least have hand-strewn rose petals all over the apartment. Neither of these stances is at all appealing to me. I think the idea of the holiday is dumb and fun and an excuse to make candy-heart poems in school, get crafty with tissue paper, buy yourself flowers, or just have a really excellent dinner. I have no real emotional investment in the holiday, but like to celebrate it goofily because, well, why not? The best valentine I've gotten in my life (other than my mom's sweet handmade ones) was a big stack of boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios. There's something to be said for a present that says, "I know you."

Because of where I work, my favorite valentine to give is a good picture book, because if you're going to shell out $3 on a factory card or $5 on a handmade one, why not push it to $6-$8 and get a 32-page paperback? And if you're actually into gifts, just get a hardcover. They're lovely. Here are my favorite valentines:

I Like You, by Sandol Stoddard Warburg, comes as both a mini hardcover and part of Houghton Mifflin's new "Send a Story" series, where they package little paperbacks in a way that they can be sent directly through the mail. I Like You is illustrated by Jacqueline Chwast with black and white ink sketches that move just right and make me smile. It contains things like this:

...I like you because
If we go away together
And if we are in Grand Central Station
And if I get lost
Then you are the one that is yelling for me

Hey where are you
Here I am

And I like you because
When I am feeling sad
You don't always cheer me up right away

Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can't stand the others being so googly and gaggly every single minute
You want to think about things

It takes time

Well, yes. Exactly.

Leo Lionni's A Color of his Own is a favorite of mine for storytimes as well as giving to grown up friends. A little chameleon feels lonely and different because he changes colors wherever he goes, while all the other animals have a color of their own. He tries to find a solution by staying in one place, but the leaf he's on changes colors and falls. When he meets another chameleon, older and wiser, he asks, "Won't we ever have a color of our own?" and the other fellow says sadly, no, but "why don't we stay together? We will still change color wherever we go, but you and I will always be alike."

And so they remained side by side. They were green together, and purple, and yellow, and red with white polka dots. And they lived happily ever after.

Awwww. Lionni's paintings are always top shelf, but giving a chameleon such an expressive smile is one of those picture book feats that really deserves some praise.

Tiny books make great valentines, and Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library is probably the best collection of tiny books ever. One a day for the few days before the 14th, perhaps? I've written about these before. The sturdy little box contains Sendak's Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, One Was Johnny, and the inimitable Pierre, all in tiny hardcover. Wanna be the best valentiner ever? Get 'em in french.

Not romantic, not about love, but a little charmer we've loved all winter is The Quiet Book, by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Renata Liwska. Here are some kinds of quiet that there are:

Jelly side down quiet

Car ride at night quiet

Swimming underwater quiet

Last one to get picked up from school quiet

Top of the roller coaster quiet

Best friends don't need to talk quiet

Right before you yell "SURPRISE!" quiet

And there are more, of course. The illustrations are exactly right, that's all I can say. You really need to take a minute to sit with it, to look at each moment and find all the little details that are going to win your heart. It's a bit of a valentine because of the way the friends throughout the story spend quality quiet time together, throwing stones and reading books and hiding behind furniture. And it's on the small side for a picture book, so it feels just right in your hands as a little token of affection.

-Anna, Kids Books