New Titles

Greetings!
This week I am giving you some great titles that are new and also ones that might be a bit obscure for you.

The first title is a picture book, but it is not just for younger children. There is a lot of information in Energy Island by Allan Drummond. The island of Samso, Denmark is a very windy place and over time the people have harnessed the energy of the wind to power nearly everything on the island. The drawings are a bit cartoonish, but still appealing to all ages.

Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg is the true story of Annie Edson Taylor and her planned trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The pencil drawings in sepia tones give a historical bent to this achievement. I only hope that children won’t read this and decide to try it for themselves!

Don Brown has written a story from history about the Gold Rush titled Gold! Gold from the American River! The cover of the book looks a bit like the heading of a newspaper. The illustrations are cartoonish, but the information is really for middle and upper grades. Younger children will enjoy the story too, but it is really intended for all ages. Coming soon in the same format and by Don Brown is the story of the day the Twin Towers fell titled America is Under Attack. The book will be available in August.

My Librarian is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs is a good book to share with students about how libraries work in other parts of the world. I read an article about a library in Kenya where books are brought by camel every two weeks to the nomadic people there and got interested in this. This book is one of the treasures I found in my research on that. You might enjoy the novel The Camel Librarian by Masha Hamilton also. I would call it a ‘beach read’, but not a book for our school libraries.

Young children lose teeth and usually put it under their pillow and find some money the next morning left by the tooth fairy. But what do children in other countries do when they lose a tooth? This next book Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions from Around the World lets us know exactly that. Anyone want to be visited by the Tooth Rat?! The back of the book includes information about teeth, also. Again, this is not just for younger children. Older ones will get a kick out of the different traditions. It might be something interesting to include in the study of the different countries.

Who Stole the Mona Lisa? By Ruthie Knapp. Can you imagine stealing a painting as famous as the Mona Lisa? What in the world would you do with it? This is the story of the man who did steal Mona Lisa in 1911. This would be great to include in a study of Leonardo da Vinci or portrait art or even just as a good story.

If you need books on the Iditarod, you probably have Togo or Balto. Now there is a new one called Painter and Ugly by Robert J. Blake who wrote Togo and Akiak. Painter and Ugly is about two dog friends racing in the Junior Iditarod race. Mr. Blake got the idea after he met a real dog named Painter whose best dog friend is Ugly. Ugly had been sold to a different team and Blake wondered what if Painter and his best friend were both in the same race?

I hope you enjoy these books. I may have more for you next week.
Audrey