48 Hour Book Challenge!

What could be better than an excuse to skip the chores and read all weekend? Why, doing it all in the name of a worthy cause! Hop on over to Mother Reader and read about the 48 Hour Book Challenge. If you have a blog, sign up, and think about linking it to your favorite charity.

If you don't have a blog, then you just aren't as cool as we turtles (Fegan says we have to say "just kidding" here). You can't sign up for the contest, but you can still take the weekend to read - and post about it here! Let us know how much time you got away with, what you read, and what you thought of it.

Nonfiction Monday: Jamaica and Iran - Lerner's Country Explorers series

Other books from this series have been popular here with report writers, so we were pleased to receive these two to review. The bright, inviting covers (not to mention the manageable size) make them among the first selected off the shelf. The text is simple and short, paired with beautiful photographs and fun sidebars - in the Jamaica edition, for example, an imagined postcard from a visitor faces a guide to speaking patois.

One characteristic we really like about this series is the relevance to kids. Yes, we do learn about climate and imports/exports, but never in a dry fashion. We also learn that schools in both Iran and Jamaica are so crowded, kids have to share the school day, and in Iran boys and girls go to different schools! Those are the kinds of things we would have found interesting as young turtles.

At the end of the book we have those report essentials: a picture of the flag, and a list of 'vital statictics' (population, landforms, etc.), followed by glossary, index, and websites. We like seeing a table of contents and index in shorter books - perhaps not really needed, but they can help kids learn to use them, so that bigger books don't seem so cumbersome later.

A great series for any library or classroom! If you choose to order by clicking on the picture links, we receive a small portion of the proceeds for our library. For more great nonfiction reviews, click here.

Chapter Book Thursday: The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry, Illustrated by Jules Feiffer

We have mixed feelings about this one, and we have decided it is the author's fault for being who she is. Lois Lowry has long been a name synonymous with good literature that makes you think and feel deeply, and - well - this is not that type of book.
 
It is, however, a very funny and charming story. Princess Patricia Priscilla is about to turn 16, at which point she will have to choose between three suitors, each more repugnant (and improbable) than the last. She decides to try the peasant life for a change, and begins sneaking out every day to attend the village school, under the tutelage of the handsome new young schoolmaster. You can see where this is going, right? Nothing about the story is terribly subtle, and the characters are not at all believable, but it is, as we said, funny and charming. Hand this to girls who like princess stories (or potty jokes), but don't expect them to remember the story a year later.
 
Completely unrelated favorite line: "You always knew exactly where you stood with a rat, and they were edible as well."

Picture Book Wednesday: Who Will Plant a Tree?, by Jerry Pallotta, illustrated by Tom Leonard

Pallotta is one of the more prolific authors of children's nonfiction these days, and fortunately he is not one for whom quality drops off as time goes by. Who Will Plant a Tree is an easy, interesting read, chock full of facts. Creatures throughout the animal kingdom (ending with children in a classroom) 'plant' different types of trees as they move through their everyday lives. In addition to the different ways animals help seeds travel, we see the different shapes and sizes a seed can come in, from juniper berries to chestnut burrs to coconuts. Leonard's big, clear pictures complete the text, to make this an excellent read-aloud for any class beginning a unit on plants.
 
We received our copy from Sleeping Bear Press for review consideration. If you order one for yourself - which we highly recommend - and do so through the picture link above, we will receive a small portion of the proceeds, to buy more materials for our library.

Retro Tuesday: The Thief, by Megan Whelan Turner

Publisher's description:

"The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities. What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses."

We have no idea how we missed this one for so long - a Newbery Award winner, and the type of historical fantasy we like. While the characters' journey may be, as the publisher's description states, "dangerous and difficult", the story itself is lighthearted and fast-paced, with a suprise ending that truly took us by surprise as well as leaving us chortling with glee (and yes, turtles do chortle with glee - as well as write really long, run-on sentences at times.)
 
We are now halfway through The Queen of Attolia, the second book of the series, and it came as quite a shock. It is just as good as the first book, but much darker - we haven't chortled once. We received an ARC of the fourth book from the publisher, and now we are playing catch-up before we get to it. Our goal is to be able to review that one Thursday or Friday, so stay tuned!

Nonfiction Monday: Thank-you, Sarah! The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Not a brand new book, but not so old that the link shouldn't have a picture on Amazon - a little disappointed here. Not disappointed in the book at all, however. We ran across this little gem when looking to update our Thanksgiving collection. It arrived, was processed, and a day later we had a young lady in, wanting to know if we had any books about Sarah Hale for the report she was doing. Every once in a while, librarians get to look absolutely brilliant when they can say, "Why yes, right over there on the new books shelf, bottom row, third book in."

In addition to offering us our brief moment of serendipity, Thank-you Sarah is a perfect combination of humor and history, challenging the idea that biographies about dead people must be serious and boring (we don't know who exactly it is that subscribes to that idea, but they sure do write a lot of books). Our young patron and her mother were at first skeptical about the value of a picture book, but lit up when they saw the copious (and interesting!) notes in the back, and we are sure once they took the book home and read it, they were happy with the story as well.

A must-have for any classroom or library, and a fun read for any age. While you are at it, hop on over to Anderson's blog and check out some of her video entries - this book reads exactly like she talks! Then skip over here for reviews of some more great nonfiction books.

Stor Starter Saturday

For a description of Story Starter Saturday or to continue a previous story, click on the tag below.

Today's beginning:

The horse pawed restlessly at the ground, a beast eagerly waiting for...