Wendy Martin, fellow Missouri member of SCBWI, as well as many other authors and illustrators have banded together to make November Picture Book month.  Here’s why:

The New York Times declared, “Picture Books No Longer A Staple for Children” in an article published in October 2010. The controversial article incited a barrage of responses from the children’s book industry, many in defense of the venerable picture book. In addition, the digital age has ushered in an unprecedented amount of ebooks and, with devices like the iPad, the color Nook, and the Kindle Fire, picture books are being converted to the digital format.

Thus, Picture Book Month was born. Founder Dianne de Las Casas decided it was time to celebrate picture books in their printed format so she created an initiative to designate November as “Picture Book Month.” Katie Davis, Elizabeth Dulemba, Tara Lazar, and Wendy Martin came on board to champion the cause and spread the word. A logo was designed by Joyce Wan. A website (www.picturebookmonth.com) was created to feature essays from “Picture Book Champions,” thought leaders in the children’s literature community. Each day in November, a new essay will be posted from such notable contributors as Suzanne Bloom, Denise Fleming, Leslie Helakoski, Eric A. Kimmel, Tammi Sauer, Dan Yaccarino, and Jane Yolen.

Better World Books and organizations like Scholastic Book Fairs Philippines are lending their support. The website will also feature links to picture book resources, authors, illustrators, and kidlit book bloggers. In addition, parents, educators, and librarians can download the theme calendar to help them plan their picture book celebrations and access picture book activities.

Join the celebration! Visit www.picturebookmonth.com

“Picture books are important because they are with us for life. They are the most important books we’ll ever read because they’re our first. No matter how many books we’ve read since, they will always have a place in our hearts.”    Dan Yaccarino from his Picture Book Month Essay.

I heard Linda Sue Park speak at the Kansas City, KS SCBWI conference a few weeks ago.  A Long Walk to Water is a great example of how great children’s literature changes lives.  Beyond a moving story (about which I knew almost nothing–and I consider myself well-versed in current events), Linda Sue Park’s novel does an incredible job weaving together two separate story strands.  Here’s her book trailer:

Who is the sage of the universe?  Who can you go to for wisdom when all around you is confusion?  Who can you trust?  Yoda, of course.  Tommy knows it, and his fellow sixth graders know it. 

Maybe Yoda appears as an origami puppet on the finger of uber-nerd Dwight, maybe Yoda talks in a weird voice that is the worst Yoda impression ever, maybe Dwight isn’t channeling the Force, whatever.  The point is, Yoda’s advice works.  Is Origami Yoda real?  Read The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and find out! 

P.S.  Directions for making your own Origami Yoda are included.

Great book!  Truly LOL in spots.  High schooler, middle schooler, spouse, and I all had fun with this book.  Secretly the adults might have enjoyed it the most because we’re the furthest from the traumas of middle school

Matched by Ally Condie:  Dystopian YA romance.  Twilight meets The Hunger Games.

Nevermore by Kelly Creagh.  Suspenseful YA romance.  Twilight meets Edgar Allen Poe.

Great reads!

I love Dan Yaccarino’s art style. Here’s his new book trailer:

Race for the Sky: The Kitty Hawk Diaries of Johnny Moore  (Simon and Schuster, 2003) is middle-grade historical fiction as it should be.  Author Dan Gutman takes the facts about Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers’ first flight, and weaves them into the journal entries of Johnny Moore, a boy who lived in Nags Head at the time and actually witnessed the first flight. 

Through Johnny’s journal we learn all kinds of interesting details and facts, and Race for the Sky makes you see and understand how truly remarkable the Wright Brothers’ feat was.

Here’s an excerpt from a conversation between Johnny and Wilbur Wright:

“Are you a scientist?” 

“No,” he says. “I operate a bicycle shop with my brother in Dayton, Ohio.”  He tells me that after the summer is over, not many folks in Ohio buy bicycles, so he’s got time to fool round with flyin’ machines and such.

As he’s talkin’ I’m thinkin’ in my head, A BICYCLE SHOP?  He runs a bicycle shop, and this dingbatter thinks he’s gonna build a FLYIN’ MACHINE? . . . But I don’t say that.

“You musta gone to some fancy college, eh?” I says.

“The truth be told, I never even graduated from high school.” 

Race for the Sky may be a bit slow in the first few chapters, but it quickly turns into an engrossing tale that will leave readers with a new admiration  for the story behind one of humankind’s boldest achievements—the ability to fly.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to discover you had magical powers?  Like Harry Potter—one day living a completely normal, nothing special kind of life, and the next day—poof!  Off to Hogwarts.

That’s exactly what happens to eleven-year old Abby Carnelia in Abby Carnelia’s One and Only Magical Power, a middle-grade novel by David Pogue (Roaring Brook Press, 2010).

 It’s another regular old evening helping mom make chef salad for dinner. Abby happens to pull her earlobes at the exact second she looks at a hard-boiled egg, and—poof!  She discovers she has a magical power.

What is it?  Super-strength?  Super-speed?  Invisibility?  Not eggs-actly.  Abby Carnelia’s one and only magical power is . . . she can make an egg spin. 

Yep, that’s it. That’s her magical power.  She can make an egg spin. Only if it’s hard-boiled.  Only if she’s looking at it.  Only if she’s tugging on her earlobes at the same time. 

Huh?!  What kind of a super power is that?   Ok, so Abby thinks it’s pretty weird too.  “Confused and just a little bit freaked out,” Abby says nothing to her family.  They think she’s learned some really cool magic trick, and Abby’s not about to let them in on the secret. 

Abby enrolls in a summer camp for kids who want to learn magic.  Maybe, just maybe, there will be other kids like her, kids that have real magic. 

Sure enough, Abby discovers other kids with special, albeit completely useless, magical powers.  There’s  Ricky who can fog up windows . . . but only when he counts backwards by two’s . . . in Spanish.  There’s Eliza who can levitate.  Ok, so she rise a quarter-inch above the floor and only when she thinks about buffalos walking backwards wearing diapers.  Still, it’s something. 

Abby will do just about anything to find out about her magical powers.  Unfortunately, others will do just about anything as well.

Well, the stores have been playing Christmas music since Halloween, so I suppose it’s well past time to review a Christmas book.

Little Star, written by Anthony DeStefano and illustrated by Mark Elliott (WaterBrook, 2010), tells the story of the Christmas star.  This gentle picture book answers the question so many children ask, “Where is the Christmas star now?” 

The Christmas star in this picture book is like the Little Engine that Could.  Little Star may be ignored by other big, shiny stars, but on the night of Jesus’ birth, Little Star is the only star that recognizes Jesus is a king.  Baby Jesus may be little, but he won’t be forgotten. Not by Little Star.  “Trying as hard as he could, he used all his strength and might to reach out with his light toward the earth.  . . . All through the long, cold night Little Star burned as brightly as he could so the baby Jesus could be warm.”

Little Star gives his life for baby Jesus, just as baby Jesus gives his life for all mankind.  This Christian picture book reminds readers that Christ, and Christmas, are all about love.

In honor of Halloween, check out  Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer and illustratecd by Scott Magoon (Simon & Schuster, 2010).  Monster Bernadette is “mostly monsterly. She lurche[s], she growl[s], she cause[s] mayhem of all kinds.”  Bernadette also has a soft side which gets her into big trouble when she goes to monster school.

I met Tammy Sauer at the September 2010 Kansas SCBWI conference.  She gave a hilarious speech on about the life (and rejections) of a writer, and a fantastic presentation on her Top 10 Secrets to a great picture book.  Sauer’s  Chicken Dance with Elvis Poultry is my personal favorite, but my elementary schooler loves mostly Monsterly and has read it again and again.

In many a SCBWI conference, I have heard the name of Amber Brown, one of those unforgettable characters.  Likewise her creator, author Paula Danziger, who from what I can tell, was quite a character herself.  Paula Danziger has written over thirty books, several about divorce.  Amber Brown is Feeling Blue (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998; this edition illustrated by Tony Ross) is one of these.

Amber is what you’d call a character. She’s got what you’d call personality.  She paints the dog’s toenails.  She puts candy corns on pizza:  “It’s a new reciple.  Try it.”  She loves her name Amber Brown (although she used to hate it because it’s also the shade of a crayon):  “It’s a very colorful name for a very colorful person.” 

But Amber’s also got a problem.  Where should she spend Thanksgiving? Her parents are divorced. Amber lives with her mom who will soon be marrying Max.  Mom and Max want Amber to go to Walla Walla, Washington to visit Max’s sister for Thanksgiving.   Amber’s dad lives in Paris, but he is moving back to New York.  He want Amber to spend Thanksgiving with him.  The grownups tell Amber, “. . . whatever you want to do, we’ll go along with it.”  And Amber thinks, “Why do I have to make the decision?”  

Amber thinks, ”I wonder if there is a kind of a dream that is worse than a nightmare.   Because that’s what I’m having right now.  If I go to Walla Walla with Mom and Max, Dad’s going to be unhappy.  If I stay here wth Dad, Mom and Max are going to be unhappy.  Either way, I lose.  Either way, one of my parents loses. At least, one of them wins.  But no matter what, Im going to be the loser.”

All this serious talk is mixed in with a lot of day-to-day fourth grade stuff–Halloween, new kids at school, book reports–and it doesn’t come across heavy-handed.     The book is honest about the emotions of divorce.  Amber thinks about the way things used to be.  When mom and dad were married.  When mom and dad got along.  And she wishes things could be the way they used to be.  But she has positives as well.  She likes Max, Mom’s new boyfriend. And she likes her new babysitter.  And she likes having two houses to stay in.

In the end Amber says, “I have to make the choice because I have no choice.  Sometimes life is confusing.  Sometimes it’s not easy.  This is one of those times when it’s both . . .  confusing and not easy.”  Amber Brown is Feeling Blue takes readers on that amazing roller coaster ride known as growing up, complete with all its ups and downs.