Review: I Am Coyote

I Am Coyote by Geri Vistein
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book definitely had a lot of good coyote information and made me feel more sympathetic to them. However, the choice of present tense didn't work for me, and it really just wasn't my cup of tea. I think I would have rather read the same sort of information in a nonfiction title.

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Review: The Girl Who Fell

The Girl Who Fell by Shannon M. Parker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It feels weird to say "it was amazing!" about a book that deals with an abusive relationship, but this one truly is. I was curious about how I would deal with this book knowing that it was about an abusive relationship from the start--would I still fall for Alec? Or would that ruin the book for me? The truth is, it adds an interesting layer. For me, I was constantly stating on Twitter about how I wanted Zephyr (the main character) to not be interested in Alec, and yet you can totally see how she falls for him. There is something dark and charming about him, even as you realize that he is bad news. And hopefully, you will realize it before Zephyr does. And hopefully that realization will help young women as they navigate relationships in their teen years and beyond. An essential for library and personal collections.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC for review.

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Review: Randoms

Randoms by David Liss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this one. It took me longer than I expected to read. It is a bit of a tome--485 pages. The other reason is that so many science fiction references are scattered throughout, I wanted to go and research them all. I think knowing the basics of those references does increase your enjoyment of the book, but if you don't, perhaps it will inspire you to learn more. I know I asked a lot of questions about Martian Manhunter after reading it.

Zeke Reynolds has been invited to an intergalactic study-abroad type situation as the "random." The other delegates are all exceptional children. They also leave Zeke out, because statistically it is better for them to do so. Can Zeke still have a good year, despite being left out?

It's hard for me to give too much of a synopsis here, because I don't want to spoil anything. If you have readers who love science fiction that are in grades 4 and up, this book will be a winner.

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Review: The Wolf Wilder

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another excellent choice from Rundell, about a girl and her mother who retrain wolves to live in the wild. When the wolves attack the wrong man, Feo's mother is arrested and taken to St. Petersburg. Feo must rely on her wits and some new friends to save her mother and the wolves.

I've never heard of wolf wilding before, and I was a little disappointed to see that it's not really a thing, although other animals are sometimes wilded--let out of zoos I suppose. Still, I enjoyed this story about a girl with companions that she respects but also understands they aren't pets.

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Review: How Machines Work: Zoo Break!

How Machines Work: Zoo Break! by DK Publishing
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I definitely needed to read this one twice. It wasn't the type of book that was meant for me to be reading when I'm tired, because it addresses a part of my brain that I'm not really used to using. I definitely asked for help on how the systems work, because I was trying to understand the book. I think kids might figure it out more readily than I would, and most likely they would be building models to figure it out, rather than trying to visualize in their head. The idea of a sloth escaping was continually funny to me (so much effort!).

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Lunar New Year Try-It Tuesday

This week's Try-It Tuesday event was to create your own dragon out of egg cartons, toilet paper tubes, and yarn. This is the idea I had in my head: http://www.pinkstripeysocks.com/2015/02/recycled-chinese-new-year-dragon-craft.html

 I put a tarp out on the floor, paint, paintbrushes, and let the kids go to town! I had Valentine supplies out as a way to pass the time while the paint was drying. Unfortunately, it took them an hour of my hour and a half program to paint. So I scrambled around to make kids for them to take home to complete their project with the addition of fasteners, straws and the directions. They had a grand time (well until Valentine making. That's when some kids decided computers were cooler.) I would do this craft again, but with way more time planned and activities to do while waiting.

Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day

Normally I don't combine these two holidays, but next week I have my monthly presenter coming, so I decided to whip something together that combined both.

I started with singing "Can't Wait to Celebrate" by Jim Gill.

Then I launched into New Clothes for New Year's Day by Hyan-Ju Bae. I personally really like this story, but the kids at my story time weren't so into it. The girls liked the clothes and talking about it, one boy ran out of the room. Oh well.

He came back in time for the next part, which was a flannel board about how the Chinese zodiac came to be. I adapted a story from Jean Warren's Preschool Express called "Little Mouse's Big Trick." The kids got to put the animals up on the flannel as I read the story and called out the names. Then we talked about which animals we were and whether we felt like we were similar to the characteristics. Most were pretty happy, although one ox worried that it meant she would never be an artist. It helped her to know that I am also an ox, and I'm not a surgeon or a hairstylist. For this part, I was using the descriptions in the book Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragonboats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities and Recipes by Nina Simonds.

Next we read Froggy's First Kiss by Jonathan London, which continued the kiss conversation from last week. After that book we got out the scarves and danced to "Skidamarink", which I sang and one child suggested I not sing again.

Finally, we wrapped up by reading Happy Valentine's Day Mouse! by Laura Joffe Numeroff. I had three kids, so the board book format worked in this situation. We also did one last fingerplay, which I got from the Take Your Child to the Library Day handout  where we put a scarf in our pocket, said the fingerplay and blew the scarf out of our hand as a kiss. This was the best thing I did all day for those kids.

Our craft was from that same handout. We did a heart-y mouse and then I had some pre-printed Valentines from DLTK crafts for them to color.

Groundhogs and Weather

Every Tuesday after school I do a program called Try-It Tuesday. I have various things that I do--mostly crafts or science experiments.  On Groundhog Day, I decided we should concentrate on the topic at hand.

I started by reading Groundhog Weather School by Joan Holub. My program is aimed at grades 2-5, and I mostly get second graders, so this went over pretty well.

Next, we made homemade barometers similar to the one at this link. https://www.sercc.com/education_files/barometer.pdf

This went okay. The kids didn't really understand what I was doing, and they were more interested in squabbling with each other ("Girls rule!" "No, boys rule!")

After this, we played a game with beanbags that I called "Groundhog Toss" which got some of the energy out. I put a basket on the floor at various distances and they had to get as many bean bags in as they could. We played this for about 15 minutes, then we switched to groundhog Bingo for fifteen minutes.

I don't know that I would repeat this program again. I've had other programs with this same group of kids that held their interest more.

Dinosaur Story Time

So clearly, I'm doing a great job at blogging this year. Most of my posts are linked from Goodreads. Well, here I go starting again.  Here's my thoughts about last week's story time, which was about dinosaurs. This disappointed a few children, as they expected me to talk about groundhogs. I had to explain to them that groundhogs weren't really going to work for our story time, in which I have a majority of 2-3 year olds.

I used the basic outline of the storytime for Take Your Child to the Library Day. I made the dinosaur feet and encouraged kids to put them on (few of them did.) I guess they found them to be troublesome, or just weren't in the mood. I was happy wearing them!

I read the four books mentioned in the outline

• Dinosaurumpus by Tony Mitton
• Dinosaur Roar! by Paul and Henrietta Strickland
• Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields
• How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen

Overall, these were good choices, although Dinosaur Roar! and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? were the most popular. Yolen's book led to a long discussion about goodnight kisses, and which ones were okay and which ones weren't.

We did the "If You're a Dinosaur" song mentioned in the outline, and we also did "We Are the Dinosaurs" by the Laurie Berkner Band and "The Dinosaurs are Coming" by Mr. Harley. The kids liked marching around. 

Our craft was an allosaurus hand puppet which I found premade in the back of the library in my supply closet. It was created before I got here, so I don't have a credit for it. Some children made their dinosaurs as scary as they could, while others just really enjoyed the gluing. Overall, I would say this is one of my more successful story times!