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FARISH , Terry. The Good Braider. 222p. maps. Amazon. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-7614-6267-5; ebook $7.99. ISBN 978-0-7614-6268-2. LC 2011033659.
Gr 9 Up–The Good Braider follows Viola on a journey from her home in ravaged Sudan to Cairo and finally to the folds of a Sudanese community in Maine. Viola’s story, told in free verse, is difficult to read without a constant lurking sense of both dread and hope. In the opening scene she gazes at the curve of the back [...]
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front. DVD. 85 min. Prod. by Marshall Curry Prods. Dist. by Bullfrog Films. 2011. ISBN 1-93777-21-9. $295.
Gr 10 Up–This fact-filled program utilizes archival footage, interviews, and commentary to relate the story of one man’s involvement in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an organization described by law enforcement as a domestic terror organization. It traces the evolution of Daniel McGowan from city resident to environmental activist, chronicling his involvement in property [...]
The Boxing Girls of Kabul. DVD. 52 min. National Film Board of Canada. 2011, 2012 release. ISBN unavail. $195.
Gr 9 Up–The opening flashback of this documentary showing the cruel treatment of women under the Taliban will grab the attention of audiences in women’s studies and sociology classes. The video shifts to present day and focuses on three women who are trying to change the lifestyle for women in where their advancement is frowned upon. They are training to be boxers [...]
SANDLER, Martin W. The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure. 176p. bibliog. chron. index. maps. notes. photos. CIP. Candlewick. Sept. 2012. RTE $22.99. ISBN 978-0-7636-5080-3. LC 2011018618.
Gr 5 Up–Endurance. Fortitude. Bravery. Any of these words could easily describe the people involved in this amazing, but little-known rescue-adventure. The year was 1897 and whaling was big business in America. Whaleship captains hunting in the Arctic Circle, pushing for more whales and the profits they meant, ended up [...]
Destination Titan. DVD. 60 min. Prod. by Open University. Dist. by Films Media Group. 2011. ISBN 978-1-621010-127-8. $169.95.
Gr 9 Up–This production documents the design of the Cassini-Huygens probe, intended to journey approximately 2 billion miles to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon that may share common characteristics with Earth in its early developmental period. The probe was engineered to collect a variety of scientific data upon entering the atmosphere and landing on the moon. Its most impressive feature was its autonomous programming [...]
OLIVER, Lauren. The Spindlers. illus. by Iacopo Bruno. 246p. HarperCollins/Harper. Oct. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-06-197808-1; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-06-219025-3.
Gr 4-6–Patrick has always been a sweet, lovable child, but one morning Liza notices that her younger brother seems remote and somehow empty. Their parents are too preoccupied to notice, but Liza remembers eerie stories her beloved babysitter used to tell. She realizes that this not-Patrick is a changeling. Her real brother has been taken by the spindlers–spiderlike creatures that haunt [...]
A Sick Day for Amos McGee. DVD. 9 min. Weston Woods. 2012. ISBN 978-0-545-44751-5. $59.95; CD, ISBN 978-0-545-44756-0: $12.95; CD with hardcover book, ISBN 978-0-545-44809-3: $29.95.
PreS-Gr 1–When Amos McGee wakes up feeling under the weather and stays home from work, his animal friends at the zoo board the bus to pay Amos a visit. They spend the day cheering Amos up by playing quiet games, caring for his every need, and reading him a bedtime story so he won’t be [...]
Pig Tales: Pig Pig Returns and Little Pig Joins the Band. DVD. 14 min. with tchr’s. guide. Nutmeg Media. 2012. ISBN 1-933938-87-0. $69.95.
PreS-Gr 2–These two charming tales (2011, both Charlesbridge) by author/illustrators David McPhail and David Hyde Costello each feature piglets who, though they are young, learn very mature lessons. McPhail’s Pig Pig doesn’t want to leave his mother and cat to vacation across the country with his aunt and uncle, but as he becomes interested in the unusual places [...]
BRAY, Libba. The Diviners. Bk. 1. 578p. Little, Brown. Sept. 2012. Tr $19.99. ISBN 978-0-316-12611-3; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-316-21464-3.
Gr 10 Up–Set in 1920s New York City, this literary tour-de-force from Printz Award-winner Bray offers grand themes, complex characters, and suspense. After her secret gift for divining information from objects lands her in trouble, 17-year-old Evangeline O’Neill is sent from Ohio to live with her uncle, who runs a museum specializing in folklore and the occult in Manhattan. Evie is a [...]
Jim Thorpe: The World’s Greatest Athlete. DVD. 85 min./56 min. with tchr’s. guide. Moira Prods. 2009, 2012 release. ISBN 978-0-97710379-9. $85.
Gr 6 Up–Jim Thorpe’s many accomplishments as well as his shortcomings are described in this remarkable film. Born in a one-room cabin in Oklahoma’s Indian Territory in 1887, Thorpe overcame the many stigmas and hardships associated with being a Native American at that time. Even though he resisted being sent to schools intended to minimize his ethnicity, it was just [...]
Same Sun Here. By Silas House and Neela Vaswani. 5 CDs. 5:49 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4558-2231-7. $49.7.
Gr 4-7–Meena, a recent immigrant from India, lives in Manhattan’s Chinatown with her family. Through a program arranged by their schools, she becomes a pen pal with River, who lives in rural Kentucky and is the son of a coal miner. They exchange letters via snail mail and, as a result, learn about each other and themselves. Sharing day-to-day activities, secrets, opinions, [...]
My Name Is Not Easy. By Debby Dahl Edwardson. 6 CDs. 6:30 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4558-7955-7. $64.97.
Gr 7 Up–In the early 1960s, children from Iñupiaq, Athabaskan, and Caucasian backgrounds are enrolled at a Catholic boarding school in Alaska in Debby Dahl Edwardson’s National Book Award finalist (Marshall Cavendish, 2011). Luke (white people can’t pronounce his Iñupiaq name) and his brothers Bunna and Isaac are flown to Catholic sponsored Sacred Heart School far from their village. Six-year-old Isaac is [...]
FLORIAN, Douglas. Shiver Me Timbers!: Pirate Poems & Paintings. illus. by Robert Neubecker. 32p. CIP. S & S/Beach Lane Bks. Aug. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-1-4424-1321-4; ebook $12.99. ISBN 978-1-4424-5712-6. LC 2010048963.
Gr 2-5–From the smiling, rollicking kids on the cover laying claim to a beach full of treasure to the shipload of fierce, sneering, plundering, cutlass-waving, face-making buccaneers, boastful of their scurrilous behavior, these pirates are a motley group. In 19 poems, they teach “Pirate Patter” and punishment and describe some [...]
Mr. Hynde Is Out of His Mind: My Weird School, Book 6. By Dan Gutman. cassette or CD. 45 min. Recorded Books. 2012. cassette: ISBN 978-1-4498-6426-2, CD: ISBN 978-1-4498-6427-9. $15.75.
Gr 1-3–In the funniest book (HarperCollins, 2005) yet in Dan Gutman’s series, second grade king of hyperbole, A. J., complains that he hates school, dislikes reading, and particularly despises Andrea Young, a geeky brown-noser, and her crybaby sidekick, Emily. Good news arrives when their music teacher, “boring, snoring Mr. Loring,” is [...]
HORVATH, Polly. One Year in Coal Harbor. 216p. CIP. Random/Schwartz & Wade Bks. Sept. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-375-86970-9; PLB $19.99. ISBN 978-0-375-96970-6; ebook $10.99. ISBN 978-0-375-98536-2. LC 2011023591.
Gr 5-7–Primrose Squarp, heroine of Everything on a Waffle (Farrar, 2001), is back, perceptive and quirky as ever, as she narrates another year of events in Coal Harbor, British Columbia, picking up right where the last book left off. Her parents, charming Uncle Jack, and the rest of the cast provide ample [...]
Anansi Story Favorites.CD. 43:55. Kunama Mtendaji. 2012. ISBN unavail. $10.
PreS-Gr 5–Over the ages, storytellers across the globe have told stories about Anansi the spider and his antics. Anansi is known for his tricks as well as his greed and laziness. In this CD, Kunama Mtendaji uses musical accompaniment, singing, and different voices to retell some Anansi stories, such as “How Anansi Got a Narrow Waist,” “Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock,” and “Anansi and His Six Sons.” Kunama is [...]
Worst of Friends: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the True Story of an American Feud. By Suzanne Jurmain. cassette or CD. 30 min. Recorded Books. 2012. cassette: ISBN 978-1-4640-4043-6, CD: ISBN 978-4640-4042-9. $15.75.
Gr 2-4–Suzanne Tripp Jurmain makes early American history more accessible and our founding fathers more human for young students in her book (Dutton, 2011) about the friendship and feud between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. She profiles both the differences between these two men as well as the [...]
CHIN, Jason. Island: A Story of the Galápagos. illus. by author. 40p. diags. maps. Roaring Brook/Neal Porter. Sept. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-1-59643-716-6. LC 2011033797.
Gr 3-6–Chin combines a bit of storytelling, factual explanations, and large and small paintings to chronicle the “birth” and ongoing development of islands in this far-off ocean cluster. A focus on the evolutionary rise and fall of the islands and skillful arrangement of an especially large number of images distinguish his presentation from the many books [...]
My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden’s Childhood Journey. By Jeanne Walker Harvey. cassette or CD. 15 min. Recorded Books. 2012. cassette: ISBN 978-1-4640-0209-0, CD: ISBN 978-1-4640-0206-9. $15.75; hardcover book, ISBN 978-0-7614-5810-4: $17.99.
K-Gr 3–In a first-person narrative that incorporates some of artist Romare Bearden’s phrases and ideas, and using his famous painting “Watching the Good Trains Go By” as her inspiration, Jeanne Walker Harvey gives voice to the history and experiences that inspired his famous collages. Born in North Carolina, [...]
JENKINS, Emily. Lemonade in Winter: A Book About Two Kids Counting Money. illus. by G. Brian Karas. 40p. CIP. Random/Schwartz & Wade Bks. Sept. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-375-85883-3; PLB $18.99. ISBN 978-0-375-95883-0. LC 2010024135.
PreS-Gr 2–On a cold winter day as a mean wind blows and icicles hang from windowsills, Pauline and her younger brother, John-John, decide to have a lemonade stand. Gathering all their quarters (Pauline’s favorite coins), they buy their supplies and make lemonade, limeade, and lemon-limeade. On [...]
