Mr. Travis Jonker and I are celebrating the best books of 2012.
Visit Mr. Jonker's blog to read our blurbs.
Step Gently Out by Helen Frost; photographs by Rick Leider [Candlewick Press | Grades PreK-2]
"Step Gently Out not only fosters of love of poetry but also of the creatures it describes. It shows passage of time and the behavior of some of our most populous occupants of the planet." -Anita Silvey
Step Gently Out made the Sharp-Schu Mock Caldecott list.
Erika Rohrbach interviewed Helen Frost and Rick Lieder about Step Gently Out.
"When I was a child, I caught insects and displayed them as a collection. I must have viewed them as less important than other creatures, to have treated them that way." -Helen Frost
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy by Nathan Hale [Amulet | Grades 3-6]
Check out Nathan Hale's website.
Bink & Gollie: Two for One by Katie DiCamillo and Alison McGhee; illustrated by Tony Fucile [Candlewick Press | Grades K-2]
Download the Bink and Gollie activity kit.
Illustrator Tony Fucile reads from Bink and Gollie.
Yay! Look for Bink and Gollie: Best Friends Forever on April 23, 2013.
"I always quote Dorothy Parker: "I hate writing. I love having written." And so every morning, it's the first thing I do when I wake up. And every morning, I wake up and think, "Oh, God. I don't want to write today." But I just go ahead and do it anyway. And then for the rest of the day, I can think, "Oh, I got that done." And then I start the battle over again the
next morning…" - Kate DiCamillo
Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead [Wendy Lamb Books | Grades 5-7]
Debra Lau Whelan interviewed Newbery Medalist Rebecca Stead.
"Toward the end of Liar & Spy there are two big things you find out. One of them was never intended to be a mystery at all. It was supposed to be a question that got bigger for the reader as the book goes on." - Rebecca Stead
Rebecca Stead presented at the 2010 National Book Festival.
Rebecca Stead discusses When You Reach Me.
BOMB by Steve Sheinkin [Roaring Brook Press | Grades 5 and up]
"I love spy thrillers, and was definitely going for that feel. Kept a lot of John Le Carré novels on the night table during the writing process, just as inspiration. Thrillers are driven by scenes, with one bit of action racing downhill into the next." -Steve Sheinkin
Head on over to TeachingBooks.net to hear this great introduction to Bomb.
Steve Sheinkin uses the library like an office.
