More Books!

This time we've got a whole lot of new picture books - colourful, witty, sensitive, sometimes silly! We also found some very special middle grade/young adult books:

Karen Hesse's 'Out of the Dust' won the 1998 Newbery Medal, competing with Lily’s Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff, Wringer by Jerry Spinelli, and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.

This is a book written in verse, best for mature readers.

Publishers Weekly said in a starred review, "Readers may find their own feelings swaying in beat with the heroine’s shifting moods as she approaches her coming-of-age and a state of self-acceptance."

Kirkus said, "The poem/novel ends with only a trace of hope; there are no pat endings, but a glimpse of beauty wrought from brutal reality."

About Jerry Spinelli's 'Crash', School Library Journal says,

"A winning story about seventh-grade Crash Coogan's transformation from smug jock to empathetic, mature young man. In a clever, breezy first-person style, Spinelli tackles gender roles, family relationships, and friendship with humor and feeling.

As the novel opens, Crash feels passionately about many things: the violence of football; being in charge; the way he looks in shoulder pads; never being second in anything; and the most expensive sneakers at the mall. Although a stereotypical bully, the boy becomes more than one-dimensional in the context of his overworked, unavailable parents and the love he has for his grandfather, who comes to live with the Coogans and then suffers a stroke. It is because of his affection for Scooter that Crash comes to appreciate Penn Webb, a neighbor and classmate whom for years Crash has tormented and teased about his pacifism, vegetarianism, second-hand clothes, and social activism...

Readers will devour this humorous glimpse at what jocks are made of while learning that life does not require crashing helmet-headed through it."

Stephanie Tolan's 'Surviving the Applewhites': When Jake Stemple arrives at Wit's End, the Applewhite family's home school, little does he know that the experience will foster a deeply hidden passion in him. Each Applewhite family member--from patriarch Grandpa to E.D., Jake's counterpart, to 4-year-old Destiny--sparkles with individuality and offers Jake a new lens through which to look at the world. (from Audiofile)

Back with New Books!

After months of a sort of hibernation, we're back with a new updated catalogue! Find our catalogue(excel file) on the Story Revolution website.

The Caldecott Honor, 'Click, Clack, Moo. Cows That Type', is a delightful picture book. Striking watercolour illustrations accompany a clever story about cows who learn to type on an old typewriter. Soon Farmer Brown has to everything he can to deal with the cows demands and strikes (Dear Farmer Brown, The barn is very cold at night. We'd like some electric blankets. Sincerely, The Cows)



Brother Eagle, Sister Sky : In this picture book adapted from a speech purportedly delivered by Chief Seattle at treaty negotiations in the 1850s, "Seattle's words and Jeffers's images create a powerful message," said Publisher's Weekly.

Rhymed verse, catchy and rhythmic, makes 'One Hundred Hungry Ants' a picture book that young children at Shibumi adore. This book explores a bit of Mathematics too: the group of hundred ants form, in turn, 2 lines of 50, 4 lines of 25, 5 lines of 20 and 10 lines of 10 to get to the picnic faster!

'All the ants raced here and there,
up, down, and to and fro.
"We hope there's yummies
for our rumbling tummies,
A hey and a hi dee ho!"'


Jip (by Katherine Paterson): When an aged lunatic named Putnam arrives at a poorhouse farm in rural Vermont in 1855, he is treated as little more than a beast by everyone except the orphan Jip, who himself arrived at the charity orphanage/asylum after being found abandoned by the roadside. Jip and Putnam become friends, then allies of a sort, as Jip struggles to improve his own lot and that of his friend Lucy, the unfortunate daughter of the late town drunk. This historical tale by Katherine Paterson involves its young protagonist in the great 19th century struggle between slave owners and abolitionists while sending him into a test of his own loyalty and courage. Paterson handles weighty issues with grace and verve, and does not shrink from terrible truths in this challenging novel for young readers. (from Amazon)