Tandem Insights

Take a Leap Round Up

Happy Leap Day to all and especially happy birthday to everyone who was born on this special day!  Since Leap Day occurs only once every four years, take this opportunity to step out of your comfort level and try something new.

Interested in joining the dance buzz and learning a few moves of your own?  Hip-Hop Dancing by Joan Freese will take you through hip-hop history, explain what type of clothing you should wear, and show how to do a few basic moves.  Once you get the hang of it maybe you (or your middle to high school-aged student) can form your own crew and win a few battles!

Dancing not your thing?  Try your hand in the kitchen with Spatulatta Cookbook by the Gerasole sisters,  Olivia and Isabella (hosts from www.spatulatta.com).  Written for grades 3 and up, this creative cookbook is full of bright photographs, easy recipes, and sections that explain basic cooking skills and measurement.  Delicious and fun recipes like “Mashed Potato Ghosts” and “Yumbo Gumbo” really make this cookbook stand out from the rest – there’s even a section for snacks and another for vegetarians!

If dancing and cooking are too stressful for you, then a relaxing activity like yoga may be what you are looking for.  Strike a Pose: The Planet Girl Guide to Yoga by Karen Birkemoe casually explains how yoga can be incorporated in your everyday life.  Organized for grades 5 and up, it covers a variety of poses, breathing, and meditation.  Simple illustrations will help readers execute and understand beginning yoga positions.

Take your leap today, unless you can wait until Leap Day 2012!

Classroom Connections: Calendars

What has 366 days and happens every four years?  That’s right- it’s a leap year which  means 2008 has an extra day instead of the usual 365!  Curious little minds are bound to wonder why?  Help your students learn the answers by teaching about the history and concept of calendars.  Click here!

Book of the Week: What Pet to Get?

Growing up in a pet-less house, except for the occasional goldfish, I always wondered what it would be like to have a pet, especially an exotic one.  As a child, my top three picks consisted of the following: an orangutan, a dolphin, and a tiger.  A little boy named Jack also has a pet wish list of his own in the book What Pet to Get? by Emma Dodd. 

Excited that his mom agreed that he may have a pet, Jack explores his endless pet possibilities.  Jack suggests that potentially an elephant, polar bear, or even a T-Rex may work.  His mom simply replies that an elephant “might squash the car,” the polar bear may not like the central heating, and the T-Rex wouldn’t be an option because it “has been extinct for sixty-five million years.”  What pet did both mom and Jack agree on?  Well, let’s just say that Jack’s “little” pet named Fang has a fold out page all to his self.  This fun and humorous story with bright, larger-than-life illustrations is a book that young children will enjoy.

Polar Bear Day Round Up

On February 27th, Polar Bear Day celebrates the world's largest carnivore.  It may be a big, meat eater, but somehow it often looks a bit cuddlier in children’s books than it might in real life.  Just look at how cute the little polar bear is in Lonesome Polar Bear by Jane Cabrera.  All the little cub wants is a friend to play with, but it’s hard to find a friend when all the other animals think of you as a big, scary predator as described in Sandra Markle’s Polar Bears in her Animal Predators series from Carolrhoda, which features a photo of a mother and cub feasting on a bloody carcass on the very first page.    Two very different depictions of the same animal.  One will appeal to storytime audiences and the other will be perfect for your reluctant readers looking for something a bit graphic.

Polar Star by Sally Grindley is an accurate yet gentle look at the polar bear as a hunter that blends fact and fiction as it follows a mama bear searching for food with her cubs.  Polar Bears are Hungry by Carol Carrick has a similar story, but a slightly different focus.  In spare text, the point is put forth that our warming temperatures are making it difficult for polar bears (and other animals) to find food.  This is a good choice for talking about the environment, global warming, and endangered species possibly paired with Polar Bears in Danger by Helen Orme and Face to Face with Polar Bears by Norbert Rosing for the latest facts on the polar bear population.

Make friends with real polar bears in Pair of Polar Bears by Joanne Ryder and Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World by Carig Hatkoff.  Both are filled with vivid photographs of baby bears that will capture your heart.

Happy Polar Bear Day!

The Cybils 2007 Awards and Honors Announced

As you may remember from last year Tandem Library Books was eager to promote the Cybils’ freshman year to our customers, including the fact that one of our own, a longtime book blogger Mindy, was involved as a panelist and an administrator. 

Mindy and the entire Cybils Team did it again and we are thrilled to highlight this year’s Cybil winners, which were announced February 14, 2008.

The 2007 Cybils Winners are:

Boy Toy
Young Adult Novels Winner

The Professor's Daughter
Graphic Novels Winner--Young Adult

Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel
Graphic Novels Winner--Elementary/Middle Grade

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood
Nonfiction Middle Grade/Young Adult Books Winner

A Crooked Kind of Perfect
Middle Grade Novels Winner

The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County
Fiction Picture Books

Lightship
Nonfiction Picture Books Winner

The True Meaning of Smekday
Fantasy & Science Fiction Winner--Elementary/Middle Grade

Book of a Thousand Days
Fantasy & Science Fiction Winner--Young Adult

This Is Just to Say
Poetry Winner     

                                                                                            Don't miss your chance to be involved with this one-of-a-kind award by nominating your favorite titles of 2008 this Fall at www.cybils.com!

                                                                     Here  are  all  62   honored   titles  from   2007.

Book of the Week: Oggie Cooder

In the past, comments from teachers on Oggie Cooder’s report cards have included words such as “unique,” “quirky,” “one-of-a-kind,” and “marching to his own drummer.”  His peers have been satisfied calling him “weirdo,” “dork,” “doofus,” “dweeb,” and “loozer.”  One description for Oggie readers of Sarah Weeks delightful middle-grade novel won’t be able to deny is leader.  But it isn’t until partway through Oggie’s fourth-grade year that anyone would dare follow this natural-born leader.  What turns things around?  He doesn’t begin to care about the clothes he wears or the games he dreams up.  He’s not suddenly interested in being friends with only the most popular kids in school or what all the people in Hollywood are doing.  It is Oggie’s unusual talent for charving cheese that unknowingly puts him on the path to fame and fortune.  Suddenly he’s the star of Truman Elementary School, his home town of Wauwatosa, and beyond--just being himself.

Oggie’s zany lust for life, along with an interesting story with true boy appeal, will strike a goofy chord with readers in grades 3-6 who have encountered changes and new experiences, as well as worries about friends and friendship.  After spending some time with Oggie, we all can look to the beat of our own drummer for inspiration.

Tattoo Tomes

Tattoos…  They seem to be everywhere these days, especially on the arms of athletes. They’ve also made their way into books.  Here are a couple of our favorite tattooed tomes.

My favorite work of tattoo fiction is The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven. It tells the story of Jack and his super-cool friend Charlie, who wakes up one day with a super-cool, moving black tattoo. The tattoo gives Charlie super powers. Or so they think. The tattoo is actually the mark of the Scourge, an ancient demon out to destroy the world. And it’s up to Jack to stop it.

The Monster Blood Tattoo series by D.M. Cornish begins with Foundling. It follows the life of orphan Rossamund Bookchild, an orphaned boy stuck with a girl’s name, through a fabulously imagined fantasy world filled with incredible characters. Humans here fight a constant battle against the monsters, with the tattoos being the mark of a monster killer. Look for Lamplighter, the second book in this exciting series in April!

Another set of tattoo books is Suzanne Weyn’s Bar Code Tattoo and its sequel Bar Code Rebellion. In the world of these books, it’s 2025 and the government, controlled by a shadowy corporation, starts requiring bar code tattoos on everyone. Seventeen-year-old Kayla resists, especially after the tattoo drives her father to commit suicide, and becomes part of a rebellion.

One of the ALA Quick Picks in 2007 also featured tattoos: Body Type: Intimate Images Etched in Flesh by Ina Saltz. This one looks at typography, as it is used in tattoos, which might sound dull, but results in fabulous photos of tattooed messages that range from the hilarious to the deeply touching.

Featured Lists: Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone from Tandem Library Group!  In the spirit of the holiday we've put together three title lists to inspire you and your students to celebrate Valentine’s Day all year long.

Celebrate Valentine's Day K-5

Celebrate Valentine's Day 6-8

Celebrate Valentine's Day 9-12

Words and Wordplay for Kids

I’ve been told I have the sense of humor of a five-year-old.  All the better to do my job, I reply.  And I must admit that I really do laugh at the silly stuff in all the picture books I see.  I still love the word play in Douglas Florian’s books of poetry.  My particular favorite line is from a poem about penguins in Zoo’s Who, which talks about “penguinter vacation.”  It never fails to get a chuckle from me.

Fans of silly poetry like Douglas Florian will not want to miss Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky in which animals are put with regular objects with unusual outcomes, much like in Scranimals.  I love the collage art by Carin Berger in this fun book poems.

Get to know words backwards and forwards in Mom and Dad are Palindromes by Mark Shulman.  This zany story has Bob freaking out after he learns about palindromes because it seems that palindromes are everywhere.  He can’t get away from them.  It’s fun to look for the hidden palindromes in the illustrations—there are over 100 to find in the book!

Whether you’re talking about homonyms and parts of speech or reading silly poems, these books will be sure to convince your students that language is fun.

Book of the Week: House Takes a Vacation

Ever wonder what’s going on at home while you’re sunning yourself at the beach?  Would you believe that your house is having an adventure of its own?  Hey, who says you get to have all the fun? 

When the Peterson family leaves for their vacation, their house decides that this might be a good time for it to get away from it all.  There is a bit of discussion about this.  Trying to get all the parts of a house to agree on a vacation destination is like getting all the members of a family to agree on where to go.  But eventually, they come to a consensus and take off.  All except the basement, who refuses to rise to the occasion.

The adventure ensues from there, full of puns and silly scenes with a house among oblivious vacationers.  Kids will love the silliness, especially if they are old enough to get the plays on words.  House Takes a Vacation by Jacqueline Davies is sure to be a hit at storytimes.