The Wonder Book - Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Illustrated by Paul Schmid
Harper, 2010
80 pgs.
$17.99
Grades 1-4
Endpapers: Bright yellow

Lots of play-on -words and silly poems here. It really is perfect for fourth graders. Whether you're reading PALINDROMES or how to say "fart" in other languages, there's something here to entertain one and all. I particularly enjoy the Mary Mack poems, becuase I realize how much fun it would be to write some of my own.

Miss Mary Mellow Mellow Mellow
All dressed in yellow yellow yellow
Slept til noon noon noon
And then ate Jell-O Jello-O Jell-O

She watched her TV TV TV
All 50 channels channels channels
She was so comfy 'omfy 'omfy
In her flannels flannels flannels ...

Illustrations are black and white line drawings. Fun.

40. The Incredible Shrinking Kid - Megan McDonald

Stink Series, Book #1
Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
102+ pages (Last 12 pgs. are upcoming book)
Candlewick, 2005
$4.99
Rating: 5 (Yup, 5. Can't wait to read another.)
Reading Level N

This book has references to poetry, figurative language, research, acrostic poetry, and six pages of graphic novel/comics at end of each of the chapters. It's REALLY well written. James Moody ("Stink") is Judy Moody's younger brother. She figures prominently in the book. "You're only as short as you feel." How can you beat that?

Okay, I'm sold. I love Stink. (Does that mean I'll love Judy Moody?)

Stink is certain he's shrinking. He's certainly not getting any taller. Then he gets to be the person that brings home the class newt for the weekend, and it slips down the drain. He celebrates James Madison for President's Day (he was 5' 4" tall), likes school, enjoys homework, writes poetry and songs - well, what's not to love?

The illustrations are the same as Judy Moody. Black and white and fun.

It looks like there are four books in the series so far:
1. Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid, 2005
2. Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker, 2006
3. Stink and the World's Worst Super-Stinky Sneakers, 2007
4. Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express, 2008

36. Dying to Meet You (43 Old Cemetery Road: Book One) - Kate Klise

Illustrated by M. Sarah Klise (sisters)
Published: April, 2009
Harcourt/HMH
$15.00
160 pgs.
Quick read
Rating: 4
Front endpaper: house floorplans and "slice"
Back endpaper: Pictures and info on interior features

Meet I. B. Grumply (actually, Ignatius), Seymour Hope and his cat, Shadow, and Olive C. Spence. A grupmy, 60ish, has-been author, an abandoned 11 year-old boy, and an almost 200 year-old ghost are the protagonists in the story, set in Ghastly, Illinois, in a falling down old house on 43 Cemetery Road.

Grumply has rented the house for the summer, hoping that it will help loosen his writer's block so that he can write the 13th book in his children's "Ghost Tamer" series. He does not realize that the house comes with an abandoned 11 year-old and the house's original owner, the ghost of an unpublished writer of graphic epistolary novels. Through a series of letters we meet them, attend to some of the goings-on in the town, and watch as they build a relationship, then a family.

This is an entertaining, funny book that took no time at all to read, with all sorts of lighthearted nods to the dead and macabre, particularly with names that are tongue-in-cheek plays on words....the realtor, Anita Sale, the lawyer, E. Gadds; the book publisher, Paige Turner; M. Balm, the chief librarian; Barry A. Lyve, pet store owner.....to name a few.

Wing Nuts - Paul Janeczko & J. Patrick Lewis

POETRY
Illustrated by: Tricia Tusa
2006
Rating: 3.5 (Illustrations bring my rating down)
$15.99
Endpapers: pink

Senryu is a form of haiku. I looked it up on the internet, it has to do more with "human" nature than with "nature" nature. The haiku/senryu in this book are clever, punny, and funny. Paul Janeczko is a great Maine children's poet, J. Patrick Lewis has always written poetry with great humor for kids. This is their first collaboration. This is the second Tricia Tusa book for me, and again, it'ss not as complimentary to the fun poetry as is could be. Some of the illustrations don't seem to go with the haiku at all. They are so suggestive of particular pictures, but she seems to disregard this. Odd.


High school band minus
its tuba player --- looking
for a substi-toot!

and

Irksome mosquito
kindly sing your evening song
in my brother's ear.

and then

City piugeons chatter
and coo -- busybodies
eavesdropping.

The Composer is Dead - Lemony Snicket

Illustrator: Carson Ellis
Music Composed by Nathaniel Stookey
2009
Rating: 4
Endpapers (back of covers): Silhouttes of composers

When the composer is found dead, the inspector is called in to interview all the usual suspects - the members of the orchestra. He starts with the strings, proceeds to the woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Their excuses were all plausible. And then the inspector remembered the conductor. "You've been murdering composers for years! In fact, wherever there's a conductor, you're sure to find a dead composer!" And then there's a long list of famous dead composers.

This is chock full of information about an orchestra and the instruments that make it up. I read the book at B&N, so I didn't get to listen to the CD - which was performed by the San Francisco Symphony. Looks like Tracks 1-9 are the story read by the author and tracks 10-18 are instrumentals. I'd love to hear it!

GREAT vocabulary; lurking, flamboyant, interrogate, weary, "on the contrary," crucial, treachery, alibis, boisterous, arrogant, ruckus, agitated, nostalgic, unison......

(Not my favorite illustrations, but they work with the book.)