The Songbook Highway

Friday, September 3, 2010

Rosh Hashanah
The Jewish High Holy Days are right around the corner.* Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown on September 8th. Here are three great children’s books about the holiday:

Kimmel, Eric A, Isaac L. Peretz, and Jill Weber. Even Higher!: A Rosh Hashanah Story. New York: Holiday House, 2009.

Author [...]

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Red Hook Road

Waldman, Ayelet. Red Hook Road: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

Reading Red Hook Road is like watching a train wreck (or in this case, a car wreck). You know something really bad is going to happen, but it’s hard to look away. The novel begins with a horrible [...]

Thursday, July 29, 2010

B is for Beach

Here are some great children’s books about the seashore:

Holm, Matthew, and Jennifer L. Holm. Babymouse: Beach Babe!Babymouse, 3. New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2006.

Babymouse is the cutest surfer girl on the shelf.

Wiesner, David. Flotsam. New York: Clarion Books, 2006.

David Wiesner’s [...]

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Anne Tyler vs. Anita Shreve
RIVETING
Tyler, Anne. Noah’s Compass: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print.
BORING
Shreve, Anita. A Change in Altitude: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2009. Print.

Last week I read Anita Shreve’s latest novel, A Change in Altitude. It’s a [...]

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Mennonite in a little black dress

Janzen, Rhoda. Mennonite
in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home.
NewYork: Henry Holt and Co, 2009. Print.

The Mennonite Church is kind of interesting. Here are some things I knew before reading Mennonite in a Little Black Dress:

*Mennonites and the Amish are not [...]

Natalie Merchant and Children’s Literature

“There was an old man with a nose, who said, ‘If you choose to suppose
that my nose is too long, you are certainly wrong!’ That remarkable man with a nose.”
-Edward Lear’s Nonsense Omnibus

This year’s annual American Library Association was absolutely wonderful. My committee’s programs went really well and I got [...]

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Do you know Greenland?

The National Geographic Magazine.

Washington, D.C: National Geographic Society.
June 2010, Vol. 217, No. 6.

There is a really interesting article about Greenland in this month’s issue of National Geographic. I’m embarrassed to admit
that I really didn’t know much about Greenland until [...]

Monday, June 14, 2010

Waters
If you like David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, you will really like this new book by filmmaker John Waters. You don’t have to be a fan of his movies to enjoy the book. Visit npr.com to learn more about it.

Waters, John. Role Models. New York: Farrar, Straus and [...]

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Save Libraries

I’ve been feeling a bit feisty lately. The other day on Facebook I posted the question “Do you have a library card?” and almost instantly received 34 comments. One well-meaning friend wrote that he doesn’t use the library because he likes to support starving authors by
paying for their books. [...]

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree

Tarshis, Lauren. Emma-Jean
Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree. New York:
Dial Books for
Young Readers, 2007.

Yesterday a woman came up to the reference desk with her 10 year old daughter, slammed down a copy of this book, and demanded, “Tell me who recommended this book to my daughter.” [...]