Blog buds

This week, the kid blog world got even friendlier! Our dear friend Katie, a former blogger, events coordinator and all round amazing lady, has made her own blog debut through the Horn Book: Out of the Box. This blog will feature various H'Book celebrities reviewing miscellaneous books and goodies that come through their offices, especially those that may not make it into the magazine or guide.

Katie is a talented writer and reviewer, and while we miss her in the hut, we're certainly glad that even more folks can read her!

You can also pick up the latest issue of the Horn Book here - not only is there a feature on Moomins ("MOOMINS!!!" Natasha shouted), but Katie also debuted on the masthead.

This day in history...King Tut Day!

I learned a fun fact this morning (thank you, Emerson radio, broadcasting joy and knowledge across the bay state!) - today is King Tut Day! On November 4th, 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter uncovered the entrance to boy king Tutankhamen's tomb.

Instead of debating over which Thanksgiving movie to watch tonight or patching up your Wellingtons, here are some fun and historical entertainment alternatives:

I can't get enough of activity books, and this particular oversize maze book is right up my alley. Mummy Mazes: A Monumental Book by Elizabeth Carpenter is a poster book of mazes, puzzles and codes. Each spread folds out to a giant maze or picture of famous Egyptian monuments, mummies, and pharaoh masks.


For the future archaeologist, GeoCentral gives us a Pyramid Dig Kit, a pocket-size pyramid with digging tools and brush to unearth an ancient Egyptian treasure. The possibilities include a pharaoh head, Egyptian cat, Egyptian queen, and other relics.

When it comes to books, if your history or mythology buff hasn't read a Rick Riordan novel yet, he has started a new series based on Egyptian gods called The Kane Chronicles. So far, only the first book, The Red Pyramid, is out, but once you start a Riordan series, you'll be chomping at the bit for the next installment. Brother and sister Carter and Sadie Kane have been raised separately since their mother's mysterious death six years ago. They are reunited under dire circumstances: their father disappears and accidentally releases violent Egyptian gods from captivity.

The Newbery Honor winner Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder is up with The Westing Game for one of my all-time favorite mysteries. Four kids in California are fascinated by ancient Egypt and build an elaborate pretend world in an abandoned city lot. They research pharaoh history and create rituals, until mysterious murders occur in their neighborhood and they receive cryptic messages from their "oracle."

For non-fiction, our receiver John recommends David Macaulay's architecture book Pyramid. Macauley is famous for his detailed drawings, cross-sections, and clear explanations of both the architectural design and historical-social function of the buildings. In this case, how and why pyramids were built.



(Side note: I've managed to make it to 5 pm and through an entire blog post without a single bad pun about mummies! I'm terribly proud of myself.)

Kid at Heart: Game Night edition!

It's getting cold out there folks. Sweaters and scarves have officially made their way out of closets, light fall coats traded in for heavy jackets. I've even seen some gloves and hats starting to come out--worth noting on my weather hardened New England peers. So it should surprise no one that lately I've been noticing a lot more of my pals opting for a quiet night in, watching movies or playing games, rather than going out, walking around, and exploring the city.

So in the spirit of staying in and keeping cozy, allow me to shed a light on some of the nifty board games we've got downstairs in our chapter book room right now. We've got loads of grown up friendly classics sure to entertain, like Monopoly, Risk, and my personal favorite, Scrabble. But if you're pulling an all out game night with your pals, why not indulge in some of the sillier games of childhood while you're at it? I can't think of a single soul who hasn't enjoyed the nervous thrill of Operation (and the inevitable jolts and giggle fits that go along with that buzz of failure when you slip up mid-removal. The new version has nifty new sound effects too!). And if you prefer your game night a little more active, we've got Twister, a sure bet to get you and your friends up on your feet (and then possibly right back down again on the floor!) And if you're rushing home in the cold and don't want to be bogged down with a lot of big bags, we've got bunches of Bananagrams ready for picking. They pack all of the linguistic fun of scrabble, but in a convenient size that fits in a purse or a satchel, and with a silly banana inspired package. So go ahead, pop some popcorn, slip into some thick fuzzy socks, and hunker down with your buds for some indoor fun.

Two for tea, and toys in twos

The best run of holiday fun has begun! Halloween is this weekend (look for half price Halloween merchandise Saturday and Sunday, excluding books and costumes), stuffed (plush, that is) turkeys abound, and the Christmas and Hannukah books already have their own section in our picture books. Now is the perfect time to get out those wish lists and start matching the perfect toy to all the kids (and kid loving grown-ups) on your list.

My first pair of presents is something I am eyeing for myself! This tiny unabridged edition of two my favorite books will add style to my Lewis Carroll collection: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass from Collector's Library, with original Tenniel illustrations. Once your Alice fan recovers from the gold-edged pages and perfectly replicated Tenniel drawings, let them open the Alice in Wonderland Mug from Unemployed Philosopher's Guild (best toy company name, hands down!). When you pour your hot beverage of choice into the mug, the Cheshire Cat disappears...leaving behind its grin!


For the auto enthusiast (like my six year old nephew, still a vehicle fanatic), I'd recommend the Fast Wheels Art Set from Italian toy company Carioca. This activity kit comes with 20 fine tip markers and heavy cardboard cut-outs of cars to color, with sturdy wheels to attach for racing. Pair it with The Modern Storybook by Wallace Wadsworth, illustrated by Caroline Ruth Eger. This Dover Publications reprint from 1931 is a collection of stories about personified vehicles, which comes with a CD recording of every story. My favorite is the "Runaway Elevator", in which an elevator and truck trade jobs for a day.




While I'm thinking of my own shopping list, which includes some serious Star Wars fans, we have plenty of new books and merchandise from George Lucas and co. My top pick is Star Wars Visions, as edited by Acme Achive, a coffee table style book full of various artists' interpretations of Star Wars characters and famous scenes. I wish I had a print of Kermit the Frog and Yoda by artist Peter de Seve. Pair this with Chronicle Book's Yoda figurine: the figure comes with a display stand, stickers, and a book of wisdom.





For the creative teen on your list, try Storyworld, a create-a-story-kit by John and Caitlin Matthews. These tarot-like cards have rich, intricate illustrations with prompt questions on the back, to inspire any kind of artist or writer. Pair it with Robin McKinley's newest novel, Pegasus, a atmospheric fantasy about a princess and the pegasus she is bonded to, or Patrick Ness's Monsters of Men, the concluding book in his dystopian Chaos Walking series.

Kid at Heart: Day of the Dead/ Dia de los Muertos Paper Dolls

Halloween is coming up fast, and the hut is overflowing with ghosts, spiders, bats and rats in preparation for Sunday. Yes indeed, there is plenty of creepy, ghoulish fun going on around here, but what caught my eye recently wasn't any of our (completely awesome) Halloween toys. It was our new Day of the Dead/ Dia de los Muertos paper dolls from Dover. These skeleton dolls may look creepy at first blush, but in actuality the Mexican Day of the Dead isn't a spooky affair at all. Rather it's a day to honor departed loved ones and welcome them back to the realm of the living for the day, with music, picnics, and festivities. And these skull faced characters get dressed to the nines for the occasion!

The traditional Day of the Dead Catrina and Catrin come with a ton of super-snazzy ensembles, including traditional Aztec garb, a zoot suit, Mariachi clothing, even wedding day duds. They're vibrantly colored and completely funky and whimsical, (and okay, a little spooky) and I can't look at them without picturing them hanging out on a bulletin board in my apartment, or maybe stuck with magnets to my refrigerator. Bonus points to the stylish Catrina for even having a cute kitty to accompany her during the festivities!

Little Pim and Doodlebug event wrap ups

October has been chock full of fun events so far!

On October 9th, we had a visit from Julia Pimsleur Levine, the creator of the early language learning series, Little Pim. She showed a few sample DVD episodes and answered parents' questions about raising young children to be multilingual. Rafael Medina, a local musician, performed songs in Spanish and English, and even got some singing help from the audience and Julia on songs from the Little Pim music CDs.

Julia emphasized that young children - toddlers and preschoolers - are the most impressionable and fastest to pick up languages. As we get older, learning a language becomes significantly more difficult (as many of us may remember from high school French classes). In addition to further developing the brain, being multilingual in our globalized culture can present more social and economic opportunities. From the planning of the event through describing Little Pim's goals and answering parents' questions, I was impressed with Julia's passion: this is a woman who discovered there weren't many resources available to teach young children foreign languages, and so simply developed the resources for herself and other parents to do so.
There are DVDs, music CDs, and flash cards available in French, Spanish, Chinese, among other languages.



A few weeks later, author and illustrator Karen Romano Young read an excerpt from her new middle grade graphic novel, Doodlebug: A Novel in Doodles. Kids and adults alike made a beeline for the mural paper and crayons. We saw some pretty amazing doodles!

My favorite part of Doodlebug is how Dodo, or "Doodlebug," uses her drawing: it helps her focus in school, it sorts out her thoughts and feelings about moving, homework, and her family, and best of all, drawing helps her learning. I found the resolution of the story very satisfying; Dodo's teachers and parents acknowledge that there are many ways to learn, and some kids do need to translate information visually. The best example I thought was how Dodo taught her younger sister about decimals using diagrams of a song playing on a iPod. Karen and I had a great conversation after the event about how the growing market of graphic novels is wonderful for "reluctant readers" or kids with learning disabilities - not only do these books offer an alternative way to interpret a story, they're also fun.

Our next author event will be on November 20th at noon: musician Gordon Titcomb will read from his new picture book, The Last Train. Bring your train whistles!

You can also come by the store the Saturday before Halloween, the 30th, for some creepy crafts and scary snacks during story-time at noon.

Kid at Heart: Moon in my Room

I am a person who believes we could all use a little more whimsy in our decor. Sure, sophisticated, grown-up interior design is nice, but where's the fun? Yes, the grown up in me loves when the window treatment is the perfect blue to match the throw pillows, but the kid in me loves something silly and unexpected thrown in for some flavor. Which is why I'm completely tickled by the Moon in my Room from Uncle Milton. It offers a realistic three dimensional light up moonscape to mount on your wall, along with a remote control to manually move through 12 phases of the moon (or set it to automatic to just sit back and enjoy). It also comes with an audio CD full of interesting lunar factoids, so it's educational too. And if you're looking for some last minute Halloween party decor to keep your werewolf costumed buddies howling? This is just the thing.

What Natasha Wants to Buy

Movie Maker: The Ultimate Guide to Making Films Upstairs in our Fine Arts section
$19.99
Ages 9+
This kit looks small from the outside (a great gift, they'll never guess! a nice souvenir, it packs well!) but it is chock full of cinematic goodness. It starts with a book that explains the basics of filmmaking terminology, setting up shots and lighting, as well as tips from the pros on making a film. But from there the kit just gets more awesome. It comes with a working clapper-board/chalkboard, a fill-in storyboard, a CD of sound effects, props like push-out mustaches and tattoo stickers, and animation aids like a push-out studio set and characters. PLUS, everything you need for premier night from push-out tickets to a poster template. Get this for the next Maya Deren or Ingmar Bergman in your life!


Richard Scarry's Busytown Eye Found It Board Game Upstairs on the Games Wall
$21.95
Ages 3+
We've actually had this in before, but we sold them so fast I didn't get much chance to drool over them! But now they're back and I WANT TO PLAY! You pick a car, truck or thing that goes, and move along the board spying various Busytown characters and items to advance.




Alphabeasties sticker set
Upstairs in our Activities Section
$15.99
Ages 4+
The stickers alone in this mega-activity book are tempting. But add the many pages of glorious typographical coloring and games and this is an awesome, beautiful and crafty boredom buster.

Bookity bookishness: award finalists and radio stardom

It's that time of year, when we start hunkering down with piles and piles of books (err, more so than usual), and start the Big Debate(s) of Kids Books Land: the awards announcements!

The National Book Foundation has announced its finalists for the 2010 National Book Awards. The young readers choices are as follows: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers, Dark Water by Laura McNeal, and Mockingbird by Kathyrn Erskine. I've heard some great reviews of these books, so I'm going to have to bump all these nominees to the top of my reading pile. I haven't felt as strongly about any 2010 books for NBA or Newbery Medals as I did for When You Reach Me last year, so I must expand my reading in the next few months! The Caldecott Medal is another story: I'm rooting for the gorgeous debut A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip and Erin Stead, with honors to David Wiesner's Art and Max and Beaver Is Lost by Elisha Cooper. My book club hasn't had its Mock Caldecott meeting yet, so we'll see if anyone convinces me to change my tune.

The debate about picture book continues on, and Curious George had a chance to contribute the the discussion! Yesterday, Karen Lotz, Publisher of Candlewick Press and Betsy Groban the VP and Publisher of the children's department of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and I had a discussion about the article and how we see picture books on The Emily Rooney Show on WGBH: The End of Picture Books?. I was in awe being alongside such incredibly smart, experienced and well-spoken women. I love that my job puts me in the path of talking to some of the big cheeses in the business - and we're all in agreement that kids books and kids themselves deserve more credit and attention. It was my first time on air (those headphones were too big for my head!), so please forgive my little camera shy moments. Before the fame could go to my head, I came back to the store and supervised a new staffer assembling a Melissa & Doug Deluxe Pirate Ship. All in a day's work at ye old Curious George shop.

Thanks to the kindly folks at WGBH who thought of us at Curious George and made us feel very welcome. It's pretty funny how such a negative article has given picture books so much attention: if not for this article, would so many people be talking about these books and young children's reading? I'm not complaining there.

Our book buyer, Donna, found this illustration in the October 10th New York Times...and put it on the back of our employee door. I still feel the way that last kid looks, when trying to read Finnegan's Wake.

Staff picks out to lunch

It's a reading frenzy here in the chapter book room, with staff members sneaking new books off the displays and devouring them (metaphorically, for the most part) on their lunch breaks. Here are our latest staff choices for you.

Koko Be Good by Jen Wang
Bookseller: Natasha
Genre: graphic novel, realistic fiction
Suggested reading level: ages 15 up

This book weaves the stories of three really interesting characters in a subtle and interesting way. I really liked that the book showed all these characters without judgment, and in the end it seems to say that no matter who you are--whether you’re driven toward a goal or an aimless wanderer--what matters is that you're okay with yourself.


I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
Bookseller: Michelle
Genre: fantasy adventure, humor
Suggested reading level: ages 13 up

This 4th book in the hilarious Tiffany Aching series concludes the adventures of witch Tiffany and the rambunctious, kilt-sporting Wee Free Men. As always with Pratchett, there are many laughs, puns, and subtle satirical scenes. I'm sad that a favorite series is over, but Tiffany's coming-of-age is as wonderfully unsentimental as it is heroic and humorous. Plus, I can always reread them! The Wee Free Men books are perfect for grads of Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle.


Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
Bookseller: Morgan
Genre: YA fiction
Suggested reading level: ages 12 up

When Fergus finds the body of a child preserved in the bog near his Northern Island home, he is drawn into an ancient mystery that occupies his dreams. But Fergus has problems here and now: his brother is on hunger strike, and the political turmoil that surrounds him is threatening to divide his home.


Dragonbreath series by Ursula Vernon
Bookseller: Natasha
Genre: graphic novel, fantasy
Suggested reading level: ages 8 up

Reluctant readers will love this series; somewhere between graphic novels and heavily illustrated chapter books. You'll want to be best friends and sidekicks with mythical dragon Danny who hates homework and dreams of being a pirate while stuck at a school full of normal amphibians.


The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
Bookseller: Jessie
Genre: fantasy
Suggested reading level: ages 11 up; read-aloud to 7

All the inhabitants of Atlantis crowded together to hear the (only slightly embellished) autobiography of Bluebear; the hobgoblins could not console themselves without his nightly performances, and the thoughts in the Bollogg's brain paid generously to witness his dreams - who are you to resist reading his story?


The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bookseller: Shara
Genre: realism
Suggested reading level: ages 12 up

After prank-calling a lonely old man named Angelo Pignati, two teenagers inadvertently begin an intense relationship with him that ultimately leads to his death. As John and Lorraine take turns telling their sides of the story, they begin to deal with their feelings of guilt and loss. Similar to S.E. Hinton.


The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
Bookseller: Michelle
Genre: sibling story, wholesome summer adventure
Suggested reading level: ages 9 up

The Penderwicks can stand alongside the great tradition of family stories, like Edward Eager's Half Magic, Frank Gilbreth Jr and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey's Cheaper by the Dozen, and Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Quartet. These four sisters (responsible Rosalind, practical Skye, imaginative Jane, and butterfly-wing-wearing Batty) along with Hound Penderwick are about to have their best summer vacation yet - full of escapes, scrapes, a mysterious boy next door, and pet rabbits! Also look for the sequel, Penderwicks on Gardam Street.


Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Bookseller: Morgan
Genre: magical realism
Suggested reading level: ages 9 up

A gorgeously written story about a New Orleans girl with a special power, fighting to survive Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Readers who live for interesting characters will love the relationship between Lanesha and her Mama Ya-Ya, and fantasy fans will love the hint of magic behind the gritty story.