The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie by Tanya Lee Stone

Tanya Lee Stone's The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: a Doll's History and her impact on Us combines several things: a history of one of the most ubiquitous toys in North America; consideration of the sociological implications of this polarizing wasp-wasted vixen; and a biography of the forward-thinking, ahead-of-her-times and incredibly astute business woman who not only came up with the original idea but also created and helmed Mattel with her husband.
I was never big on mutilating my own Barbies, perhaps because I didn't have brothers (although I was bribed at the age of 3 to serve as a flower girl by the promise of a Skipper) and the chapter on mutilation is highly amusing. A thorough history of the development of the company provides readers with a lot of information about Ruth Handler, whose accomplishments in the business world are impressive. Whether you believe that Barbie is evil or merely a toy, this book provides a wealth of remembrances to go along with the history. Readers who had their own barbies will enjoy the pictures: those new(er) to the doll will find her development interesting, and may be amazed to learn how popular she remains today. How big is Barbie? An ad for Toys R Us the other day mentioned that the hottest toys this year included a new Barbie dream house...

Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing

Ann Angel's Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing was announced this week as one of the five shortlisted titles for the 2011 YALSA Award of Excellence for Nonfiction.
It is a testament to this book that the descriptions of Joplin's singing are particularly well done: Anyone who is not familiar with her voice can see clips of  her singing live on youtube. Angel's biography does not treat Joplin with kid gloves; instead, she presents an honest portrayal of a talented and insecure woman who died by an unfortunate and accidental overdose at the age of 27.
The book should be a strong contender for this year's award: the writing is great, the design is outstanding, the supplementary materials (including a timeline, notes, bibliography, and image credits for the plentiful photographs) are complete and the subject should be appealing to a very wide audience.

Guys Read: Funny Business. Edited and with an Introduction by Jon Scieszka.

I owe a debt of thanks to the authors who contributed stories Funny Business, the first anthology in the Guys Read series. Having nothing less depressing than an issue of TIME from which to find reading material for a sedated relative in the Intensive Care Unit, it was an absolute blessing to find my copy of this in my bag. Given a choice between a story about the economic stimulus or the charming, likeable and yet intrinsically relishing-his-own-evil "biggest genius wot you shall ever meet" older brother in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Begins? No choice. A story about how one's medical future is predetermined during the 9 months of pregnancy, or the funny, charming, and yet affirming and touching letters written by Jon Scieszka and Kate DiCamillo which made us laugh and cry in Your Question for Author Here? Again, an easy choice.
Humor can be a tricky thing, and it is a given that different people will find different things funny. Even so, it is more than likely that the wide range of stories in this book will offer something for any reader, whether it is the build-up to a scene that begs to be filmed in David Lubar's Kid Appeal, the narrator's fear of the family's new pet in David Loo's A Fistful of Feathers, or Jeff Kinney's simple relish in remembering the outright sibling rivalry he and his brother perfected in Unaccompanied Minors.
This is a book that will be enjoyed by any middle school reader and I eagerly await the next volume.

The Game of My Life by Jason McElwain with Daniel Paisner

Jason "J-Mac" McElwain, for anyone who was living under the same rock where ESPN wasn't playing as I was, is the stuff of a Disney producer's dreams. Better than that, actually, for on the silver screen it would likely make grown men and small girls teary and everyone else snigger at a screenwriter's presumption. For the rest of us, it really did happen.

Jason was diagnosed as a young boy with severe autism. In high school he had come farther than his mother ever dreamed, serving as the team manager for the JV basketball team. The coach had even let him dress for the last game of the season and, with two minutes left to go in the game, put him in to play. Part of the crowd, called "The 6th Man", cheered for him, calling "J-Mac!" They had a lot to cheer about when he was called for a foul and managed to sink three free throws in a row.

This isn't the game mentioned in the title, The Game of My Life: a true story of Challenge, Autism and Growing Up Autistic. The 4 minutes that changed Jason's life happened when he was put into the game as the manager of the Varsity basketball team, and managed to score 20 points in under 4 minutes at the end of the game. The video of the subsequent news coverage is available on youtube, if you haven't seen it.

This is a remarkable book, as well as a great example of a young man devoted to his game and the friends and family who can and do speak about what basketball and Jason's achievement have meant to him in a completely realistic way.

Deadliest Sea by Kalee Thompson

On page 161 of a book that I can only compare to 2003's Left for Dead in terms of 'Disaster/Survival' books, rescue swimmer O'Brien Starr-Hollow informs the reader that "The grass is always greener over the septic tank." This is not a book to begin close to bedtime, if you have any intention of actually going to bed.

Thompson does a wonderful job of recounting the stories of the men (and woman) who found themselves on the Alaska Ranger on Easter morning in 2008 when it began to take on water in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea. She also puts this disaster in its place in the very dangerous history of Alaskan fishing. 

The training needed for Coast Guard rescue (whether swimming or flying) is rigorous: the actual practice described here, that saved more than twenty of the 47 crew members, is almost overwhelming to contemplate. No part of the 'rescue' was easy: from the difficulties the crew had abandoning the ship, to finding the life rafts, boarding the helicopter or being offloaded on one of the rescue trawlers, Thompson imparts several breathless moments. Kaley Thompson's  The Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History will appeal to high school readers that enjoy fast-paced books of adventure, survival, sports, and combinations of all three.

Cleopatra Rules by Vicky Alvear Shecter

Readers will find a unique portrait in Vicky Alvear Shecter's portrayal of Cleopatra, aptly subtitled "the Amazing Life of the Original Teen Queen." Shecter's use of language is quick, pithy and punny. When describing the Queen in Rome with Caesar's rather predatory 'followers', she notes that "Cleopatra probably felt like a bull’s-eye target in a room full of twitchy archers." Cleopatra did accomplish a stunning amount for a woman of her time -- much more than her relationships with Caesar and Antony. Shecter uses modern comparisons and lets students know that most of what has been accepted (or at least presented in plays, books and films) about the last queen of Egypt has either been highly subjective or presented in from a terribly one-sided point of view. Readers will find sidebars on the various ways she has been portrayed (as opposed to what we actually know about her), as well as egyptian makeup and jewelry, among other things.
Presenting a fun and balanced accounting of an interesting subject, in a book that gives readers primary and secondary sources (along with endnotes, a glossary, and lots of illustrations) is one sure way to interest readers in history.

Groundwork Guides

Librarians in public and school libraries not familiar with Groundwood Books Groundwood Guides series are in for a treat. The series introduces readers to subjects in a diverse range of subjects. A trailer for it can be found here.
The books are well researched, written and encourage debate by presenting topics, from "Being Muslim" to "Pornography" that are usually seen as highly polarizing. Banned Books Week/Freedom to Read Week, anyone?
Groundwood is also developing teacher's guides for the series, which are available as free downloads from their website.
Guides have been already been developed for the following titles:
-Being Muslim by Haroon Siddiqui
-The Betrayal of Africa by Gerald Caplan
-Cities by John Lorinc
-Climate Change by Shelley Tanaka
-Genocide by Jane Springer
-Hip Hop World by Dalton Higgins
-Oil by James Laxer
-Slavery Today by Kevin Bales

Project Seahorse by Pamela Turner

This is the newest book in a line of award-winning and relevant titles that makes scientific enquiry approachable and fascinating while making environmentalism understandable and relatable, without being at all didactic. Turner's last book, The Frog Scientist made it all the way to the final in SLJ's Battle of the Books, and both of her books in 2009 were nominated for the 2010 Award of Excellence for Nonfiction for Young Adults.
I would not be surprised at all if Project Seahorse is nominated for the 2011 list: it shows the dangers faced by the various species of seahorses living in tropical waters due to factors including overfishing and then shows how scientists, working with local fishermen, were able to create an MPA (Marine Protected Area) and study its effectiveness in helping to revive the seahorse population. Noting that there are now 33 MPAs in Danajong Bank serves as an indication that there has continued to be a commitment among the local population in the Philippines to protect and nurture these creatures.
Readers will find a list of further resources: there isn't a list of picture credits, all of the photographs were taken by noted photographer Scott Tuason, whose own credits include several books about the coral reefs of the Philippines.

Frozen Secrets: Antarctica Revealed by Sally M. Walker

Sally Walker's Frozen Secrets is an absolutely beautiful book. I mean that literally. It combines stunning photographs of Antarctica with a page design that incorporates the icy background to which she is introducing readers in her text. Carolrhoda does this particularly well.

Frozen Secrets introduces readers to Antarctica, a continent that has long fascinated explorers (sorry,
Titus!) and one which took years, technological advances and a phenomenal amount of international cooperation in order to complete. The detailing of the hardships endured, as well as the technology necessary, the scientific efforts and advances and the environmental aspects of this book make this one which will be well worth adding to both public and school libraries. Not to mention that it is well-written, researched, illustrated, designed, indexed, has a great list of source notes, resources, and a suggested list for further reading.

They Called Themselves the KKK

Susan Campbell Bartoletti's They Called Themselves the KKK: the birth of an American terrorist group is a remarkable book. It gives readers a clear, compelling history of the origin and evolution of the Ku Klux Klan. This is not an easy thing to do: a chapter on the ending of the war and Reconstruction and its immediate aftermath helps to set the stage for an initial meeting of the six men from Pulaski. For many readers, this will be their first introduction to both the Klan and the men who created it.
The subsequent introduction to the spreading out of the Klan, its development of a set of "principles" and its members' acts are threaded throughout a text that also includes the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is a book that can be difficult to read: any time it seems that there is a step forward, as with an increase in public education, there are examples of vicious crimes, such as with William Luke, who was hanged for the crime of teaching (and likely over rumors.) There is an added poignancy in the text from a note he was allowed to leave for his wife and children before he was killed. Bartoletti makes several great points about the amount of violence fostered by fear, whether of change in the social order, retribution, or potential uprisings. An epilogue discusses hate crimes and notes current activities, reflecting that while there are a considerable number of hate groups in the United States today, they have neither "the power or the prestige" that the KKK did.
The copious illustrations and use of period speech add to the authenticity. The source notes indicate where Ms. Bartoletti found her information and add to this story. Indeed, learning that Ms Bartoletti attended a Klan congress will likely keep me up at nights.

Life-Size Aquarium

The third volume in the Seven Footer Press Life Size series arrived this week! After sharing it with my co-workers, I present to you: Life-Size Aquarium: Dolphin, orca, clownfish, sea otter, and more—an all-new actual-size animal encyclopedia !
Readers will be given the same crystal clear, up-close images from the earlier books, in oversize, occasionally fold-out (humphead wrasse, orca, walrus) pages. The information that is added to the pages is relevant, interesting and not something that is going to be found in a number of other books, given the uniqueness of some of the fish and animals that have been included.
The 'Leafy Sea Dragon' is shown across a large, double-page spread, on which readers are told that she is related to the seahorse. The sidebars include 3 sections. The first tells the reader that this fish is a female, as well as her approximate age if known, her scientific name, and her home. The second is called "Time for a Close Up" and gives the reader several things to look for, as well as explanations for them, followed by a third section with Facts about each animal. Breaking down information in this way and presenting these amazing pictures not only makes these books wonderful for outreach but makes them great books for ESL learners.

Sports from Hell: My Search for the World's Dumbest Competition by Rick Reilly

The premise of veteran sportswriter Rick Reilly's narrative nonfiction title Sports from Hell is a simple one: after 31 years in which a sportswriter has covered every major sport event and is starting to get a been-there, done-that sort of feeling, what is he to do? Ah-HA! He can find something "mind-warpingly...dumb." Hence, readers are treated here to chapters including everything from the World Sauna Championships to Chess Boxing to Jarts. Reilly sets out his rules for covering these events, all of which are treated with utter seriousness by the competitors. He also participates in all of them.

Readers are taken around the world, as he starts off in the World Sauna Championships in Finland, tries Zorbing in Australia and ends up at the Homeless Soccer championships in Copenhagen. His comments on the social outcomes of this last championships, which does exist and which had profound outcomes not only on the participants during their participation but afterwards. This is a very funny book with a few hidden depths -- it would make a great quick pick. While this is not a great literary work it is a highly enjoyable book that will be popular with high schoolers, whether or not they are fans of sports, as the "sports" under discussion are debatable and the book does include a chapter that discusses why baseball is a 'sport from hell.'

Strictly as an aside, perhaps if Mr. Reilly is looking for more sports for another edition, he and his assistant, TLC (The Lovely Cynthia), might consider visiting The Masters of Library Science Croquet Tournament?

Sir Charlie Chaplin: the Funniest Man in the World by Sid Fleischman

How to best understand the comic genius of Charlie Chaplin? Well, it helps if you have the writing of Sid Fleischman. The author’s last work, published posthumously in June, 2010, manages to convey Chaplin’s talent and drive while giving reader’s a full picture of the comic’s troubled upbringing and marriages.

This is a book that had me marking pages: I don’t do that very frequently. To describe the Little Tramp’s appeal for the public, readers are told that he “was forever David in a world of Goliaths.” It can be hard to understand Chaplin’s popularity in a world where movies make the kind of money they do today – the information and comparisons help to make that clear, both providing background for and giving readers justification for Chaplin’s outrage over his deportation in 1952.

Charlie’s family life and marriages, from his first shotgun marriage with actress Mildred Harris to his final love match with Oona O’Neill, as well as his complicated relationship with his mother are included. Charlie plumbed his own history as well as current events for his movies. This well-sourced, indexed, illustrated beautifully written book about a comic genius by a master will lead readers to Chaplin’s movies.

Tom Thumb: the remarkable life of a man in miniature by George Sullivan

George Sullivan's biography of Charles S. Stratton, better known as Tom Thumb, is a portrait of one of America's first celebrities. It is a complementary title to Candace Fleming's award-winning The Great and Only Barnum: the Tremendous, Stupendous, Life of Showman P.T. Barnum, which not only included Tom Thumb, but also pointed out that Barnum can be credited with creating the concept of celebrity as we know it today.
Indeed, Barnum is a central figure in Sullivan's book, as Stratton/Thumb was always inclined to be the center of attention and figured in a number of Barnum's enterprises, from the American Museum to tours to the circus. Barnum also introduced Tom to Lavinia Warren Bump, who became his wife.
It is worth noting that the global tours undertaken by Tom and Lavinia would be arduous today: it is almost inconceivable to think of the difficulties they must have endured in the 1800s. The reader will at least be able to picture some of the amazing moments of their lives, from multiple meeting with the Queen of England to their constant tours due to the copious photographs reproduced in the text. This is a slice of life that will be completely foreign and utterly entrancing to readers.
This title was made available courtesy of Netgalley and will be released in February, 2011.

The Cat's Pajamas by Wallace Edwards

The Cat's Pajamas illustrates 26 idioms, in Wallace Edwards' inimitable style. That is to say, readers are treated to intricate, beautiful pictures of animals that portray the meaning of the idiom while allowing the reader at least one further in-joke. Accompanying a picture with the caption "Ahab didn't mind if one got away; he knew that there plenty more fish in the sea" is a picture of a dog watching a small fish jumping out of his net while a much larger fish approaches him from the bottom, mouth starting to open, a la the cover of Jaws, thus providing at least two different references in the picture.
If these aren't enough to keep readers busy, there is a hidden picture of a cat in each illustration that readers will be encouraged to find once they get to the very last picture, surely enough to keep them going back again and again. An explanation for the idioms has been added to the back of the book.
This will make a wonderful gift book. The illustrations are intricate and beautifully done; the idioms cleverly matched and rather punny. One of my colleagues has already asked me to add this to her Christmas list!

The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics

Freddie Williams is an illustrator with DC Comics. He is unusual in that he illustrates solely with Adobe Photoshop. He mentions in the introduction to his book, The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics, that he had been faced with a bit of unease by both other illustrators and some editors when he used to mention that, as he then wouldn't be considered a "real artist." Until the San Diego Comic Con, in 2005, when he met the creative director from DC, who responded that he couldn't tell the difference. He presents a number of compelling reasons why working digitally (and readers are given all of the specifics of the kind of software and hardware he uses) works better for him than by hand.
Indeed, readers interested in creating their own comics will be hard pressed to find a more specific guide to follow. The instructions include clear graphics that cover almost all of the tools in Adobe Photoshop, with additional suggestions for marketing the artist him/herself in the form of printing off one's best works that will make this a book that includes (or could perhaps convert?) established illustrators. It does assume some knowledge of comics, but will likely entice those readers who are interested in the form into branching out into creating their own. Not a bad thing at all.

More Life Size Zoo: Give Me More!

There is something about a life-size picture that will grab a child. Teruyuki Komiya's Life Size Zoo did just that, with it's amazing photographs of more than 20 animals ranging from a fold-out page showing a rhino's horn to favourites including a lion and mother and baby elephants and animals that kids may not know quite as well such as a capybara, an anteater or a sloth.
What makes the book absolutely extraordinary, and work particularly well not only for outreach but also for an ESL audience, is that each page incorporates some really interesting facts, placed along either the side or the bottom of these truly amazing photographs. Children will be captivated by the photographs and will learn from the information. I'd never known that a rhino's horn is actually hair. This was the most popular book in the outreach (K-6) I did this spring, in an area with a very high population of ESL children.
I was absolutely delighted to see a second book in the series, More Life-Size Zoo. The quality of the photographs hasn't changed, nor has the information in the sidebars: on the page with a picture of an adorable seal, there are several leading questions, facts and tidbits in addition to the information added to the photograph. A standout is a foldout of a lion: because of the lion's size, the page needs to be folded out twice! These are books that are guaranteed to leave readers wanting more. Luckily, they will be able to look forward to Life-Size Aquarium, which will bring them up close to beluga whales among other underwater denizens.

Nat Geo Amazing! is just that.

Nat Geo Amazing! was one of the goodies I returned with from ALA Annual this year. This is a book that took me completely by surprise. The book's subtitle says it all: 100 people, places and things that will surprise you. It is a large trade paperback and each of the 'things' are presented either in a double-page spread or introduced with a double-page spread and then delved into with a further essay. They can be accessed by subjects -- the table of contents breaks them down into 14, including: adventure, people, amazing worlds, ancient worlds, animal kingdom, behind the image, extreme athletes, from the vaults, global cultures, the incredible story of..., natural world, planet in peril, science and technology, and survival stories.
The quality of the photographs, as expected, given their sources, are exceptional. So is the writing. The variety of material is appealing and varied but provides multiple points of access. It can be read through or browsed. This would make a great quick pick as well as a valuable book for public or high school libraries.

Kakapo Rescue

The Kakapo (kar-ka-poe), the reader finds out in the latest volume of Houghton Mifflin's Scientists in the Field series, is an extremely unusual bird that not only faces constant threats from predators because it is a flightless parrot, but also that its enormous population losses are either directly or indirectly attributable to man. This beautiful bird faced dangers from predators and mankind alike because of its nature: it is very friendly, and a sad fact is that it was once so plentiful that it was a food source for polynesian settlers. Other settlers brought not only predators that thought these [flightless!] birds were a delicious, enticing food -- their feathers smell like honey -- but animals whose hooves destroyed the soil where their food grew. There are now less than 100 of the birds left. So what can be done?
Sy Montgomery and Nic Bishop waited years for permission to travel to Codfish Island, the remote location where the remaining kakapo have been moved and are watched over by New Zealand's National Kakapo Recovery Team. Readers will see not only the extreme measures these dedicated scientists take to ensure that they are not passing any germs or foreign substances to the birds or chicks as well as a sense of the rewards they get from their work. This is a book that made me cry several times, and one that would be useful to encourage support for conservation. As with all of the other books in the series, there are suggestions for further reading and an index.

Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up

On the surface, Sarah Albee's Poop Happened is an entertaining and informative history of the development of indoor plumbing. It is chock-full of more than enough illustrations and sidebars to keep the most reluctant reader going (and not realizing how much they are learning.) A lot of us get information about early Britain (London) from books, more of us are presented with stories from movies, whether on film or television. According to the author, none of these would have (or could possibly) give an accurate picture what it actually would have looked -- or smelled like, at a time when there wasn't anywhere to relieve oneself except indoors, (such as the royal court of Versailles, with 20,000 people living there, and 275 closestools - p76.) Readers will learn about the effects this sewage had on disease, how people dealt with their bodily functions at different times (how did knights 'go' while wearing armour, or french ladies in those very wide dresses...) and Albee's source notes, index and timeline are a welcome addition. This book will provide as much cultural information as historical, all wrapped up in a fun topic that will make it an easy sell to div 2 and 3 students who think they don't like history.