Picture Book Reviews: Toddler Treats

Got a request for some great reads for 3-year old's!  Here's a few of my faves.


Lottie Paris Lives Here by Angela Johnson

Lottie Paris is a busy young lady today.
She and Papa Pete have to visit the park, Lottie has to build a castle in her room, host a tea party,  secretly steal Papa Pete's phone to play with, etc.  You know, normal busy little girl stuff!
Readers of other Angela Johnson stories will love Lottie Paris just as much.  Through the picture on their wall, it's clear that Papa Pete is a single father or maybe even an adoptive dad.  Readers never see his face, so the story takes on a very Muppet Babies feel (Nanny's legs), but he's got just as much personality . LOL
Lottie ends up in the quiet chair a couple times, and she's busier than a bee, but she's also cute as a button and very loving.  Little girls will love the cute and colorful pictures while adults will chuckle at the similarities to Lottie Paris and perhaps a similar girl in their life.  The illustrations are bright and cheery, and Lottie Paris is a serious cutie.

YA Review: Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Imagine God.
Now Imagine God as a 12 foot tall Tuskeegee Airman named Joe.
Now Imagine God, the Tuskeegee Airman named Joe, creating a place for all ghosts to dwell in six days.
Because of course on the seventh day, he rests.

The place he's built is called Ghostopolis, and all the types of the dead (live) there: Specters, Wisps, Bony Skeletons, Mummies and more. They reside in somewhat perfect harmony until a stranger named Vaughn appears and stirs up rumors and trouble between all the groups only to then present himself as the only one to bring peace. He uses giant bugs, summoned from the Underworld, to help him police Ghostopolis, and he secretly works to ensure that he will soon be as powerful and in control as Joe, who no one has seen for years.

And he would be successful too, if not for two problems: Traitors and Living People.

Are You Listening? *Giveaway*

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit of a nerd.
Aside from finding great nerdy things for myself, I tend to seek out nerdalicious things to share with my nieces and godchildren.  My goal is to make them the coolest little nerds you ever did see.  But I want them to have fun at the same time.

I came across the Noodleboro Playskool games on a recent trip to Five Below.  I like to keep games and books at my house for family members that visit, and I thought these would make for cute additions to my arsenal of activities.  There was a Pizza Listening game as well as a Manners game.  I grabbed the Listening game to try out.  What attracted me to these sets was the fact that each came with game pieces, a music cd, and also a book!  A complete activity set for $5!!

I knew I liked it, but would it pass the niece test?

YA Review: My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody

My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Brooklyn Pierce is no stranger to catastrophic trouble. When she was two years old, she captured the hearts of millions when she fell down a mine shaft and was trapped for fifty-two hours. Now, at 15 years old, "Baby" Brooklyn is re-examining her life. Because "when you're being handcuffed and lowered into the backseat of a squad car," you kind of have to. She's just let a load of peer-pressure by her best friend Shayne Kingsley land her in serious trouble. Again.

This time, things can't be smoothed over by a flip of Shayne's gorgeous blonde hair, or by her quick ideas on what Brooks should say. No, burning down one of her mother's model homes can't be fixed by anyone but Brooklyn herself, by completing 200 hours of community service at a nearby nursing home and devoting her time to helping rebuild the home. Instead of focusing on the trouble she's in though, Brooklyn is more concerned with finding out what has happened to Shayne, since she hasn't seen or heard from her since they were busted by the cops.

Weeding: A Spooky Trip Through our YA Fiction

I often visit AwfulLibraryBooks.net to laugh at the ridiculous things some librarians find on their shelves during weeding.  This week, however, I didn't even have to leave my own library to get a good chuckle.  With the summer being so busy, there isn't time for things like weeding and reorganizing so it is one of the first things we're getting started on now that the kids are back in school.

Each member of my department has an assigned section to weed, and I am the proud gardener of our Young Adult books, movies, and series.  When I tell you I have literally guffawed this week at some of the things I've come across, I am not exaggerating.  While some of these were taken off primarily because of age, and the fact that I doubt any of our current teens would touch them, there were also a few that contained just enough bad or misleading information to make me cringe, but just enough ironic cover-choices or contents to make me laugh out loud.

I use the MUSTY system when weeding:
Misleading (factually inaccurate),
Ugly (covers or damages that make you cringe),
Superseded (a better edition has come about),
Trivial (of no merit),
Your collection (The book is not of interest to the members of your library community or out of place in your collection)

Some of the books I found were in fact still relevant, but the covers were so bad that I had to pull them anyway and put in an order for updated copies. Others were ancient, the oldest I found had been purchased in 1987, but hadn't been checked out in years, or not at all.  I've decided to showcase a few of my favorite weeds of the week.
Enjoy, LOL.

Gaming Review: Dead Rising 2

This has been a year of undead.  From vampires to zombies, we've been bombarded.  Whoever designed this game, however, must have a personal belief that there never has seemed to be enough Zombies to go around.

School Is In! (and a Giveaway!)

School has started in my villages.  The library has grown a bit quieter in the day now and kicks into pandemonium somewhere near 1:30ish.  I'm pretty sure that in a few weeks I'll be bored silly with all the quiet, but it is a good break from the summer reading frenzy.

Although I'm enjoying this slight break though, as an outreach librarian, part of my job is to,...well,..reach out.  I love finding resources to support schools and parents and this year in particular, I'm seriously interested in finding more exciting ways to help people stay motivated about reading and learning. Which is why I was really excited to find this book in our collection today, and thought it was a perfect segue into a giveaway.