Cats, Bats and Rats, Oh My!

Professor Carl Sederholm is coming to spend a spooky night at the library. 

Carl Sederholm

There will be Halloween fun at the library on Wednesday, Oct 12 at 7:00 p.m. Book Bash for Boys is going to have a scary good time as Carl leads their book discussion on Coraline by Neil Gaiman. The night will also include fun activities and treats for all.

Carl is a popular professor in the BYU Humanities Department. He co-authored   Poe, The House of Usher, and the American Gothic with Dennis Perry, researching and developing the affect of gothic horror novels on the humanities. 

Coraline is about a girl who has often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures. 

Neil Gaiman has delivered a wonderfully chilling novel, subtle yet intense on many levels. The line between pleasant and horrible is often blurred until what's what becomes suddenly clear, and like Coraline, we resist leaving this strange world until we're hooked. Unnerving drawings also cast a dark shadow over the book's eerie atmosphere, which is only heightened by simple, hair-raising text. Coraline is otherworldly storytelling at its best.

Neil Gaiman

 Neil Gaiman was born on November 10, 1960 in Portchester, Hampshire, England. Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said, "I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them--which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it." 

The first book he read was The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien  from his school library, although it only had the first two books in the trilogy. He consistently took them out and read them. He would later win the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third book in the trilogy. For his seventh birthday he received The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S.Lewis and later he read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and they became favorites and led to his desire to write books himself.  He also enjoyed reading Batman comics.

Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools. He is now a novelist, graphic novelist and screenwriter. He writes Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, and Dark Fantasy. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work which is The Graveyard Book.

Gaiman lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota in an "Addams Family house" and has lived there since 1992. He is married to Amanda Palmer and he has three children from a previous marriage.

 

Craig Russell, a 35-year veteran of comics and frequent collaborator with Gaiman, offers an adaptation of Gaiman’s 2002 novel Coraline (illustrated by Dave McKean), a tale of childhood nightmares. As in the original story, Coraline wanders around her new house and discovers a door leading into a mirror place, where she finds her button-eyed “other mother,” who is determined to secure Coraline’s love one way or another. This version is a virtuoso adaptation, streamlining passages that function best in prose and visually highlighting parts that benefit most from the graphic form. A master of fantastical landscapes, Russell sharpens the realism of his imagery, preserving the humanity of the characters and heightening horror, even as Gaiman’s concise storytelling ratchets up the eeriness. The adaptation loses none of Coraline’s original character; she’s clever, resourceful, intrepid, and highly determined when it comes to doing what must be done. Comics fans will delight in this version, and readers familiar with the previous book will greatly appreciate the opportunity to explore the story in a successful new way. You can find this entertaining graphic novel at the library.

Coraline has also been made into a movie that is especially fun to watch for Halloween. The DVD is available for check out at the library.

"Toads, Beetles, Bats . . . "

The kids "knocked it out of the park" with our trivia baseball at our first combined Great Reads for Girls and Book Bash for Boys.

We played Fruit Basket Upset--or Shakespearean Curses Upset.

The kids were put in teams of toads, beetles, bats, pied ninies and scurvy patches. When the person in the middle called their team name they had to find another place to sit. The one left without a chair was "it" and called out the next curse.

We made our own baseball cards.

And we had strawberries and cream puffs for dessert. Yum!

We had a great time.

"On deck" for next month--Wednesday, October 12 at 7 p.m.--is

Book Bash for Boys.

We're reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

Hope to see you there!

Wednesday Wars to kick off a new season and a fun new book group for boys ages 8-12

 

We are excited to announce a new program for boys at the Pleasant Grove City Library. It is called Book Bash for Boys. It will coincide with our Great Reads for Girls. These book groups are for boys and girls who are ages 8-16 along with their parent or other caring adult. We encourage the kids and their parent to read the featured book each month and then join us for lively discussion, activities, and refreshments. We are looking forward to all of our plans and ideas for these fun book groups. We have been doing the Great Reads for Girls for three years and have often been asked to do something for boys so we are changing things up a bit this year. We will have two special months where the boys and girls come together and then we will alternate on the other months.

The schedule goes like this:

September - Combined Book Bash for Boys and Great Reads for Girls (The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt)

October - Book Bash for Boys (Coraline by Neil Gaiman with special guest Carl Sederholm)

November - Great Reads for Girls (A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban)

January - Book Bash for Boys (Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko)

February - Great Reads for Girls (Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen)

March - Book Bash for Boys (Shredderman: Secret Identity by Wendelin Van Draanen)

April - Great Reads for Girls (A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett)

May - Combined Book Bash for Boys and Great Reads for Girls (Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix)

The book groups will be held on the second Wednesday night of each month at 7 p.m.

Our first book discussion and activity for this year will be held on September 14, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the basement at the library. The featured book will be Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt.

In Wednesday Wars Holling Hoodhood is really in for it.He’s just started seventh grade with Mrs. Baker, a teacher he knows is out to get him. Why else would she make him read Shakespeare . . . outside of class? The year is 1967, and everyone has bigger things than homework to worry about. There’s Vietnam for one thing, and then there’s the family business. As far as Holling’s father is concerned, nothing is more important than the family business. In fact, all of the Hoodhoods must be on their best behavior at all times. The success of Hoodhood and Associates depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has Mrs. Baker to contend with?



Gary D Schmidt


Gary Schmidt is a professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received both a Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor for Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and a Newbery Honor for The Wednesday Wars. He lives with his family on a 150-year-old farm in Alto, Michigan, where he splits wood, plants gardens, writes, and feeds the wild cats that drop by.

Prejudice is the Child of Ignorance

Once a year we invite the boys to join us at Great Reads for Girls. Things are certainly more lively when they are around.

During our discussion of The Jacket, we talked a lot about prejudice. Phil, the main character in the book, learns a lot about himself and his own views when he assumes an African-American boy has stolen his brother's coat.

Sometimes there is a difference between what we think we believe and what we really believe. There's a test that is designed to help us understand that. It's available {here}.

We played a trivia  game--the Jazz against the Flash.

The Flash won.

We had ice cream sandwiches--

and Oreos and milk.

We made some catch-the-ball-in the-cup toys.

And we talked some more.

The Jacket

Join us Wednesday, March 4 at 7 p.m. for Great Reads for Girls in the library basement.

We will be discussing Andrew Clements' book, The Jacket.

Boys are invited!!!

Thief!When Phil sees another kid wearing his brother's jacket, he assumes the jacket was stolen. It turns out he was wrong, and Phil has to ask himself the question: Would he have made the same assumption if the boy wearing the jacket hadn't been African American? And that question leads to others that reveal some unsettling truths about Phil's neighborhood, his family, and even himself.

Andrew Clements worked as a teacher for seven years before beginning his literary career. He has written many books for children, but his most famous book is Frindle, which won many awards. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife. 

Clements writes in this small shed, seventy feet from his back door. There are no distraction--no phone, no TV, no email.

Learn more about Andrew Clements and his books at his website {here}.


Clements discusses his writing and the inspiration for his new series Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School:

Believe

Those who attended Great Reads for Girls on Wednesday, Jan 12 had a wonderful time. The conversation and activities all centered around the book Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath.

Yara told us all about Polly Horvath and then Taylor led a fun and interesting book discussion.

 

The girls loved reading the book and they enjoyed talking about Primrose and how she held strongly to the things she believed in, even when others didn't share the same belief. We talked about all the different characters and many of the girls laughed as they remembered the part where the guinea pig catches on fire.  They also really liked the way each chapter ended with a recipe.

After the book discussion each girl made a collage about the things she believes in using card stock, glue sticks, scissors and magazines.

Once the crafts were finished Yara, Tammra and Taylor cooked up some yummy waffles for all the girls and their moms.

The girls had many toppings to choose from. There was butter, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, raspberry jam, plum jam, whipped cream, sliced bananas, applesauce, maple syrup and cinnamon syrup.

The girls told their moms that they would like to have whipped cream, chocolate chips and marshmallows on their waffles from now on. The cinnamon syrup was also a big hit!

Cinnamon Syrup

                                                                        1 cup sugar
                                                 slightly less than 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
                                                           1/2 cup light corn syrup
                                                                      1/4 cup water
                                                           1/2 cup evaporated milk

In a saucepan, combine sugar and cinnamon.  Pour in corn syrup and water and stir to dissolve.  Boil, stirring constantly 2-3 minutes.  Cool.  Stir in evaporated milk and serve.  Refrigerate leftovers. 

For February the book selection for Great Reads for Girls is Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.  We will be meeting on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 7 p.m. We hope to see you there!

 There are several copies available for check out at the library. Ask for one at the front desk.