One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street

I just began reading an ARC for One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street by Joanne Rocklin. I like it. Has a bit of the feel of What Happened Fox Street, a 2010 favorite of mine, with younger characters. The story takes place in LA, but of course the title reminds me of Florida, where I had planned/hoped I would be during the month of February. Layers for at least another month.

One Day ...  pubs in April and maybe I'll review it then.

HarperCollins Signs Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis for 'Wildwood' Series

I like this news.
HarperCollins Signs Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis for 'Wildwood' Series

"The germ of this series goes back a long way," Meloy said. "For me, this is the culmination of a long-term collaboration with Carson, matching words and art. I grew up on a steady diet of Lloyd Alexander, Roald Dahl, and Tolkien; this is our humble paean to that grand tradition of epic adventure stories." Ellis commented, "Wildwood is a project very close to my heart - the collaboration that Colin and I have been dreaming about for years."

It's All About the Backlist

A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick Press, 9780763638122

We try so hard to keep up with all of the new children’s books being published that it really surprises me when one slips through. Somehow that happened with this book, published in 2006. I had never read it until Elise from Candlewick (one of my favorite people in the industry!) told me I should give it a try. Then, of course, it sat on my “to read” pile for a few months – but I am so glad it finally made its way to the top!
I admit to a certain predisposition for orphans, and bad girls, and the main character of this book is both. When Maud Flynn gets adopted from the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans by two elderly sisters, I was very happy for her, until I found out that they wanted her to join the family business – spiritualism. Maud is trained to help the sisters hoodwink a wealthy woman whose daughter has died.

At first she is happy to be included, and she is certainly clever enough to do the work, but as time goes on and it becomes evident that the sisters are using her, I was very pleased when she started making some friends who eventually help rescue her from her situation.

I am in awe of those authors who can weave together many small elements and end up with a big, glorious finish that will make you cheer and cry (but the good kind of cry). Laura Amy Schlitz is in that exclusive group – but of course last year’s Newbery committee figured that out too, didn’t they?

Sigh. I SO dislike it when I’m not on the cutting edge.

Nim's World

Last week we went to see the new movie, Nim's Island, based on Wendy Orr's book from a few years back. I loved the book and was anxious to see how it translated to film. Plus, I've been waiting about 30 years to see Jodie Foster in another kid's movie - but that's another story.

It was fabulous! VERY well done, well acted and quite true to the book, if memory serves. It really felt like those old live-action Disney movies I loved growing up - Escape to Witch Mountain, Candleshoe, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I've missed those, and I love that Walden Media is doing such a great job with taking children's books and making movies of them. I have many suggestions for them if they'd like to contact me!

Yesterday the sequel to Nim's Island arrived - Nim at Sea (Knopf). Hooray! I sat right down and read it through. It had the same "touch" as the first one - action, humor, fun, adventure - and all the characters are back, too. It's great fun to see Nim leave the island and go out in the world, tasting hot chocolate and pizza for the first time and making friends her own age.

I love Kerry Millard's pictures, the interior black-and-white sketches that illustrate the story, too. They really add to the delight of the book.

The Return of Anne-girl

I don't mean to say that I can compete with the Japanese, but I am a tremendous Anne of Green Gables fan. Have been, ever since a friend told me at age 16" "Read this book. You'll like her - she's a lot like you." I did. And she was. I went on to read every thing Lucy Maud Montgomery had written, whether it was about Anne or not, and was pretty much thrilled by it all.

Lots of my friends know this, so when it was announced that a "prequel" was being written, in honor of the 100th year anniversary of AOGG's publication, they began asking what I thought.

What I thought was, "I'm not sure I WANT to read a prequel." Two unrelated episodes kept me from it, at first: when the third PBS Anne movie came it, it was so god-awful and different from those first two lovely movies, I felt wounded. Also, I had eagerly dived into the Peter Pan sequel last year only to find I could NOT finish it. So, hoping to keep my Anne memories intact, I didn't intend to read it.

Then fate intervened, and my good friend Lisa handed me the galley of the book and said "I want to know what you think." Not intending to read it was one thing, but when it's sitting right here in front of me...OK, so I opened it up. And pretty much didn't put it down until I finished it.

It's wonderful! Budge Wilson did a magnificent job pulling various clues and threads from the Montgomery books, and weaving them together to imagine what Anne's life was like before she came to live with Matthew and Marilla: her lovely parents, their tragic death, her various "foster homes"...but she also imagines new characters, and Anne's connections to them, that absolutely ring true. She really captures Anne's voice, and her descriptions read uncannily like Montgomery's. What a tribute the book is.

I can't imagine that anyone who loves Anne wouldn't like this book - it's as if we discovered an unpublished Anne manuscript in Montgomery's attic. By the end of the book, all I wanted to do was dive right into the originals and read them all through again.

Reading, reading, and reading

My reading has really slowed down since we began our road trip and I haven’t had time to write even brief reviews of the books I have had time to read. So I’m fast forwarding and just mentioning these titles I feel are special to me so I can feel caught up.
The Seems: the Glitch in Sleep by John Hulme & Michael Wexler (Bloomsbury)
great story and so inventive
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (FS&G)
realistic, powerful look at identity
Kissing the Bee by Kathe Koja (FS&G)
Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks (FS&G)
brillant story by one of my long-time favorite authors
The Spell Book of Listen Taylor by Jaclyn Moriarty (Arthur Levine/Scholastic)
quirky, unusual story and the Zing Family Secret will astound; a reworking of the author’s I Have A Bed of Buttermilk Pancakes, I think it still seems more of a book for adults
Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg ( Ginee Seo/ S&S)
Fine characterizations and I like how Konigsburg makes me think about art’s relevance to my everyday world; I knew nothing about degenerate art and now I do. Shortly after reading this, I read ELK’s book of short stories, Throwing Shadows, which includes a story written many years previous with some of the characters of MEOTHW. Interesting to see how a story becomes more.
Edward’s Eyes by Patrica MacLachlan (HarperCollins)
Her use of language is so beautiful.
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (Bloomsbury)
Crow (Books of Pellinor) by Allison Croggan (Candlewick)
I’m pretty selective about my fantasy and think this series is outstanding!
Lenny’s Space by Kate Banks (FS&G)
This is a gem; I’ll try and find time to write more later because I hope it’s widely read.
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling Books/Random)
I was totally immersed in this story; the characterization of Ted is particularly well written; intelligent mystery.
THANKS TO ALL THE PUBLISHERS FOR REVIEW COPIES AND GALLEYS.

Now that I look over this list, I see that many of these I read before we started our trip. And what to make of the number of FS&G titles on the list?
I’m rarely reading just one book and am also in the midst of re-reading The Golden Compass because I want to read the entire His Dark Materials before seeing the movie of The Golden Compass. And speaking of movies, I don’t think I can bring myself to see the Dark is Rising – too many changes that remove the movie from the spirit of the book which I have a very visual memory of (after re-reading it several times.)

Lucky Me

While driving to Annapolis on the weekend my mind wandered to The Higher Power of Lucky or more accurately to the book’s author, Susan Patron. Many, many years ago I worked in sales and marketing for the Children’s Book Division of an academic wholesaler, and got to meet lots of great children’s librarians and talk with them about books. (I was supposed to discuss how they bought books and suggest they buy books from my company but often found myself talking about what books we liked and why – that was way more interesting!) One of those librarians was Susan Patron. I met her only a couple of times, but because I found her dedicated and serious about her work with children and books, and also engaging, funny and smart, her name stuck with me. When she began getting published I naturally wanted to read her books because I thought she would be a good writer and I had a mad passion for Susan’s first publisher, Orchard Books. I continued reading and enjoying her books, right up through the one chosen as the year’s “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” Lucky readers.

more practice. . .

Here I'm trying to populate labels for posts -- some of the common ones we'll use often. Of course we'll talk about books here; what we love and why; and what we're reading. The We in We Love Children's Books are Laurina Cashin and Bobbie Combs, and we're both fortunate to work with many different people in the children's book industry -- publishers, booksellers, librarians, authors and illustrators, publicists, staff with wholesalers and associations. We like our broad perspective.

Our reading sometimes overlaps but generally I read picture books and young adult fiction, whiles Bobbie gravitates more to middle grade and younger ya. Bobbie steers clear of edgy and problem novels, I can't abide those chick-lit series and we're both cautious with novels in verse. We both read fantasy, though Bobbie is more widely read than I. I just finished an ARC of The Crow (Books of Pellinor) by Allison Croggon, Candlewick, which I will re-read it because I read it way too fast. These books -- Crow is the 3rd of four I believe -- are stellar, and while I read quickly to find out what happend, the story and writing deserve more time. Our nonfiction reading takes us all over the Dewey map. We hope to step up our audio listening when we begin our road adventure -- more on that in a later post. We love movies and happily attend movies made from children's books. We saw Stardust the other night and thought it was wonderful -- well-acted and a good adaptation. And we will be first in line for The Golden Compass.