The Dork Diaries has been steadily circulating in my middle school library for some time now, but for the last 5 months, this series has been the most requested and on the top 10 list of items circulated since September. The series reads like Diary of a Wimpy Kid but actually skews to a younger [...]
Benny and Penny in Lights Out! by Geoffrey Hayes Toon Books/Candlewick Press 978-1-935179-20-7, 32 pp. $12.95 Toon Books once again brings us the adventures of Benny and his little sister Penny in Lights Out! It’s a story all too familiar with parents: little sister Penny is getting ready for bed—she’s brushed her teeth and getting [...]
Readers who missed the first volume of Hereville should run out and find a copy, but even so, it won’t be a problem picking up this sequel and jumping right into Mirka’s latest adventure. This volume gives readers enough background knowledge of the first story so that they don’t feel lost, and it will make [...]
The Yu-Gi-Oh! saga continues with another jump into the far future. Duel Monsters are still all the rage, but now they take place in “augmented realities,” or virtual reality, which is activated using a device called a D-Gazer. A new potential “king of games” is also introduced, Yuma Tsukumo. He has a ways to go, [...]
Cardboard By Doug TenNapel Scholastic Books/Graphix Imprint, August 2012 978-0-545-41873-7, softcover; 978-0-545-41872-0, hardcover You’ve always known for years that the best toy you ever had wasn’t a Transformer, Strawberry Shortcake, or Star Wars action figure (though they are cool). The best toy you ever had was that big cardboard box your parents got from a [...]
The Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise takes another leap ahead in time to the undefined year 20XX, where Duel Monsters is played on vehicles called Duel Runners, in what are called Turbo Duels. With riding now just as important as the deck, a new hero is needed to step to become the King of Games, and that hero [...]
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales by Nathan Hale Vol. 1: One Dead Spy 978-1-4197-0396-6. 128 pp. Vol. 2: Big Bad Ironclad 978-1-4197-0395-9. 128 pp. Published by Amulet Books, 2012 Recommended for grades 5-8 “I regret that I have but one life to live for my country.” And with his famous last words, Nathan Hale, spy for [...]
How do you learn to like other people when you don’t even like yourself? Making new friends is hard enough without the added personal issues. But that is Maria Kawai’s dilemma. Expelled from her old school, she must start over at Totsuka High. But fitting in isn’t her strong point, as her razor sharp tongue [...]
This afternoon, a sixth grader came into the library and spotted a poster that was drawn by Raina Telgemeir for Scholastic’s Read Every Day Lead a Better Life Campaign. “Do you have it?” she asked breathlessly? “Do you have it?”
“What?” I asked.
“My favorite book in the whole world,” she answered breathlessly. (I promise! True story!)
“Which book?”
“Smile.”
Unfortunately, all my copies were checked out. But I kept thinking if only I had done my book order already, I know she’ll fall equally in love with Drama, Telgemeier’s latest release.
I admit, I never read Kipling’s Just So Stories, but as soon as I read the first page of How the Leopard Got His Spots, I put down the comic and went Online to find a full text version. (Thank you Project Gutenberg.) And my instincts were correct… making me like these adaptations even more.
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