WINNERS!!!

Yesterday the American Library Association announced this ear's book award winners. The full list is available here. Here are the covers from some of the winners.

Inside Out and Back Again, Thanhha Lai

I was just thinking that most of the novels in verse I read are not historical fiction, they're contemporary, and then I realized I'd just blogged about one that was (Karma, here) and Out of the Dust, a previous Newbery winner was one, and then there's Witness. OK, so maybe it's more than I thought, although I still stick by my original thought that most are contemporary.

Anyhooooo, a lot of people thought this might win the Newbery, and obviously a lot of people were close to right, as it did win a Newbery Honor. Again, I was feeling pretty good because I had already read this one, and I didn't have a lot of plusses in that column this year.

this novel in verse tells the story of a young immigrant girl who moves with her mother and brothers (her father is missing in the war) from Vietnam (at the end of the war) to Alabama. I think if even I moved to Alabama it would be quite a shock to the system, but imagine moving there from Vietnam. It is not an easy thing, and I thought one of the most poignant moments was when the young narrator, Ha, said that sometimes she felt that she'd rather be in Vietnam even as bad as it was than living in the US. I think it's easy to feel a little superior here, like we've got everything figured out and we're so great and who wouldn't love it here, but honestly, not everything is great here, and of course people miss what they know. Not to mention some people were pretty nasty to Ha and her family, which is sad. But some people were lovely, and it's a great things when she finds them.

Amazingly, this story is based on the author's own life. I thought this was very well done and worthy of a Newbery award. Highly recommended for people who like novels in verse. If you haven't read a lot of novels in verse, this might not be the best one to start with. Or maybe it is. You tell me if you try it.

Grandpa Green, Lane Smith

LOVED this sweet little book. So happy to see that the Caldecott people also loved it, at least enough to give it a shiny silver sticker. It's a gem of a book, and one I can just imagine looking at together with a little person. Grandpa Green's great-grandson follows him into a garden of topiaries he created, and we follow right along with. The topiaries are extraordinary, and the story is charming and a little bittersweet, at least for the adult readers, as grandpa has lost some of his memories.

Highly recommended.

Heart and Soul, Kadir Nelson

This book won both the Coretta Scott King Honor Award for illustration and the Coretta Scott King gold for writing, and I am pretty excited that I had read it before the awards, because if you saw my postings on Facebook as I followed the announcements, I had not read too many of them ahead of time.

This is a beautiful book full of rich pictures by one of our country's greatest illustrators and it beautifully takes us through US history, that of African Americans and of all Americans, via the life of Kadir''s own family. I thought it was very well done, and I think the picture book format was perfect with the text. The text alone would not have drawn me in, but with the pictures, I was hooked.

Recommended.

3 YAs - Karma, Where She Went, Uncommon Criminals

I recently read these three books, and while they are each about a girl, that's about as far as the comparison goes. Well, I suppose there's death in all three as well, or near death at any rate.

Karma, a novel in verse set in 1984 is about teenage Maya going with her father to India with her dead mother's ashes during a tumultuous political time. This book literally made my stomach hurt to read it, it was so depressingly sad. There were some moments of light, but they were few and far between. I think the punch packed in verse as opposed to prose made this book that much more difficult for me. I did not build as much sympathy with Maya as I would have expected, and I'm still really unsure as to why. The book was well done, an those who enjoy books in verse should check it out, but it was not my favorite novel in verse.

Where She Went is the sequel to If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I was literally sobbing when I read the first book in this series, and luckily I did not get the sequel right away because I don't know if I could have taken it. The first book was SO heart-wrenching. This book, however, did not overwhelm me emotionally like the first one did. I thought it was well done, and it has a nice twining together of past and present (and possibly even future), and I thought Adam's character, in particular, was very well done, but it didn't stick with me like the first one did. Not that I should be surprised, because it is a rare second book in a series that can do that. I did like it and would recommend it, but it's not really fair to compare it with If I Stay.


Uncommom Criminals is by Ally Carter, a fab and fun author who also writes the Gallagher Girls series. Um, yeah, remember that whole thing I just wrote above about the second book thing. Yeah, just re-read that part again here. Again, a book I liked, has a good mystery, has some thrills and adventure, but it just wasn't as good as the first one. Also, I was not loving Kat. A little too bratty or something. Couldn't quite lay a finger on it, though. she seemed to be shaping up at the end of this one, though, so perhaps #3 will bring me back.

Press Here, Hervé Tullet

Best children's book I have seen in a long, long time, bar none. However, I would caution parents that this book is going to be a repeater, repeater, repeater, and how. This highly interactive book is going to be a favorite with children. Heck, it's a favorite with me.

The book is super simple, just yellow red and blue dots on white pages (and occasionally on black). And the text is also simple. Press five times on the red dot. Press five times on the blue dot. Try shaking the book just a little bit. But the joy of this book is that when you're given a direction on one page, the next page has a result. If you press the blue dot five times, on the next page there are five blue dots. If you shake the book a little bit, the dots are all wiggled around on the next page. If you tilt the book, all the dots go into the corner, etc.

It is so much fun to read and DO. Not so many books have the listener/reader being such an active participant, but this one is quite amazing.

Betsy Bird, a reviewer I particularly like, asked in this review if it's perhaps "...the first picture book of the picture book app age?" No iPad required.

Enjoy!

Caldecott contenders? Me...Jane and Melvin and the Boy

Well, many people had suggested these might win the Caldecott, and Me...Jane was indeed an Honor book. I thought it could have gotten a non-fiction award as well, but it did not. Did you know that Jane Goodall had a stuffed monkey when she was growing up? And then she went on to study chimpanzees and gorillas (which are NOT, by the way, monkeys) all her adult life! She was quite a scientific little thing all her life. some people are just born knowing their destinies, I guess. Sometimes I feel like I'm still figuring mine out. I really loved that they included some of Jane's drawings from when she was a young girl in this book. Very cute and clever.

I was not the biggest fan of Melvin. I thought it was fine, but I had a hard time because the premise of it is that a little boy takes a turtle from a park home for a pet. Now that in itself wouldn't be so bad - most little kids have at least wanted to do this, but what I didn't like was that his parents seemed to think that was a fine idea. Now luckily, Melvin comes to the realization on his own that this is NOT a good idea, and he takes the turtle back, but shouldn't his parents have given him a little guidance? Told him this wasn't going to work out and here's why? I know I wanted to tell him. In the end, however, it does all work out, and Melvin is probably the better for having learned the lesson himself. But I would have told him.

Explosive Eighteen, Janet Evanovich

This is an adult book that is one of my favorite mystery series. It's fluffy and funny and silly and goofy, and I love these books. I am also excited because I heard they're making a movie of this first book, which I've said they needed to do forever. This is book is pretty much like the books in the rest of the series,and maybe that's why I like it. Nice easy predictability. I need that sometimes. Plus I need books that make me laugh. This fits the bill.

Bird in a Box, Andrea Davis Pinkney

I was lucky enough to meet Andrea Davis Pinkney this fall when I went to Minneapolis for the American Association of School Librarians where she spoke. And when I heard she wrote a book that was about Joe Louis, I became even more excited because you may remember that I learned a lot about Joe Louis earlier in the year when I read a picture book by Matt de la Peña and Kadir Nelson called A Nation's Hope which I reviewed here. I thought it would be super cool to pair these two books up, and I was eager to find out if I was right.

Indeed I was, and in fact I think I enjoyed Bird in a Box much more because I HAD read A Nation's Hope. That background knowledge really made listening to this story much more interesting.

There are three young African American narrators in the story, Hibernia, Otis, and Willie. All three of them are going through personally traumatizing events, but they find solace in part through each other and in part in other ways, including the fights of Joe Louis. It's sort of fascinating how Joe Louis was such a huge part of the culture at that time. It's sort of like Michael Phelps in the Olympics, how everyone in the country was cheering for him and rallying around him, hoping he'd win and bring glory to the US. Michael Jordan was another athlete who had this kind of pull. But it's very few athletes who bring the whole country together like this. It's really interesting.

I thought this was a fabulous story, and fans of Christopher Paul Curtis are sure to love them. I wonder if some students will struggle with it if they don't have the historical background. Some readers may also struggle with the changing narrators, but listening to it on audio made that less of an issue for me.

Available at Multnomah County Library.

All the Way to America, Dan Yaccarino

I saw this book offered on The Picnic Basket just after I'd read somewhere that someone thought it might be a Newbery award book this year. I was thrilled when the publisher sent me a copy.

The full title is All the Way to America: The Story of A Big Italian Family and A Little Shovel, and I thought it was just delightful.

One thing I really liked about this story was that it was the actual family history of the author, not just a good story about made up people. I loved how he showed the progression of relationships throughout the tale and wove details into the text and the art that reminded you the generations were shifting. But what I loved most was the constant of the shovel that his great-grandfather used in Italy and continued to use when he came across the sea to America, searching for a better life, but never forgetting what he'd left behind. His grandparents then used the shovel in their work, as did his parents, and now so does he. Well, he also uses it for fun in the garden. I thought it was interesting how they showed different uses for the shovel over time. My favorite was when it was used in the store.

This book has bright drawings and even includes some old family photos. I think this will be a wonderful book for opening up discussions of immigrants in America and also discussions of family history. A great picture book to use with older readers as part of a lesson in addition to using with younger readers.

Book Fan Friday this week!

BOOK FAN FRIDAY! JANUARY 13TH 4:30-5:30 at Powell's Cedar Hills Crossing.

COVER ART!
THE HOW AND WHY OF BOOK DESIGN
WITH AUTHOR ROSANNE PARRY AND RANDOM HOUSE
EDITOR JIM THOMAS

Ever wonder how books get their covers? An editor of award winning books at Random House explains cover design and the team that makes the magic! For avid writers & artists age 8-18!

Cybils Finalists announced

The Cybils awards are given each year by bloggers for the year's best children's and young adult titles. This year's finalists have just been announced. See the list here Winners will be determined on February 14th. What a love-note to an author to win one of these on Valentine's Day, hey? Happy reading!

And one more holiday themed post

I was lucky enough to meet illustrator Marla Frazee this year, and now her work is appearing on Simon and Schuster's holiday card. Click the picture to see it in motion. So lovely. Enjoy!

A different kind of gingerbread house for the holidays!

How's THIS for a fancy gingerbread "house"? Fully edible! And many of you reading this blog probably do not even realize that people used to create whole books on these things (well, on real ones, not edible ones). Crazy talk, hey?

Here are all the details on this typewriter:

Patti from Baked Ideas made this amazing edible gingerbread typewriter for benefit of City Harvest, and it is displayed at NYC's Parker Meridien Hotel.

So…. typewriter came to mind… a sort of gingerbread house for the letters that live inside!! Christmas unplugged, a letter to santa, granny’s laptop …… it was fun to think about.

First we made a model of the typewriter in cardboard, and then baked all the parts and crafted the roller, paper and metal keys out of sugar paste. The “glue” is royal icing, and cookies, stacked up, are the inner supports. The keyboard letters are cookies, iced in ivory and trimmed in silver. The iced gingerbread alphabet letters are frolicking in the sugar snow, sometimes spelling out words (fun, skip, eat, joy.)

I am glad we chose to make a typewriter. It is an image that is a reminder of a simpler time … wintery, happy and unexpected. I hope both kids and adults enjoy looking at it.

It’s 100% edible, down to the rice paper ribbon.

Thanks to Boing-Boing for the info.

The Mistress of Nothing, Kate Pullinger

This was an adult novel I read that was a good historical fiction piece. The main character of the story, Sally, was a lady's maid to a somewhat wealthy Englishwoman who decided to move to Egypt for her health. Sally went along with her and discovered that she quite enjoyed the freedoms she found there.

When she becomes pregnant by an Egyptian man, however, her mistress basically disowns her, and wants to send her back to England without her child. Sally rebels and faces some serious consequences as a result.

I felt cranky at the attitudes of Lady Duff Gordon and stressed about Sally throughout the reading of this novel. It wasn't my favorite, but I found it interesting.

This book was the winner of Canada's Governor General's Literary Award and is available at Multnomah County Library.

Happy holidays

Hope you have a wonderful winter holiday, however you celebrate!

Cheers!

The Pirate King, Laurie R. King

This is a favorite series of mine which focuses on Sherlock Holmes' fictional wife Mary Russell. She's super sharp too, of course, and also solves mysteries. They're a great team, and I love her spirit and spunk.

This is a pretty convoluted storyline that involves pirates imitating pirates imitating pirates in a play within a play within a play. It's pretty wild and wooly.

This is a great series for fans of Sherlock Holmes, but I'd recommend you read some Sherlock Holmes before trying this series because it will have more meaning for you if you know some background.

Available at Multnomah County Library. I listened to this on audio.


Enjoy!

Hmmmmm

I stole this from my friend Mrs. Yingling in Ohio, and I positively love it.

Whaddya think?

Powell's Book Fan Friday coming up 12/9

Carolyn Conahan is a great presenter, both an artist and author. She's going to talk about artistic collaboration which is ideal for high school literary magazines, yearbooks and newspapers. As always, kids are welcome to bring work and get feedback.

December 9th
4:30 PM
Powell's Cedar Hills Crossing location

Now Playing- Stoner & Spaz II, Ron Koertge

Well, this book has been a looooong time coming, but it was worth every minute of the wait. I was also excited because I tried out Library2Go and got this book on my Kindle. It worked like a charm.

Way back in 2002, Ron Koertge wrote a book called Stoner & Spaz. That was the story of a very unlikely couple. Ben, who has cerebral palsy and has trouble with mobility, and Colleen, a young woman who has a little problem with drugs. Or actually, it's a big problem. Who would think those two would ever even speak to each other, let alone become friends and then a couple? Well, pretty much no one, especially Ben. But when they meet up at the old town theater watching a movie, these two lonely souls are drawn together. Colleen challenges Ben, in some good ways and some not so good, and Ben challenges Colleen to give up her drugs.

Flash forward 11 years (in our time, not story time) and we're back with the sequel. Ben has become an accomplished filmmaker in the last few years, and Colleen, well, Colleen's still using, although she's trying really hard to kick it. But Ben is addicted to Colleen as ever, and he's unsure whether he can let go, or, more importantly, if he wants to. Enter AJ, another filmmaker and the kind of girl everyone sees Ben being with. She, like Colleen, seems nonplussed with his disability, which from Ben's side of the world is pretty unusual. She wants to hang out. And she's reliable, into films and filmmaking, smart. All the things Colleen's not. It seems like a perfect match, but is it?

Recommended for 8th grade and up due to mature subject matter, this is a valuable book for looking at the many sides of issues such as disabilities, drug use, and relationships. Sure to win some accolades come January.

Orchards, Holly Thompson

I haven't read a novel in verse in a while, so I was really excited to hear there was another good one out there, and I was not surprised after having read it to find out that it was nominated for YALSA's 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults. As most novels in verse are, it's quite powerful. The story is about a young girl, Kana Goldberg, who has a classmate who committed suicide. Kana and her friends face a lot of guilt, both for overt actions of unkindness toward the girl but also of complicity in doing nothing to stop negative behaviors or to make the girl feel less excluded.

Kana, a Japanese Jewish girl, is sent to Japan for the summer following her classmate's death to reflect on her behavior and to help her mother's family with their citrus orchard. Kana has hard time fitting in in Japan, and I think although it is very difficult, this helps her to understand her classmate's feelings in a way she might otherwise never have. Kana does a lot of growing up in Japan, and it is a difficult coming of age journey for her. And then just when she's getting herself in order, the author delivers a second punch that is very unexpected. Personally, I didn't think it was necessary and thought it was a little disruptive to the flow of the story, but I would be interested to hear what other readers thought.

I love the telling of this story in poetry. I think it fits the subject matter and the setting beautifully. I also really like the woodcuts that decorate the pages. I would recommend this story to seventh graders and up.If you read this and like it, try Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones.

I am reading another story right now about a girl going to a foreign culture to meet family she's never known, and it's interesting to make the comparison. That book is called How to Ruin a Summer Vacation, and you can look for a review of it soon.

Girl, (Nearly) 16, Absolute Torture, Sue Limb

This book had some really funny parts, but really, I was fairly annoyed by the main character throughout most of it, making it difficult to decide if I liked the book or not. I don't mind a bratty teenage character for a bit, I mean I was one, I can relate, but sometimes it's too much. It may also have been that I was listening to this book on CD, and there's no skimming when you do that, so I had to listen to every word. However, Jess also went from really bratty to really grown up in some of her thinking which would have been great if it were believable, but I wasn't buying it. She was just TOO grown up. It didn't feel like she'd really think the things she was saying all the time. Perhaps if I'd read the first book in the series I'd have enjoyed this more, although I did not even realize it was part of a series, which is testimony to its ability to be read as a stand alone. Fans of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson books will probably enjoy this, but she's no Georgia.

Liam Campbell mystery series (books 1-4), Dana Stabenow

Adult readers looking for a nice, low-key mystery series may want to check this one out. A little romance, a lot of dead people, and some rugged Alaska wilderness. You will not be too scared to sleep, and you're unlikely to be wandering about in the snowy backwoods accessible only by plane, so it won't probably remind you too much of home (unlike that time I read the Chelsea Cain serial killer book set in part at Cleveland High School right by my house. I had to alter my driving pattern for months). I got all four of these on my Kindle for less than $10 total. They were perfect travel books.

PS I think it's kind of funny that someone whose name is STABeNOW grew up to write murder mysteries.

2 grown up books

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. My new job has me traveling in my car a lot more than my old job did, so I'm getting a lot of listening done! This is a beautiful, sweet, slow-moving story about an older man living in a small town in England and the friendship/romance he forms with the Pakistani shopkeeper in the village. No one approves of it, of course, it's just not done. But it is real, and Major Pettigrew takes his last stand to defend love. Beautiful, moving, funny, and thought-provoking. I also enjoyed the reader of this book very much.


Blood from a Stone by Donna León I also listened to this book, and before I was fifteen minutes in, I was ready to go back to Venice, nevermind the murders that are turning up on every corner. Give me some crusty bread, some cappucino, some gelato, and a view of St. Mark's and I'll be fine. This is another Comissarrio Brunetti story, maybe the third I've listened to, and I have to say, that while I was transported back to Italy, and while I didn't think it was a bad story, I was not dying to get in my car and go somewhere just so I could keep listening. That's the critical test for me. And I also was not really pleased with the conclusion of the story. Again, I'd be interested to hear from others who have read it about whether you thought the ending was the right decision or not. For me, not. I will undoubtedly give Ms. Leon another chance, as she does write well and her stories do help pass the time on the drive, but I will hope for something a little more to my interest next time.

Yummmm, Thanksgiving's coming!

I thought I'd read some picture books about food topics this week in anticipation of Thanksgiving, which is definitely one of my favorite holidays. Of course, you can hardly go wrong when the whole day is about food (and football).

I started with Luck with Potatoes by Helen Ketterman and illustrated by Brian Flocca. It's a story about poor Clemmon, a farmer down on his luck. Things go from bad to worse for Clemmon, until he's lost his whole herd of cows and is really at the end of his rope. He decides to take his last little bit of money and plant potatoes, and what do you know, they grow like nothing he's ever seen! Turns out those cows he lost have found their way back home inside the potatoes! Clemmon definitely has some Luck with Potatoes. This story is set in Tennessee and has some vocabulary that might not be familiar to all readers, so this would probably be better for a read aloud than individual reading for kiddos in Oregon.

Sweet Dream Pie was my next choice. And I will be having some sweet dreams about pie this week, I can tell you, but I hope they're not quite like these dreams.... This book is by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Mark Teague. The story begins with Pa Brindle begging Ma Brindle to bake him a sweet dream pie. she doesn't want to, reminding him of the last time, but he wears her down and she agrees. I am telling you, you have never seen such a pie! It's full of every sweet treat you could imagine - gumdrops, marshmallows, cinnamon red hots, jelly beans, even cookies. And it's a magical pie. You can tell that for many reasons - one being it's size, but also because it sort of lulls the whole neighborhood in - almost like a hypnotizing pie. By the time it's done, after a whole day, everyone is hoping to get a slice. Ma tells them to just have one, but no one listens. She knows no one is going to sleep well, and she's right. Their dreams come pouring out into the street, "dreams of every shape, size and color drifted up from their dreamers and began to sport and play." The illustrator shows the difference between the real and the dreams in a clever way, I think. This book is a delight visually, and it has a good lesson, especially just before a pig out holiday! One piece of pie, remember that!

Nutmeg by David Lucas was next on the list. Nutmeg is one of my favorite holiday spices, but in this book Nutmeg is a person. And even though she's named for a very tasty spice, the meals in her house are pretty bad - cardboard, string and sawdust. Always. Yuck. Always, that is, until Nutmeg lets a genie out of a bottle, and you know what that means. Three wishes. So what does she wish for? Something different for breakfast, something different for lunch and, you guessed it, something different for dinner. The genie gives her a magic spoon. You'll have to read the rest of this wild adventure to find out what "something different" means to the genie. Will the spoon add some spice to Nutmeg's life?

Helen Cooper's Pumpkin Soup was the last in my pile. Sounds perfect for a rainy fall night, doesn't it? I loved this book best of all of them. The illustrations are beautiful (it's an award winner for art!), the characters are adorable, and the story is funny and sad and worrisome and happy. Cat, Squirrel and Duck live together happily in a cabin in the woods. They've got a system and it works. Everyone pitches in and does his part, and everyone's roles are clear. But when someone wants to make a change, all heck breaks loose. They have a big fight and Duck runs away. No one is happy. Cat and Squirrel go in search of her, but they can't find him. Will he make it back? Has he been eaten by foxes? Did he find some better friends? These are all the questions that Cat and Squirrel ask themselves and all questions that will be answered when you read this lovely little book. Enjoy!

ORCA Read Alikes with the Queens of Teen Literature

Recently the Queen of Teen Literature (that's me) and the Queen of the Madison High School Library (that's Nancy Sullivan) did a poster session presentation at the OASL conference on Read Alikes for the Intermediate and Senior High ORCA books. Don't know what the ORCAs are? Click HERE.

Our Read Alikes lists are available on my website - look for the orca whale logo and click just below there.

Hunger Games movie trailer!!!!

How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story, Eve Bunting

This is a picture book about a family who has to flee their home because they're persecuted and spend many days on a small boat floating on the ocean. It's a scary and difficult time, and Eve Bunting and Beth Peck convey this through words and pictures. A few times the characters think they're on the right track and something forces them back, but ultimately they arrive in the United States and are warmly welcomed. Fittingly, they have arrived in America on Thanksgiving, a day of celebration and thanks begun when other persecuted people arrived in North America.

The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan, Nancy Springer

If you like a good mystery, this is a good one. The main character is a girl, Enola, but her brothers (Sherlock Holmes, ever heard of him?) are also a big part of the story. There's lots of intrigue and adventure and breath holding by the reader during the book for sure. Enola discovers that a very rich young woman who she met previously is being held hostage, and she has to try and find out where, why, and by whom. And then she has to try and free her. It has a lot of funny parts in addition to being suspenseful, and I think all readers who enjoy mysteries will like this short mystery quite a lot.

It's Not Summer Without You, Jenny Han

Isobel Conklin has spent pretty much every summer of her life at the beach house that belongs to her mother's best friend Susannah with Susannah and her two boys. But when Susannah gets cancer everything changes. Belly, as she's called by the boys, has to come to terms with the changes in circumstances and in her feelings toward the brothers. This book is a sequel to the book, The Summer I Turned Pretty. If you love a book with a little romance, a little mystery, and some tears, this would be a good choice.

Shiver, Maggie Steifvater

Fans of Twilight are sure to love Shiver, a modern day werewolf story by Maggie Stiefvater.

Grace has always been attracted to the wolves that raom the woods behind her house, particularly to one wolf with golden eyes. Even though she was once attacked by wolves, she doesn't think wolves are evil. In fact, she thinks they're special.

Sam has always been attracted to a partcular girl, but since he's not human most of the year, he's been unable, or unwillling, to act on it.

Told in alternating chapters (and read by two actors, one boy and one girl, on the audio version), this is the story of how these two finally come together and look for a way to happiness together.

My Fake Boyfriend is Better than Your Fake Boyfriend

The Mother Daughter Book Club recently read this book and at their meeting, they made caricatures of their fake boyfriends. Can you guess which one is Mr. Bjorn (my real husband)? Hint, he has red hair.

Next month's meeting will be on Thursday, November 17 at 3:30 to 5 PM in the WOMS library. The book we will be discussing is The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet available for checkout at the school library. If you're interested in joining the group, please come to the meeting or contact Mrs. Thompson at the WOMS library for more info.

Check out who I got to meet this weekend!

Former LA Lakers basketball superstar Kareem Abdul Jabbar has a new book and DVD series coming out about the Harlem Renaissance called On the Shoulders of Giants, and he was at the American Association of School Librarians conference this weekend. I was lucky enough to meet him. I also got to meet some pretty sweet Star Wars characters there. Pretty cool stuff!