If you liked The City of Ember...

...you will definitely like First Light by Rebecca Stead, which is one of the 2010 Rebecca Caudill books. In First Light, a boy named Peter gets a chance to accompany his mother and father to Greenland, where his father studies ice sheets and the effects of global warming. While he is there, he discovers a settlement of people that have been living inside a huge glacier for decades, never seeing the outside world. Half the story is told from Peter's point of view and the other half is told from the point of view of Thea, a girl who lives in the underground settlement.

I've read 9 of the 20 books on the 2010 Rebecca Caudill list so far. Most of them have been ok, and a few of them have been good, but none so far have stood out to me like The Lightning Thief, which was the 2009 winner and also my favorite of the 2009s by far. I'm hoping I'll feel the same way about one of the 2010s as I did about The Lightning Thief.

I Met Rick Riordan!

On Monday night, Rick Riordan came to Champaign Public Library to do a presentation and a book signing. I would have liked to go to the presentation, but the tickets were completely gone only 20 minutes after they became available. The book signing was open to everyone, though, and so I went to that and got one of the library's copies of The Lightning Thief signed. He was good enough to sign my personal copy as well. :)

I'm a big fan of the series--The Lightning Thief was my favorite 2009 Rebecca Caudill, followed closely by Life As We Knew It. One of my favorite things about the series is its refreshing lack of gender stereotypes. The heroes at Camp Half-Blood have personalities that are more directly linked to the god or goddess they descend from than anything else, which makes sense, but I think it would have been easy for Riordan to make sure that Ares had only male children featured in the story, and Aphrodite had only female children in the story. He didn't do that, and I was glad he didn't.

Monarch Award Books

The Illinois School Library Media Association (ISLMA) has recently released the 2010 Monarch Award list. The award is for a book written for kids in grades K-3. You can view the list here. As I was looking at the list, I was extremely pleased to see that our library already owned 16 of the 20 books on the list. My favorites so far are The Cheese by Margie Palatini and Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt.

I also wanted to mention that in a couple of weeks we will be doing spring crafts here in the library. There will be a storytime/craft program at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 21st for children ages 3-6 and another craft for children ages 7+ at 2:30. Please register if you're interested!

Planning for Summer

Yep, we librarians start planning for our summer programs REALLY early. Yesterday I spent the morning at a workshop in Champaign for local children's librarians that focused on the upcoming summer reading program. The theme this year will be Read on the Wild Side and I am happy to report that I walked out of the workshop full of good ideas.

I was thinking about devoting a week to activities centered around a backyard/park safari. Kids could make their own trail mix, make insect houses and butterfly nets, and maybe do a craft or activity involving tree leaves. Then they could take home a checklist of activities they can do in their backyards, and get some kind of reward or prize for bringing it back to the library.

I was also thinking about doing activities centered around Tarzan, the Wild West, Curious George, and jungle animals in general. Prizes for reading will probably be very similar to last year's, with some smaller prizes for reading 200 minutes and larger prizes for 500 minutes.

None of this is written in stone, however, and I would LOVE to get any ideas, opinions, or comments from you about the summer reading program. Leave a comment, call, or email if you have thoughts or ideas :)

Magic Tree House Party

This Saturday we're having a Magic Tree House party here at the library. We'll be doing activities and crafts based on the 4 most recent Magic Tree House books. Kids who are already Magic Tree House fans will have a blast, and kids who are new to the series will have a great time too. You don't have to have read the books to have fun at the party, but of course we'll encourage everyone to take home one or two! Registration closes today, Feb. 19.

Also, the 41st book in the series, Moonlight on the Magic Flute, comes out on March 10, so you'll be seeing it in the library soon.

Tired of Waiting for the Next Fancy Nancy Book?

If so, try The Jellybeans and the Big Dance by Laura Numeroff and Nate Evans. Emily loves to dance , but when she joins a dance class, she finds out that her classmates are very different people and have trouble working together at first. But one day, when Emily brings jellybeans to share with everyone, she notices that even though the jellybeans are all different flavors, they still make a pretty appealing treat. So the girls decide to call themselves the Jellybeans and they go on to have a successful recital.

Kids who liked Fancy Nancy will also like Belinda Begins Ballet by Amy Young. Belinda is a girl who was born with really big feet. When her teacher casts her as a clown in the school talent show, Belinda is upset but doesn't know what to do about it. Then, when she sees a classmate named Camille do her ballet routine, she knows what she wants to do instead. Her ballet performance in the clown costume ends up being a big hit. It's a sweet story.

You might also try Natalie & Naughtily by Vincent Kirsch. It's the story of two girls, Natalie and Naughtily, who live on the top floor of a huge department store. On one exceptionally busy day, they are told that "It would be a great help if you did not play in the store." So they decide to to down to the store to help out instead. Each page features a beautiful, detailed illustration of the store and the girls' silly antics as they do their best to help the customers.

2010 Rebecca Caudill books

The 2010 Rebecca Caudill list is out! You can see the list here. Personally, I was very glad to see Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass and A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. I really enjoyed those two books. There are a few others on the list that I haven't read, but are familiar to me anyway because they circulate so much. And then there are several on the list that I've never even heard of, so it will be exciting to discover some new authors.