Book Club Premiere

Wednesday April 9th was the premiere meeting of a new Book Club. It has no name except "Book Club" but the focus is on children's books (including picture books) and teen books. Six people showed up including a children's librarian, a teen librarian, a woman who works in publishing, two library school students, and me. We met at the Fuel Coffee Shop on Capitol Hill at 7pm. It was a great mix of people and I'm really glad I went. The format is very informal - just a place to talk about books we're excited about!

Here are the books I took note of:
Satchel Paige : don't look back - Adler, David A. - Biography/illustrated picture book
Skellig - Almond, David - Children's Fiction. Summary:Unhappy about his baby sister's illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel.
Donuthead - Stauffacher, Sue. Children's Fiction. Summary: Franklin Delano Donuthead, a fifth-grader obsessed with hygiene and safety, finds an unlikely friend and protector in Sarah Kervick, the tough new student who lives in a dirty trailer, bonds with his mother, and is as "irregular" as he is.
Trainstop - Lehman, Barbara. Wordless picture book about a ride on a train.
A couple of boys have the best week ever - Frazee, Marla. Picture book

Fullmetal Alchemist - Arakawa, Hiromu. Teen manga (I ended up booktalking this for my interveiw!)
Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie - Sonnenblick, Jordan. Teen fiction. Summary: When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.
Book of a Thousand Days - Hale, Shannon. Teen Fiction. Summary: Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren's years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide who they are as they work as kitchen maids.
Ella Enchanted - Levine, Gale Carson. Children's fiction. A novel based on the story of Cinderella.

Japanese children's picture books by Shimada, Yuka
* Uchi ni kaetta Garago * Kabanuri no Garago * Bamu to Kero no samui asa * Bamu to Kero no sora no tabi
We talked about how difficult it is to buy children's books in world languages.

Skulduggery Pleasant - Landy, Derek. Children's fiction
100 Cupboards- Wilson, Nathan D. Children's fiction
Fly high, fly guy! - Arnold, Tedd. Easy Reader
R is for race : a stock car alphabet - Herzog, Brad
Those Shoes - Boelts, Maribeth. Summary: Jeremy, who longs to have the black high tops that everyone at school seems to have but his grandmother cannot afford, is excited when he sees them for sale in a thrift shop and decides to buy them even though they are the wrong size.
Alphabet from A to Y with bonus letter Z - Martin, Steve

Recommended website
For reader's advisory - slj.com (School Library Journal) blogs/Elizabeth Bird

There was buzz about a new book ABC3D by Marion Bataille. It's a pop-up book. Here's a YouTube preview! (release date October 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnZr0wiG1Hg

With so many books we decided to limit each person to three books next time. This time it was five or six per person!