Thursday news

I’m blogging at ALSC today about one of my favorite storytime props.

Please join me for “It’s a Wonderful World."

By Stefan Kühn (Own work) [GFDL
(www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/),
 CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)
or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

In other Thursday news, time is running out to nominate works for consideration for the 2012 ALSC Notables lists for books and DVDs. December 15th is the deadline, so click on over if you’re interested.

If you’re a book blogger, you might want to check out this recent article from the LA Times. At least one publisher thinks we’re not doing enough.  Mr. Morrow forgets, perhaps, that book bloggers do not work for publishers.  In most cases, book blogging is a labor of love - done in our spare time because we enjoy sharing books.  If I don’t review a book that a publisher provided for me, it may be that I’ve been busy, or that I didn’t like it, and I’m being kind. Why waste my time (and yours) writing a review of a bad book?  Many publishers are happy to send out advance copies of their books for review.  If they’re not,  I just wait for the book to arrive at the library.  Either way works for me.  I’ll keep blogging.

Super Diaper Baby, really?

Under various headlines, this article, detailing the annual attempts at book censorship in schools, appeared in many newspapers across the country today.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-08-22-book-ban-schools_n.htm

This, in itself, is nothing new.  The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom serves as the librarian community's watchdog for these and other issues.  But why did this particular challenge attract my attention?   Its target.  Super Diaper Baby! That's right, your favorite diaper-wearing superhero has run afoul of a parent in Channelview, Texas, and that parent subsequently had the book banned from the school library.

Anyone familiar with Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants, Ricky Ricotta, Ook and Gluk and Super Diaper Baby series will know that, yes, they are full of bathroom humor, but they are wildly popular - with boys, in particular.  Is "poo-poo head" really that bad?  Dav Pilkey is an author that gets kids to read - and love it!  If I want to attract kids to programs at the library, Captain Underpants and Jeff Kinney's, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, are sure-fire crowd pleasers.  Kids will read them, talk about them, draw their characters, check them out of the library and beg for more!  Can that be a bad thing?
Super Diaper Baby ... really?

Click to read Dav Pilkey's 2003 response to a school challenge of the original Super Diaper Baby.

See my review of Super Diaper Baby 2, here.

Minimum Rage

After several weeks of helping students find books for their non-fiction school assignments, I was inspired to create this tongue-in-cheek poem for today's Non-Fiction Monday roundup.

MIINIMUM RAGE

"There's a minimum page requirement."

I start to tear my hair!

(Yes, I understand you have a reason.

It's not that I don't care.)

"I've got to read a bio." - Here it comes -

"It's got to be 150."

But the best nonfiction authors are,

at times, with words quite thrifty!

Peter Sis,  Jim Murphy, Demi,

and there's Russell Freedman too,

They tell more in half a page

than others can in two.

"But it needs two hundred pages!

It's for my school report."

Thank goodness for Sid Fleischman

but too bad for Rappaport.

Teachers, please, when it's non-fiction

consider taking less.

And if you need a reason

think "The Gettysburg Address."

Today's Non-Fiction Monday is hosted by Practically Paradise.  Stop there to read nonfiction book reviews and other nonfiction-related posts from the kidlit blogsosphere.