Loving the Red Pyramid

Hi Kids,
I've been reading a fair amount (and I'm going to Maine tomorrow with a pile of books), but must say that this week I've spent most of my free time reading the new Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid. If you liked the Percy Jackson series, you will like this book--which has many similarities. In this one, the main characters, Carter and Sadie, are siblings who discover that they are descended from the Egyptian pharoahs and that they have magical powers. After their mother dies and their father is abducted by Set, the Egyptian God of Chaos, they need to use every power they have and every god and magician they meet (and there are many) to liberate their father and keep Set from destroying North America. Good action and quite funny in places.

Looking for book ideas?

Hi Kids,
I've decided that I'm going to try to get as many kids as possible to help pick the best Children's book for Massachusetts this year. Salem State College runs a contest each year where they nominate a bunch of books and ask kids to read at least FIVE and then vote for their favorite in March. I'm going to start a book group for grades 4 and 5 when we get back to school to read these. In the meantime, there is no reason you cannot start reading some. (I've already read a few--and they are good so far--Home of the Brave is may favorite so far). If you want to get started, you can click on the link in the column on the right to get the book list! Let me know if you read any.

LOTS of reading this week

On Thursday and Friday, I finally got to read a whole bunch of the new books that came into the library this summer. I decided instead of just reading one novel, to try to read a lot of shorter books. I finally read a Babymouse book and a Who Was biography (some kids call these "big head" biographies because of the crazy pictures on the covers). I liked them both, but since I love biographies--I think I liked my big head Marco Polo better. I also read Yummy--a great fairy tale collection and Once Upon A Time--a nice collection of folk tales from Spanish-speaking countries, and these were both very good. I really like a funny book called What Really Happened to Humpty Dumpty, which was sort of like the True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I read it to a second grade class and we all loved it--including the teachers. I also found a book called Just the Right Size super interesting. It tells why animals are the sizes they are and how this helps them (it turns out that there is a good reason that people cannot walk on ceilings and whales cannot fly).

Lots of New Books

Hello,
This week I have been unpacking new books--some were books that were donated to us from great library friends. Others were ordered right before school ended and I also got a lot of books when I went to the American Library Association meeting in June. It is pretty exciting--I've unpacked about 225 books so far and there are more coming. We have lots of new animal books, all the new Baby Mouse books, some more Shredderman books, tons of new chapter books, and more. It is hard to know where to begin. I bought lots of books that kids asked for in the book request box this year (so we have a lot of Rainbow Magic books now). I am going to be pretty busy trying to read through all these!

Off the movies

Hello!
A few weeks ago all the school librarians in Massachusetts got an invitation to go to a sneak preview of the new Beezus and Ramona movie. I LOVE Beverly Cleary (and have been reading these books since I was in 3rd grade), so I was not sure if I wanted to see a movie version. Like many people, I always worry that they will wreck the book, but I trusted the people who made this one (Walden Media--they also made the Winn-Dixie movie, Charlotte's web, Narnia movies, etc) so I took my niece and her friend and we went. It was so cool! The movie company gave out free tickets, snacks, and all sorts of books, posters, etc. They raffled off prizes before the movie and told us we were the first people seeing this movie! The movie was good! It combined parts of 5 different books, but in a way that made sense. The movie is based mostly on the later books when Ramona is in 4th grade and Beezus is starting high school. There are lots of really funny parts and it made me want to go and re-read the books. It was nice to see a GOOD movie based on a book! So, what movies from books do you like?

Audiobooks

Even though I'm old and I'm a pretty good reader, I love to listen to books. I don't care if a real person is reading to me or if it is a book on a CD player. I ALWAYS listen to books when I am in my car. This summer I've noticed that tons of kids are taking audiobooks out of the library. Kids are really enjoying playaways (those books that look like they are on an ipod). Books on tape are great for listening to on long car rides--it keeps you from getting bored. I'm going to New York next weekend. Does anyone have any good recommendations for what I can listen to on my ride there?

Summer School

Hello!
In the summer some kids come into school for a few hours in the morning from a bunch of different schools (though lots of Plympton kids are here) and we do lots of fun things with books and math. It has been really fun to be back in the library. This week some of the kids took the Goldilocks story apart and re-wrote it in funny ways--we had The Scuba Diver and the Three Dolphins, The Soccer Player and the Three Football Players (the soccer player breaks the seats in the football stadium), and the Clown and the Three Dogs. It got me thinking about how much I love fractured fairy tales. They are usually nice and short and funny--perfect summer reading. Some of my favorites are Jim and The Beanstalk by Raymond Briggs, The Stinky Cheeseman by Jon Scieszka, and And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon by Janet Stevens. Do you have a favorite fractured fairy tale? What are you reading right now?

Back from Washington

Hi Kids,
I was in Washington DC all week at the American Library Association, which is a meeting of all the librarians in America. There were 26,000 librarians there! I met tons of authors, including Jon Scieszka (Stinky Cheeseman, Time Warp Trio), Christopher Paul Curtis (Bud, Not Buddy), Lauren Myracle (Eleven, Twelve), and Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret). I found out about all kinds of cool new books and shipped two boxes of books back to Plympton! I also got some great ideas for projects we can try at school next year. AND--PLYMPTON LIBRARY WAS NAMED THE OUTSTANDING LIBRARY IN MASSACHUSETTS!!! This was super exciting and I got meet President Obama's Secretary of Education because of this. His name is Arne Duncan and he said that he likes school libraries because it is where kids find their passion (that means you get to read about what you like best).

Today I'm going camping and have my books all packed but need to find my tent.

Also, if you stop by the Rockland Trust Bank on Main Street, they will set up a bank account for kids who are reading this summer. They will add $2.50 to a bank account for you for each book you read up to 10 books--that's 25 dollars just for reading!
Check the link on my blog to read more about this.

So what are you reading?

Four books at once

I am just in from the Plympton Library with 4 books and because it is vacation, I am just going to lie on the sofa and read them all. So far, I've started The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Funny and a bit gross story of a girl living 100 years ago in Texas who wants to be a scientist and hangs out with her very eccentric grandfather and avoids her 5 pesty brothers); A Crooked Kind of Perfect (a girl who wants to be a famous pianist has a really really insane dad who signs her up for lessons on a cheap organ with a lady who only knows TV theme songs); Peeled (a teen murder mystery); and the Lemonade Wars (about fighting siblings who sell lemonade). I've started all of them and now have to worry about confusing the plots. Let me know if you've heard of any of these-and do check in and let me know what you are reading.

Welcome to Summer at the Plympton Library

Hello Kids (and Parents too!),
Welcome to my summer library blog. I'll be writing each week this summer about:
--what I'm reading
--contests and events for summer reading fun
--great reading and game websites.

Check in weekly as I add book titles, websites, photos, etc.

Every kid who writes to me on the comments section is automatically entered into a reading raffle for a goodie bag give away when school starts in September.

HAVE FUN READING THIS SUMMER!!!
Ms. Paradis
Plympton Library