How the Weather Works

A Hands-On Guide to
Our Changing Climate

Written by Christiane Dorion

Illustrated by Beverley Young

Templar, 2011

$17.99, ages 7-11, 20 pages

Everyone's talking about climate change, but ask them to tell you what it is and chances are they'll get tongue-tied.

The subject is so complex and hotly debated that it's hard for children, let alone many adults, to digest what it means.

And unless you know what climate change is all about, how do you start to care about it?

In this wonderful movable guide to weather, the team behind last year's acclaimed How the World Works demystifies climate change by sorting through terms kids need to know to understand it, like what is the water cycle and ozone.

Almost the entire book is about weather, and it's only after readers work through the fundamentals, from how the sun causes weather to where rain comes from and why the wind blows, do the book's creators address climate change.

Gaia Warriors

By Nicola Davies

Afterword by James Lovelock

Candlewick, 2011

$14.99, ages 11-14, 192 pages

Earth's climate is changing fast, but don't be gloomy about it because the fight is on to slow it down and all you have to do is join in, says author Davies in her guide.

Inspired by scientist James Lovelock's theory that Earth is a living system, the guide is a no-nonsense look at how and why the climate is changing, and what readers can do to keep it from getting warmer.

Is the problem big? Davies asks. "Yes. Scary? Maybe. But let's do it anyway." Why? Because we have to, she says.

Davies calls on kids to be warriors for change, and begins and ends the book with quotes that drive home the idea that only people can make the changes happen and if they're to succeed, they can't get bogged down by doubts.

Energy Island

How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed their World

Written and illustrated by Allan Drummond

Frances Foster Books, 2011

$16.99, ages 6-10, 40 pages

A Danish island where hats are always flying off heads learns to harness the energy of the wind and takes itself off the grid.

In this remarkable true story, Drummond tells about the people of Samso who used the very thing they couldn't escape from -- buffeting winds -- to work for them.

In 1997, Denmark's government designated the island as its "renewable energy island" -- a region that could eventually run completely on free, nonpolluting energy thanks in a large part to its windy location.

Since then, the island off the Jutland peninsula has become almost entirely energy independent through the use of wind turbines, as well as district heating plants, biomass and solar panels.

It's even able to export surplus electricity from those turbines to the mainland and it has eliminated its carbon emissions by 140 percent.

That means if you were to look for a carbon footprint there, you wouldn't find one.

But becoming a green island wasn't quick and it wasn't easy.

Hug Time

Written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell

Little, Brown and Company, 2007

$14.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages.

Jules, the big-hearted kitten from McDonnell's comic strip Mutts, walks the world over trying to make hurts go away in this classic gem.

With the help of his girl Doozy, the little tabby puts on his green sweater and sets out into the world with a Hug To-Do List and front legs ready to cuddle.

First thing out the door, Jules wraps himself around each of his buddies, Mooch the feline, Noodles the alley cat and Earl the dog.

Then before he's gone far, he leaps up to give a butterfly a squeeze, and embraces a bed of buttercups and a gray squirrel.

Then it's off to the park to hug every bird he can find and next: the wide open sea. He's determined to find a big blue whale and soon spots a Y-shaped tail.

From the bow of an ocean liner, Jules reaches his arms out as the whale cranes its wide neck and hugs all of the whale that he can: a teeny tiny hug for a huge fellow.

Soon the ship docks in Africa and Jules realizes a hug just won't do, so he kisses the ground -- "the earth so precious, so fragile, so round," McDonnell writes.

Go Green Today!

10 Ways to Help Children Be Green:

1. Praise them for flipping off lights and turning off water. Then reward them by using the money saved from utility bills for a treat.

2. Help them collect fruit peels and other scraps for a compost pile. Then when it's ready, let them dig for earthworms.

3. Encourage them to take faster showers. Kids love hour-glass and wind-up timers. See if they can beat your time.

4. Walk or bicycle with them to school. Bring along a pedometer to see how far you go. Then at the end of the year, add up your miles and reward them with a camping trip.

5. Show them how to sort cans, bottles and other recyclables. Then challenge them to generate as little trash each week as they can by reusing some things and avoiding others.

6. Take them on a hike up a hill where they can look out and see the world, help them plant their own tree or bring them to a flower field and let them look for bees, butterflies and bunnies.

7. Help them grow organic vegetables, fruits and berries. Give them Popsicle sticks and colored pens to make plant markers, and a watering can. Plant marigolds to discourage pests naturally.

8. Ask them to help pack their lunch using reusable containers, and include recycled paper napkins, biodegradable plastic utensils and goodies made from the fruits and vegetables they've grown.

9. Hold an Earth party. Hand out fabric shopping totes to paint, make their favorite animal from old boxes and odds and ends, juice organic fruits to pour over shaved iced, plant wheat grass in eggshells.

10. Walk the block with them to pick up trash, adopt a roadside to clean up or form a Roots & Shoots club with their friends. For more on Jane Goodall's program, click here.

The Little Red Pen

By Susan Stevens Crummel

Illustrated by Janet Stevens

Harcourt, 2011

$16.99, ages 4-8, 56 pages 

A high-strung pen incites a drawer full of school supplies to help her grade papers, in this hilarious twist on two beloved fables.

The award-winning Stevens sisters play with themes from Chicken Little (the folly of hysteria) and The Little Red Hen (the importance of hard work) to suggest a funny new lesson:

Spreading unfound fear and panic can help get a job done -- especially if you're a paranoid pen in a storybook and you're working with a gullible set of school supplies.

One day after class, a red correction pen in glasses and a pointy red cap proclaims in Chicken Little fashion that a catastrophe will occur -- if papers aren't corrected before students return the next day.

However, like Little Red Hen, she can't find anyone to help her.

The Emerald Atlas

Book One: The Books of Beginning

By John Stephens

Alfred A. Knopf, 2011

$17.99, ages 8-12, 432 pages

Three orphans travel back in time through the pages of an atlas to guard secrets that brought the world into being in the most talked-about children's novel of the year.

In this first book in a trilogy, the writer for the TV series Gilmore Girls crafts a spirited, page-turning fantasy that's at times derivative of C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, but sets itself apart with it own cleverly realized sequences of time travel.

Stephens deftly manages the consequences of going back in time and changing the course of history with a deceivingly simple plot that has the orphans rescuing a village from a terrible past and, at least for now, guarding the world from a witch.

While wandering the eerie rooms of their new orphanage, siblings Kate, Michael and Emma discover an ancient book of wizardry that transports them 15 years into the past where a witch is ransoming the town's children for the very book that sent them there.

Trailer for The Emerald Atlas

A New Dr. Seuss Book? Really?!

Yes!  "I meant what I said and I said what I meant!"

On Sept. 27, Random House will release The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories, a collection of seven stories by the incomparable Dr. Seuss.

The stories were published in Redbook Magazine in 1950 and 1951, but never appeared in book form.

"We're like happy prospectors, having discovered a hidden vein of gold," said Kate Klimo, vice president of Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group.

Here's a sneak peek:

1. "The Bear, the Rabbit and the Zinniga-Zanniga" is about a quick-thinking rabbit who outwits a bear with a single eyelash. *

(This story also was recorded by Marvin Miller in the album Dr. Seuss Presents: Fox in Socks/Green Eggs and Ham.)

2. "Gustav the Goldfish" is an early, rhymed version of the Beginner Book A Fish Out of Water, in which a boy buys a fish and is warned not to overfeed it.

3. "Tadd and Todd" is a tale passed down via photocopy to generations of twins.

4. "Steak for Supper" is about fantastic creatures who follow a boy home in anticipation of a steak dinner.

5. "The Bippolo Seed" is about a scheming cat who leads an innocent duck to make a bad decision.

6. "The Strange Shirt Spot" was inspired by the bathtub-ring scene in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

7. "The Great Henry McBride" is about a boy whose fantasies of a far-flung career are only bested by those of Dr. Seuss.

In an introduction, Dr. Seuss scholar and collector Charles D. Cohen discusses the stories' themes, including the importance of imagination and the dangers of greed.

He also notes that all seven marked a shift in Dr. Seuss's writing style from primarily prose to the rhymes we've come to adore.

Due to printing limitations of those early magazines, Random House is enhancing the colors of the illustrations to match Dr. Seuss's other books.

For more about Seuss's original stories in Redbook, visit Children's Picturebook Collecting here.

 * You may have noticed that the word, "Zinniga-Zanniga," is spelled differently in Redbook. According to Cohen, in his book The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing But the Seuss, the title word was likely misprinted as "Zinniga-Zinnaga."

Chalk the Block

Add Humor to Your Neighborhood

By Michael Sherman

Klutz, 2011

$12.99, ages 6 and up, 40 pages.

Concrete got the blahs around your block?

Grab some chalk and turn all that wear and tear to your comic advantage.

In this fun twist on an old pastime, Sherman inspires kids to turn ugly concrete into a crack up with a few strokes of chalk.

"Release your inner smart aleck," he encourages before taking readers through a basic how-to and a slew of his own ideas.

The book comes with four fat pieces of chalk and pictures of cracks, walls, steps, rocks even drains dressed up silly.

There's even a section on how to take hopscotch up a notch (literally up a wall) and transform blacktop into track for tricycle test driving.

Say Hello to Zorro!

Written & illustrated by Carter Goodrich

Simon & Schuster, 2011

$15.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages

Mister Bud the terrier had it good when it was just himself and his human.

But now his human has adopted a curly-tailed pug named Zorro and Mister Bud feels like he's losing control of how things work around home.

And who could blame him?

Until Zorro arrived, Mister Bud thought he was the center of everything.

He had a title of respect prefixed to his name, and what's more, he had his schedule and everyone stuck to it.

In this charming picture book, the lead character designer of Despicable Me explores what it's like to be an only pet -- to have things just the way you want them -- then have another pet thrust into your life and threaten to mess it all up.

 

Two Gems for Women's History Month

Girls will feel like they've strapped on wings after reading these captivating true stories of early 20th Century women who refused to let their future be decided for them. 

Just in time for Women's History Month come two stellar accounts of women who challenged themselves to dream bigger than women ever had: Wheels of Change by Sue Macy and Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming.

Each book is meticulously researched, and packed with gems of information -- anecdotes, quotations, even poems -- that will make readers' spirits soar and inspire girls to be confident in their pursuits and not let anyone hold them back.

Wheels of Change

How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom

(With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)

By Sue Macy

National Geographic, 2011

$18.95, ages 8 and up, 96 pages

For women at the close of the 19th Century, the bicycle was like a silent steed ready to carry them away.

It gave them courage to break free of society's rigid hold and carve out their own dreams, according to this fascinating account by award-winning Macy.

"Imagine a population imprisoned by their very clothing: the stiff corsets, heavy skirts...," she writes. "And how liberated they must have been as they pedaled their wheels toward new horizons."

With the arrival of the high-wheeler and later bicycles in America, women gained a degree of mobility they'd never known and gradually, often unconsciously began to try things that only men were allowed to do.

The female cyclist "did not have to be born again in some mysterious fashion, becoming a strange creature, a 'new woman,'" Munsey's Magazine suggested in 1896. "She is more like the 'eternal feminine,' who has taken on wings, and who is using them with an ever increasing delight in her new power."

A few years later, a French cycling poster echoed this perception, showing an Athenian-looking woman with angel wings standing beside her two-wheeler.

Amelia Lost

The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart 

By Candace Fleming

Schwartz & Wade, 2011

$18.99, ages 8-12, 128 pages.

Award-winning Fleming strips away the mystique surrounding legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart to show a woman as fallible as any other -- yet driven to conquer the air like no woman before her.

"All I wished to do in the world was to be a vagabond in the air," Earhart once said, and though Earhart met criticism in her later career for profiting from aviation, it was this guiding dream that's defined Earhart at least until her death.

When Earhart's plane vanished in 1937, her husband, late publisher George Putnam, worried that her disappearance would overshadow her legacy, and for some perhaps it has, yet Fleming doesn't dwell on Earhart's disappearance but lets it fade in and out of chapters about her life.

Fleming (The Great and Only Barnum) makes sure we see Earhart for what she was, a typical woman in many ways, but uniquely driven. As biographer Mary S. Lovell described Earhart, she was "an ordinary girl growing into an extraordinary woman who dared to attempt seemingly unattainable goals in a man's world."

We meet a woman who was at times impulsive and headstrong, who with Putnam could work the media and profited greatly from her record-setting feats, yet who had unstoppable courage and enthusiasm, and who not only earnestly believed a woman could do everything a man could do, but wanted other women to believe that to.

Owly & Wormy: Friends All Aflutter

Created and illustrated by Andy Runton

Atheneum Books, 2011

$15.99, ages 3-7, 40 pages.

Owly wants butterflies so badly he can barely stand it. But nothing seems to lure them into his garden.

Then one day he meets two plump green bugs that make him forget that having friends with fancy wings was ever important to him.

Well, almost forget -- that is, until the rainy season passes and a couple of leathery pouches in his garden do the "shaky shake."

Owly, the big-eyed owl from Runton's Owly graphic novel series, makes his full-color debut in this super-sweet picture book that shows that it's not what's on the outside that counts in friendship.

As with the Owly comics, the story is told through symbols and expressions, and is virtually wordless, yet it reads as vividly as any word-based picture book thanks to clever pictographs that appear above characters' heads.

Night Flight: Amelia Earhart Crosses the Atlantic

By Robert Burleigh

Paintings by Wendell Minor

A Paula Wiseman Book, 2011

$16.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

If words could fly, these would.

In this poetic account of aviatrix Amelia Earhart's solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, readers feel like they're taking off with her, and imagine what she must have seen and felt.

Burleigh's words thrill with their immediacy and momentum, while Minor's paintings envelop readers in the vastness and mercurial nature of the sky.

From the moment Earhart's single-engine Vega rolls down the dirt runway in Newfoundland en route to France, readers find themselves surrendering to whatever will happen.

It is May 1932. Earhart "pushes her last doubts into a secret place deep inside her," and readers too take in a deep breath and feel the plane's wheels go faster and faster. Her courage will now be their own.

Once the Vega is aloft, solitude embraces readers; "the plane swoops like a swallow" over tundra and ascends higher into the waning light of late day, rising upward until they can no longer hear the surf.

"Amelia Earhart lives for this moment: / to follow the wide horizon that never ends!" Burleigh writes -- and we imagine we live for it too.

At first the mood of the flight is one of bliss. The night is calm and the Vega soars eastward into "wisps of shimmering clouds" and expanses of glistening stars.

Earhart feels at ease and indulges in reflection about "first-time things"; among them, standing before whirling propellers as a young girl: "The props send puffs of soft snow into her delighted eyes."

Her mind soars with all that's she's looked down upon and her conviction "to try to do things as men have tried."  There is an expectation that the trip will remain smooth and sure.

"But she is wrong," Burleigh writes, his words hauntingly unequivocal in the last line on the page, as the ocean grows choppy and lives up to his description as "dark and seething."

Midnight arrives abruptly with a flash of lightning, its tendrils reaching down before her path.

"Fists of rain pummel the cockpit windshield," stirring Earhart from a half-dream; is it thunder or her heart pounding?

I Must Have Bobo!

By Eileen Rosenthal

Illustrated by Marc Rosenthal

Atheneum Books, 2011

$14.99, ages 3-6, 40 pages

Bobo the sock money is Willy's and Willy's alone. So why is Earl the cat stealing time with Bobo when Willy isn't looking?

In this darling first collaboration by author Eileen Rosenthal and husband Marc, author-illustrator of Phooey!, a boy and his cat vie over which of them should get Bobo all to himself.

One morning Willy awakes to find that his best stuffed toy Bobo isn't where he should be and in a panic, yells out to anyone who will listen, "I need Bobo!"

Willy opens his eyes so wide that his pupils shrink to dots and he stretches his arms up high, showing just how much he means what he says.

How can Willy possibly get through a day without his trusted toy? After all, Bobo helps Willy do everything: 

When Willy sees a bitey-bug and pokes him with a stick, it's Bobo he clutches in one of his arms. When Willy goes down a slide super fast with his eyes sealed shut, it's Bobo he hugs in front of him.

And when Willy walks past the fence that holds in a big, jowly dog (the one who stands on his hind legs watching Willy and clutches the pickets with his front paws), it's Bobo who holds his hand.

Knowing how much he counts on Bobo to get him through scary times, Willy can hardly bear the thought of losing him. "I must have Bobo!" he yells, this time gripping his head in both hands.

But hold on a second. What's that moving under Willy's bed covers on the next page? Isn't that Earl's gray tail hanging out from the blanket?

The Crows of Pearblossom

By Aldous Huxley

Illustrated by Sophie Blackall

Abrams Books, 2011

$16.95, ages 4-8, 40 pages.

The crows of Pearblossom are back and as snippety as ever, but have a winsome look that makes their squabbles more fun to laugh at.

In this sunny redo of Aldous Huxley's classic, Sophie Blackall lightens the look of the story just enough that the digs between the married crows don't seem as harsh and the ending feels less morose.

The story, about a crow couple who takes revenge on a snake who's been eating their eggs, was published in 1967 as a reader with mostly black-ink illustrations by award-winning Barbara Cooney and returns now as a full-color picture book.

Australian-born Blackall, who also illustrated Annie Barrows' Ivy & Bean series, plays off Huxley's dark humor and pays tribute to Cooney's original art while giving the book a rosier, more playful look.

Skies of lemon yellow, clear-day blue and misty coral warm the pages, and the crows, despite their acerbic tongues, look adorable. Their shiny black button eyes glisten and their armlike wings look like the soft branches of a Victorian feather tree.

Aided by the larger format, Blackall expands upon whimsical touches that made Cooney's version a gem and makes the story seem cheery even at the end -- when the snake dies a slow death from eating clay eggs, then is strung into a clothes line.

She also cleverly draws off Huxley's sense of irony. At one point Mrs. Crow is laying in bed with huge pink rollers on her head and her skinny tongue is frozen in mid rant, while a meek Mr. Crow lashes out at her while hiding behind his friend Owl.

This is a story that you love for the very things that make you uneasy about it. It's blunt and grim, yet in a clever, tongue-in-cheek way, and though you wonder if it would have been published if written by a less famous author, Huxley's audacity is refreshing for a genre that is generally sweet-toned and idealistic.

Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems

By Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy

Clarion Books, 2011

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

You may be fond of elephants, but read this beguiling book of poetry and you'll wish you could save every one.

Zimmer brings elephants into greater focus and heightens our respect for them, in a whimsical, if at times sobering tribute to the world's largest land mammal.

Every spread combines meticulously worded poems and soft, winsome collages, along with notes that expound upon their traits and threats to their survival.

In one, the profile of a sweet-eyed elephant spans the fold of two pages, its appendages painted to resemble objects that are similar in size or form.

Ears look like "tattered sails," the tail swishes like a "tapered rope" with a "fancy tassel," a sturdy hind leg becomes a Grecian pillar and another is inset with a slipper to suggest lightness of foot.

In another, Zimmer rejoices for elephants rescued from circuses or fairs, now living out their last days on a 2,700-acre refuge in Tennessee, their "trumpets and rumblings as hopeful as light."

Though Zimmer never comes out and appeals for help saving the endangered elephant, she deepens our understanding of these sapient creatures and asks us to contemplate how humans affect their lives.

In doing so, she skillfully involves us in their plight and makes us want to protect them.

Being a Friend: 8 Books to Help Kids Along

from Brun-Cosme's Big Wolf & Little Wolf

There are many things parents hold their breath and wish for.

One is that their children always have a buddy to turn to -- at least one friend who stays true no matter what.

But making friends isn't always easy, especially if children feel shy or awkward, or don't know anyone.

And sometimes, even if they have good buddies, they find themselves on the outs or feeling apart from everyone else.

There's so much to learn about friendship, how to compromise and accept differences, how to stand up for yourself and be heroic when someone needs you.

You may have heard the phrase, "raising happiness." It's the idea that children will blossom if they learn to be considerate, compassionate and confident.

In celebration of that idea, I've pulled together 8 books about being a friend and some of the bumps friends face along the way.

1. Bink & Gollie

Written by Kate DeCamillo, Alison McGhee

Illustrated by Tony Fucile

Candlewick Press, 2010

$15.99, ages 4-8, 96 pages

Two pals get into spats, but discover that if they each give a little, they can work things out in DiCamillo and McGee's adorable 2011 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award winner.

Bink and Gollie look nothing alike, but as they swap knowing glances on the cover of this early reader, you get the feeling they're alike where it really counts.

Though Bink is short and Gollie is tall, and their clothes and hair-dos are very different, each girl is adventurous and gets what the other is about.

Bink, with her flyaway hair, jumps into life, unconcerned with what others think, and it's that confidence that immediately endears her to us.

Gollie is reserved, but strong-willed. She longs for speed and spurs the two to roller-skate as fast as they can. She also imagines doing thrilling things, though she never goes far from her tree house.

Most of the time Gollie and Bink are game for what the other wants to do, but sometimes they're stubborn and won't budge enough to compromise.

Over three spare, energy-filled chapters, we see how a tiff between Bink and Gollie can blow up into an argument that neither really wants to have and can hide something else that's bothering one of them.

2. Big Wolf & Little Wolf

Written by Nadine Brun-Cosme

Illustrated by Olivier Tallec

Enchanted Lion Books, 2009

$16.95, ages 4-8, 32 pages

When a little blue wolf starts hanging out at Big Wolf's tree, Big Wolf doesn't know what to think.

After all, this is Big Wolf's tree. It's always been that way.

What could a quiet little wolf be after? Will he try to show Big Wolf up?

As one day slips into the next and Little Wolf does nothing to eclipse Big Wolf, Big Wolf gets used to having him around, though he isn't particularly welcoming.

Then one day Little Wolf leaves the tree and Big Wolf's heart glows red through his fir. He realizes just how much Little Wolf has come to mean to him.

In this sweet, gently told story by France's Brun-Cosme and Tallec, two solitary creatures let their guards down and discover the joy of being with someone else.

3. Forever Friends

Written and illustrated by Carin Berger

Greenwillow Books, 2010

$16.99, ages 2-6, 40 pages

A bird and bunny stumble into a friendship that endures through the seasons in this breezy, enchanting book about being patient and true.

As pink blossoms unfold on trees, a graceful blue bird swoops onto a branch above a log, where a brown bunny is waking from his winter sleep.

"Come Play!" the bird sings out, and immediately the bunny bounds out of the log, bursting to go on adventures.

The days are joyful and they play every moment they can through the last days of fall.

They string flowers, twirl around each other, hide under toad stools, and try to catch floating globes of fireflies.

But when the last of the leaves fall and the cool air comes, the bird tells the bunny he must go.

It's time to fly south, but he promises to come back when the air is warm again.

As the bird soars away, the bunny sadly looks up toward the clouds, his arms stretched out to his friend; he is not yet ready to let go.

4. So Close

Written and illustrated by Natalia Colombo

Tundra Books, 2010

$17.95, ages 4-7, 24 pages

Working up the courage to say hello isn't easy when the person you want to say hello to is as shy as you are.

In this sweet book about reaching out to others, Spain's Colombo shows how one little word can transform strangers into friends.

Mr. Duck and Mr. Rabbit pass each other everyday, yet they're always focused straight ahead or down at the ground as they go to and from home.

Neither one lets on that he knows the other exists; perhaps they're too busy or they feel awkward about speaking to someone they haven't been introduced to.

At times they pass so closely, they look as if they'll brush shoulders. Colombo zeros in on their faces and you find yourself wishing they would accidentally touch, just to break the tension.

5. The Boys

Written and Illustrated by Jeff Newman

Simon & Schuster, 2010

$15.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

A new boy in town longs to join a game of baseball, but is too guarded to ask if he can play until four old guys coax him out of his shell.

Wordless except for days of the week announced every few pages, this hilarious story is about wanting to fit in, but not knowing how.

As the story begins, it's Tuesday and the little boy in a red cap has just moved into his house and is eager to find a game of baseball.

He's got his glove, bat, even a ball. Now he just needs a field of kids.

But when he gets to the neighborhood park and sees a game underway, he freezes up, feeling too self-conscious to ask if he can join in.

With his cap low over his face and his bat dragging behind, the boy slumps off to a park bench, where four old guys are whiling away the day.

6. Day & Night

Written and illustrated by Teddy Newton

Chronicle Books, 2010

$14.99, all ages, 40 pages

When points of view are starkly different, you say they're as different as night and day. But if you are, in fact, Night and Day, do you have to be worlds apart?

In this delightful book adaptation of Pixar's 2010 short by the same name, two doughy shaped fellows named Night and Day discover that being different is nothing to be afraid of.

Against a backdrop of blackness, Day wakes up with a skip in his step. Birds swirl around inside him, flowers bloom in his belly and for a time he lays back soaking in the rising sun.

But as Day gets up to walk again he comes upon Night curled up on the ground sleeping and is startled because he's never seen anything like him.

Uneasy about what Night is, Day tries to slip past him unnoticed. But at that moment Night wakes up, equally out of sorts.

"Yikes!" they yell at the same time as each stumbles back from the other.

7. Don't Call Me Pruneface

Written by Janet Reed Ahearn

Illustrated by Drazen Kozjan

Disney-Hyperion, 2010

$16.99, ages 3-7, 32 pages

It's hard being nice when your new next-door neighbor goes out of her way to raise your hackles, but Paul is trying.

If only he could take the high road and follow Grandma's words of advice -- especially the one about him being "as good as gold."

But how can Paul be the nice guy grandma's sees and endure the ill will of Prudence, aka the Lunatic?

Since Day 1, when Paul welcomed her into the neighborhood, she's thrown one verbal jab after another.

That day she called him "Pill" instead of "Paul," and suggested a better name for his dog Bobo was, "Oops," because a boy like Paul shouldn't have a cute dog.

Grandma says, "You can't judge a book by its cover," so Paul's giving Prudence a week to change his mind and show him there's a nice girl in there after all.

However by the way things are going so far, Paul's not sure he'll make it that far. After all, even nice boys have their limits.

8. Song for a Princess

Written by Rachel Mortimer

Illustrated by Maddy McClellan

Chicken House, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

When a princess loses a dear friend, a bird gathers up words the girls once shared and sings them back to her in this heartwarming tale about picking yourself back up.

For many happy hours, the princess and her friend would sit in the palace garden on a blanket scattered with open books, talking, reading, singing and dreaming of faraway places and beautiful things.

The girls loved words and shared them freely: words like "smile," "friends," "rainbow," "star" and "always."

On those days, a breeze would send their happy, colorful words twirling about through the air and a little brown wren who lived in the garden would catch them like worms and line his nest with them.

"They were treasures to him," Mortimer writes. "The words made him feel safe and warm."

But then one day, the friend had to go away, leaving the princess's heart empty. As rain poured down, the wren collected the princess's words, but now they were the saddest he'd ever heard.

Winners of 2011 Newbery and Caldecott

2011 Randolph Caldecott Medal
Written by Philip C. Stead
Illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Roaring Book Press

2011 John Newbery Medal
By Clare Vanderpool
Delacorte Books

Who Will Win Jan. 10?

Every year before the Caldecott and Newbery awards are announced, I wonder what will impress the judges and whether it will be anything like what impressed me.

Occasionally, I can predict one or two books that the American Library Association judges will select because those books took everyone's breath away.

When I rooted for Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret in 2008 and David Wiesner's Flotsam in 2007 for Caldecott Medals and both won the top prize, it was exciting, but not surprising.

They were the A+ projects everyone knew were leagues ahead.

But this year, like most years, I am at a loss to predict whether any of my favorites will come close to winning. So instead of trying to predict, I've decided to list the books that stood out most for me.

Whereas my Holiday Gift Guide focused on fall/winter books that fit the spirit of the season, this list covers the entire year and includes books that came out before and after that list was posted, and books that aren't necessarily a light read.

Though I agree that any award-winner must be well-crafted, in the end, for me, it's not so much about the technical merits of the book, but how the words and pictures made me feel when I reached the last page.

Even if none of these books make the award lists on Nov. 10, they'll still be some of the best things I've read all year.

Which are your winners?

What Makes a Story Great?

When I finish reading a novel that's really special, certain things happen to me that I don't really think about until I'm in the middle of doing them or feeling them.

I close the book and grip it with both hands as if to feel its solidity. Then I gently run my hand across the cover with the palm of one hand, as if dusting it off, though it's hardly dusty.

For a moment or two I dote over it a little, maybe adjust the jacket just so, like a child fussing over the hair or dress of a favorite doll that's already quite perfect. Then I take in a deep, deep breath.

With my lungs filled, I feel like I could float away to a blissful place and for a few moments more, I muse over the wonderful parts I read as I exale.

Sometimes I even feel a tinge of envy for the feeling I had when I didn't know how the story would end.

Then I find a special place on the bookshelf that's at eye level when I'm standing, so that when I walk by the book days, weeks or months from now, my eye will meet the title on the spine, and I'll be reminded of where I've been.

Delivery Day at Fairview Elementary!

For five weeks beginning Oct. 25, I held a giveaway to help a Denver area elementary school in need that I called, The Great Library Giveaway.

I'd set aside 300 books from reviewing for the contest, knowing that many schools in the area were facing budget cuts and could use books to fill a shelf or two in their libraries.

In my heart, I imagined the winning school being a place where the books would mean the most, where resources are sparse, life doesn't come easily and books are treasured.

But after the contest began, I realized that the giveaway might not reach the very people I'd most wanted to help.

Less affluent communities wouldn't have easy access to computers and the Internet, and thus could be at a significant disadvantage entering the contest.

What I didn't anticipate was the tenacity and spirit of Fairview Elementary School, a fiercely proud little school in Denver's most impoverished neighborhood.

In a week's time, Fairview came up from behind and not only won the contest, but by more than 50 votes.

So worried they'd lose their lead against the other 13 schools that entered, the staff, volunteers, families and friends at the school kept voting even after their win seemed secure.

And as I discovered while delivering the books a week after Thanksgiving, this is a school that doesn't take anything for granted.

What a Marvelous Book! Holiday Gift Guide 2010

A book may not zip when it moves, bop when it stops or whir when it stands still, like the whatsit in Tom Paxton's song The Marvelous Toy, but it can be just as wondrous.

Every year, as I prepare this list, I am amazed by how many wonderful books came out that year, and it's always hard to pick favorites. I pile up the books I'm especially fond of, then send each through a filter of sorts in my head.

I try to imagine myself as a child, picking each one up for the first time and reading it through, and I ask myself whether, like a marvelous toy, it could become my heart's delight, the kind of book I'd never forget.

In some cases, a book sneaks up on me and only after letting it sit do I realize how much I loved reading it, and in other cases, it's like the marvelous toy in the song and it pops the first time I read it.

1. A General and His Wish for Peace

The General: Anniversary Edition 50 Years, by Janet Charters, illustrated by Michael Foreman, Templar Books, $16.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages. On his quest for glory, a general is sidetracked by the beauty of nature, and comes to realize he'd rather bring peace to the world than tower above it. In this splendid reissue, General Jodhpur dreams of two things: to be the most famous general in the world and have his army admired by generals from other countries. Everyday from sun up to sun down, he orders his troops to polish everything he can think of, from their drills to their boots and weapons. Then one Sunday while riding in the country, an accident changes everything he thought he wanted. A fox crossing his path spooks his horse and the general is thrown to the ground. Landing on a soft patch of grass, he is unharmed but discovers he's lost all desire to get up. The grass is lovely and he lays on his back, nibbling on a blade as the sun's heat blankets his body. Finally, after a long time, the general decides he'd better head back to camp and begins to follow the familiar path home. Without his horse, it is slower going and he notices creatures he never appreciated before.

2. A Book to Sing!

The Twelve Bots of Christmas, written and illustrated by Nathan Hale, Walker Books, $14.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages. Stand to the side, true love. Robo Santa's got his own gifts for The Twelve Days of Christmas. In this clever techno-twist on the classic English Christmas carol, gizmos fly, roll, swim and snooze before being packed into a sack for Robo Santa and his eight super-charged reindeer to deliver to little boys and girls. You'll be sold from the first verse, A "Cartridge in a Gear Tree," and by the time you belt out "Five Bot-to-Ries," the rest of the family will be chiming in too. "Four Calling Borgs, Three Wrench Hens, Two Turbo-Doves, and a Catridge in a Gear Tree..." My favorite image: The Three Wrench Hens bobbing their hook jaws as they roll through the snow.