And the winners are...

Congratulations Beth, Sally and Z Marie! You are the winners of the Kaleidoscope giveaway.

Thank you everyone for entering here or on my Facebook page! And a big thank you to Little, Brown and Company for sponsoring the giveaway!

Giveaway! Salina Yoon's Kaleidoscope

To win a copy of Kaleidoscope, leave a comment below by Sunday, May 20. Three commenters will receive a copy!  Please include an email address so I can reach you.

Kaleidoscope

Created by Salina Yoon

Little, Brown and Company, 2012

$12.99, ages 3 and up, 18 pages

Artist Salina Yoon pays tribute to mirrors, angles and ordinary objects in this charming, interactive book.

Readers fold out the cover and look through a clear plastic lens to see swirling, symmetrical designs reminiscent of those seen through a toy kaleidoscope.

The lens looks something like a flattened crystal with multiple flat faces and angles, while the designs mimic those made by loose objects in the optical toy.

One design leads to another over eight diecuts -- each inspired by circular objects that mark a change in seasons. Among them, a snowflake, pinwheel and steaming pie.

As readers view the book, a poem whisks them along. "Raindrops plopping, / splashing, splashing! / Skipping, turning, / Children dashing," the book begins near an open umbrella.

To simulate the effect of turning or shaking a kaleidoscope, readers rotate a tab on the cover, which in turn, turns the 2-inch lens. The result is a constantly changing set of colors and patterns on the page.

But watch out, because looking at the pages is only the beginning of the fun. Once your child realizes they can aim the cover lens at anything, they'll be wandering around the backyard with a book over the face.

It All Began with Max

Maurice Sendak, who inspired us all to go have fun with the phrase, "let the wild rumpus begin," died yesterday at age 83.

"Every once in a while, someone comes along who changes our world for the better," Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children's Book, said in a statement. "Maurice Sendak was such a man."

His most famous picture book Where the Wild Things Are won the Caldecott Medal in 1964 and has remained fantastically popular ever since.

Reading it aloud has been a bedtime ritual for at least three generations and the book is considered one of the 10 bestselling children's books of all time.

Over his amazing career, Sendak illustrated about 80 books and won countless awards for his illustrations. Like Dr. Seuss, he shook up the status quo and became an icon almost instantly.

By the time Where the Wild Things Are came out, Time magazine had already dubbed Sendak "the Picasso" of children's literature. And by 1971, the Los Angeles Times was hailing him as the "Norman Mailer of children's books."

Day 2: The Worst-Case Scenario Blog Tour

Backpack? Check. Anti-venom? Check. Jungle knife? Check.

It's time for another venturous trek into the Amazon as Chronicle Books' week-long Worst-Case Scenario Blog Tour continues!

For your sake, I hope you've read the explorer's manual. The Amazon's an incredible place to hike and boat through, but it's no place to be unprepared.

Some creatures here are unlike any you've seen (including a reptile as long as a car) and show up when you least expect it (from above in the canopy and below).

Just be sure to do exactly what you've been told and whatever you do, don't panic -- or the ending of this book will come dangerously too soon.

In this clever third book in The Worst-Case Scenario series, readers hike the world's largest rain forest, and choose paths that either save their lives or stop the adventure in its tracks.

Profile of a Reader: The Worst-Case Scenario Blog Tour

A self-portrait

Gender: Male

Age: 8 years, 3 months and 12 days (to be exact)

Grade: 2nd

Reading style: Prefers to look things up and read about them, rather than read cover-to-cover.

Favorite books: Encyclopedias about animals, insects and dragons, Star Wars dictionaries and match-up books, The War Horse.

Challenges: Struggles with fluency and this has made him reluctant to read chapter books on his own.

Strengths: Loves to be read to. Soaks up facts that he reads, recites them back and inquires beyond what he's read.

Interests: Making up stories and sketching them out on paper. Imagining new species of predators, then drawing diagrams of them. Collecting insects and examining their body parts. Problem solving.

Adventurous side: Camping, watching nature and survival shows on Discovery Channel (including Man vs Wild), and creating imaginary games from natural objects. Collecting dead insects and sticks.

The Adventure: The Worst-Case Scenario Blog Tour

Our son's adventure began at the end of his book -- about 189 pages in.

That's where, he was told, he'd find a manual that could save his life: "The Amazon Expedition File."

The manual had everything he needed: a map, packing list, survival tips, even a few words of Spanish and Portuguese.

(For a reader who doesn't always make it to the last page, going to the end was a great beginning.)

He was told to absorb every tip, including -- gulp -- what he should do if bot fly larva crawled under his skin.

And he did just that.

In fact, he asked me to quiz him on what he'd read so he'd be ready for anything -- and he was, almost. (But more on that later.)

The Worst-Case Scenario Everest

Before there was The Worst-Case Scenario Amazon, there was Everest. View a book trailer below!

Happy Earth Day!

Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 2

Outside Your Window

A First Book of Nature

By Nicola Davies

Illustrated by Mark Hearld

Candlewick, 2012

$19.99, ages 3 and up, 108 pages

A world of wonder is unfolding outside -- all through the windows of this enchanting book.

Each spread of this big-format nature book shows what a child might see, looking out of their window into the natural world:

From "a hundred fluffy parachutes" about to take flight off a dandelion to a squirrel scampering from trunk to fence with a fidgety gate and air of alertness.

Zoologist and award-winning author Nicola Davies muses about the natural world in short, playful poems, while artist Mark Hearld plays out what she describes in enchanting collages.

Hearld, who makes his debut in picture books with this gem, impresses with a voluminous display of art and creatively layered details. His collages are organic, absorbing and rich as earth.

Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 3

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

By William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer

Illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon

Dial, 2012

$16.99, ages 6 and up, 32 pages

It stood like a clumsy giraffe and was cobbled from metal scraps, but to William it was more magical than anything he'd dreamed of.

In this inspiring adaptation, Africa's William Kamkwambi recounts with New York author Bryan Mealer how he rigged a windmill for his village using only a picture as his guide.

The story, which can be read for free online at wegivebooks.org, is based on Kamkwamba's New York Times best-selling memoir by the same name, also co-authored by Mealer.

Kamkwamba and Mealer condense the story beautifully, while West Africa-born artist Elizabeth Zunon conveys Kamkwamba's irrepressible spirit with fluid cut-outs and luminous, earthy oil paintings.

At age 14, William Kamkwamba pondered the possibilities of what could be. When night came to his drought-ravaged village of Malawi, he closed his eyes to see where his mind would take him.

Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 4

House Held Up By Trees

By Ted Kooser

Illustrated by Jon Klassen

Candlewick, 2012

$16.99, ages 4-10, 32 pages

When a little house is boarded up and forgotten, trees sprout up around it and lift it into the sky, in this stirring picture book about the power of nature to lift us up.

As he did in his moving debut Bag in the Wind, author Ted Kooser addresses a conflict between man and nature, but in such a gentle way that it never feels as if any judgment is being made.

In Bag in the Wind, he follows the journey of a discarded bag that's gotten loose in the wind, while here, he observes a man determined to keep trees from sprouting in his lot so that he can have a perfect lawn.

Kooser, in an author's note, explains that the man is struggling against time; as he fights to keep nature from taking over his yard, what he's really fighting is change. His children are growing up and moving away, and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

But like paintings, books can be interpreted in many ways, and to me, House Held Up By Trees is also a triumphant story of nature reclaiming what was taken from it, then of nature forgiving those who've trespassed on it.

Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 5

Mrs. Harkness and the Panda

By Alicia Potter

Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Alfred A. Knopf, 2012

$16.99, ages 5-8, 40 pages

Before anyone had heard of "panda-monium," the excitement that surrounds seeing pandas.

Before many Americans had even imagined that the gamboling, masked panda of legend was real.

There was a tea gown designer who, despite knowing little about animals, set off for China to bring a panda to America: not in a cage but curled up in her arms.

In this charming historical picture book, author Alicia Potter tells the story of Ruth Harkness, a Manhattan widow who set off on a journey no one thought she could make.

Her mission was to find a mythical beast known as a panda and show the world that it really existed.

In doing so, many conservationists say, she made us want to love them and spurred a worldwide effort to stop hunting them.

Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 6

The Cloud Spinner

By Michael Catchpool

Illustrated by Alison Jay

Alfred A. Knopf, 2012

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

A greedy king has every cloud drawn from the sky and spun into clothes, not realizing that without those clouds, the rain won't come.

In this imaginative picture book, author Michael Catchpool raises issues of over farming, while artist Alison Jay charms us with nature's beauty.

When a pompous king learns of a boy's gift of spinning clouds into thread, he orders him to pull enough clouds to weave a fancy wardrobe for him and his family.

The boy, who's never taken more than he needs from the clouds, warns the king that it isn't wise to make so many clothes from clouds.

"Enough is enough and not one stitch more," as his mother has taught him, for without clouds, rivers won't fill, trees will die of thirst and hills will turn brown.

But the king cannot see beyond his immediate pleasure to the damage this could cause and demands that the boy take to his spinning wheel without delay.

Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 7

The Hop
By Sharelle Byars Moranville

Illustrated by Niki Daly

Disney-Hyperion, 2012
$16.99, ages 8 and up, 288 pages

A monster with teeth on its feet is rolling into Toadville-by-Tumbledown and unless a young hopper is brave and bold, the village and every toad in it will buried under a strip mall.

In this enchanting environmental novel, Tad (a toad with second-sight) and Taylor (a girl who loves nature) find themselves on a fairy tale quest to save a meadow from development.

Though Tad doesn't yet know it, Taylor is a kindred spirit. Her grandmother lives at the edge of the meadow he calls Toadville -- near a tumbledown shed -- and Taylor's been heartsick about losing the area.

The monster is poised by the grasslands and a pond nearby -- Taylor's swimming hole since she was little, her "kingdom," as she calls it, -- and though her grandmother is like-minded, she isn't well enough to help Taylor fight the project.

The Bug Next Door

Story & art by Beatrice Alemagna

Phaidon, 2012 (Release date: April 15)

$12.95, ages 3 +, 40 pages.

Little Speckled Bug is in a muddle over why he's so fond of the new girl bug next door.

Of course she's cute and that's not hard to like about her.

Those long red antennae drape around her face like silken threads and when she dances, her forelegs do two different ballet positions at once.

(The top ones take first position like petals of a flower bud and the middle ones curve into fifth as if she were hugging the air itself.)

But beyond liking how Bug Next Door looks and moves, what have they between them?

After all, from the day Bug Next Door knocked on his door, the two have had one misstep after another.

Well, except that one time. When she kissed him good-day. Both of their two cheeks streaked pink like an apple blossom.

Now that was nice.

But what about all the stuff that came before that?

In this adorable followup to Bugs in a Blanket and Bugs in the Garden, Beatrice Alemagna returns to the world of her felted bugs to explore the ways of the heart -- how sometimes what makes us different makes us hard to resist.

An Interview with Beatrice Alemagna

And the winner is...

Taryn of Golden, Colorado, is the winner of Rosie Flo's Coloring Fashion Show! Thank you all for entering -- and stay tuned. Chronicle will soon select one commenter from all of the blogs to win a set of Rosie Flo coloring books and $100 to spend at Chroniclebooks.com. In addition, two more giveaways are coming this month on Where the Best Books Are!: Three copies of  Trenton Lee Stewart's much anticipated The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict and three copies of artist Salina Yoon's magical picture book Kaleidoscope -- both courtesy of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Win Me! Rosie Flo's Pop-Up Runway

Comment on this post by midnight April 11 for a chance to win this charming 3-D kit from Chronicle Books.

Rosie Flo's Coloring Fashion Show by artist Roz Streeten comes with 18 models, a pop-up catwalk and more.

One commenter from my blog is guaranteed to win! I'll randomly draw a winner April 12.

In addition, one commenter from all of the participating blogs will win a set of Rosie Flo coloring books + $100 to spend at Chroniclebooks.com.

Just be sure to leave an email address so I can contact you!

The fashion show is yet another stunner in the Rosie Flo coloring book series of paper dolls.

I colored in this kit yesterday and what a kick! I felt like I was 10 again.

And just between us moms, this one's going to be hard to part with. Maybe your daughter or niece will share?

Paper models (mostly girls, but a few guys too) come in outfits inspired by trees, flowers, sea life, even a ladybug.

Two favorites: a crossword-puzzle gown (with room for words) and a flaring party dress encircled with birds.

Each model also comes in designer shoes: from shiny stilettos and heart slippers for girls to loafers for boys.

Once you color in the dresses, it's time to draw in the heads, arms and legs -- which really makes the kit your own.

I felt a bit like a stylist, shaping models' hair and makeup to fit the look of the dress I colored.

A 0.35 mm black ink pen was ideal for drawing in features. (Each face must fit into a space less than an inch wide, so a fine tip is handy.) Another tip: practice faces on a scrap paper first.

Faces I sketched for the kit. Yours to use!

Or, if you'd like, print out the faces I've drawn here, then color them in, cut them out and paste them in place.

Since hands are tricky to draw, I recommend curving arms so hands go just behind skirts. It will look like your models are holding out their skirts.

Or, keep hands very simple -- draw them in the shape of delicate mittens, as I did above.

Also included: a 3-D theater and curtain-draped runway, and two pop-up rows of chairs for models to sit in. (Six fashionistas are scored just for sitting.)

On either side of the theater's interior are three rows of audience members. These too are line drawings with spaces for faces, arms and some legs.

If you're nervous about drawing directly on the walls, make your faces on a separate paper, then cut them out and paste them in place.

In addition, there's a little coiffed poodle to punch out, as well as an old-fashioned camera and three invitations to the show.

No scissors or glue are required, but if you'd like to paste on your heads you'll need both. Colored pencils not included.

To show how the kit works, here's a paper model as I colored her (I drew my face on card stock):

And for more on Rosie Flo, visit Chronicle Books here. Best of luck to all of you!

Silly Doggy!

Written & illustrated by Adam Stower

Orchard Books, 2012

$16.99, ages 3 and up, 40 pages

A little girl sees just what she wants to see in a big, rough-and-tumble stray, in this joyful celebration of positive thinking.

One morning Lily lifts her chin just enough to see out of her bedroom window and spots a giant animal rummaging through her garbage can.

Thinking nothing of the fruit peels and tin cans flying through the air, she decides right there that this guy's everything she ever wanted in a pet: he's got four legs, a tail and a big, wet nose.

"Doggy!" she cries, running out in the yard in her galoshes, flinging her arms up in delight.

Now face-to-face with this barreling fellow, she realizes he's a lot bigger than she thought and when he growls he sounds a bit grouchy.

But no matter because Lily thinks he's lovely. All he needs, she tells herself, is a good looking-after.

Dystopia-what?

The first release in a 4-film series opens March 23.

The genre to read right now goes by a name that you don't expect to roll off the tongue of a teen.

But ask die hard readers of The Hunger Games, Legend, Maze Runner, Across the Universe, Maximum Ride, Divergent, what dystopian fiction is and you might be surprised.

My guess is they'll recognize the name in an instant and in an animated voice tell you that it's exciting stuff about people being treated really badly.

Stories about misery? Well yes, but misery is only the catalyst for what happens in these books. What they're really about is heroism: Teens rebelling against cruel rulers in a futuristic world that's been stripped of all of its greenery and goodwill.

Here's how the dystopian tale generally goes:

A Craving for Dystopia

It might seem like nothing could match The Hunger Games, but there are already lots of great choices out there.

In fact, the hardest part may not be finding great dystopian series, but trying to decide which one to begin first.

Here's just a sample:

The Legend series by Marie Lu is set on the flooded coast of former Los Angeles and is told from the perspective of two 15-year-old characters on either side of a civil war. Los Angeles is now the Republic, a nation at war with its neighbors and riddled with a plague. Born of the slums, a boy named Day steals to keep his family alive and rebels against the state police, and June, a military prodigy from an elite family, hunts him down. The two seem to be from different worlds until June's brother is murdered and they discover the sinister truth behind the plague that's killing the nations' poor people. The second book, Patriot, comes out this fall. Penguin, $17.99, ages 12 and up, 336 pages.

The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness is about 13-year-old Todd, the only boy in a town of men where everyone's thoughts can be heard. The town is run by a corrupt mayor who wants to vest control of the planet and wipe out its indigenous alien race and Todd, an orphan, is determined to stop him with the help of Viola Eade, a girl who crash lands on his planet. The first book The Knife of Never Letting Go came out in 2008, followed by The Ask and The Answer in 2009 and Monsters of Men in 2010. Candlewick, $18.99 per hardback, $ 9.99 per softcover, ages 14 and up, 496-608 pages. Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy is now available as an ebook for $29.97.

The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner is a New York Times best-seller about a group of boys dropped into a maze and forced to work together to survive the challenges of their isolated world, while recalling nothing from their past lives. The first three books are out, The Maze Runner (2010), The Scorch Trials (2011) and The Death Cure, and the prequel novel, The Kill Order, will debut this August. Random House, $16.99 per hardback, $9.99 per paperback (the first two books available), ages 12 and up, 336-400 pages.

The Roar by debut novelist Emma Clayton and her follow-up, The Whisper, is about 12-year-old mutant twins pulled from the squalor of a futuristic London to wage a war for a cadaver-like tyrant. All their lives Ellie and Mika have lived in the moldy "Shadows," the bottom of a tiered city scape that's encircled by a 50-foot-tall wall. They've been told an animal plague has forced society behind the wall and all that's left of the natural world is the yellow dust from chemical warfare. But when the tyrant Mal Gorman kidnaps Ellie, then coops Mika through a video game contest to be his soldiers, they discover the world outside the wall is not barren or uninhabitable. The plague is a ruse to deal with overpopulation and save the natural world from global warming for a select few. Scholastic, $17.99 per hardback, ages 10 and up, 320-496 pages.

The Across the Universe series by Beth Revis is about 17-year-old Amy who joins her parents in frozen slumber on a spaceship Godspeed on their way to a new planet. They expect to awaken three hundred years in the future, but Amy is stirred fifty years too soon, when one of these thousands of inhabitants on the spaceship tries to kill her. Amy now must find a way to unlock the spaceship's hidden secrets before someone kills her parents. Along the way, she falls in love with Elder, who is trying to vest control of the ship, and the two must try to get off the ship before chaos consumes them. Across the Universe came out in 2011, and the second book, A Million Suns, debuted in January. Razorbill, $17.99 per hardback, $9.99 per paperback (the first book is available), ages 12 and up, 386-416 pages.

The Unwind trilogy by Neal Shusterman is about three teens on the run from a government that uses "unwinding" or organ harvesting to deal with teens who are troublemakers or wards of the state. Under America's Bill of Life (a compromise resolving a civil war between pro-life and pro-choice factions), officials are allowed to harvest the organs of teens who are unwanted. Their organs are then transplanted into other members of society -- those deemed worthwhile -- to improve their quality of life. Unwind came out in 2007 and the second book Unwholly is due out in August. Simon & Schuster, $16.99 per hardback, $9.99 per paperback (the first book is available), ages 14 and up, 352 pages.

The Starters series by Lissa Price is a futuristic thriller about 16-year-old Callie, who lost her parents when a genocide spore wiped out everyone except those who were vaccinated first, the very young and the very old. With no grandparents to claim them, she and her little brother are forced to live on dangerous streets until hope comes through a corporation that hires teens to rent their bodies to seniors, known as Enders, who get to be young again. Lured by the offer of a better life for her and her brother, Callie signs on with the corporation, only now her renter wants to use her body to commit murder. The second book is due out in December. Three ebook original shorts are also being released as tie-ins, the first, now out, is Portrait of a Starter. (Random House, 352 pages, $17.99)

Question Boy Meets Little Miss Know-It-All

Written & illustrated by Peter Catalanotto

Atheneum, 2012

$16.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

Everyday superheroes are no match for Question Boy, a masked crusader who asks a dizzying number of questions.

But will an opinionated girl in the park who won't stop chattering be able to satisfy his curiosity? Or will she just be really difficult to talk to?

In this funny, clever picture book, Question Boy (a boy who wants to know everything) and Little-Miss-Know-It-All (a girl who thinks she already does) face off in a verbal brawl that has each blurting out words at each other.

In the end, Question Boy and Little-Miss-Know-It-All both get the words knocked out of them, but in doing so, they discover they're more alike than they knew. Both are inquisitive, but in a needling sort of way that isn't getting them what they really want.

As the story begins, Question Boy (dressed in a cape and leotard with a "Q" on his chest), goes around town with an unquenchable need to know. He seeks out the town's action heroes, municipal workers and private employees in tights, and drills them with questions about what they do.

But before they can answer his first question, he's onto another and pestering them about "what if" scenarios that they either have no time to answer or have no idea how to answer.

Otto the Book Bear

Written & illustrated by Katie Cleminson

Disney-Hyperion, 2012

$16.99, ages 3-7, 32 pages

Suppose a bear from a book got separated from his story and began exploring city streets for a place to belong. Would he ever find a story to be part of again?

In this gentle, imaginative picture book by the author-illustrator of Magic Box, a character named Otto wanders off the pages of his book to explore his child's house, but when he returns the child's family has packed up and moved. Now, he must brave the real world for companionship, only the real world is vastly bigger than the setting of his book.

Otto, an easy-going brown bear with charming saggy skin, never saw the moving trucks coming. Slipping out of his book was something he'd done time and again. But of course no one knew Otto could do such things, not even his child, so no one in the family thought to look for him before they left.

Each day when Otto went to explore, he'd heave himself up stairs that stood before him like terraces on a mountain. Though a big, strapping bear on the page, he was just a tiny bear in the real world, shorter than the height of a page. He'd open his favorite books with maps inside and sit on the pages as he read them. He'd even sit on the space bar of an old typewriter and push his weight on keys to journal what he saw.

But one day when he was done exploring, he turned around to find nothing left in the house but a few packed up boxes. As he stood on a window sill, he watched a moving truck pull away with everything else, including the book where he was once a part of a story. He couldn't imagine being without his story; nothing made him happier than to have children read about his adventures. What was he to do?

Paperback Delights

So many great hardcovers have just crossed over to paperback that I thought it would be fun to share some of the best. At about half the price of hardcovers, paperbacks are a bargain and they're also easier to hold up in bed!

Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool, Delacorte, $7.99, ages 9 and up, 368 pages. Twelve-year-old Abilene uncovers secrets about her father and the small town of Manifest, Kansas, after finding a hidden cigar box of mementos, in the 2011 Newbery Medal winner.

Turtle in Paradise, Jennifer L. Holm, Random House, $6.99, ages 8 and up, 208 pages. While staying with her rag-tag cousins in Key West, 11-year-old Turtle comes out of her shell and looks at the world in new and unexpected ways, in this 2011 Newbery Honor winner.

The Storm in the Barn, by Matt Phelan, Candlewick, $14.99, ages 10 and up, 208 pages. Eleven-year-old Jack saves his family farm from ruin when he confronts the Storm King and makes him let go of the rain, in this wonderful graphic novel set in the Dust Bowl era of 1930s.

The Crowfield Curse, by Pat Walsh, The Chicken House, ages 11-13, 352 pages. A 14-year-old servant boy discovers a terrible curse that could ruin his abbey and doom a stricken man to an eternity of torment, in this atmospheric debut. Now out in hardback, the sequel The Crowfield Demon.

Little Panda, by Renata Liwska, Sandpiper, $5.99, ages 4 and up, 32 pages. A grandfather panda tells his grandson a story of a little panda who caused a stalking tiger to fly off a tree, in this charming debut by the illustrator of the best-selling The Quiet Book.

Zora and Me, by Victoria Bond and T. R. Simon, Candlewick, $6.99, ages 10 and up, 192 pages. Zora's wild tales take on a life of their own, and jeopardize the peace and security of her racially divided town, in this wry, fictionalized account of novelist Zora Neale Hurston's life from fourth grade to sixth.

The Night Fairy, by Laura Amy Schlitz, illustrated by Angela Barrett, Candlewick, $6.99, ages 9-12, 128 pages. A feisty young fairy loses her wings and tries to coax other creatures to carry her on their backs, in this delightful tale by a Newbery Medal winner.

More great paperbooks to read:

The Best of the Best!

 Caldecott Medal Winner                      Newbery Medal Winner

Chris Raschka, Random House

Jack Gantos, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Break Into Blossom. Give Free Books!

Volunteer to pass out books to children and adults who rarely open a book or never read!

On April 23, 50,000 "givers" are needed to hand out free paperback novels for World Book Night -- and you could be one!

"Extending your hand to give someone a book, a story, is a gesture of hope and joy," said celebrated author Kate DiCamillo.

DiCamillo's Newbery Honor-winning Because of Winn-Dixie is among 30 books selected for donation.

"It is a chance for all of us, givers and receivers, to break into blossom," she said.

Launched last year in the United Kingdom, World Book Night is a charitable project to spread the joy of reading.

This year 1 million paperbacks will be donated nationwide, including seven children's novels.

Also on the list are Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, Leif Enger's Peace Like a River and Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.

The 20 Best Picture Books of 2011

1. If I Never Forever Endeavor, by Holly Meade, Candlewick, $15.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages. A baby bird must decide whether to take a chance and try to fly, in this beautiful poem about daring to put yourself out there and risk failure. "If in all of forever, / I never endeavor / to fly, I won't know if I can." Meade writes, as a yellow fledgling timidly looks out from his nest. Then, turning the page, "I won't know if I can't. / I won't know / if or whether / a flight I / might fly, / should I choose / to not ever give it a try." Meade's words settle in your mind and without even thinking, you find yourself reciting the verses silently in your head, and feeling emboldened to get out there and try something new.

2. Migrant, by Maxine Trottier, pictures by Isabelle Arsenault, Groundwood, $18.95, ages 4-7, 40 pages. A Mennonite girl from Mexico dreams of living in one place, as her family migrates north to work as seasonal farm laborers. While they harvest tomatoes in Canada, the girl, Anna, compares what she sees, hears and feels to the way other living things exist. In migrant housing, she's a jack rabbit in an abandoned burrow. When she hears languages she doesn't understand, it's as if "a thousand crickets are all singing a different song." Later as her family prepares to return to Mexico, Anna is a tree, sinking roots into the ground as geese fly south without her. This is a wondrous book about yearning for a place to call your own -- that inspires understanding and casts stereotypes to the wind.

3. Fox and Hen Together and Rooster's Revenge, by Beatrice Rodriguez, Enchanted Lion, ages 4-8, 32 pages. These two followups to last year's The Chicken Thief were equally brilliant, so they appear here together. Both are wordless, yet you barely notice because the humor is so cleverly played out. In the first followup, Hen goes off to fish for dinner and finds herself in an all-out battle to hold onto the fish she's caught. Back home, Fox is left guarding their egg, but aren't foxes notorious for raiding chicken coops? In the second book, Rooster, Bear and Rabbit run aground by a cave, where Rooster finds a big, glowing egg. As you may know, Rooster was jilted by Hen for Fox in the first book, and in book 3, he's still pretty soured by it. Could this be just the thing to mend his wild heart?



4. I Want My Hat Back!, by Jon Klassen, Candlewick, $15.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages. Bear may be gullible, but no one messes with his hat, in this comic gem about two silly and devious animals. When Bear goes in search of his missing hat, he happens upon a rabbit with a hat just like his: it's red and pointy, and sits on the head like a party hat. But Rabbit is indignant and denies that he knows anything about it. And Bear? Well, he's so credulous that he doesn't give the similarities between the hats another thought. It isn't until later, after he continues to ask around about his hat, that Bear meets a deer who jogs his memory (and knocks a bit of sense into him). Now Bear has his hat back, but Rabbit has gone missing, and Bear is acting overly defensive about where he might be. Humor plays out with marvelous subtlety, as two silly animals try to be sly, but are hopelessly transparent.

5. The House Baba Built: An Artist's Childhood in China, by Ed Young, Little, Brown and Company, $17.99, ages 4 and up, 48 pages. As a child in Shanghai in the 1930s, illustrator Ed Young insulates himself from war in a house where exploration and the imagination run free, in this stunning autobiographical book. Young, the Caldecott-winning illustrator of Lon Po Po, uses collages, photographs, silhouettes and drawings to wondrous effect: they  capture both the austerity and uncertainty of the times and his feelings of joy and security. On one spread, his art has a haunting quality, and you get the sensation that you're flipping through a very old and fading scrapbook. On another, you see silhouettes of children leaping about the page as if they hadn't a care. Young created a world of wonder and security from the ordinary things around him. A rocking chair became a horse, and an empty pool a place to ride scooters. He made origami houses for silkworms, drew pictures in his textbooks, and roller-skated on the roof of his house. During air raids, he and his family, and the strangers who took refuge with them, huddled in the hallway, the safest part of the house, and told stories that transported them away from the dangers outside. There in the house that his father Baba built, Young knew nothing bad could ever get to him.

6. The Scar, by Charlotte Moundlic, illustrated by Olivier Tallec, Candlewick, $14.99, ages 5 and up, 32 pages. A little boy desperately tries to hold onto traces of his mother just days after her death, in a picture book that tugs at the heart, then makes it glow. Her death leaves him angry and hollow, and he worries he'll forget her. He refuses to open windows in his house for fear her smell will escape. Then he falls and scrapes his knee, and hears words his mother used to say to comfort him. "It's just a scratch, my little man," she'd say. "You're too strong for anything to hurt you." The boy doesn't want the scar to heal because he's afraid her voice will go away. But then his grandma puts her hand on his heart, and tells him his mother is there and will never go away. The words ease his longing just enough to buoy his spirit. He races around the room so he can feel his mom beating hard in his chest, and soon, before he even notices, the scrape has turned into a scar. This is a beautiful book that expresses grief just as it is: raw and inescapable. Then it adds beautiful metaphors and a trickle of humor to show readers that even the worst hurt can heal.

7. Wake Up, Sloth!, paper engineering by Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud, text by Sophie Strady, Roaring Brook, $16.99, ages 4-8, 16 pages. A sloth dozes in a tree as his rainforest home is devoured by iron clawed machines. Will the sloth stir in time to get away? At first, the forest rises serenely, as birds trill back and forth. Then a menacing blade pops up, and animals and people begin to flee. In a few destructive runs, the forest is no more, and the last machine rolls over to the only tree that remains, where the sloth sleeps. "Wake up, sloth!" Strady calls out. "Run away! Run." Did she stir the sloth in time? Did he run? As readers turn the page, only broken branches remain; the land looks lifeless and sterile But wait, who is that? A lone man walks into the eerie quiet at the end of a pull tab with a bag of seeds. Could it be, all is not lost? As readers pull the tab, seedlings spring from the soil, and there in the back, that brilliant, sleepy sloth climbs a branch once again. Incredibly moving, the story rolls like a coaster to a terrible low then brings us racing back up, exhilarated with hope.

8. The Man on the Moon (The Guardians of Childhood), by William Joyce, Atheneum, $17.99, ages 4-8, 56 pages. A boy on the run from a nightmare king hides out on the moon and vows to guard Earth's children from bad dreams, in this magical new series by a treasured author-illustrator. The boy, MiM, has lost his parents and his devoted friend Nightlight in a battle with Pitch, the king, but he's not alone. Lunar robots, mice, worms and moths scoop him up and care for him as he grows. Life with them is sweet and for a time, being watched over is enough. Then one day, MiM peers through a telescope and sees children on Earth and feels the draw of friendship. But the children are far away and the years pass. Soon, MiM is a grown man. As balloons float up from Earth, MiM holds them to his ear, and hears the children's hopes and dreams. Yearning to answer them, he finds five guardians to watch over the children and summons lunar moths to transform his moon into a nightlight to chase away their nightmares.

9. Blowin' in the Wind, by Bob Dylan, illustrated by Jon J. Muth, with CD of Dylan's original recording, Sterling, ages 5-8, 28 pages. A paper airplane blown by the wind becomes a breathtaking metaphor for the role we all play in making a better world, in this stunning visual accompaniment to Dylan's celebrated protest song. Four children of differing skin color are taken by skiff across expanses of water and shown scenes that make them at turns reflective, sad, uncomfortable, and ultimately, ready to face up to a difficult truth: That unjust things occur in the world and it is up to each of them to do something about them. On their journey, a paper plane glides overhead and guides their way to understanding. To read my full review, click here.

10. Ladder to the Moon, Maya Soetoro-Ng, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, Candlewick, $16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages. One night a golden ladder unrolls from the moon to Suhaila's window sill and her late grandmother climbs down the rungs to show her how to make the world a little more kind, in this breathtaking book about the connectedness of one life to the next. Grandma Annie leads Suhaila up to the moon, where they drink moon dew from silver teacups, and guide children caught in natural disasters and a woman dying of old age skyward. Here on the moon, their spirits are at rest, and they join together in stories and songs of hope. But many prayers below on Earth still remain unanswered. Can all of those who've found their way to the moon now embolden those on Earth to heal their hurt and hardship? From Soetoro-Ng, sister of President Obama, comes a spellbinding folktale that reminds us that loved ones lost are never far from our hearts.

11. The Great Bear, by Libby Gleeson & Armin Greder, Candlewick, $16.99, ages 5-10, 32 pages. Day after day a circus bear is poked and prodded to dance on cue as trumpets, drums and cymbals build anticipation in a crowded square. Then one night, the bear refuses to move. All of the pent-up sadness and anger, all of nights of taunting, overflow and he lets out a roar that sends handlers and villagers scattering for cover. Seeing a flagpole a few paces away, the bear lumbers over, climbs it paw over paw, then at the top, reaches his arms skyward and launches into a mythical place where no one can reach him. Gleeson and Greder tell a triumphant story of a mistreated animal who takes back his dignity and gets free.

12. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, by Jerry Pinkney, Little, Brown and Company, $16.99, ages 4 and up, 40 pages. A mischievous chipmunk sets sail in a robin's nest across the night sky, only to tumble off his boat to Earth and find comfort on the downy back of a swan, in this magical interpretation of the beloved lullaby, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Pinkney reimagines this tender song as an atmospheric story about a young animal working through his anxiety of going to sleep. As the chipmunk embarks on his journey to slumber, which he unavoidably must travel alone, he is watched over by nature and finds reassurance in its wild embrace.

13. Bee & Bird, written and illustrated by Craig Frazier, Roaring Brook Press, $16.99, ages 2-6, 40 pages. A bee and bird travel on an epic journey from tree and truck to boat and beehive, in this wordless book of exploration. Saturated colors and inventive perspectives give this simple premise the feeling of high adventure. View the book trailer below!

14. This Baby, by Kate Banks, pictures by Gabi Swiatkowska, Frances Foster Books, $16.99, ages 3-6, 40 pages. A girl flutters about her mother asking questions about her unborn sibling, in this lyrical picture book that bubbles with the excitement of a new life. The girl wants answers that Mama can't yet give: Will the baby like stars, peek-a-boo, me? Mama listens patiently, knitting row after row of baby clothes. Even though she knows the answers will come in time, she doesn't quiet her daughter, but lets her say everything she needs to say. Swiatkowska's paintings beautifully capture the girl's anticipation and restlessness, while Banks' poem swirls around the page with a wonderful cadence. "This baby, a tiny bud of life nestled in a womb, kept and coveted like a tightly held secret," the poem reads, as the girl rests her head on Mama's tummy. "Will this baby like red boots? Knit, Mama, knit / row after row. / The rain is tapping. / Soon. / We'll know."

15. The Conductor, by Laetitia Devernay, Chronicle, 2011, $18.95, ages 5-8, 72 pages. A maestro stands on the top of a tree and conducts the leaves into a melody of flying birds, in this wordless masterpiece by an award-winning French artist. When the conductor lifts his wand, clusters of leaves flap like wings and sail off trees, leaving cookie-cutter shapes of themselves behind. Devernay creates music from silence with lyrical illustrations. Read a full review here.

16. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade, by Melissa Sweet, Houghton Mifflin, $16.99, ages 4 and up, 40 pages. A man with a knack for making things move turns the concept of marionettes upside down and creates one of the greatest parades on Earth. Combining photos of homemade toys, buttons and more with whimsical paintings, Sweet delivers a picture-perfect tribute to Tony Sarg, the puppeteer behind Macy's balloons. Read a full review here.

17. Grandpa Green, by Lane Smith, Roaring Brook Press, $16.99, ages 5 and up, 32 pages. As Grandpa Green's memory fades, his grandson clomps happily through a garden where bushes are clipped into fantastical shapes, from giant carrots to exploding canons -- each preserving the most meaningful moments of his great-grandfather's life. Read a full review here.

18. Goodnight iPad, by Ann Droyd (David Milgrim), Blue Rider Press, $14.95, all ages, 30 pages. A grandmother solves her family's late-night obsession with gadgets by hurling all of their devices out the window, in this hysterical parody of Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon, the best twist yet of this beloved classic. Read a full review here.

19. Squish Rabbit, by Katherine Battersby, Viking, 2011, $12.99, ages 2 and up, 40 pages. A little bunny struggles to be noticed in a world much bigger than him, in this adorable debut. Squish is tired of being overlooked and stepped on, and he longs for someone to play with. So he sews himself a friend and tries to befriend cherries on a tree. But none of these things can play back. Then, just as he loses hope, a friend bounds into his life and accepts him just as he is. Read a full review here.

20. The Little Red Pen, by Susan Stevens Crummel, illustrated by Janet Stevens, Harcourt, $16.99, ages 6-12, 56 pages. An arsenal of desk supplies rescue a correction pen from the dreaded "Pit of No Return," just in time to correct a pile of papers and save the world, in this delightful spin on Little Red Hen. Read a full review here.