Squish!

At the end of the last school year, Jennifer and Matt Holm, of Babymouse fame, introduced a new character to the world - Squish!

My students love the Babymouse graphic novels and were absolutely thrilled about a new series by this dynamic duo. Enter Squish!

If you haven't heard of the series before, here's the book trailer for Squish #1: Super Amoeba.

Fear not, kids! Squish #2: Brave New Pond will be arriving at our library before Spring Break - it's on my next book order. :)

Isn't that the most purplicious cover ever? Oh how I love it! 

Greek Mythology

Call me Hades. 

My full name - His Royal Lowness, Lord of the Dead, King Hades - is a bit of a mouthful. 

I rule the Underworld. The ghosts of the dead travel down to dwell in my kingdom. If they were good in life, they get to go to an eternal rock concert, where really great bands play on and on forever. The ghosts of the not-so-good? They have to wander around, trying to memorize an endless list of really hard spelling words. And the ghosts of the wicked? You don't want to know.
(from Have a Hot Time, Hades! by Kate McMullan)

I bought the Myth-O-Mania series by Kate McMullan for the library recently and nearly all of them have been checked out by 5th grade students already. These books are similar to retold fairy tales, except that they're retold myths! Each book focuses on a different god, and the style of writing is just hilarious. I'm reading the Hades book right now, and I have to stop every so often just because I'm laughing so hard that my cheeks start to hurt! :D Students have been asking for more books like the Percy Jackson series (The Lightning Thief books) by Rick Riordan that are based on mythology, so I think this new series will be a hit.

Here are a couple of other Greek mythology books added to the library recently:

Treasury of Greek Mythology by Donna Jo Napoli, illustrated by Christina Balit (2011)

This book is gorgeous! It includes 25 Greek gods and goddesses, from the famous Athena to Poseidon to the lesser-known Hephaestus to Jason.

Each chapter focuses on a different figure, with full-page, full-color illustrations by Christina Balit and the story of the person written by Donna Jo Napoli, who is known for her retold fairy tales.

Below is an illustration of Gaia, Mother Earth.

Michael Townsend's Amazing Greek Myths of Wonder and Blunders (2010)

I just bought this book last year, but it's already seen countless circulations and has visited the Book Hospital twice - it is well-loved!

This is a collection of comics telling those beloved Greek myths. It starts like this:
"The book you are about to read contains nine bizarre and wacky tales that take place in a Greek-tastic myth-o-rific world!!!"

The comics style really appeals to students, and Townsend does a great job of explaining the stories in narration balloons. 

Toon Books

Library lessons in first and second grade usually involve some kind of read-aloud. Especially now that we're working on reading the books nominated for the Monarch Award, the Illinois Readers Choice Award for grades K-3. We have a poster of the 20 Monarch nominees by the reading chair in the library, and students love to see what we've already read and what we'll read soon. Check the library catalog to see which books are nominated this year!

One Monarch nominee this year is a graphic novel, or comic book, called Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith. We have the physical book in the library, but I decided to share this story with students by using the online reader at Professor Garfield's website (shown below). Here you can read the book yourself or you can have the author read it to you. Of course we wanted to hear Jeff Smith read his story! 

What's great about the Toon Book reader on Professor Garfield's website is that it has 11 different books to choose from - and they're translated into 5 different languages! In one especially excited second grade class, we read Little Mouse Gets Ready first in English, then in Chinese (with a couple of our students reading along), and finally in Spanish. What a rich cultural experience! 

Scary Godmother by Jill Thompson

Scary Godmother by Jill Thompson (2010, Dark Horse Comics) is a collection of five previously published comics about - you guessed it, Scary Godmother. The stories can be read in any order, really, and can easily stand alone (as they originally did). In the first story, Hannah Marie, the sweet little leading lady, gets scared while trick-or-treating with the big kids, but her Scary Godmother comes to the rescue. The stories are less scary and more playful, with lots of wit and rhyme.

We received this graphic novel at the King School Library a couple weeks ago along with a box full of new books, but I've just had the chance to finish reading it. And boy, was it good. One of my students (hi Steven!) saw me when I was unpacking that box o' new books and commented that Scary Godmother was a movie (or tv show?), and I said - well, I bet the book came first AND it's better. Maybe I didn't say that, but I sure thought it. And even though I haven't seen the movie, I'm pretty sure I'm right on both accounts.

Jill Thompson is a fantastic artist. Her illustrations draw you in, paint a spooky yet not too creepy picture, and let you get lost in the details. The text is a mixture of prose and dialogue (word balloons & thought bubbles) and each story has a clear beginning, middle, and end - which is important for me to note because it's something we strive to teach students.

What I LOVE about this book, though, is its size. It's HUGE! And it's FULL-COLOR! There's no way that you could fully appreciate Jill Thompson's bold and intricate illustrations on a smaller scale. Oh, how I love it. And I know students will love it too - you know, once I return it. :)

Adventures in Cartooning

Adventures in Cartooning by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost
published March 2009 by First Second

I only have three words for this book: I LOVE IT! Okay, maybe I have a little more to say than that, but you get the main idea.

This is the story of a lost princess, a knight, a horse, and an elf who try to rescue the princess, and a dragon they meet along the way. The knight is sure that the dragon has kidnapped the princess, so he goes in search of it on a fantastic adventure!

Throughout the story, the magic elf teaches the reader all about comics and how to read them, so this was a perfect lesson for my third grade students. We read the book together using our document camera and discussed the different features that the elf would point out (motion lines, panels, word balloons, etc.).

Lucky for us, this book is on the Bluestem List for next year, so it will get a LOT of circulation at our library. And I can't wait! This is a book that I think EVERYONE will enjoy! :)