Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg

2011/40pgs




About the Book: Annie Taylor is finding that no one is attending her charm school classes anymore and she's bored. Convinced that there is fame and fortune waiting for her, this 62-year-old woman decides to have an adventure. She comes up with the idea of floating over Niagara Falls inside of a barrel. The barrel makers think she's crazy at first, but Annie shows them her detailed plans and believes she's found a way to survive. With a publicist hired, Annie travels to New York and excites the crowd about her upcoming journey. Will she survive the trip over the falls?

Sarah Teenlibrarian Says: May means school visits to promote the summer reading program at my library. As part of my visits, I take books along to booktalk to the students and I'm always looking for something that's new and will get the tweens and teens excited. When I heard about Queen of the Falls I knew it would be one of those great booktalk books that would get the students talking.

Queen of the Falls is a short non-fiction. The illustrations are great, as can always be expected from Chris Van Allsburg. He brings Annie to life and gives the illustrations so much detail, they're easy to pour over-and great to show off during booktalking! The fact that the story is non-fiction and based on an event that no one has heard much about-if at all-adds to story. The premise sounds like it's a made up, tall tale, but the fact that it's true adds to the allure. I think this is especially true for tweens whose eyes seem to grow wide when I mention it's true!

I wish there had been a bit more to the book and maybe a bit more detail added about
Annie Taylor's life. This might be a case where there just wasn't enough source material to really flesh the story out more and Chris Van Allsburg does a fantastic job with what he does have. The book is entertaining and engaging and a memorable read.

While an easy non-fiction, the story is something that I think will have wide-appeal and I plan on booktalking it all the way up to high schoolers. Each time I talk about the question is always "but does she survive?" and I love when a book really engages the audience like that! Annie Taylor has quite a story and she's an amazingly daring woman and I'm glad her story has been told!

The Brothers' War ~ Civil War Voices In Verse

By: J Patrick Lewis ~ A National Geographic & Photographs by: Matthew Brady, 31 pp

Civil War was an awful experience that our forefathers have had to endure. The stories we hear are sad and gruesome. This book is no different. However, the book is of stories put into "verse" poetry. The phographs are a bit much, but it is truth. There is a variety of poetry; such as a letter from a father to his son at war and then a return letter from the son back to his father - both in poetry.

Interestingly, there is a timeline and a map of the Civil War giving us more information.

This is a poetry & a Big Read book.

Women in the Civil War

Cobblestone, Discover American History by many authors, 48 pp

Women in the Civil War were not just your average 1800's lady. Some were soldiers, spies, doctors, nurses, authors, chaplains, teachers, and much more. Usually these roles were of men, not women. Several women were involved in espionage. All just wanted to desperately help their side of the war.

I have been reading a lot about women of the Civil War lately and these books are very interesting. I especially like this Cobblestone book because it has fun ideas of what young girls did as well during the Civil War. There are several authors in this book. The stories are really neat how they set them all up to. There are fun activities and even a comic strip on the last page of the book. A lot of fun and interesting facts!

Just One Bite: 11 Animals and Their Bites at Life Size!

by Lola Schaefer. Illustrated by Geoff Waring. 32 pages.



With its large, colorful illustrations that span two-page spreads (and in the case of fold-out pages, more), this oversize picture book will fly off the shelves. Much like Steve Jenkins "Actual Size" books, Schaefer and Waring explore eleven successively larger animals and how and what they eat.


The illustrations generally provide the reader with a good sense of scale. For instance, the first two-page spread begins the journey with the common earthworm featured in a cross section of earth along with a nail, a coin, rocks and a key, as well as a small spot of brown to indicate the size of dirt the worm can consume. However, the illustrations featured on the fold-out pages might confuse some readers. Unfolding the right-hand page to discover the length of an elephant's trunk, readers must leave the spread unfolded when turning to the next page, which features the teeth of a sperm whale devouring a giant squid. The right side of this spread also opens out, so the whale's mouth takes up two unfolded double pages. The last page wraps up the exploration with a sentence about microorganisms that eventually feed on everything. The remaining unfolded portion of that page launches into more thorough examination of the eleven featured animals (and the microorganisms).

While I loved the illustrations in this picture book, the design bothered me. It is certainly a title that can be shared in preschool story time, since the text consists of about one short sentence per animal. But when the story time reader gets to the last page (with text and pictures about microorganisms) the audience will see either see the last double-page spread that features additional information, or a section of the elephant, or a section of the whale, depending on how the pages are folded. This likely won't matter to most, but I guess I'm a purest. It irritated me that I couldn't figure out how to refold the pages and make the design flow nicely.

Lizards

by Nic Bishop. 48 pages.


Like his previous titles exploring some of the smallest creatures in nature, Bishop's detailed and luscious photographs are like looking through a window at the zoo and seeing lizards and their habitats in person. But better, because Bishop uses his skills to bring geckos, monitors, skinks and others to life as one would only see in nature, not in the artificial environment of captivity. Bishop shares basic facts about these reptiles, including diet, habitats, defense systems, basic reproduction and other features.

What readers will find most interesting is the variety of weird abilities many lizards have -- puffing up large enough that nothing can pull them from holes in the ground, running on water, flying from enemies, swimming beneath the desert sand and squirting blood from their eyes to foil predators.

The narrative is direct, descriptive and fun to read. Printed on colorful pages that complement the photos, the text only adds to the beauty of this book. Not one to leave budding scientists and photographers wanting, Bishop includes descriptive captions to each photograph, including each lizard's name and proportion compared to the photographed size. A two-page fold--out featuring a basilist running across a pond will wow readers. As usual, Bishop shares stories about how he captured the amazing photos. An index, bibliography and glossary help readers explore the book and learn more about these creatures that have been around since the days of the dinosaurs.

The Secret Cave: Discovering Lascaux

by Emily Arnold McCully. 32 pages

McCully tells the fascinating story of the 1940 discovery of the cave paintings of Lascaux. Village boys looking for adventure and treasure in World War II France venture into a tunnel that leads them to cave walls covered with hundreds of paintings and engravings sealed for about 17,000 years in the cave. McCully narrates her fictionalized recreation of this piece of archaeological history simply and eloquently, using her signature paintings to support the drama and excitement of the story. Her renditions of the cave art lend mystery and a sense of awe to the discovery these boys made. The author's note completes the story and aids readers in understanding a bit more about cave art. A bibliography is included and end papers illustrate the scope and breadth of the Lascaux Caves.