Library & Literary Miscellany

Jacketflap is a community where children’s literature writers, illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, and publishers can gather and discuss myriad aspects/resources related to children’s literature. Jacketflap has some great offerings such as the searchable database and the members’ bookshelves (read more about Jacketflap’s resources on the About Us page).

More recently, Jacketflap has developed a couple of neat tools for kidlitosphere bloggers and blog readers (I first became familiar with these resources through the post at Book Bud (thanks much)). Since these are cool tools with high utility, I want to briefly highlight the blog portal and the Cybils widget…

About the Jacketflap megablog portal:

The Jacketflap megablog portal collocates the most recent posts from all the kidlitosphere blogs that are currently indexed by the Jacketflap Blog Reader (over 580 as of this posting). It’s a helpful resource for keeping up with keeping up (not to mention the entertainment factor). Jacketflap provides the following navigation tips:

Click the dates in the calendar on the left to view blog posts from a particular date. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. Click a tag in the right column to view posts about that topic. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a “More Posts from this Blog” link in any individual post.

About the customizable Cybils widget:

The Cybils Widget displays a different Cybils 2007 nominee every time it loads on your website. There are links where your site visitors can visit the Cybils website and to buy the nominated book on Amazon or a local bookstore (via Booksense).

I included the widget in this post, but I’ve also placed it on my blog’s right sidebar (at least for the time being).

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Moxy Maxwell Does not Love Stuart Little by Peggy Gifford photographs by Valorie Fisher

In which a brief review is made regarding the book’s merit as children’s literature and in which the book is not compared to Stuart Little.

For the entire summer, Stuart Little (a mere 144 page mouse of a book) has been the albatross around Moxy Maxwell’s neck. Stuart Little was assigned as Moxy’s summer reading. Moxy’s teacher, Mr. Flamingo, plans to quiz the incoming fourth graders over the book’s content on the first day of school (which, incidentally, is tomorrow…nothing like waiting until the last minute).

Fortunately, Moxy does love to read. Unfortunately, Moxy does not love to be told what to read. While her twin brother Mark finished Stuart Little immediately at summer’s glorious beginning, Moxy has left her own reading for summer’s uncelebrated end (although there does happen to be an impending celebration Moxy is hoping to attend…).

Really, though, Moxy has tried. Her copy has gone with her everywhere. It even looks read (being a little worse for the wear due to contact with pool water and lemonade), but the book remains indubitably unread as the final day to complete the assignment begins.

In Moxy’s purview, she’s not not reading it, it’s just that the book is a perfect fit for those in-between moments (of which her mother points out, Moxy has very few). Moxy is a busy nine-year-old with commitments–she keeps quite busy perfecting her part of the eight flower petal synchronized swimming team, training dogs, and cleaning her room—not to mention finding time for constructing brilliant pay-for-college and establish a career path peach growing plans on the side.

The last straw for her mother is the accidental drowning of her prizewinning Dahlias; the last straw for Moxy is facing her mother’s “consequences”–it’s bye-bye to the “Goodbye to Summer Splash” party for Moxy. Instead of a party and cake, it’s Stuart Little and graham crackers for Moxy on the eve of the new school year. At long last (and in the nick of time), Moxy grits her teeth and opens Stuart Little, and she is pleasantly surprised with what she finds inside (much like readers who pick up Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little will be).

Moxy Maxwell Does Not love Stuart Little takes readers right along through the whole of D-Day and through Moxy’s feelings about mandated reading (something which many young readers will easily relate to). Moxy’s story is a quick read—the chapters are short (some being less than one page long) and numerous photographs with captions are interspersed to break up the text. The photographs are ostensibly the result of Mark’s documentation of Moxy’s struggle with Stuart Little, and they support the story’s action.

The concise text and the generous photographs make this a perfect pick for reluctant or struggling readers. Perhaps Moxy would even enjoy reading her book, that is, at least, if you did not force her to do so. While Moxy Maxwell may not start out loving Stuart Little (and in the end she finds out she does), Peggy Gifford and Valorie Fisher have nonetheless written a paean to reading, children’s literature, and perhaps even to the continued joys of reading classics like Stuart Little (although perhaps not so much to required reading). Plus, Moxy’s great energy and big plans may encourage readers to believe in themselves and their own dreams.

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