Library & Literary Miscellany

Wild About Books by Judy Sierra; illustrated by Marc Brown (2004)

Even though Wild About Books (published 2004) has been around the zoo a time or two, I wanted to highlight it as a fun picture book about the love of reading.

Plus, who can resist the book’s heroine, librarian Molly McGrew? Not I, said the librarian. Wild About Books opens with McGrew’s accidental appearance at the zoo with her bookmobile. Even though it was not her intended destination, it proves fortuitous as the animals embrace her books with an unprecedented passion, all stampeding to reading:

Forsaking their niches, their nests, and their nooks,
They went simply wild, about wonderful books

There’s a little reminder that librarians are here to serve “Molly filled their requests, always eager to please.” There’s a humorous lesson about treating books right “for the boa constrictor squeezed Crictor too tight.” There’s even a plug for authors as tasmanian devils found books so exciting that they soon “had given up fighting for writing.” What’s more, there’s the excitement of a new branch library opening up–the Zoobrary.

Wild About Books is dedicated to Dr. Seuss, and Sierra’s vivid, lively, improbable rhymes have traces of Seuss’s originality. Regardless of how outlandish Seuss’s premises were (a cat in a hat, green eggs and ham, a grinch who stole Christmas), he revolutionized beginning readers in attempts to make reading more palatable and engaging for children. Sierra’s premise (animals wild about reading) is equally outlandish but also wildly engaging and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Marc Brown’s bold paintings lend credence to the unprecedented happenings. On each full page spread, Brown masterfully mixes up colors, texture, and perspectives to provide a feel of the excitement and fun that goes along with reading.

Together, Judy Sierra and Marc Brown created a fun book for animal, book, poetry, humor, and library lovers alike. There’s something for every animal to enjoy at the Zoobrary, and there’s something for every reader to enjoy in Wild About Books. Scholastic developed a lesson plan with activities around Wild About Books. Random House provides a book synopsis as well as a listing of all of the awards the book has won.

Share This

Library & Literary Miscellany links this week…

Library

7 Ways Your Public Library Can Help You During A Bad Economy a post filed under frugality over at the Consumerist listing, well, seven pluses to using a library but you’ll find many more additional suggestions in the comments…most positive (thanks to LibrarianinBlack for the link)

The 25 Most Modern Libraries in the World list from BestCollegesOnline.com broken up by architecture, technology and innovation, and digital collections

Copyright talk: Copyright in education, part 1: Fair use and Copyright in education, part 2: Transformative use over at Instructify (I’ve seen the Fair(y) Tale Use video mentioned in part two before but I enjoy it every time)

Experienceology: Seeing Your Library as if for the First Time over at Infoblog discusses the basics of creating the library experience

Program Planning: Online Brawl Tournaments by Joseph Wilk over at the YALSA blog provides insight into some of the ins and outs of hosting a gaming tourney with teams composed of teens from libraries in different cities

Literary

ARCs and Soapboxes by Colleen over at Chasing Ray provides the scoop on the week’s soapbox postings

Blog Central: Kidlitosphere FAQ by Anastasia Suen already answers quite a few questions and points to a variety of resources and will likely offer more in the future (thanks to Fuse 8 for the link)

On YA Lit this Week: Soapbox Day#1: We’ve got reactions and opinions and Margo Rabb, YA and why this issue is more complicated then you might think by Colleen at Chasing Ray, It’s Still Not Easy Completely Missing the Point by Carlie at Librarilly Blonde responding to the two recent YA lit stories in Newsweek, and YA Author Sets Her Characters a’Twittering over at Galleycat about YA author Jennifer Banash’s creation of Twitter microblogs for three of her characters

On Gender in kidlit this week: Boy Books Girl Books at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

E-Book Central by Theseus’s Posterous provides a mega-list of links to resources offering free e-books

Old Media Monday: Reviewing the Reviewers by Tom at Omnivoracious with a thorough round-up of adult titles reviewed by big name newspapers and magazines last week

QuickPicks: Historical Fiction that Doesn’t Seem Like Historical Fiction by Library Voice with some recommended titles for engaging readers with historical fiction

Top 10 Lists over at Big A Little A is a post of links pointing to recent Top 10 lists relating to various aspects of children’s literature over at The Guardian

Miscellany

7 Things You Should Know About Wii (pdf) by Educause as part of the “7 Things You Should Know About…” series

Top 10 Printable Paper Productivity Tools over at Lifehacker points to some paper-saving, productivity tools

30+ Tools for Synching Files and Folders by Aseem Kishore over at Mashable

Share This