Soar into space and into the imagination with our Summer 2019 titles, aligned to this year’s Collaborative Summer Library Program theme, “A Universe of Stories!”
Soar into space and into the imagination with our Summer 2019 titles, aligned to this year’s Collaborative Summer Library Program theme, “A Universe of Stories!”
“There are birds falling out of the sky.
“I’m not an expert on bird behavior or anything, but I’m pretty sure birds aren’t just supposed to fall out of the sky.” (from Roll by Darcy Miller)
Find out more about falling birds in Roll and our other ROW titles for May below.
“Rise / into the wonder / of daybreak. / Be a rainbow in the cloud. / Be a free bird on the back of the night wind. / Shine on, honey!” (from “Majestic–celebrating Maya Angelou” by Kwame Alexander in Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets)
Find out more about Out of Wonder and other ROW titles for April below.
“In the bathroom, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and made a face when I remembered one of Dad’s favorite jokes.
“‘You got your Mexican from your mom and your punk from me,’ he’d say.
“I had the Mexican going on for sure: brown skin and thick brown hair that was lighter than Mom’s but darker than Dad’s that I usually wore in two braids. I had Mom’s dark eyes too. My punk, on the other hand, was terribly lacking.” (from The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez)
ROW books for March means The First Rule of Punk and other terrific titles. Check them out below!
“‘Dreams get caught in the webs woven in your bones. That’s where they live. In that marrow there.’ … I imagined spiderwebs in my bones and turned my palms towards the moon, watching the ballet of bones between my elbow and wrist twist to make it so. I saw webs clotted with dreams like fat flies. I wondered if the horses I’d ridden into this dawn were still caught in there like bugs, winnying at the shift.” (from The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimalene)
Learn more about The Marrow Thieves other ROW titles for February with the links below.
“Nine quarters.
“They were the last of what had been left in the jar of laundry money that Dixie and I kept in our room, the jar that had never quite lost the smell of pickle relish. I counted and recounted the quarters in my pocket with my fingertips as the lunch line moved forward, as I’d counted and recounted them through English, physiology, and government. I counted because things in my life had a way of disappearing on me, and I’d learned not to trust what I thought was there.” (from Gem & Dixie by Sara Zarr)
Click on the links below to find out more about Gem & Dixie and our other ROW books for January.
“All Clayton wanted was a twelve-bar solo–not even the twice-around the block solo that the other Bluesman played. He wanted twelve bars and to be a true bluesman among bluesman. Didn’t Cool Papa tell the crowd earlier that the blues was more than a song, it was a story?” (from Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia)
Add Clayton Byrd Goes Underground and other ROW December titles to your end-of-the-year reading list. You can find out more about them by clicking on the links below.
“Tonight, when we are all home, Dad will put rice in the cooker, and Mom will fry the fish on both sides until they are crispy. I will bring out the jar of fish sauce that has flecks of chili pepper and carrots floating on top.
“At the table, my brothers and sisters will tell funny stories. Mom will ask about their homework. Dad will nod and smile and eat with his eyes half closed. ‘Good fish,’ he will say to me.” (from A Different Pond by Bao Phi)
Find out more about A Different Pond and our other ROW November titles below!
“Herbert was not sure about Halloween.” (From Herbert’s First Halloween by Cynthia Rylant.)
Find out more about Herbert’s First Halloween and other October ROW titles below!
“Miss Knapp says the /
first day is Get-Aquainted Day
in kindergarten.”
(from “Drawing My Family” in A New School Year: Stories in Six Voices by Sally Derby.
September brings back-to-school and the first hint of autumn. It also brings another year Read On Wisconsin! Check out A New School Year and our other titles for September below.
Frost, Helen. When My Sister Started Kissing. Margaret Ferguson Books / Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017. 187 pages (978–0–374–30303–7)
Ages 10-13
This novel in verse alternates between the voices of two sisters, 11-year-old Claire and 13-year-old Abigail, with occasional contributions in the voice of the lake where they are spending the summer with their dad and pregnant stepmother. Abigail (who now asks to be called “Abi”) is diving into adolescence, and is struggling between her feelings for two boys: TJ, a longtime summer friend whom she kissed at the end of the previous summer, and Brock, this year’s hot new guy. Claire is wary of the new Abi, and resents being asked to cover for her when Abi breaks their father’s rules. Claire also misses the way things were when it was just the three of them, before Pam, her stepmother, came into the picture. The pending arrival of a baby brother is yet another transition in the family structure. Frost’s deft skill with poetic form (including quatrains, kayak poems, free-verse, and acrostics) keeps the focus on the relationship between the sisters, as well as providing insight into the thoughts they keep private. Although their history includes a tragedy—their mother was struck and killed by lightning many years earlier—this is a summer without melodrama, but rife with the usual challenges of adolescence, family, friends, and change. ©2018 Cooperative Children’s Book Center
Alexander, Kwame, with Chris Colderley, and Marjory Wentworth. Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets. Illustrated by Ekua Holmes. Candlewick Press, 2017. 49 pages (978–0–7636–8094–7)
Ages 8-13
Twenty sparkling, original poems each celebrate a specific poet in a terrific collection that also serves as an introduction to the poets honored. The opening poem, by Kwame Alexander, “How To Write a Poem,” celebrates Naomi Shihab Nye (“Let loose your heart— / raise your voice. … find / your way / to that one true word / (or two).” The final offering, also by Alexander, celebrates Maya Angelou (“Rise / into the wonder / of daybreak. … Know your beauty / is a thunder / your precious heart unsalable. … Shine on honey! / Know you / are phenomenal.” In between are poems paying tribute to Robert Frost, e. e. cummings, Bashō, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Walter Dean Myers, Emily Dickinson, Terrance Hayes, Billy Collins, Pablo Neruda, Judith Wright, Mary Oliver, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sandra Cisneros, William Carlos Williams, Okot p’Bitek, Chief Dan George, and Rumi. The poems, varied and wonderful, skillfully reflect their subjects thematically and stylistically. Additional information about each of the 20 poets is found at book’s end. A singular, beautifully composed illustration serves as a perfect accompaniment for each poem, complementing but never competing with words that will open eyes, and minds, and hearts to these writers. ©2018 Cooperative Children’s Book Center