Babymouse: Cupcake Tycoon

Title: Babymouse: Cupcake Tycoon
Series: Babymouse
Author: Jennifer L. Holm

Image copied from Amazon.com.

Illustrator: Matthew Holm
Copyright: 2010

Babymouse loves to visit her school library. Books provide her imagination with food, which takes her on many adventures. One day while Babymouse is in the library disaster strikes and many of the books are ruined by a flood that Babymouse has caused.

The students of Babymouse’s school are being asked to sell cupcakes in order to raise money to replace the library books that were destroyed in the flood. The student who sells the most cupcakes will win a prize. Of course, Babymouse wants to win the prize, but she is having a hard time selling the cupcakes.

Will Babymouse be able to sell enough cupcakes to win the prize? Will the school library be able to replace the destroyed books? Check out Babymouse: Cupcake Tycoon to find the answers to these questions.

A note to readers and parents: The Babymouse books are graphic novels, which means they are written in the style of a comic book and use pictures and words to tell the story. Color plays an important role in the story as the background color on a page tells the reader when Babymouse is using her imagination. Babymouse’s favorite color is pink, so pink is the major color used in the Babymouse books.

Babymouse is written and illustrated by a sister and brother team, Jennifer and Matthew Holm. Imagine what stories you can create with someone close to you.

Check out author Jennifer Holm's Babymouse webpage.

The Library Pages

Title: The Library Pages
Author: Carlene Morton

Imaged copied from www.Amazon.com

Illustrator: Valeria Docampo
Copyright: 2010

Mrs. Heath is the librarian at Happyland Elementary School. While she is on maternity leave the students in Mrs. Tulane's class become library helpers, aka library pages.

The library pages make Mrs. Heath a video to show her how they have been taking care of the library books and patrons. Bert shelves all of the skinny books together because he likes skinny books better than thick books. Carlos shelves the non-fiction books by color instead of by their Dewey Decimal numbers. By the middle of the video Mrs. Heath is scared to continue watching, but she does. As the video continues Mrs. Heath becomes angry as she watches the library pages do unthinkable things to the library books. In the last scene of the video Mrs. Heath finds a big surprise from her new library pages.

The children represented in the illustrations reflect a variety of ethnicities. This book provides an opportunity to talk with children about the proper way to treat a library book.

Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

Title: Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy
Author: Sonya Sones

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Copyright: 1999

Sonya Sones found inspiration for this verse novel in the actual events that happened in her life around the age of thirteen when her older sister had a nervous breakdown on Christmas Eve.

Every member of Cookie's family is affected by her sister's mental illness. Cookie finds that her parents ignore her and are unwilling to talk about what has happened to their family. She is afraid to talk to her friends about what is happening because she is afraid of how they will react and what they will say about her and her family.

How do you deal with the emotions your feeling and the changes in your family when you are afraid to talk about it with most people and your family won't talk about it all?

Check out Sonya Sones' website to find out more about this title and other books by the author.

Torchlight

Title: Torchlight
Author: Carol Otis Hurst

Image copied from www.barnesandnoble.com

Copyright: 2006

Charlotte and Maggie are friends living in the same town in New England during the 1850s, but their friendship is not accepted by most people in Westfield. These two girls are not supposed to be friends because Charlotte is a Yankee while Maggie is Irish. It seems that most of the Yankees in Westfield want the Irish to leave town.

The children of Westfield share their parents dislike of the town's Irish citizens. Charlotte is punished by her Yankee classmates for choosing to be friends with Maggie. The teacher refuses to listen to Charlotte's side of the story and warns her that she needs to change her behavior in order to properly represent her family.

The Yankee dislike of the Irish comes to a head the night of the bonfires when the Yankee citizens of Westfield threaten to burn the church the Irish have been building.

Will Charlotte and Maggie's friendship survive or will the girls be split apart by their families and neighbors?

T4: a Novel in Verse

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Title: T4: a novel in verse
Author: Ann Clare LeZotte
Copyright: 2008

You have probably read stories about the killing of Jewish people during World War II, but have you read about the other groups of people who Hitler tried to eliminate.

Paula is deaf. Her mother had rubella while pregnant with Paula. That combined with a high fever at sixteen months old caused Paula to completely lose her hearing. She and her family have come to accept Paula's deafness, but Paula's country has not.

Paula lives in Germany, which, at the time of our story, is being led by Adolph Hitler. The Jewish people were not the only ones targeted by the Nazis. People with mental and physical disabilities were targeted by a Nazi program known as Action T4, which gave doctors permission to kill disabled people in order to eliminate the "pollution in the gene pool" (LeZotte, p.21).

Father Josef, a Catholic priest, learns of the Nazi plan and endeavors to help keep Paula alive. This is no easy task as there are many Germans who will happily inform the Nazis of happenings at their neighbors' homes.

T4 is told in 66 free verse poems, which come together to tell Paula's story of hiding from the Nazis in order to live.

Hit and Run

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Title: Hit and Run
Author: Lurlene McDaniel
Copyright: 2007

This story is told from four alternating viewpoints. Analise, Laurie, Quin, and Jeremy and all attend the same high school, but they do not all truly know each other.

Laurie is a freshman whose parents are divorced. She lives with her mom who wants Laurie to be popular and date lots of boys like she did in high school. Laurie does not want to be like her mother and is having trouble handling the pressure her mother is putting on her.

Quin's father is just as bad as Laurie's mother. Quin is a high school senior who is looking forward to going away to college to play baseball. The farther away he can get from his father the better as Quin's father is constantly pressuring him to be the best ball player, keep his head in the game, and stay out of trouble.

Analise and Jeremy are high school seniors. They have been dating for awhile now and are looking forward to the future. Analise works on the school newspaper and yearbook. Jeremy works part-time in a woodshop making items such as desks, chairs, tables, and cabinets. Neither of them have pushy parents like Laurie and Quin.

After Friday night all four of their lives will be changed forever.

The Case of the Gypsy Good-Bye

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Title: The Case of the Gypsy Good-Bye
Series: An Enola Holmes Mystery
Author: Nancy Springer
Copyright: 2010

Enola Holmes, the younger sister of the famous Sherlock Holmes, set out at the beginning of this series to find her mother who had run away from her daughter and her life. In this 6th and final book in the Enola Holmes series Enola will finally find the answers she has been seeking concerning her mother's whereabouts.

Lady Blanchefleur del Campo is missing. She helped a lame woman down the steps into the Underground and has not been seen since then. Did Lady Blanchefleur del Campo get on a train and flee from her life? Was she attacked in the Underground and left to die? Was she lured down the train tunnels into the underworld? Both Sherlock and Enola are diligently working albeit separately to solve the mystery of the missing Lady.

In the meantime Enola is also trying to solve the latest puzzling message from her mother, which has arrived in the form of a skytale. Enola must also be sure to keep her distance from her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft as allowing them to find and trap her will surely end with Enola being placed in a dreaded finishing school.

Will Mycroft find Enola and place her in a finishing school? Will Enola's mother return to Ferndell Hall, the Holmes family home? Will Lady Blanchefleur del Campo be found alive? The answers await you in "The Case of the Gypsy Good-bye."