Ladybug Nominee Profile

In Bad Boys Willy and Wally Wolf's infiltration of a flock of sheep proves to be a shearing experience. Their next adventure led them on a chase after one smart cookie. What awaits the mischievous Bad Boys this time? Their craving for a chicken dinner lands them in a load of work in Margie Palatini and Henry Cole's new book Bad Boys Get Henpecked!

All the Bad Boys adventures to-date are published by Katherine Tagen Books, an imprint of Harper Collins. The original tale is included in the Harper Collins publication Fun with Fairy Tales: A Teacher's Guide. There is a cool Bad Boys crossword puzzle on the author's website along with other puzzles and activities.

"Willy and Wally Wolf, hungry for a finger-lickin' chicken dinner, disguise themselves as chickens and pose as domestic workers for hire. Dubbing themselves the "Handy-Dandy Lupino Brothers," they hatch a plan to clean out the coop. Mother hen is delighted by the brothers' offer, but admonishes that she can "pay mere chicken feed." They reply in delight, "We work for cheep." In an instant, Willy and Wally are laden with aprons, cleaning equipment, and supplies and handed a lengthy to-do list. They sweep, mop, scrub, vacuum, dust, polish, wash, hang, iron, and take out garbage. All that when they aren't watching dozens of chicks. Exhausted, they quickly fall into a deep slumber, and the chicks run wild, at least until their mother returns. Willy and Wally hightail it out of there, having lost their taste for chicken. With its fast-paced language and witty narrative paired with lively alliteration and puns, the Bad Boys' latest tale will entertain and capture youngsters' imaginations. Cole deftly expresses humor and the power of understatement in his pencil and watercolor illustrations. Expressive facial expressions and body language tell all." (School Library Journal review)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award. Ms. Palatini's work has been nominated before: Moo Who? (2005) and Tub-boo-boo (2004) were past Ladybug Picture Book Award nominees. Mr. Cole's book, Big Chickens Fly the Coop was nominated in 2009.

Jonathan Franzen in New Hampshire

Author Jonathan Franzen is on tour promoting his latest novel, Freedom.

“Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Freedom, like his previous one, The Corrections, is a masterpiece of American fiction . . . Freedom is a still richer and deeper work—less glittering on its surface but more confident in its method . . . Like all great novels, Freedom does not just tell an engrossing story. It illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew.”—Sam Tanenhaus, The New York Times Book Review (cover review)

On Thursday, September 9, 2010 Franzen will be in Concord as the first author to appear in the new "Writer's in the Spotlight" series being launched by Gibson's and the Capitol Center for the Arts (CCA). Mr. Franzen will speak and sign books in the Spotlight Cafe, downstairs at the CCA beginning at 7pm. This will be a ticketed event, but the ticket price is only $6. Tickets will be on sale at Gibson's and at the Capitol Center.

RiverRun Bookstore presents Jonathan Franzen at South Church in Portsmouth, on Friday, September 10, 2010 at 7pm. This event is free and open to the public, but those who wish to meet the author and get their book personalized must pre-purchase the author’s new novel. RiverRun is selling 150 backstage passes to meet him, and these will sell out, so get them now! The backstage pass is the cost of the novel, $28.00. Call 603-431-2100 to get a backstage pass. Flat-signed copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.

Book of the Week #34

The Jon Daniels Story with his Letters and Papers, edited with an introduction by William J. Schneider (NY: Seabury Press, 1967)

On August 20, 1965, Jonathan Daniels, a seminary student and volunteer civil rights worker who had grown up in Keene, NH, was shot to death in broad daylight by a white deputy sheriff in Hayneville, Alabama. This volume was compiled after Daniels' death by his friend William J. Schneider, an Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard and Radcliff. It includes a brief biographical sketch of Jonathan Daniels as well as his collected letters and papers. If you are interested in further reading about Jonathan Daniels you might also consider Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama by Charles W. Eagles (University of North Carolina Press, 1993) and American Martyr: The John Daniels Story, edited by William J. Schneider (Morehouse Publishers, 1992)

Jonathan Daniels is the subject of a play by local playwright Lowell Williams, Six Nights in the Black Belt which opens tonight (8/26/10) at the Amato Center in Milford, NH and runs through 8/29/10. Performances are at 8pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and at 2pm on Saturday and Sunday. There will be formal talk backs after the Saturday matinee and Saturday evening shows. The show is being presented by M&M Productions and tickets are $15.

Book Event Sampler

Thursday, August 26, 2010

• Jenna Blum will be at Gibson's at 7pm talking about her new novel, Stormchasers
• Water Street Books hosts Lily King, author of Father of the Rain at 7pm
• At 7pm River Run will host local authors Brendan DuBois, Toni L.P. Kelner, and Dana Cameron reading from the new anthology Crimes by Moonlight

Saturday, August 28, 2010

• Two children's book authors for the price of one! Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace will read and sign at Water Street Books at 11am
• Toadstool Bookshops have several events today. John Walters will be in Peterborough at 11am and Keene at 2pm talking about Roads Less Travelled: Visionary New England Lives. Cynthia Amidon will sign Remembering Hancock: Tales from a Quaint New Hampshire Town at 2pm in Peterborough. Evelyn Blanchard will share her book of poems in Milford at 11am.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

All the World is a poem in the form of a picture book. It was written by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Marla Frazee. It was selected as a 2010 Caldecott Honor Book.

The author has created a curriculum guide to help teachers use this book in the classroom. Simon & Schuster published this book and they interviewed the creators about how the book came to be as part of their Behind the Book series. You can watch the trailer for this book on YouTube. School Library Journal suggests this title for children in kindergarten to 2nd grade and Publisher's Weekly suggests it for ages 3-7.

"Charming illustrations and lyrical rhyming couplets speak volumes in celebration of the world and humankind, combining to create a lovely book that will be appreciated by a wide audience. The pictures, made with black Prismacolor pencil and watercolors, primarily follow a multicultural family from a summer morning on the beach through a busy day and night. A boy, his younger sister, and their parents experience a farmer's market, a lakeside pavilion, a soaking rain, a warm meal in a cozy cafe, a gathering of musical kin, and a quiet night at home. The hand-lettered text in dark gray is large and mobile as it moves readers along through the captivating vignettes. Other families are also depicted, and readers can follow many of their activities as they overlap and connect with the main characters. The folks in this small, diverse community experience what a summer day has to offer, including sun, wind, storm, and a sense of contentment and well-being. A double-page moon- and starlit illustration shows an overview of all the featured locales highlighted in this small slice of the world. Perfection." (School Library Journal Review)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Book of the Week #33

The T206 Collection: The Players and Their Stories, 100th Anniversary Commemorative Edition by Tom Zappala, Ellen Zappala, with Lou Blasi (Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2010)

"The T206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories is a tribute
to the men featured in the greatest baseball card collection that has ever existed. This book is for baseball fans, hobbyists, and history buffs. The brief biographical narratives along with the personal and professional statistics of each player offer you a peek into the developing world of baseball during the early part of the 20th century. The stories of the amazing array of T206 players from all walks of life with dramatically different skill levels will give you a real sense of how our national pastime was shaped by the events and players of that era. The last chapter discusses the value and grading system of this storied collection and brings the reader full circle. You will learn how a card like Kitty Bransfield’s with the Sweet Caporal back is graded and valued. In addition, elsewhere in the book, you will learn about the “Bransfield Curse” and what it meant to Pittsburgh Pirates fans. This commemorative edition celebrates the 100th anniversary of the very special T206 collection. Along with the 38 Hall of Famers that make up this set, there are another 353 players who contributed to the evolution of the great game of baseball." (from publisher's
materials)

The authors will be at events in New Hampshire in the next few months -- including this weekend.

• Saturday, August 21, 2010 - Tom and Ellen will be signing copies of The T206 Collection - The Players & Their Stories at The Well Read Book Store in Plaistow from 11am to 2pm
• Saturday, November 13, 2010 signing at Barnes & Noble, Nashua from 2 to 4 pm.

Ladybug Picture Book Award 2010

Beginning this week -- ten weeks before November -- I will be profiling each of the ten picture books nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award. The profiles will be done in alphabetical order by title.

Voting for the Ladybug Picture Book Award takes place at schools, libraries, day care centers, and homes throughout New Hampshire during November. If you want to be a Ladybug polling place here's what you need to do:

1. Get copies of the ten nominated books (from your bookseller, from your library, borrow them from a friend, whatever works for you).
2. Find some kids who are in the third grade or younger and read the books to them, or with them.
3. In November 2010 have the kids you read the books to/with vote for their favorite. If you want to use the Ladybug Picture Ballot that's great, but you can do the voting however it works best for your group of kids. (Attention parents - one kid is a valid group for voting.) You can also order stickers to give to the kids who have voted, but that is not required. (They are really cute stickers though!)
4. Total all the votes cast at your site using the Ladybug Tally Sheet -- this is not optional, you need to use this form or counting the votes becomes impossible -- and send your tally sheet to us so we RECEIVE it before 5pm on December 1, 2010 .
5. Visit this blog to find out which book is the winner. Results will be posted as quickly as possible, and definitely before Christmas.

Upcoming Book Events

TONIGHT, Wednesday, 8/18/2010

• Joyce Maynard will be at Toadstool Bookshop, Keene at 7pm reading from her new novel, Labor Day

Thursday, 8/19/2010

• Anita Diamant will be at Gibson's reading from her new novel Day After Night at 7pm.
• At 7pm RiverRun Bookstore and Jetpack Comics present Christopher Golden & Thomas E. Sniegoski.
• White Birch Books will host Jennifer Jordan, author of The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2 at 7pm.

Saturday, 8/21/2010

• Jessie Crockett will be at Toadstool Bookshop, Milford to sign her NH mystery Live Free or Die at 2pm.
• At Toadstool Bookshop, Peterborough Stephanie Cooke signs and discusses In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History Of The Nuclear Age at 2pm.
• Matthew Dicks, author of Something's Missing, will read from his latest, Unexpectedly Milo at Water Street Books at 7pm.
• Editors Tom Easton and Judith Klein-Dial visit Toadstool Bookshop, Milford at 7pm to sign and discuss their new book, Visions of Tomorrow: Science Fiction Predictions That Came True.
• Tory Hill Reader Series features David Carroll and Katherine Russell Rich at Warner Town Hall beginning at 7pm.

Sunday, 8/22/2010

• Mark Okrant, will be at White Birch Books at 3pm reading from his latest mystery, Icy Reception.

Book of the Week #32

Uncatalogued: A Booklovers Mystery by Julie Kaewert (NY: Bantam Books, 2002.)

Julie Kaewert, a native of Nebraska went to Dartmouth College which is the setting of this installment in her Plumtree series.

"It promises to be the find of the century: documents by famed diarist Samuel Pepys rumoured to be in the U.S. - which is where publisher Alex Plumtree and his fiancée, Sarah, are headed for his college reunion. Then bizarre things start happening…a Royal accident imperils the succession and fiery violence rocks London, mimicking Pepys’s chronicles of seventeenth-century England.

Things get even more curious when the archivist who stumbled on the uncatalogued papers vanishes. Then a centuries-old scandal surfaces that could bring down the modern monarchy. Soon Alex begins to suspect that the diaries may not have been penned by Pepys after all - but by someone whose shocking actions may have altered the course of history…." (from the cover)

Rhina P. Espaillat at Hyla Brook August 12

The Hyla Brook Reading Series continues at the Robert Frost Farm with a reading by award-winning poet Rhina P. Espaillat. Ms. Espaillat will read on Thursday, August 12, 2010, 6:30pm-8:30pm. Hyla Brook Poet and Frost Farm Manager Bill Gleed will also read. Held at the Frost Farm at 122 Rockingham Rd (Rt 28), the Reading Series is free and open to the public.

Dominican-born and bilingual, Rhina P. Espaillat has published eight full-length books and three chapbooks, including poetry, short stories and essays, mostly in English but occasionally also in her native Spanish. She also translates in both directions, and has published Spanish versions of Robert Frost, and English versions of the chief works of St. John of the Cross and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, among others. Her work has earned several national and international honors, including the T. S. Eliot Prize in Poetry, the Richard Wilbur Award, the Howard Nemerov Prize, and various awards from the Poetry Society of America, the New England Poetry Club, the Robert Frost Foundation and the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Culture. She is a founding member of both the Fresh Meadows Poets of NYC, and the Powow River Poets centered in Newburyport, Mass., where she lives with her husband, the sculptor Alfred Moskowitz.

Bill Gleed, co-founder with Robert Crawford of the Hyla Brook Poets, was born in Amesbury, Mass. and grew up in Haverhill, Mass. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire creative writing program, Bill has managed the Robert Frost Farm state historic site for the previous six seasons. He's also been a faculty member at several area colleges, including Southern New Hampshire University, Hesser College, Franklin Pierce college, Middlesex Community College and Northern Essex Community College. He was poetry editor and a columnist at the UNESCO award-winning web magazine Moondance, and he was a contributing editor at Maelstrom, one of ten small press magazines featured at the 1996 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Bill was also a news writer for the Portsmouth Herald and the Seacoast news family of newspapers. He was a featured reader at the Houston Poetry Fest in 2001. His poetry has appeared in many journals, both in print and online, including Kettle of Fish, the Boston Globe, Isoceles, and Concrete Wolf.

An Open Mic will follow the readings and all audience members are invited to share their work.
The Hyla Brook Poets group organizes the monthly reading series as well as a monthly writing workshop, which meets on the third Saturday of the month at 10am. The next workshop takes place on Saturday, August 21, 2010, at the Frost Farm in Derry. For questions, please contact Robert Crawford.

Book Events this Week

Tonight (Tuesday)

• William Powers will discuss Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age at 7pm at Toadstool Bookshop, Keene.
• RiverRun will host Robert P. Crease talking about his nonfiction book, The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg at 7pm.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

• In the Screening Room at Red River Theaters, Gibson's will host Toby Lester reading from The Fourth Part of the World at 7pm
• Gail Caldwell will be at RiverRun at 7pm reading from Let's Take the Long Way Home

Thursday, August 12, 2010

• Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson will be at RiverRun at 7pm to talk about The Great Typo Hunt
• At 7pm Robert Darton will be at Gibson's talking about The Case for Books
• Borders, Concord will host Lance Parkhurst reading from Sacred Skies: The Quest or Playing Frisbee In A Mine Field at 7:30pm

Saturday, August 14, 2010

• James Goddard will be autographing his inspirational book Freedom For a Day
  at Toadstool Bookshop, Peterborough beginning at 2pm

Book of the Week #31

Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory-city in New England by Tamara K. Hareven and Randolph Langenbach (London: Methuen & Co, Ltd., 1979)

"The Amoskeag Company founded the city of Manchester and dominated it over the entire century of its existence. There was hardly a person in Manchester between 1838, when construction began, and 1936, when the mills shut down, whose life was not in some way affected by the Company." (p. 11)

This is the story of that Company as told by the people who worked there. Mixed in with the stories are images of the Mills. The contrast between the thriving mill city, the dilapidation of the 1970s (when the book was written) and today's Millyard is striking. There is an image in the book (p. 235 of my edition) of an exhibit that showed a single day's production of the mill -- it makes clear like nothing I had seen before how huge this company was.

Weekend Book Events

Saturday, August 7, 2010

• Donna Marie Seim, author of Hurricane Mia, will be reading and signing at Water Street Books at 2pm
• Barnes & Noble, Portsmouth will host Ardie Davis and Paul Kirk, authors of The Kansas City Barbeque Cookbook at 2pm
• K Spirito will talk about and sign her latest entry in the La Rosa Chronicles, Summer & August at 2pm at Toadstool Bookshop, Keene.
• Poet Chana Bloch reads from Blood Honey and discusses her poetic contribution to Monadnock Music’s summer project “Music For The Mountain” at Toadstool Bookshop, Peterborough beginning at 3:30pm
• The Tory Hill Readers Series continues with David Elliott and Jane Brox, beginning at 7pm

Sunday, August 8, 2010

• In Deering, NH someone is stealing all the apple pies! Author Julie Dozois will be at Toadstool Bookshop, Milford at 2pm to read from her book The Apple Pie Thief.
• Willow Bascom, author of Paisley Pig & Friends, will be at Borders, West Lebanon at 2pm

Hardboiled Detectives discussed in Berlin

Why do law-abiding citizens love a good crime yarn? Why do we respond to the tough detective and his or her often unorthodox methods of exacting justice? White Mountains Community College and the Berlin Public Library will examine these questions and the detective mystery genre through a four-part book discussion series, "Tough Guys."

The series begins on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 7 p.m. with Dashiell Hammett’s 1931 classic, The Maltese Falcon. In Hammett’s iconic novel we are introduced to tough guy private eye Sam Spade, and the classic storyline is born: an intriguing beauty walks into a detective’s office, and murder, mystery, and mayhem follow. This discussion will be led by Craig Doherty.

The next discussion will be held on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 7 p.m. and will consider John D. Macdonald’s 1964 novel The Deep Blue Goodbye, the first in his Travis McGee series. The project continues on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 7 p.m. with the first of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, The Godwulf Manuscript, published in 1974. Both of these discussions will be led by Suzanne Brown, Dartmouth College.

The series closes in November with Randy Wayne White’s 1991 Florida-set novel Sanibel Flats. The Wednesday, November 10, 2010 discussion will be held at 7 p.m. and will be led by Craig Doherty.

All four sessions will be held at the Fortier Library at White Mountains Community College and are free and open to the public. Books are available to borrow from the Fortier and Berlin Public Libraries. Light refreshments will be served at each session. For more information, contact Katie Doherty at 752-1113 x3086. “Tough Guys,” is a book discussion series sponsored by the NH Humanities Council.