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Laurie Ann Thompson

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Review: SURVIVING MIDDLE SCHOOL

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Surviving Middle School cover

Sur­viv­ing Mid­dle School: Nav­i­gat­ing the Halls, Rid­ing the Social Roller Coast­er, and Unmask­ing the Real You
by Luke Reynolds
Aladdin/Beyond Words (July 5, 2016)
Ages 10–14
192 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er has to say: 

In this hilar­i­ous guide full of hon­est, real-life expe­ri­ences, vet­er­an teacher Luke Reynolds skill­ful­ly and humor­ous­ly shows kids how to not only sur­vive, but thrive and even enjoy the wild adven­ture that is mid­dle school.
Mid­dle grade series like The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries bring an authen­tic voice and vision to fic­tion about mid­dle school­ers. Now, for the first time a non­fic­tion guide to mid­dle school offers that same fun­ny and relat­able voice, while skill­ful­ly teach­ing life lessons to not just help kids find their foot­ing dur­ing the tough years between ele­men­tary and high school, but to find the joy in their new adven­tures and challenges.
Author and teacher Luke Reynolds uses irrev­er­ent humor, gen­uine affec­tion for mid­dle school­ers, and authen­tic­i­ty that bub­bles over as he ties real-life expe­ri­ences from his own time in mid­dle school to the expe­ri­ences he has from his many years as a teacher.
Cov­er­ing top­ics like bul­ly­ing, peer pres­sure, grades, deal­ing with dif­fi­cult par­ents, and love and romance, this rare book reach­es kids at a deep­er lev­el dur­ing an age when they are often con­sid­ered too young to appre­ci­ate it. Read­ers will learn to find their own voice, begin to explore their gen­uine iden­ti­ty, and def­i­nite­ly laugh out loud along the way.

And Kirkus said this: 

While play­ful black-and-white car­toon illus­tra­tions and doo­dles add to the zani­ness, the mes­sages are wor­thy and clear: be your­self; prac­tice empa­thy; work hard; hug your par­ents. A list of rec­om­mend­ed books and movies is appended.For those approach­ing or in the scrum of mid­dle school, a pos­i­tive reminder that the per­fect mid­dle school expe­ri­ence does not exist. (Non­fic­tion. 10–14) (Kirkus Reviews 4/15/16)

I’ll just add…
Oh, how I wish I’d had this book when I was enter­ing mid­dle school… or high school, or col­lege, or my 20s or 30s! There are a lot of valu­able life lessons crammed into this lit­tle vol­ume, and you can call me a slow learn­er, but I did­n’t fig­ure most of this stuff out until I was well into adult­hood. And, even now, I can still use some good reminders from time to time!
It’s not only filled with excel­lent advice, but it also has high­ly relat­able anec­dotes (for the tween set, any­way), inter­est­ing exer­cis­es to help per­son­al­ize every les­son, and tons of mid­dle-school humor, so it nev­er comes off as dry or preachy. I think it has enough vari­ety that it will appeal to all kinds of tween readers. 
I believe this book should be required read­ing for tweens every­where (and their teach­ers and par­ents!), and it would make an excel­lent gift, too! 

Eureka! Nonfiction Honor Award for Emmanuel’s Dream

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EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover

EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover
I’m thrilled to announce that Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Sto­ry of Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah has been select­ed to receive a 2015 Eure­ka! Hon­or Book Award from the Cal­i­for­nia Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion.
The Cal­i­for­nia Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion has estab­lished this award to cel­e­brate and hon­or non­fic­tion children’s books. The Eure­ka! Non­fic­tion Children’s Book Award will assist teach­ers, librar­i­ans, and par­ents in iden­ti­fy­ing out­stand­ing non­fic­tion books for their stu­dents and children.
And, it means a shiny new stick­er for the cover! 🙂
Eureka Honor AwardEmmanuel’s Dream is in some excel­lent com­pa­ny, too! Click here for the full list of win­ners. I guar­an­tee you find some great non­fic­tion for kids (which means it’s great for adults, too!).

Nonfiction Monday Review: DOABLE by Deborah Reber

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DOABLE cover
DOABLE: THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO ACCOMPLISHING JUST ABOUT ANYTHING
by Deb­o­rah Reber
Beyond Words/Simon Pulse (Jan­u­ary 2015)

In this well-orga­nized, easy-to-digest non­fic­tion book for teen girls, Reber employs her train­ing as a life coach as well as her exten­sive work with teen girls to lay out an eight-step plan for read­ers to achieve what­ev­er it is they want to tack­le in life. The steps include defin­ing the goal, defend­ing against obsta­cles, devel­op­ing sup­port sys­tems, deter­min­ing what suc­cess looks like, doing the work, deal­ing with set­backs, and deliv­er­ing the goods. Each step has numer­ous exam­ples, pull­outs, jour­nal exer­cis­es, and more, and every chap­ter ends with a sum­ma­ry to rein­force the main points. Reber man­ages to do all of that while main­tain­ing a charis­ma and relata­bil­i­ty that puts read­ers at ease while at the same time empow­er­ing them, and the tone is nev­er the least bit con­de­scend­ing nor overwhelming.
I loved this book and plan to refer back to it for my own to-do list man­age­ment. In fact, my one and only quib­ble with this book is that it is tar­get­ed sole­ly at teen girls, because I think EVERYONE over the age of 10 should read this book! I think we could all learn a thing or two from it that would make us more suc­cess­ful and make our lives that much eas­i­er. That said, Reber is per­fect­ly in touch with the teen girl audi­ence, and while the core con­tent is high­ly applic­a­ble to any read­er, the voice and view­point will sure­ly be direct­ly rel­e­vant and relat­able to many teenage girls.
This book would make a great eighth grade or high school grad­u­a­tion present, and it’s a super help­ful read for any­one who wants to be more pro­duc­tive (don’t we all?). Far from being didac­tic, DOABLE instills a sense of con­fi­dence and excite­ment. Reber is a fan­tas­tic coach AND a cheer­leader, all rolled into one. High­ly recommended!

Fan mail for Emmanuel’s Dream

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It’s always a treat to receive an email like this from a parent:

Last night I read your book to my younger daugh­ter.… She loved the book, and decid­ed it was her new favorite and she want­ed to take it to school when it was her stu­dent spot­light week. Today she and [her broth­er] were fight­ing over it in the car, and I read it to each of them for a bed­time sto­ry. At least this week, it’s a house­hold favorite!

It’s espe­cial­ly great to know that Emmanuel’s sto­ry is touch­ing young read­ers as much as it touched me.

Be a Changemaker is a Cybils award finalist!

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I woke up this morn­ing to news that Be a Change­mak­er made the list of final­ists for the 2014 Chil­dren’s and Young Adult Blog­ger’s Lit­er­ary Award, bet­ter known as the Cybils, in the Non­fic­tion for Young Adults cat­e­go­ry. What a way to kick off 2015!
The nom­i­na­tions in this cat­e­go­ry were var­ied and impres­sive, and the books that made the final­ist list are tru­ly among the best I’ve read all year. It’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have my book in such amaz­ing company!

Alice + Freda cover Alice + Fre­da For­ev­er: A Mur­der in Mem­phis by Alex­is Coe
Be a Changemaker cover Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing That Mat­ters by Lau­rie Ann Thompson
Beyond Magenta cover Beyond Magen­ta: Trans­gen­der Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
Popular cover Pop­u­lar: Vin­tage Wis­dom for a Mod­ern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen
Family Romanov cover The Fam­i­ly Romanov: Mur­der, Rebel­lion, and the Fall of Impe­r­i­al Rus­sia by Can­dace Fleming
Freedom Summer Murders cover The Free­dom Sum­mer Mur­ders by Don Mitchell
Port Chicago 50 cover The Port Chica­go 50: Dis­as­ter, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civ­il Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Thanks, Pat Ziet­low Miller, for nom­i­nat­ing it in the first place. Thanks, Stephanie Charlefour at Love. Life. Read., for the final­ist write-up, and to the entire pan­el (also includ­ing Aaron Mau­r­er from Cof­fee for the Brain, Michelle Lock­wood from Blogs Like a Girl, Karen Ball from Mrs. B’s Favorites, and Danyelle Leach from Book­shelves in the Cul-de–Sac) for read­ing, con­sid­er­ing, and ulti­mate­ly select­ing it. I’ve been a first round Cybils judge twice and am a sec­ond round judge in a dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry this year, so I know what a lot of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion goes into it! Final­ly, thanks to the peo­ple who keep the Cybils run­ning. It’s one of my favorite awards in chil­dren’s books as a read­er, author, and judge. I’m always glad to be a part of it, so hav­ing my own book make that final­ist list means even more to me. Kidlit blog­gers ROCK! 🙂

Review: ATTACK! BOSS! CHEAT CODE! by Chris Barton

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Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! coverATTACK! BOSS! CHEAT CODE!
writ­ten by Chris Bar­ton, illus­trat­ed by Joey Spi­ot­to
pub­lished by POW! Kids Books, Octo­ber 2014
32 pages

From the pub­lish­er’s web page:

An iron­ic yet infor­ma­tive alpha­bet that defines the most impor­tant gam­ing terms that every­one needs to know, Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! A Gamer’s Alpha­bet is the ulti­mate crossover gift for our age, a book that can actu­al­ly bring togeth­er video game-obsessed kids and their often per­plexed parents.
If you can deci­pher the fol­low­ing sen­tence, you don’t need this book: “This open beta game is in third-per­son but first-per­son is unlock­able if you know the cheat code or install your own mod, but either way, for the best attack on the boss on this lev­el, try to grab that power-up!”
— See more at: http://powkidsbooks.com/attack-boss-cheat-code-a-gamers-alphabet/#sthash.sLnYcu9z.dpuf

Okay, I know I’m show­ing my geeky gamer girl side, but I love, love, love this book, and I think today’s young (and not-so-young) read­ers will, too!
It’s an alpha­bet book, of course, which means the infor­ma­tion is orga­nized by let­ter. With­in that con­straint, Bar­ton some­how man­ages to work in a whole bunch of key con­cepts nec­es­sary to under­stand­ing video games. Some are expect­ed, such as “boss.” Oth­ers are more sur­pris­ing, like “instance.” In either case, read­ers will love see­ing the terms they’re more famil­iar with from the games they love play­ing, as well as the terms they’re less famil­iar with but may have run across in con­ver­sa­tions with friends. I’ve played a fair amount of video games in my life­time, and I was still very pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to learn a few new terms myself!
The art­work is bright and fun and helps illus­trate the con­cepts well. The illus­tra­tor tips a nos­tal­gic hat to old­er games that more grownup read­ers will appre­ci­ate, while at the same time ref­er­enc­ing enough cur­rent faves to delight younger gamers.
Check this one out, and then come back on Wednes­day for my inter­view with the author, Chris Bar­ton!
 
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday
(Dis­claimer: The review copy was won by the blog­ger as part of a pro­mo­tion­al giveaway.)

2014 Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) Conference

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I had a won­der­ful time pre­sent­ing with Mary Cronk Far­rell at the 2014 WLMA Con­fer­ence last Sat­ur­day! The title of our talk was “Fos­ter­ing 21st Cen­tu­ry Learn­ing with Today’s Non­fic­tion,” and we deliv­ered it to a room over­flow­ing with teacher/librarians (aren’t t/l’s the best!?) who were look­ing for new ideas and book recommendations.

Mary sharing BRAVE GIRL
Mary shar­ing BRAVE GIRL

Our pre­sen­ta­tion dis­cussed how much of the non­fic­tion being pub­lished now is so much more than “just” its sub­ject. There are inno­v­a­tive for­mats, emo­tion­al­ly-charged sto­ries, cross-dis­ci­pline explo­rations, etc. A just-the-facts approach sim­ply won’t be pub­lished these days, as kids have easy access to infor­ma­tion in a vari­ety of for­mats AND are faced with so many options com­pet­ing for their atten­tion. This makes non­fic­tion a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pelling choice for stu­dents in and out of the class­room or library setting.
Mary presentingMary and I took turns shar­ing some of our favorite recent non­fic­tion titles–including Mary’s PURE GRIT and my BE A CHANGEMAKER and EMMANUEL’S DREAM– and how we felt they could be used in the library or class­room to achieve mul­ti­ple learn­ing goals simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, includ­ing cov­er­ing core cur­ricu­lum sub­jects, social-emo­tion­al learn­ing, prob­lem solv­ing and crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion, infor­ma­tion and media lit­er­a­cy, and tech­nol­o­gy skills. We got the librar­i­ans talk­ing to us and to each oth­er, and we even had them try out some exer­cis­es they might use with their stu­dents. (Let me tell you, those librar­i­ans can write, too!)
Since sev­er­al atten­dees asked for our slides, here is the deck we used in our talk, and, since we ran out of hand­outs due to the over­whelm­ing atten­dance, here is the hand­out that we passed out with the list of books referenced.
Speaker goodie cup
Speak­er good­ie cup!
Thanks so much for hav­ing us, WLMA! Thanks so much for the book love and ded­i­ca­tion you put into your work each and every day, teacher/librarians! And, thanks, Mary, for being such a great co-pre­sen­ter and mak­ing every­thing easy!
My dog, Prim
My dog, Prim, catch­ing up on some lap time
Of course, no mat­ter how much fun I have speak­ing at con­fer­ences like this, it’s always good to be home again.

Interview with Mary Cronk Farrell, author of PURE GRIT

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PURE GRIT book cover

I have a con­fes­sion to make. Nor­mal­ly I read every book before I post about it here, but–just this once–I was going to cheat. As much as I’ve been dying to read PURE GRIT by Mary Cronk Far­rell, my to-do list is huge right now: writ­ing new books (I’m cur­rent­ly work­ing on EIGHT sep­a­rate man­u­scripts and/or pro­pos­als!), pro­mot­ing BE A CHANGEMAKER, vol­un­teer projects (SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton con­fer­ence any­one? There are still a few spaces!), cri­tiques (three full-length nov­els await!), fam­i­ly, pets, home… and let’s not for­get, TAXES! To top it off, I was still recov­er­ing from the flu when I came down with this most recent cold. I’m months behind on a few things, with many oth­er dead­lines loom­ing dead ahead. So, I sat down plan­ning to just skim it for the time being, write the post, and come back lat­er when I had time to set­tle in, read it in more detail, and take it all in.

PURE GRIT book cover
PURE GRIT book cover

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Cybils nonfiction picture book roundup #2

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My fel­low judges and I are still hard at work try­ing to final­ize our round one short­list for the Cybils non­fic­tion pic­ture book cat­e­go­ry. It’s a dif­fi­cult task because there are so many great books this year! Here are some reviews of some of my per­son­al favorites (Note: I had many, MANY favorites this year). I enjoyed and would rec­om­mend all of these.
 

LITTLE DOG LOST : THE TRUE STORY OF A BRAVE DOG NAMED BALTIC by Môni­ca Car­ne­si (Nan­cy Paulsen Books/Penguin)
This is the true sto­ry of a name­less dog seen float­ing on a piece of ice down a riv­er in Poland. Ini­tial attempts to save the dog fail, and he is washed out to sea. For­tu­nate­ly, the crew onboard a research ves­sel sees him and final­ly suc­ceeds in res­cu­ing the dog and nurs­ing him back to health. The sto­ry is told in sim­ple but engag­ing text with delight­ful illus­tra­tions. I think kids and dog lovers of all ages will love this book. I know I did!
 

NORTH : THE AMAZING STORY OF ARCTIC MIGRATION by Nick Dow­son, illus­trat­ed by Patrick Ben­son (Can­dlewick)
This beau­ti­ful book is firm­ly on my list of all-time favorite non­fic­tion pic­ture books. Rather than talk about why ani­mals migrate south for the win­ter, this book looks at the flip side: why and how they come back from all over the world to live in the Arc­tic the rest of year. It presents a wide vari­ety of ani­mals, includ­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of land mam­mals, birds, whales, and fish. The art­work is stun­ning, the text is both fac­tu­al and lyri­cal, and the lay­out max­i­mizes the effect on each on every page. This is about as per­fect a nature book as I could imag­ine. High­ly recommended!
 

THERE GOES TED WILLIAMS: THE GREATEST HITTER WHO EVER LIVED by Matt Tavares (Can­dlewick)
This is anoth­er beau­ti­ful book by Can­dlewick. What I enjoyed most about this book is that the love the author has for his sub­ject comes through on every page, in both the text and the illus­tra­tions. Even if you’re not a big base­ball fan (which, admit­ted­ly, I’m not), there is still a lot to love about this book, espe­cial­ly Ted Williams’ admirable per­se­ver­ance and ded­i­ca­tion to his sport. The author’s note explains that Williams wasn’t per­fect, which makes him even more human. There’s also a bib­li­og­ra­phy and, for true base­ball fans, a detailed table of Williams’ career stats.
 

EGGS 1, 2, 3: WHO WILL THE BABIES BE? by Janet Half­mann, illus­trat­ed by Bet­sy Thomp­son (Blue Apple)
I thought this was one of the stand-out books for younger kids, teach­ing num­ber recog­ni­tion and count­ing as well as intro­duc­ing a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent ani­mals that hatch from eggs and what those eggs look like. The text is appro­pri­ate­ly sim­ple but descrip­tive and inter­est­ing, with the repeat­ed ques­tion, “Who will the babies be?” and a fold-out page pro­vid­ing the answer for each num­ber 1–10. The col­lage art­work gives the pages a rich, three-dimen­sion­al look and adds tons of visu­al inter­est. My only com­plaint with this book is that I don’t think the num­bers match how many eggs the ani­mals might real­ly have (nine frog eggs, for exam­ple), so it’s a bit mis­lead­ing in that regard, but it does such a won­der­ful job of achiev­ing its oth­er goals that I’m will­ing to let that detail slide.
 

A LEAF CAN BE… by Lau­ra Pur­die Salas, illus­trat­ed by Vio­le­ta Dabi­ja (Millbrook/Lerner)
This is a decep­tive­ly sim­ple, but real­ly quite inge­nious, rhyming poem about all of the dif­fer­ent things a leaf can do or be used for through­out the year. The glow­ing illus­tra­tions pro­vide the per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment as well as an expla­na­tion of each line of the poem, plus there’s a sec­tion at the end of the book with even more details. I think young kids will love this book and it will open their eyes to a whole new appre­ci­a­tion of the nature all around them. Well done!
 
Dis­claimer: All of these books were obtained from my amaz­ing local pub­lic library system. 

2012 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book report #1

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Phew! Now that I got my revi­sion done and sent in, I can get back to read­ing Cybils nom­i­nees in the non­fic­tion pic­ture book cat­e­go­ry that I am judg­ing. Last year I wrote up longer reviews of only a few of the Cybils nom­i­nees. This year I’m going to try to write many more, but short­er, reviews. Rather than offer com­pre­hen­sive reviews, the goal will be to cap­ture my ini­tial impres­sions and thoughts. So, here comes the first batch!
 

BALLOONS OVER BROADWAY by Melis­sa Sweet (Houghton Mifflin)
This is a won­der­ful book that should appeal to all kinds of kids, across a wide age range, and with many dif­fer­ent inter­ests. The art­work is stun­ning. The sto­ry of Tony Sarg and the begin­nings of the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade pup­pets is one that need­ed to be told, and this book tells it art­ful­ly, illus­trat­ing the man’s cre­ativ­i­ty as well as hard work and ded­i­ca­tion. Enter­tain­ing, inspir­ing, and educational—all rolled into one beau­ti­ful package.
 

BROTHERS AT BAT by Audrey Ver­nick (Clar­i­on)
This is the true sto­ry of the Acer­ra fam­i­ly and their 12-mem­ber all-broth­er base­ball team. Base­ball fans espe­cial­ly will love this heart­felt telling of the family’s tra­vails and tri­umphs, both on the field and off, but the expert­ly told fam­i­ly sto­ry offers some­thing for every­one. The text and art work togeth­er beau­ti­ful­ly to bring the his­tor­i­cal peri­od to life.
 

A PLACE FOR BATS by Melis­sa Stew­art (Peachtree)
Okay, I have to admit that I have a bit of a bat pho­bia. On a ratio­nal lev­el, I know they’re help­ful and I’m glad they’re out there, but I real­ly don’t like hav­ing to think about them. Stew­art does an excel­lent job of rais­ing aware­ness about the impor­tance of bats as well as offer­ing ways peo­ple can help them thrive. The fas­ci­nat­ing illus­tra­tions are real­is­tic and not “cute-ified,” which did make me squirm a lit­tle, but Stewart’s text com­pen­sates by cre­at­ing sym­pa­thy for the crea­tures. Even as an adult read­er, I learned a lot about bats. This book would make a good sci­ence read-aloud for preschool and ear­ly ele­men­tary grades. And maybe those kids won’t devel­op an irra­tional bat pho­bia like mine!
 

ANNIE AND HELEN by Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son (Schwartz and Wade)
I love Deb­o­rah Hopkinson’s work, and the sto­ry of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sul­li­van, has always fas­ci­nat­ed me, so I was excit­ed to see this one in the nom­i­na­tion list. It didn’t dis­ap­point. Told spar­ing­ly and through pri­ma­ry sources, it focus­es on the ear­ly rela­tion­ship between the two women and on Sullivan’s strug­gles to break through Keller’s bar­ri­ers. The art adds a beau­ti­ful, his­tor­i­cal feel to the text, and the book ends on a tri­umphant note with Keller’s first writ­ten let­ter home.
 

BON APPETIT! by Jessie Hart­land (Schwartz and Wade)
This is a deli­cious biog­ra­phy of Julia Child! Although a tad over­whelm­ing and busy at first glance, the art and text quick­ly draw read­ers in and hook them, and read­ing it becomes a reward­ing adven­ture. Hart­land uses ener­gy, humor, and com­pas­sion to fol­low Child’s life sto­ry from child­hood on in a style that mim­ics her per­son­al­i­ty and how she lived her life. Jam-packed with facts and enter­tain­ing details, this longer pic­ture book with fas­ci­nate old­er pic­ture-book readers.

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