Milo’s Hat Trick by Jon Agee

Milo the Magnificent has a problem; he’s just not all that magnificent. “He botched his card trick. He tangled his rope trick. And his hat trick was just pathetic.”  Given one last chance to improve his act Milo goes off to find a rabbit; instead he catches a bear.  Luckily for Milo this bear may be just the thing he needs to save his act and keep his job!  What is this mysterious trick and what happens when a country bear meets the big city?  Check out Milo’s Hat Trick and find out!  Other great books by Jon Agee include Terrific, Nothing, The Retired Kid and The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau.  If you like fun, simple kids books with just a touch of quirky, you should give Jon Agee a try! –ek

“Shwatsit!” by Christin Ditchfield

No, this isn’t a new slang word. Anyone who has been around a toddler knows how confusing it can be to decipher their emerging language. “Shwatsit!” tells the story of one such toddler, who calls out this special word with animation throughout her day. Her family tries to figure out exactly what “Shwatsit!” means. “No one knows just what it means. It could be ‘eggs’ or ‘toast’ or ‘beans,’” the story’s author muses. The illustrations by Rosalind Beardshaw are simple yet engaging and help to provide clues to this mysterious new word. Her older brother finally figures it out. Read this easy book to see just how clever this little toddler and her older brother are!

African-American History Online, presented by Facts on File, offers lots of great information for students of history.  Biographies, primary sources, timelines, images and videos, and maps and charts, are some of the entry points into this database.

To access it, visit www.planolibrary.org, then click Research.  Choose Facts on File, then on the next page, choose African-American History Online.

At the home page, if you search “I Have a Dream” you will receive 760 hits.  The hits are organized by tabs according to type, or simply look to your right on the screen and you will see how the listing is categorized.  Choose the “primary source” tab and you can quickly find the text to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech.  The citation information is also available, as well as a link to “how to” cite!

Facts on File is just one of the many databases that PPLS subscribes to on your behalf.  Try it out!

 

Storytimes start next week! Join us for a fun time with books, songs, rhymes, and more. There is a storytime for all ages!

If you are returning to storytime, there are a few changes in this session: no registration is required for any of the storytimes! Also, Tales for Twos is now Toddler Time and open to children aged 18-36 months.

Rhyme Time – 0-24 months

Songs, nursery rhymes, and books provide a language-rich experience for the youngest child. Active parent/caregiver participation is a must!

Toddler Time – 18-36 months 

Age-appropriate books, flannel stories, rhymes, and puppets encourage interaction, introduction to words and their sound and simple concepts for the active toddler. Parent/caregiver participation is required.

Preschool Storytime – ages 3 and up

Age-appropriate books, flannel stories, rhymes, puppets, and storytelling reinforce early literacy skills such as letter sounds, vocabulary, narrative skills, and a love of books and reading for the pre-reading child. Parent/caregiver participation is encouraged.

Family Storytime – all ages

An interactive program for all ages with books, flannel stories, rhymes, puppets, and songs to encourage a love of reading and the library. Parent/caregiver participation required.

Chinese/English Bilingual Storytime – all ages

This once-a-month storytime includes stories, songs, and more in Chinese and English.

Visit our website for the complete schedule, or click here.

In her logical voice, Emma Jean returns in Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love.  Her methodical ways, and her tendency to view her classmates as anthropological cases worthy of study, lend a unique voice to this character. She finds comfort in her parakeet, Henri, and in her warm family environment. Although her father is much missed since his death, her mother and Vikram, the student who rents a room and cooks amazing things with curry, are a steady presence in her life. This time around, Emma Jean learns that love is unpredictable and not easy to pin down. She sees love blossom between her mother and Vikram, and helps her friend Colleen find a date for the Spring Fling.

I adore this character, her amusing ways, her good heart, and the tender way in which the story is written.   To me, it’s one of the better books I’ve read this past year! 

Readers will also enjoy Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree, the first book about this quirky female character.

Are your little ones learning about colors?  I came across two books recently that are just right for younger children.

Wow! said the owl by Tim Hopgood features a little owl who stays awake all day and is amazed by the world of color.  Your little one will love to chime in and say, “wow!,” with the little owl who sees a pink morning, yellow sun, orange flowers and big beautiful rainbow.

Knock!  Knock! by Anna-Clara Tidholm is another book that begs participation from your child.  What will the boy find behind the big blue front door of the little red house?  Simply “knock!, knock!,” as you pass from room to room and page to page!

It’s science fair season! If you and your child are looking for up-to-date, comprehensive information for his or her project, consider visiting Science Online, presented by Facts on File. This wonderful database offers thousands of diagrams, essays, project ideas, and definitions of science terms perfect for science fair projects.

To access it, visit www.planolibrary.org, then click Research. Choose Facts on File, then on the next page, choose Science Online.

One of Science Online’s best kept secrets is printable experiment instruction sheets, include quick listings for time required, recommended ages, adult supervision needed, with the steps of the experiment in a downloadable PDF. It also offers a list of suggested searches for finding more information on a topic.

 

Diagrams on nearly any science topic provide easy reference or illustrations for reports – and the citation information is clearly listed on each entry!

 

Science Online has tons of other great resources. Spend some time searching for your child’s science topic and you’ll likely find all the information you need to complete the project.

Databases like Facts on File are online resources, but they are not “the internet.” Facts on File is a respected reference publisher that happens to make their resources available online to subscribers. PPLS subscribes, so you do, too!

Ask the librarian in your building for more tips on using Science Online or any other Facts on File database.

Here are photos of some of the works of art created by Plano Library patrons during the Gladys Harrington Lego Build Dec. 31. More than 100 patrons came to build New Year’s Eve for this first-ever Plano Lego Build. The next one is scheduled from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 28, at Harrington Library.

 

All this cold weather has inspired me to blog about some of my favorite wintry picture books!  Get some hot chocolate, snuggle up, and check these out: 

 
Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
Need inspiration to help you create a really cool snowman?  In this story, kids use strawberries, raisins, strings, pinecones, plastic forks, buttons, leaves and lots of other fun stuff.

 
 

  

Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester
Get ready for the REAL Olympic games by reading this new “Tacky the Penguin” adventure.  Cheer for Tacky and his friends as they train hard for bobsledless racing and the speed skating relay race.  Will they win?  Read and find out!  

 

 

Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London
Have you ever noticed how much work it is to put on your coat, hat, gloves, mittens, and boots to go outside in the winter?  You’ll laugh when you discover what very important piece of clothing Froggy forgets!   

Mouse’s First Snow by Lauren Thompson
This sweet, simple picture book is the perfect introduction to snow play for toddlers.   Mouse and his Poppa have a wonderful time sledding, skating, making angel wings, and building a snow mouse.    

 

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
This is one of my very favorite picture books.  It’s fun to read aloud because the reader gets to do LOTS of snoring and other silly sound effects.

A few years ago, we started seeing books that were neither chapter books nor graphic novels, but somewhere in the middle. These hybrids are great for reluctant readers, who are often drawn in by the comic book-style chapters, but end up staying for the stories, and are a whole lot of fun to read, even if you’re not reluctant. These three series have terrific beginnings and promise to be ones you and your child want to stick with.

 Dopple Ganger Chronicles: The First Escape by G.P. Taylor

In this first book of the series, Saskia Dopple is sent to live with a slightly sinister-seeming foster mother while her twin sister, Sadie, is forced to stay at the decidedly sinister orphanage. The girls work to reunite themselves while outsmarting their malevolent guardians. What really makes this book succeed, though, is the seamless transition between text and art. Many of the action scenes are done in comic book-style panels, while most of the plot advancing is done in plain (or slightly embellished) text.

 The Prince of Underwhere by Bruce Hale

A natural next step for fans of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series, The Prince of Underwhere covers a lot of the same type of humor. After the two main characters’ great aunt disappears, the family receives some of her belongings. The cat escapes with a letter, and, while chasing him, Zeke and Stephanie fall down a hole and find themselves in Underwhere. The residents of Underwhere (who, naturally, wear their underwear on the outside) believe that Zeke has arrived to fulfill a prophecy and set him to work. This book has spies, zombies, dinosaurs… it’s fun stuff. And again, it has a nice mix of comics and text – while in Underwhere, the story is told in comics. In the regular world, it’s told in prose.

 Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight

Franklin Lorenzo Piccolini has an active imagination. He’s been can do anything as his alter-ego, Frankie Pickle. When his mom asks him to clean his room, he does, but ends up doing battle with a giant robot in the process, and the room ends up even messier than it started. They strike a deal where he doesn’t have to clean, as long as he deals with whatever results on his own. This book, the first in a planned series is fast-paced and packed with clever pop culture references. Like the others mentioned in this list, it moves cleanly between text and comic book-style chapters.