Black and White Brought Me Back

Because my parents are the greatest grandparents in the world, they have taken my three children to Maine with them for four days so I can lesson plan and prepare for my new teaching gig. Because I am the world's worst procrastinator, I am posting here on the blog. Don't be frightened by the dust and cobwebs- I know it's been awhile since I've written here. The summer has been an embarrassment of riches- hiking, biking, swimming, job interviewing, reading, and refereeing fights between the kids. Earlier today I did begin to focus on the curriculum for my junior English class which has a unit on modernism and postmodernism and I had an Alleluia moment. For years I have wanted to find a way to bring David Macaulay's picture book Black and White into the classroom. It is nonlinear, challenging, full of puns, and perfect for postmodernism. So now I will take my leave of this blog to go back to lesson planning, but not until I advise you to check out Macaulay's brilliant postmodern picture book. Read it with a kid you like. It will give you plenty to discuss!

A Shortlist on St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays. As a lover of carbohydrates (soda bread, potatoes, green bagels) it's a no-brainer. I also like to affect a brogue and green is one of my better colors so it makes sense. There are also many great picture books based on Irish myths and legends that I've enjoyed with my children over the years. Our favorite is Tomie dePaola's Finn McCoul which I mentioned here a few weeks ago when deciding on a read aloud book for my son's fifth grade class. dePaola's Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato and Jamie O"Rourke and the Pooka are also fun reads for the three to nine year old set.

For older readers, eight to twelve years old, Marie Heaney's The Names Upon the Harp is a lovely book of Irish myths and legends illustrated by P.J. Lynch. P.J. Lynch is worth an Amazon search of his own as everything he illustrates is beautiful.

For contemporary Irish fiction for that same age group I of course recommend Eoin Colfer. I think I have made it clear in this blog that his Artemis Fowl books are utter brilliance. His Half Moon Investigations about the somewhat inept twelve year old private investigator Fletcher Moon, set in a modern Irish suburb, is great fun. I've read that the BBC made a TV series of this book, and I'm curious to view it.

For adults looking for a compelling story wrapped up in the history of twentieth century Ireland, Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture is perfect. My book club read this one in the fall and I have not stopped thinking about it or giving it as a gift. It is sad and wonderful at the same time, telling the story of Roseanne (Clear) McNulty an Irish woman sent to a mental institution for the bulk of her life. The book begins as the institution is about to close and her doctor needs to place her somewhere. Her story and their relationship grow from there. Roseanne's personal story and fate are tangled up in the national story and fate. Loved it!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We Have A Winner!

Today was the big day. I went in for my turn as guest reader in my son's fifth grade class. After much hemming and hawing (I hear you; I need a hobby), I chose Lane Smith's brilliant picture book, John, Paul, George & Ben. It takes hilarious liberty with snippets of history about John Hancock, Paul Revere, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. It met the requirements of being short, entertaining, and not at all babyish. Since my son's class has been studying the American Revolution in social studies it seemed like the perfect choice. There were giggles and laughs and audience participation at the end when I quizzed the students with the true and false questions Smith provides to set the record straight. In it we learned that while Benjamin Franklin did invent bifocals and the Franklin stove, he did not invent PlayStation76. This book is a lot of fun for kids who know a bit of American history. Without that bit of background, the humor is lost.

In other business, I know that I have not done a Foodie Friday post here in months. I'm not sure if I will start it up again. It is worth noting, however, that I am currently reading Ree Drummond's The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook. Last night I was inspired to make her "Comfort Meatballs" (pages 172-173). Some people sing for their supper; last night I sang to my supper. To know, know, know you is to love, love, love you... Delicious! Next up from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: "Simple, Perfect Enchiladas" (pages 176-178).

It was inevitable. My holiday stress and hormone levels reached the tipping point this week. After a few ridiculously busy weeks of work and motherhood and Christmas shopping, I was in the car with a dangerously full bladder and racing to meet my six year old's school bus when John Denver and the Muppets began singing "Silent Night." I immediately began weeping loudly. So I've reached that point in the pre-Christmas frenzy where just about anything can make me cry, throw up my hands, or bang my head against a wall. Luckily, I got the good kind of tear in my eye from our annual reading of The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey. It is such a beautiful book. I won't go into great detail about it now, as I believe I posted about it last December. It is just too wonderful for words anyhow. I will say this, however, the copy we own is pictured below, but the second photo here has a different cover. That cover includes my favorite illustration from the book.


That picture comes about midway through the book, the exact point when a lump forms in my throat and I have to pause in my read aloud to find tissues. My children love this book too, and reading it is a favorite holiday tradition. Speaking of holiday traditions, perhaps we instituted a new one. As soon as we set up and decorated our Christmas tree and decorated it last weekend, we sat in its glow and my husband and I taught the kids how to play poker, because nothing says Christmas memory like a good game of Texas Hold 'Em.

Not So Starving Artist

I've always loved Jan Brett's books, especially The Mitten and the Christmasy ones. This piece in the NY Times makes me like her all the more. It also makes me a little jealous.

Frog and Toad Are Friends of Mine!

Recently I found myself shopping for a small gift to give a three year old girl who just became a big sister. Arnold Lobel's sweet and funny Frog and Toad Are Friends fit the bill perfectly. When my six year old son came home from school last week saying he needs to read for twenty minutes each day as homework, I headed to the library to check out a whole stack of Frog and Toad books. When he saw them, Ethan told me, "You rock, Mom!" I'm sorry, but life doesn't get much sweeter than that. Although listening to him giggle his way through Frog and Toad Together last night was pretty great also. He loved how Toad lost his mind when he lost his list of things to do. Toad couldn't chase after the list because that wasn't one of the things written on the list of things to do. Don't we all love a good neurotic?! Arnold Lobel was a genius, and by the way, he illustrated the Miss Suzy book I mentioned back in Old School week.

Old School Week

My son' s homework for first grade this weekend was to find his favorite book from home to bring to school and share with his classmates. The students are not expected to read the books to the class, just share why they like them. I think that's great; I love a good book talk. The assignment got my husband and I talking about favorite books of ours from when we were Ethan's age. We both loved Caps for Sale. Who doesn't? We both remembered a book about an old man whose beard grows so long that birds build nests in it, but unfortunately we could not remember the title. Bill remembers loving Millions of Cats. That book never really did it for me, but oh, how I loved Miss Suzy! I dreamed of that book as a girl and read it so much! It is the story of a gray squirrel who is driven out of her oak tree home by some very mean red squirrels. Thank heavens she finds a doll house to live in and some toy soldiers to befriend. I haven't read it in years, but am now inspired to find a copy. Ethan chose the first Nate the Great book to share with his fellow first graders. All this strolling down literary memory lane has made me declare this Old School Week here at the Book Bench, celebrating books and things I loved back in the day-o. Feel free to comment with your old school favorites!

Foodie Friday Tidbits

A number of blogs I read run a Random Thoughts Tuesday feature. Today's post here could be called Random Friday Foodie Book Stuff. First, we got a hold of Eric A. Kimmel's fun new picture book, The Three Little Tamales, that I wrote about here several Fridays ago. It is a retelling of the three little pigs story featuring adorable tamales. My older kids have read it aloud several times to my six year old son. It begs to be read with accents and silly voices.

We've also recently read Wiggens Learns His Manners at the Four Seasons Restaurant about a cute little puppy who learns some etiquette lessons. It would probably be best for a preschooler or kindergartner read together with an adult.

My last bit of Foodie Friday randomness (besides mentioning that I need to get to the grocery store pronto) is that I flipped through Roy Finamore's new cookbook, Tasty, just before bed last night. It is filled with scrumptious sounding recipes that seem relatively simple and don't call for too many ingredients. I had several food dreams last night, including one about sundried tomatoes and crusty French bread which made me drool all over the pillowcase. Sadly, when I woke up this morning, Cornflakes and frozen waffles were my only breakfast options. As I said, I must get to the food store.

Have a great weekend!

The Clever Stick

One afternoon this week, I read John Lechner's new book, The Clever Stick, to my kids while they ate lunch, my daughter reread it herself, and then I read it to everybody again. It's a short book and I don't provide especially large lunches. According to my daughter, "It's short and sweet, but it has a point." Get it? A point? It's about a stick. Hyuk. Hyuk. The Clever Stick tells of a stick that is quite clever; it appreciates beauty, enjoys poetry, and solves math problems. There was just one problem in that the stick can't speak and its cleverness goes unnoticed. This was the point which inspired the most discussion from my kids. Is it important that other people recognize your talents? Passionate opinions were expressed. Fortunately for the stick, he learns to draw in the sand, and the world, or at least the plants and animals where he lives, appreciates what he can do with his "voice." The whimsy of this quiet fable appealed to my ten year old son and he and his six year old brother agree that this is "the kind of book they read in school." I believe the "they" means teachers and librarians. I agree with them and think it would be a nice addition to a kindergarten and first grade classroom library.

Foodie Friday: Tamales

I have not yet read this book; I just want to because

a) How cute is that bespectacled tamale?
b) I love the idea of anthropomorphized tamales!
c) It's a retelling of a fun classic, The Three Little Pigs.
d) It's fun to say "hot tamales."

Foodie Friday- Apples and Oranges: Going Bananas with Pairs

This fun picture book is what I like to call a tongue loosener. It gets readers talking. Author and illustrator Sara Pinto opens with a nice picture of an apple and an orange and the question, "How are an apple and an orange alike?" The reader might answer that they are both fruit, they are both food, or they both grow on trees. Turn the page and Pinto answers her own question with an illustration of the fruit now bespectacled and the words, "They both don't wear glasses." Guess how a book and a letter are alike? They both don't go out for sushi. At first, readers want to answer the "alike" questions practically, but then start having fun coming up with wacky answers more like Pinto's. In addition to its wonderful title, Apples and Oranges: Going Bananas with Pairs presents a number of food and utensil pairings that made it my Foodie Friday pick for this week. It's a silly good read for preschool through first or second graders.

Play Ball!

To celebrate Major League baseball's opening day, I've got a lineup of some of my favorite baseball books new and old. My most recent discovery is B is for Baseball: Running the Bases from A to Z. The text of this wonderful ABC book is written by Sara Gillingham. It is much better than your run of the mill alphabet book. B is for Baseball is an interesting primer on the game incorporating original artwork and archival photos to present rules, history, and trivia. I think it would appeal to a wide range of ages, from about four to nine or ten. So would Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man, a gorgeous and inspiring picture book written by David Adler and illustrated by Terry Widener. That duo has the Midas touch. Their books on Gertrude Ederle and Joe Louis are equally good at combining great stories with American history and fantastic artwork.

Another inspiring baseball book is We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. Kadir Nelson's words and paintings have created a compelling experience in this book. I don't know what audience to say this book is for. Clearly it is a picture book, but I can't imagine an adult who wouldn't be riveted by the artwork and story. Kadir Nelson paints a picture of the dignity, heroism, and athleticism of the players of the league and presents the history of segregation for his readers. The title comes from a quote by Rube Foster, the founder of the National Negro League, "We are the ship; all else the sea."

Since we're on the topic of American history, I have to mention an old favorite of mine that I used when teaching high school students about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It is Baseball Saved Us written by Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by Dom Lee. It begins, "One day, my dad looked out at the endless desert and decided then and there to build a baseball field." It is a very different field of dreams; one of stolen dreams actually. This book always provided me a solid "in" to discussing the internment camps before we started reading heavier, more adult writing about it.

Last on deck is a new piece of baseball fiction, Six Innings, by James Preller, author of the beloved Jigsaw Jones books. Six Innings, a well written, character driven baseball story, is written for readers a bit older than Jigsaw Jones fans. I would say it is best for baseball fans between the ages of nine and thirteen. It tells the story of a championship game between two Little League teams and the backstory about the players as well.

It's officially baseball season and you should be out there watching a game, playing in one, or just having a catch outside, but if rain should cancel those activities, I recommend checking out any or all of these baseball books.

Thanks A Lot!

I'd like to send a big fat thank you to my friend Anne for recently recommending a book to me. Hopefully you read that thank you with lots of sarcasm. Anne never told me it would make me cry. Let me back up and tell you that I probably only wear makeup one day a week. It's not a specific day of the week, it's usually just whichever day of the week I am going to be seen by the greatest number of people. I'm lazy and not very good at applying makeup, but as I get older, my nose keeps getting redder and redder which is making me look like I've hit the bottle a bit too much over the years. This is ironic, as I drink alcohol even less frequently than I wear makeup. So one or two days a week I slap on some foundation, mascara, and lipstick before heading out the door. Back to Anne. At a St. Patrick's Day party this year, she mentioned a picture book, Mars Needs Moms!, she had read by Berkeley Breathed. You remember him from Bloom County and Opus. Anne described it as not necessarily a book for new moms but for the one who's been at it awhile and realizes that her relationship with her child might not be perfect but that's okay. She failed to mention that if I picked it up from my library, had it in the car and happened to read it in the fifteen minutes that I arrived early to volunteer in my son's classroom (on my weekly cosmetics day) that I would go into the classroom looking like a raccoon with a WC Fields nose. Like I said, thanks a lot!

Sarcasm aside, Mars Needs Moms! is a great picture book. It is very different in style and story than anything I've read in awhile. Young Milo doesn't see what's so special about moms. They force a kid to do chores and eat healthy foods, and they have lame senses of humor. Milo gets himself in trouble, is sent to his room, and dreams about Martians who come to Earth because they need moms. Martians , you see, are born motherless out of the ground, but, "They needed driving to soccer! And to ballet! And to playdates, parks, and pizza! Plus cooking and cleaning and dressing and packing lunches and bandaging boo boos!" Some Martians kidnap Milo's mom which is when the story gets really good in my opinion. It's about love and sacrifice and imperfectly wonderful relationships. I guess I should thank Anne with less sarcasm because I'm so glad I read it!

Pizza Friday!

It makes perfect sense that I would choose pizza as the focus of this Foodie Friday. It's in fact surprising I haven't used it on any past Fridays considering how many Friday nights I order it for dinner. By the end of a week of school, homework, sports, and activities, my mind and energy are often too fried to come up with a great dinner idea. Pizza and a salad makes a terrific default dinner. Pizza is the ideal food to serve kids. It's tasty, it includes three major food groups, it can be eaten without utensils, and let's hand it to God and the Italians for creating an entree that is so helpful in teaching fractions. Moreover, if you do like my dad did when I was a kid and tear the delivery box into plate sized pieces, you've got no dishes to clean. It's no wonder there are so many kids' books on the topic. For this Foodie Friday, I'm going to share a beloved old family favorite and a fun new find. We've had Pizza Pat on our bookshelves since my eight and ten year olds were toddlers. It has been joyfully read so many times it is now held together with Scotch tape and hope. This easy reader by Rita Golden Gelman and illustrated by Will Terry tells the story of a pizza baked by chef Pat and stolen by a bunch of rats in the style of a cumulative poem such as "The House That Jack Built." It is addictively fun to read such lines as "This is the oven 800 degrees, that cooked the pizza and melted the cheese that topped the sausages, spicy and choppy, that sat on the sauce, all gooey and gloppy, that covered the dough, all stretchy and floppy, that lay in the tray that Pat bought." Pat and his pizza helped all three of my kids learn to read, making it as beloved and utilized as the phone number to our local pizzeria that delivers.

Our new literary pizza find is Tony and the Pizza Champions, a picture book energetically illustrated by Matthew Trueman and written by Tony Gemignani. Tony is, according to the dust jacket, "a world renowned pizza acrobat and chef." Tony and the Pizza Champions tells the story of the team he assembled to go to the World Pizza Championshp. Readers get a little geography as he criss crosses the USA to collect Mighty Mike and Strong Sean from Ohio, Silly Siler, a unicycling pizza chef from South Carolina, and Famous Joe, a sky high pizza tosser from New York City. Like any good team, the guys have to practice, and then they fly to Italy for the big competition. Gemignani the author uses this opportunity to show some of the many ways people eat pizza around the world, such as the Brazilians who like ketchup on their pies and the Swedes who enjoy them with coleslaw on the side. This is one of several features of the book that would make it a fun elementary school classroom read. Happily, the book ends with Tony and his team winning the world championship, and it includes recipes and illustrated instructions for tossing pizza dough. The process is pretty nicely explained in the book, but you can also check Tony out on YouTube.

Buon appetito!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Top of the morning to you! And a chilly morning it is here in New Jersey! The kids and I nearly froze our Blarney stones off waiting for the school bus this morning! Although my husband and I have a fair amount of Irish ancestry between us, we don't really have many Irish customs in our home. However, we've got a few St. Patrick's Day traditions the kids would mutiny over if we forgot them. First, the kids dress themselves head to toe in green. It may not be the most flattering color, but they earn points for enthusiasm. Their lunch boxes hold green finger Jello (aka Jello Jigglers and Knox Blocks) shamrocks wrapped in waxed paper. Why the waxed paper? Because that's how my mom sent finger jello in my lunch box. Finally, no Saint Patrick's Day goes by without a reading of Fin M'Coul. I know there are a number of versions of this story in print, but I prefer Tomie dePaolas's for the little tiny fairies and sheep hidden on every page and because I relate to " the great lovely lass, Oonagh," Fin's giant wife in this telling of the story. I've been five feet seven inches since the eighth grade and have a number of short girlfriends. In college one friend's dad referred to me as "the big girl." So, you can imagine how I root for Oonagh as she cleverly outwits the mean giant Cucullin. She dresses Fin up as a baby and passes him off as her child, saying to Cucullin who plans to beat him up, "That may not be as easy as you think. Fin M'Coul's a big broth of a man. Why, take a look at our little baby and you might be gettin' an idea of the strength and breadth of Fin himself." Of course I always deliver Oonagh's lines in my best brogue. Last week I was the guest reader in my daughter's class, giving my best thick as soda bread brogue, praying that the three Irish women from my book club with kids in the same school weren't in the hallways and thanking goodness my friends Marjorie and Patrick live in Dublin far from my performance. I fear they might all have cringed at the inauthenticity. But, like my kids self styled in green today, hopefully I get some points for enthusiasm. Have a fantastic day in whatever way you celebrate!

Duck! Rabbit!

I have tried on my shopping list/teacher note/scrap paper book above to recreate for you some of the doodlings of my youth. Back when I was in elementary and middle school, all of my textbooks had to be covered. There were no Book Socks then. We used brown paper shopping bags- the perfect canvas for doodles and scribblings. If only Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenfeld's fun and clever Duck! Rabbit! had been around in my youth, you can bet your Sharpie markers my notebooks and grocery bag sheathed textbooks would have been covered in duck/rabbit doodles. Apparently, the is it a duck or is it a rabbit visual puzzle has been around for years, but it's new to me and my family. This delightful picture book presents two disembodied voices, one on the left side and one on the right, arguing whether the animal in the center is a duck or a rabbit. It begs to be read aloud to a group. It also tempts readers to draw their own duck/rabbits. This book is a big hit with my kids and their friends who have come by the house and picked it up off our book bench. Some of these kids say it's a duck, others say it's a rabbit, and all agree that the bar code turned into a zebra on the back cover is an excellent final note! How cute would this one be stuffed in an Easter basket?!

Foodie Friday: Spud Lover's Delight

Several weeks ago, I included Tomie dePaola's Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato on a Foodie Friday. It bears mentioning again with St. Patty's Day just around the corner, and it set me to thinking about other potato based books I know. Here are a few:
Potatoes, Potatoes is a great little antiwar picture book for preschool through third grade by Anita Lobel

The Greatest Potatoes is a fun historical fiction picture book written by Penelope Stowell and illustrated by Sharon Watts for that same age group.

For eight to twelve year olds, I highly recommend Patricia Reilly Giff's Nory Ryan's Song which deals with the potato famine in Ireland in the mid 1800's.

I'm no Martha Stewart, and certainly no one should be taking cooking lessons from me, but I recently tried a new (to me), easy and scrumptious way to make potatoes. I combined two recipes, one from a cooking show and one from a magazine, for Hasselback Potatoes. The result? Garlicky, buttery heaven on a fork. Jamie O'Rourke's neighbors might not have gotten tired of potatoes so soon had they tried these:

Christine's Hasselback Potatoes

14 small red waxy skinned potatoes

2 cloves garlic, sliced paper thin

1/4 cup butter melted with 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Clean potatoes.

2. Place one potato in the bowl of a large wooden spoon. Start at one end and make slices two thirds of the way through potato. Continue to end of potato. Stick two or three garlic slices in the potato slits. Repeat with all potatoes.

3. Place potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour melted butter/oil combo on top. Roll potatoes around to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for one hour.

4. For total decadence, serve with sour cream.

5. Enjoy!

The Theory of Relativity and Everything is Relative in Bedtime Reading

The used copy of The Hobbit that I ordered from Amazon.com has not yet arrived and my kids wanted me to read them something before bed as they had a rare night without basketball practice, an ice hockey game, or a compelling episode of American Idol. Rather than start a long book that would delay The Hobbit when it finally arrives, we read a short nonfiction book about Albert Einstein, not what I'd customarily choose for a prebedtime snuggle and read aloud, but it was surprisingly popular. Afterwards, the big kids went to read their own books in bed and I told six year old Ethan I would read one quick book from our shelves. He chose Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit (sigh). I adore this book and realized that although I've read it dozens of times, I don't think I've ever read it to him. I asked why he selected it, and Ethan told me that his kindergarten class recently watched a film version and it was "great." He must have paid attention to the movie, because as I first mentioned the Skin Horse, Ethan said, "He is so wise." I couldn't agree more, and in, fact, as always happens to me, my eyes filled up and a lump formed in my throat as I read these words:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. (By the way, maybe one or two little tears had now escaped and rolled down my face.) "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

So there I was, reading this in a trembling voice, and the back of my brain was thinking these words should be read at weddings and funerals and printed on Congratulations on Your New Baby cards, etc.., when Ethan stopped me, sagely nodding his head, to say, "The Skin Horse is so wise, not as wise as Yoda, but still very wise." Holy crap, I love that kid and the way his brain works so very differently from mine!

Attack Of the Giant Foods on Foodie Friday

Something about food falling from the sky or appearing in giant size appeals to the imagination and hunger in all of us. Kids especially love stories with enchanted foods. Think Willy Wonka or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Because of this, they inspire great writing from kids. Two that I think pair nicely for a writing lesson are Tomie de Paola's Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato and Robert Weinstock's Giant Meatball. In de Paola's story, a retelling of an Irish folktale, Jamie O'Rourke "tricks" a leprechaun into giving him a magic pratie (potato) seed which grows into the largest potato ever. It uproots his home and blocks traffic. The focus here is on plot and how the O'Rourkes and their neighbors deal with the situation. Giant Meatball is more about wordplay and language. A very large and very self absorbed meatball rolls through a "snoozy little town" creating all sorts of problems until he gets his comeuppance in the end. It's a fun story for little children but worth reading with students as old as fourth or fifth grade to examine Weinstock's word choices. His diction is kitchen-inspired. The librarian "stews" and the town marmalade maker "boils" at all the noise and trouble caused by the meatball. The mayor suggests that they ask him to be "a dash" more considerate and everything will be "peachy." This would be a great launching point for a lesson on word choice. What are some sports verbs, musical adjectives, or weather related words? Now use them in a poem. It might also inspire some imaginative essay and story writing. What giant food would you want to show up on your doorstep? Personally, I'd adore a massive, house sized doughnut in my driveway, but not powdered. I despise dusting!

Look for Joy in the Rink

A number of years ago, I went to visit my grandfather in the hospital after he had undergone surgery. I remember being very worried about him. He looked so small in the hospital gown and bed, and I wasn't sure how aware he was of what was going on or if he even knew I was there. He was such a sharp and proud person, he would not have wanted to appear confused or helpless. So I just sat there quietly in the room with him. There was all the usual daytime noise of a busy hospital going on in the hallway. In particular, the nurses all seemed to need someone by the name of Joy. Who knew if she was a candy striper, maintenance worker, therapist, or doctor? All I know is I kept hearing people loudly ask, "Has anyone seen Joy?" and "Where's Joy?" A nurse came in to fiddle with my grandpa's tubes. Another nurse ducked her head in the room and inquired of her, "Where should I look for Joy?" From his bed and without opening his eyes, my grandpop said, "Not in Mudville." My worrying ended and my love of the greatest sports poem ever, "Casey at the Bat," increased tenfold.
Marty Sederman has written a fast paced rhyming picture book about a pee wee ice hockey game inspired by the style of "Casey at the Bat." If for no other reason, I like Casey and Derek on the Ice because it gave me a chance to tell that story. It does also have some other strengths to recommend. It has lots of action and an underdog story, as well as exciting, spot on illustrations. Illustrator Zachary Pullen has definitely put in some hours at ice hockey rinks. His details are realistic from the black puck marks on the boards to the kids' names written on masking tape affixed to their helmets. Young hockey players will recognize and appreciate the attention to detail. It won't disappoint those who like a happy ending for the underdog.