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It's raining books, hallelujah!

The holiday season means an abundance of online "best books" lists, and here on Chicken Spaghetti I collect the ones for kids' books. The focus is on material published in 2015, although you'll find that a few lineups also incorporate titles from previous years. Some of them cover way more than children's books; a mention here means that somewhere on the list is at least one kids' category. I plan to update the big list regularly.

©Susan Thomsen, 2015.

Be sure to see the magnificent list of all 2015 book lists at Largehearted Boy.

AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize finalists. Science books. 

Amazon. Children.
Amazon. Young adult.

Booklist. Religion and spirituality.
Booklist. Arts.
Booklist. First novels.
Booklist. Romance fiction.

Boys' Life Book Zone

Goodreads. Graphic novels and comics. Some, not all, for children.
Goodreads. Middle grade.
Goodreads. Picture books.
Goodreads. Young adult fantasy and science fiction.
Goodreads. Young adult fiction.

Indigo (Canada)

Jefferson County (Colorad0) Public Library. Best monster books. Now we're talkin'.

New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books

Publishers Weekly. Comics. Some, not all, for children.
Publishers Weekly. Middle grade.
Publishers Weekly. Picture books.

TD Canadian Children's Literature Award shortlist

YALSA. Teens' top ten. PDF

By Johanna Slivinske

Think for a moment, back to when you were a teenager. What were you like? What did you enjoy doing? In what did you excel? The positive activities in which we partake in adolescence shape our adult lives. In my case, playing the clarinet in band and competing in extemporaneous speaking on the speech team molded me the most, and became my personal strengths.

Music and the creative arts continue to influence my writing and speaking, and many of these facets of my professional life can be traced back to strengths developed and built upon in my youth. Another strength was the fact that I had a loving, kind, and caring family. This provided me with a solid foundation for life, and in a sense, these protective factors in my life made me resilient. However, strengths can also be found in unexpected venues, perhaps peering through the cracks of hardship.

1.   Adolescents might find strengths through their failures in discovering that they are able to get back up after falling. When teens fail, and continue to try despite the failure, they show a level of resilience, diligence, and perseverance.
2.   The communities of adolescents, even if less than perfect, can be a source of strength. Creating dialogues about community leaders may benefit teens that need role models in their lives. It can help them figure out whom they aspire to be similar to in character and in positive personal qualities. A community leader can be anyone who functions as a responsible person in the community, or anyone else who cares about the well-being of the community as a whole.
3.   Acting out behaviors may be viewed through a strengths lens if those behaviors are a response to traumatic experiences such as community violence or sexual assault. The nonproductive response of acting out behaviors during adolescence may be reframed therapeutically as a survival mechanism or a stepping-stone leading toward a more productive path of healing and growth.
4.   Instead of viewing quirks, eccentricities, or diagnoses as negative qualities, these may sometimes be perceived as qualities that foster the creation of unique perspectives and promote divergent ways of understanding the world.
5.   When everyday necessities are lacking from adolescents’ lives, they may learn to be resourceful. Resourcefulness may entail surviving under extremely stressful circumstances or learning how to “make due” with limited resources. Teens may have learned how to cook for themselves, or they may have asked friends to share clothing with them. These are examples of using the strength of resourcefulness under difficult circumstances.

When working with adolescents and their families, it is essential to focus not only on their problems, but also on their strengths. This may sometimes present as a challenge, but if you search intensely, with an open mind, strengths may be identified and built upon as a solid foundation for life. This contributes to the fostering of resilience in adolescents and their families.

Hidden or obscured strengths, when perceived in a positive manner, may serve as methods of coping or means of survival during times of stress. Even when strengths are obvious to professionals, adolescent clients may not be aware of their own strengths, and may benefit from therapists’ ability to identify, recognize, and name them. Through working with adolescents, it’s possible to identify strengths and help them learn more about themselves and what makes them unique, so that they can grow to become productive members of their communities.

Johanna Slivinske is co-author of Therapeutic Storytelling for Adolescents and Young Adults (2014). She currently works at PsyCare and also teaches in the Department of Social Work at Youngstown State University, where she is also affiliated faculty for the Department of Women’s Studies.

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Image credit: Chambre de jeune français. Photo by NdeFrayssinet. CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Identifying unexpected strengths in adolescents appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Let it snow! For those of us who love a good list, the last two months of the year bring a flurry of online "best of the year" roundups of books. Starting in 2008, I've been collecting the lists for children's books, including links to various newspapers, magazines, journals, and blogs, as well as different literature prizes and awards given out. I update the big list often.

Here is a link to this year's page:

The Best Children's Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards

Also, David Gutowski collects all the "best of" lists for books (for grown-ups and kids alike) at his blog, Largehearted Boy.

Meanwhile, speaking of snow, don't miss Kids' Science Books for Stormy Weather, at Scientific American's Budding Scientist blog.

If you are like me and forgot to watch the announcement on the "Morning Joe" show, Publishers Weekly has the scoop. 

The nominees for the Young People's Literature prize are as follows:

William Alexander, Goblin Secrets

Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach

Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down

Eliot Schrefer, Endangered 

Steve Sheinkin, Bomb: The Race to Build―and Steal―the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon 

Curious as to what an online conference is? Well, go check out the explanation page for NextGenWriter’s Conference. Registration is open and attendance is filling up. Hope to see you there!

Hickem, Catherine. (2012). Heaven in Her Arms: Why God Chose Mary to Raise His Son and What It Means for You. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-1-4002-0036-8.

What do we know of Mary?

 What we know of Mary’s family is that she is of the house of David; it is from her lineage Jesus fulfilled the prophecy. Given the archeological ruins of the various places thought to have been living quarters for their family, it is likely the home was a room out from which sleeping quarters (cells) branched. As Mary and her mother Anne would be busy maintaining the household, with young Mary working at her mother’s command, it is likely Anne would be nearby or in the same room during the Annunciation. Thus Mary would not have had a scandalous secret to later share with her parents but, rather, a miraculous supernatural experience, the salvific meaning of which her Holy parents would understand and possibly even witnessed.

 Mary and Joseph were betrothed, not engaged. They were already married, likely in the form of a marriage contract, but the marriage had not yet been “consummated”. This is why he was going to divorce her when he learned of the pregnancy. If it were a mere engagement, he would have broken it off without too much scandal.

 Married but not yet joined with her husband, her mother would prepare her by teaching her all that she needed to know. This is further reason to assume that Mary would be working diligently under her mother’s eye when the Annunciation took place.

 We know that her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy was kept in secret for five months, and not made known until the sixth month when the Angel Gabriel proclaimed it to Mary. We know Mary then rushed to be at her elderly cousin’s side for three months (the remaining duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy), and that this rushing appeared to be in response to Elizabeth’s pregnancy (to congratulate her), not an attempt to hide Mary’s pregnancy. Note how all of this is connected to Elizabeth’s pregnancy rather than Mary’s circumstances. As Mary was married to Joseph, he likely would have been informed of the trip. Had the intent been to hide Mary, she would have remained with Elizabeth until Jesus was born, not returned to her family after the first trimester, which is just about the time that her pregnancy was visible and obvious.

 So we these misconceptions clarified, we can put Mary’s example within an even deeper context and more fully relate to her experience. We can imagine living in a faith-filled family who raises their child in strict accordance of God’s word. The extended family members may not understand, and certainly their community will not, so Mary, Anne and Joachim, and Joseph face extreme scandal as well as possible action from Jewish authorities. But they faced this together steep in conversation with God, providing a model for today’s family.

 Although sometimes scriptural interpretations are flavored with modern-day eye, overall this book will be more than just a quick read for a young mother (or new bride, or teen aspiring to overcome the challenges of American culture, or single parent losing her mind). It is a heartwarming reflection with many examples that open up conversation with God. As an experienced psychotherapist, the author’s examples are spot on and easy to relate to. We do not need to have had the same experiences to empathize, reflect, and pursue meaning; we see it around us in everyday life. As such, a reflective look upon these examples can help one overcome an impasse in their own relationship with God and also open the reader up to self-knowledge as Hi

BOOK OF THE DAY-June

Plan in advance for father’s day! The month of June is dedicated to books for dads and boys…don’t worry, a few dads & daughter books thrown in too! Good list for reluctant readers as well as summer vacation. Enjoy!

BOOK OF THE DAY-May

In celebration of Mother’s day, moms, women and daughters, recommendations span ages and areas of interest. Great for summer vacation reading too!

A few highlights from this week's reading:

Tanita S. Davis, author of the newly released YA novel Happy Families, pens a wonderful tribute to the late Jean Craighead George's novel My Side of the Mountain. I loved that book when I was a kid. Loved it. Jean Craighead George died recently at the age of  92.

In tomorrow's New York Times Book Review (available online now), Judith Shulevitz writes about listening to audiobooks with her children. I smiled at her choices, "...or they’re books we’ve always meant to read but needed children as an excuse to do so" because I've felt the same way. See "Let's Go Reading in the Car."

The Nonfiction Detectives review Kelly Milner Hall's Alien Investigations: Searching for the Truth About UFOs and Aliens. I added the title to our library list immediately; my 12 year old can't get enough of this subject. Don't miss the other articles on the Detectives' blog; you'll find all kinds of good recommendations for young nonfiction fans.

After following a link from Page-Turner, the New Yorker's revitalized book blog, I was happy to add Rohan Maitzen's Novel Readings: Notes on Literature and Criticism to Google Reader. In a recent post, she makes the case for Middlemarch and book clubs, providing a number of helpful tips to taking on George Eliot's 1,000+-page classic. Maitzen is an English professor at Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University.

I'm bookmarking this post from Misadventures of the Monster Librarian because of the folktale recommendations for second graders. "My" second graders (the class I read to once a week) like folktales a lot.

Speaking of second graders, I read Lita Judge's excellent nonfiction picture book Bird Talk: What Birds Are Saying and Why to them a few weeks ago. My crew was particularly delighted by the scat-bombing Scandinavian Fieldfare, mentioned by NC Teacher Stuff in his review. In our conversation after the read-aloud, I found out that several of the kids own parrots. Parrot stories abounded.

BOOK OF THE DAY-April

The full April list is here. Get a sneak peak at the 2nd half of the month and stock up for summer vacation too!

BOOK OF THE DAY-March

Spring is upon us, and you can prepare for both Spring and Summer vacations with plenty of good books! Check out recommendations for all ages, plus DVD’s and teaching too!

Elora Writers' Festival invites entries for their 9th annual writing competition. Prizes: $200, $100, $75 (4 age categories). Submit: Short story/personal essay (1500 words max.) and poetry (75 lines max). Deadline: April 27, 2012. Entry fee $15 (writers 20+ only).

BOOK OF THE DAY-February

No need to wait until the end of February for the complete list. Here it is–plan ahead! Click on the link above, and also follows us on Facebook at Litland Reviews http://facebook.com/Litlandreviews

BOOK OF THE DAY-January

Here it is! The book of the day challenge, to recommend a new book or related media every day in 2012. January is complete, and attached for handy download–just click on the above link. February is on the way! “Friend” Litland Reviews on Facebook to see daily recommendations as they post. http://facebook.com/Litlandreviews

Hark! Here is a gift guide for the holidays. Some books are for grown-ups, some for children. At the end of the post, I've linked each title to Powell's. I have no affiliation with the store, but have ordered from it successfully in the past.

For the writer who doesn't mind a fist fight or two (or twenty):
Townie, author Andre Dubus III's memoir of his surprisingly hardscrabble upbringing—one of the best books about writing that I've read in ages.

For the preschooler on the verge of big-sisterhood or big-brotherhood:
Pecan Pie Baby, in which Jacqueline Woodson taps into the "What about me?" emotions of a soon-to-be sibling with humor and love.

For the subversive fifth grader in your life:
Spy vs. Spy Omnibus, vintage Mad Magazine cartoon comedy.*

For the friend who wants to cook more often and better:
The Kitchen Counter Cooking School. The subtitle says it all: "How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices Into Fearless Home Cooks."

For the toddler who scampers away at bedtime:
Hide-and-squeak, Heather Vogel Frederick's rhyming story of Mouse Baby and her papa. Featuring big, joyful illustrations by C.F. Payne.

For the student artist:
Drawing from Memory, Allen Say's fascinating picture-book memoir of an apprenticeship to a famous Japanese cartoonist.

For the grown-up fan of Doctor De Soto:
Cats, Dogs, Men, Women, Ninnies and Clowns: The Lost Art of William Steig, a collection of previously unpublished work by the New Yorker cartoonist and children's book author.

The Holiday season is approaching fast, the streets of New York City all decorated in lights. I love this time of the year. A walk down 5 ave or Madison ave or anywhere in New York, you can see, feel, hear, smell and taste the holiday season. There are all kinds of fun things to do. What is the wonder of it all? Christmas celebrates Jesus's Birthday while Hanukkah celebrates a wonderful story about how a small amount of oil good for one day ended up burning for eight. This was the miracle of God. Both of these holidays are very different from each other. Then there Kwanzaa I am not sure what that celebrates but it also involves lights. What are these holidays about. I believe all three are about family, communication and a love for your religious beliefs. 

 There is lots of wonder in these holidays. They have been celebrated for many centuries but do people truly know there meaning? Our children see them as a way to get gifts. Doing this time shopping is encouraged by all stores. I believe it is much more important to learn about these holidays instead of making them just another way to make an extra buck. Sit down with your children, tell them what the true meaning of the holidays are and do not buy the latest gadgets on the market. Here is a good idea for a gift give your children books about the holidays instead.

Reviews

Picture Books

One Candle - "One Candle" By Eve Bunting. Illustrated by K. Wendy Popp. Published by Joanna Cotler Books an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers. 2002. Summary: "Every year a family celebrates Hanukkah by retelling the story of how Grandma and her sister managed to mark the day while in a German concentration camp." This book has wonderful illustrations and a very powerful story about one family's celebration of Hanukkah. This book is a great example of something that should be taught to your children on this wonderful holiday. The Jewish people believe in family and community and this wonderful books looks at both. I highly recommend it to your kids and to you as well. It has lots to teach everyone.

Talia and the Rude Vegetables- "Talia and the Rude Vegetables." By Linda Elovitz Marshall. Illustrated by Francesca Assirelli. Published by Kar-Ben publishing a division of Lerner Publishing Group Inc. 2011. Summary: "City-girl Talia misunderstands her grandmother's request that she go to the garden for "root vegetables" but manages to find some she thinks are rude, as well as a good use for the rest she harvests. Includes a recipe for Rude Vegetable Stew."  This picture book has lots of fun pictures and a wonderful Jewish story line. When I read this book it touched me. It is about the Jewish tradition of charity, family, community, and holidays. This is a must have for any young child in your family. The holidays are not about gifts, shopping but about family, charity and love. This books combines all three. The best part is it comes with a very tasty vegetable stew now that cannot be beat. Make it a must have for every child and adult. 

The Littlest Frog- "The Littlest Frog." By Sylvia Rouss. Illustrated by Holly Hannon. Published by Pitspopany Press. copyright 2001 Printed in Israel and sold in New York. This is a funny twist on the bible story of Exodus. A long time ago the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt. It is believed they build huge pyramids, cities and castles. It is written like a Jewish folk tale. This time is celebrated doing S

Bootleg: A Found Poem

Blind tiger, bootlegger, booze
Flapper, hooch, moonshine

Rumrunner, speakeasy, teetotaler

The days
of outright prohibition
are
gone
and likely will
will never return.

Source: Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, by Karen Blumenthal (Roaring Brook, 2011)

I'm just starting Bootleg, which is popping up on year-end best-kids-books lists, including those from School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews, as well as the YALSA Nonfiction Award finalists.

I'm curious about the subject since saloon keeping and home brewing were activities enjoyed by a number of my kinfolks during the same era. Well, the saloon keeping (of one Bismarck Saloon on the town square in Waco, Texas) was just prior to Prohibition, for obvious reasons...

The glossary words in Blumenthal's book read like poetry to me, and I liked her conclusion at the end. That's where I concocted the poem above. The nonfiction book is geared toward readers 12 and older.

Other children's books bloggers are writing about poetry (and not moonshine) today; see the Poetry Friday roundup at Read, Write, Howl for more selections.

A debut author has won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Last night at the National Book Award ceremony in New York, Thanhha Lai took home the prize for her autobiographical novel in verse, Inside Out & Back Again. Elizabeth Burns, who blogs at A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, reviewed the book here, adding, "Am I the only one hoping this becomes a series that follows Ha [the protagonist] through her childhood and teenage years?"

The other winners were Jesmyn Ward, for Salvage the Bones (fiction); Stephen Greenblatt, for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (nonfiction); and Nikki Finney, for Head Off & Split (poetry).

For more on the awards and the evening, hop over to NPR's Monkey See blog.

We just finished celebrating Halloween. Your children dressed in wonderful costumes, you walked from house to house getting candy, your schools had parties and ton of candy was given away. This holiday was celebrated all over the country and probably in other countries as well. Last post I shared with you where Halloween came from and the folklore behind it but today I will take a larger step. I will look at how public libraries celebrated this holiday.



A few days ago I did a massive survey on a list called pub lib and asked a very simple question How does your library celebrate Halloween. I got a massive response to this question and have decided to give a list of 10 most unique stories that came from this list. This post will not have any book reviews and lets say I will catalog this under Cool Stuff. Please enjoy my list of 10.



1)  The year we had the ground breaking for our building the same day as the Halloween parade so that as soon as that parade was over we had our parade from the old building to the new site. Thus the community band that played for our parade and ground breaking ceremony did it dressed in Halloween costumes. The last two years of the Optimists Halloween parade we entered a book truck drill team. The first year we each dressed as a story book character and put pictures on our book trucks to fit our character. The second year we all wore black with bright colored boas and decorated the carts for Halloween.

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By: Susan Thomsen, on 10/30/2011
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