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Miranda Ritts* writes:  The name of the book is The First Pup: The Real Story of How Bo Got to the White House. This book was written and illustrated by Bob Staake. I liked how this book has a lot of detail in the story. It gives readers a great idea of what went on in the beginning of President Obama’s inauguration. One of my favorite parts was when Malia and Sasha were picking a name for the dog. The illustrations in this book are great. They give a great picture of the people and the surroundings throughout the book.

Weblinks:

• Obama’s Dog Tails from the White House Lawn is Bo’s official page.
• Bob Staake’s website
• Portuguese Water Dogs

From Diane:

I agree with Miranda on the naming of Bo being interesting. I liked the illustration of Bo’s entrance to the White House with the cautious expressions of the staffs’ face.  The illustrations are joyous, bright and colorful. This would be a good read to K-2 students. There are many non-fiction pairings that would go well with this title. One I prefer is from Elaine Landau’s The Best Dog Ever series Portuguese Water Dogs Are the Best!

A good nonfiction narrative tells as fascinating a story as fiction. I’m happy to point out that Elaine has dedicated her August, 2010, title Cocker Spaniels are the Best! to little ole’ me. Sweet! I am very honored by those 3 little words: To Diane Chen

*Miranda is my niece. She decided I had so many books with me on vacation in Iowa to read, that I needed help reading and blogging. Miranda has added her opinions to several blogs here.

National Children's Choice Book Awards Announced...

You may have spied the Children's Choice Awards widget on the right side of my blog. Well the results are in for the award, announced last night at a Children's Book Council dinner in NYC hosted by Jon Scieszka. Here they are (in non-widget form), reinforcing for all of us that kids dig scary stuff, precocious pigs and boy wizards (drumroll please...):

• Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year: Frankie Stein written by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrated by Kevan Atteberry (Cavendish). I'm posting the cover of this one, because I really dig Kevan and his book. (Murray loves it too, but he's too young to vote.)
• Third Grade to Fourth Grade Book of the Year: Big Cats by Elaine Landau (Enslow)
• Fifth Grade to Sixth Grade Book of the Year: Encyclopedia Horrifica by Joshua Gee (Scholastic)
• Illustrator of the Year Award: Ian Falconer, Olivia Helps with Christmas (Simon & Schuster)
• Author of the Year Award: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scholastic)