WOW: Eleanor’s Secret at the library

It’s always exciting when we can offer a program that is appropriate and fun for all ages, something you can make a day of with your whole family. February’s WOW Program, taking place Sunday, February 19 at 2:00 p.m., is just that.  In conjunction with FIFEM, we’re showing a great children’s film that celebrates the wonder of children’s literature: Eleanor’s Secret.

Internationally acclaimed, this film is the charming story of a young boy, Nat, who is given a library of rare books by his Aunt Eleanor. Nat isn’t particularly pleased with this amazing gift, however, because he can’t read. But one night, the fairytale characters in the books begin coming to life and they inform Nat that Eleanor’s library protects them, and if the books leave the library, they will disappear forever. Take a look at the trailer to get a glimpse into this magical film.

The animation in Eleanor’s Secret is incredibly beautiful, and the story is sure to charm book lovers, no matter their age. Tickets are available for free as of today at the Main Desk of the Library, so stop by anytime during opening hours to reserve your place.  It’s the perfect way to spend a cold February Sunday!

New Books – January 20

Check out some new books this week!

Picture Books:

Ten Birds
by: Cybèle Young
Ten birds are trying to figure out how to get to the other side of the river. The bird they call “Brilliant” devises a pair of stilts. The bird they call “Highly Satisfactory” engineers a raft. One by one, nine resourceful birds make the crossing until a single bird is left behind – the one they call “Needs Improvement.” This bird’s solution proves surprising and absurdly simple.

Monday is One Day
by: Arthur A. Levine
A rhyming countdown of the days of the week as a father and child find ways to spend time together while waiting for the weekend.

Chapter Books:

Sabotaged (The Missing, book 3)
by: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Time-travelers Jonah and Katherine are summoned to help another missing child from history, this time Virginia Dare from the Roanoke Colony, but their journey is sabotaged and goes dangerously awry, leaving them in the wrong time period. Includes author’s note about the history of Roanoke Colony and Virginia Dare.

Young Adult Books: 

Shadow Souls (The Vampire Diaries – The Return: Vol. 2)
by: L.J. Smith
Eighteen-year-old Elena Gilbert journeys to the Dark Dimension with Damon and Matt in hopes of rescuing her vampire boyfriend, Stefan Salvatore, from imprisonment, and once again they face the sinister Shinichis.

Truth and Dare: 20 Tales of Heartbreak and Happiness
edited by: Liz Miles
These edgy short stories are told from the point of view of the quirky, cool, but not necessarily popular teens, who are dealing with all the pressures of growing up–school, friends, music, relationships, parents, and just plain fitting in. This collection features some of the hottest writers in the teen genre, including: Jennifer Boylan, Sarah Rees Brennan, Cecil Castellucci, Emma Donoghue, Courtney Gillette, A.M. Homes, Jennifer Hubbard, Heidi R. Kling, Jennifer Knight, Michael Lowenthal, Liz Miles, Saundra Mitchell, Luisa Plaja, Matthue Roth, Sherry Shahan, Gary Soto, Shelley Stoehr, Sara Wilkinson, Ellen Wittlinger, and Jill Wolfson.

Non-fiction:

Scary Science
by: Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone
Here are some spooky experiments to get kids howling with fun while learning some interesting scientific facts! With 25 experiments in all, middle-grade scientists are guaranteed to have lots of creepy fun learning how to: make their own spider webs look like a zombie make their own shrunken heads create an alien barf bag and brew bubbling alien blood with simple instructions and easy-to-find ingredients, budding young scientific minds will have a blast!

Snowy Science
by: Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone
Science is fun all year round – and here”s a book to prove it! This winter, kids, their parents and their teachers will be inspired to try these simple experiments inside, inspired by the freezing weather outside. Kids can learn to make their own ice cream, create an indoor avalanche and pick up an ice cube with just a piece of string. Also included are fun facts about icebergs, frost, “orange” snow and lots more cool winter science!

Les conseils de lecture d’Oncle Daniel

Moi, Noémie et les autres / par Gilles Tibo.

Sommaire
Réalité? Fiction? Voilà Noémie et grand-maman Lumbago qui surgissent dans la vie de Gilles Tibo. Mais ce n’est pas tout! Elles sont accompagnées par une foule d’autres personnages créés par l’auteur. Simon, Pikolo, le petit géant, Alex, Choupette se succèdent dans le métro, dans la rue, au resto… Plus moyen de leur échapper! Tibo croit devenir fou. À moins que ce ne soit déjà fait…  Et s’ils voulaient seulement aider leur créateur, qui souffre d’une terrible panne d’inspiration? Et si le fameux secret dont a parlé Noémie constituait une piste de solution?

Mes pensées
Encore d’autres confessions: même si je choisi les livres d’enfants pour la Bibliothèque, j’ai rarement le temps de les lire moi-même. Il existe un mythe que les bibliothécaires ont beaucoup de temps pour lire qui, malheureusement, est justement un mythe. Je dois d’ailleurs confesser qu’il arrive que je commande des livres sans savoir la nature exacte d’un livre donné.

Un cas typique serait Moi, Noémie et les autres par Gilles Tibo. Quand je l’avais vu au Salon du Livre, il y a environ deux semaines, je l’avais pris pour une autobiographie. Étant que Gilles Tibo est l’un des auteurs québécois pour la jeunesse les plus prolifiques, j’avais décidé sur le champ d’ajouter ce titre à la collection de la Bibliothèque. Imaginez ma surprise quand j’ai examiné le livre de près pour découvrir qu’il était en fait un roman où un Gille Tibo fictif rencontre ses personnages! Cette meta-fiction m’a plus et donc je vous le conseille!

Upcoming Winter Reading Club Programs!

The Mission:Impossible Winter Reading Club registration has now been open for just over a month and we are getting ready to start our WRC programs!

We have several different programs, offered Thursday afternoons after school, for both members of our club and non-members. Children who wish to sign up are more than welcome to attend!

Please see below for a listing of the programs and dates. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Thursday, January 26: Mystery Game: Clue!
4pm-5:30pm
Ages 7-12

Thursday, February 9: Stormbreaker movie screening
5pm-7pm
Ages 8+

Thursday, February 23: Detective Craft
4pm-5:30pm
Ages 5-10

 

Sunday Storytime

Family Storytime has started up again at the Côte Saint-Luc library – it’s been back for two weeks now, which means that as the new Children’s Librarian, I’ve been having great fun getting to know some of the families who come on Sundays.

Last week, we read stories about bears, and I think the two standout books were Wibbly Pig’s Silly Big Bear and Big Bear Hug. Even writing, that, I feel a little guilty because I loved all four of the stories we read. Still, there’s nothing quite like a story that makes you smile and laugh, which those two did for everyone sitting around that carpet (parents included).

In Wibbly Pig’s Silly Big Bear, we meet our titular pig Wibbly, whose bear is just so big, there are a few things he can’t do well (like hold a spoon, which means when he eats ice cream, you can expect one big mess). But Wibbly is quick to let us know all things Bear can do well, my favourite being the ability to make your troubles disappear with a hug.

Another book about bears and their lovely hugs is Nicholas Oldland’s Big Bear Hug, all about an extraordinarily friendly bear who just can’t stop hugging things, from squishy rabbits to teeny tiny birds. But above all else, he loves to hug trees. Living in the forest, he has lots of trees he can hug, but when he comes across a man with an ax , Bear doesn’t feel much like hugging.

After our stories, there is a craft, and I had a blast watching the kids take a paper plate and turn it into an adorable bear face. It’s fun to think of different crafts each week because no matter what I think of, I’m always pleasantly surprised by how much creativity these kids bring to our little library tables!

If you haven’t had the time to come check out our storytime, feel free to just drop by on Sundays for 11:00. I hope to see you there!

-Valerie

Hidden Gems: Constance C. Greene and a Girl Called Al

Hidden gems, to me, are those books which are maybe older, or were first published in another country and never really made it here, or just never gained popularity no matter how good they were. Today’s hidden gems are a series of books by Constance C. Greene about a girl called Al and her best friend, who is the narrator of the books and goes unnamed through most of them.

A Girl Called Al is the first book, and this is the one I was talking about back in my review of Stargirl. I had read this one and the second one as a kid/young adult and really liked them, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what the book was called or who the author was. All I could remember was this: the main character was girl named Alexandra who went by Al, she moved to New York City from LA (which the narrator had never heard of and thought it was “Ellay”), and Al used the word “non-conformist” to refer to herself a lot. So when I put some combination of these things into Google, I kept getting Stargirl back as a result (I think it was the “non-conformist” part). I gave up and resigned myself to the fact that I might never figure out what that book was – until I was shelving chapter books one day and lifted my head only to come face-to-face with the second book in the series, I Know You, Al, on display on one of the shelves. I regret that I was alone in the department at the time and had no one to share my excitement with. A Girl Called Al was published in 1969, and the vocabulary, expressions, and situations in the novel reflect this, but in a funny, refreshing, realistic way. Al and her best friend befriend the older superintendent in their apartment building and try to grow up in a way that progresses beyond the social norms around them, but are totally endearing in the way they go about it.

The second book is called I Know You, Al. Al gets a letter from her father who she hasn’t seen in years, saying that he’s about to get married. She takes up needlepoint and gives herself bangs. She agonizes over what shoes to wear to her father’s wedding and wonders what her stepmother and stepbrothers will be like. Al and the narrator keep navigating their lives and their friendship with the same distinct personalities – they seem real and smart and charming and tough, and all the characters are drawn with a sort of funny wryness that really won me over, especially once I tracked down the books and reread them.

To my surprise, though, I discovered just in the course of writing this post that we have several other books in the series which I never knew existed: Your Old Pal, Al, Al(exandra) the Great, Just Plain Al, and Al’s Blind Date. I’m pretty excited to read them and see how the story goes.

-posted by Kayleigh, children’s desk staff

Awesome Picture Books: Sara O’Leary

I first came across Sara’s books when I took her Writing of Children’s Literature class at Concordia. That course was probably the most difficult creative writing class I ever took (with the exception maybe of scriptwriting), but it was also a lot of fun and introduced me to so many great children’s books and authors. The first few chapters of the YA novel I wrote for the course may still be languishing somewhere on my hard drive, never to see the light of day, but I have a newfound appreciation for how much thought and effort goes into writing for kids (and for books in verse that scan properly).

At the time that I took the class, Sara had just published her second picture book. Both books are centred on a little boy named Henry, who asks a lot of questions and gets a lot of inventive answers from his parents.

In When You Were Small, Henry asks his dad every night to tell him about when he was small, and Henry’s dad always has a good answer. He tells Henry that he used to have a pet ant that he would take out on walks. He used to take baths in the teapot. He used to fill in for the missing knight on the chess board when his mom and dad would play. He used to end up in all kinds of silly places.

In Where You Came From, Henry is asking questions again, but this time it’s about how his parents got him in the first place. Henry’s dad claims they found him floating down the river in the basket. Henry’s mom disagrees, saying that actually they found him in an eagle’s nest way up above the forest. Eventually, though, Henry’s dad thinks he has the real answer.

Both of these books are simple and warm and a little bit funny. The illustrations are really lovely line drawings, done by Julie Morstad. Even the endpapers are charming.

These books have a sweet, funny air of fancy and leg-pulling, that way that parents have of harmlessly making things up just to see the expression of wonder that they produce, these little things that leave small children with a sense of mystery and magic.

Sara O’Leary has recently published another book in this series, called When I Was Small (find it at the publisher’s site here). She also has a very interesting blog on children’s literature that you can find at 123oleary.blogspot.com.

-posted by Kayleigh, children’s desk staff

Some of Our Favourite Picture Books

One of the displays that we have up here in the children’s department currently is staff picks for picture books (I’m looking at it right now as it’s located directly across from the desk where I am sitting). I love staff pick displays because it’s fun to grab exactly the books you like best and put them out for people to see, especially if they’re older books that don’t get much buzz anymore or books that are little-known gems. It’s also satisfying to see people picking up and taking out our favourites. So here I’d like to present a list, based on the display in front of me, of some of the Cote Saint-Luc children’s department’s favourite picture books:

George and Martha ’round and ’round
by: James Marshall
Five episodes chronicle the ups and downs of a special friendship.

Once a Mouse…
by: Marcia Brown
As it changes from mouse, to cat, to dog, to tiger, a hermit’s pet also becomes increasingly vain.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
by: Jon Scieszka
The wolf gives his own outlandish version of what really happened when he tangled with the three little pigs.

The Kiss That Missed
by: David Melling
One evening, when the King is in a hurry, his goodnight kiss to the Little Prince goes astray. After rattling around the Prince’s bedroom it flies out the window and floats into the dark forest. The King orders his Knight to ride into the forest and bring back the kiss. But the forest is filled with spooky things that frighten both the Knight and his horse. How will they ever succeed in bringing the kiss back to the castle?

The Composer is Dead
by: Lemony Snicket
An inspector seeks to solve a murder mystery at the symphony by questioning each of the musical instruments.

What’s Under the Bed?
by: Joe Fenton
When Fred lays down his head, he imagines there is something monstrous under his bed.

The Story of Ferdinand
by: Munro Leaf
Ferdinand likes to sit quietly and smell the flowers, but one day he gets stung by a bee and his snorting and stomping convince everyone that he is the fiercest of bulls.

Little Bunny on the Move
by: Peter McCarty
A little bunny rabbit hurries past five fat sheep, over train tracks, and across an open field on his way to a special destination.

Children Make Terrible Pets
by: Peter Brown
When Lucy, a young bear, discovers a boy lost in the woods, she asks her mother if she can have him as a pet, only to find him impossible to train.

Henny Penny
by: Paul Galdone
A cumulative tale about Henny Penny and her barnyard friends who were literally outfoxed on their journey to tell the king the sky was falling.

Le livre qui rend heureux
par: Marije Tolman et Ronald Tolman
Dans une cabane, un ours brun et un ours blanc vivent heureux et contemplent le monde, entourés de nombreux autres animaux. Cet album sans texte permet au jeune lecteur de laisser vagabonder son imagination.

Frisson l’ecureuil se fait un ami
par Mélanie Watt
Frisson est un écureuil extrêmement peureux qui préfère rester seul dans son nid. Pourtant, un jour qu’il explore les environs avec ses longues-vues, il aperçoit un être qui ferait l’ami idéal: un poisson rouge,totalement inoffensif! Le petit écureuil élabore donc un plan afin d’approcher son ami potentiel sans courir de danger. Mais l’arrivée d’un chien bouleverse tout ce qu’il avait prévu. Heureusement, l’inconnu réserve parfois de ravissantes surprises…

Book Review: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

There is one thing I love best about fantasy novels: that anything can happen. It’s not like in mystery books where even the most twisted of plots can be solved, or in romances that either end with a predictable happy ending or a dramatic parting. Fantasy books are never ending. The bad guys never fully die, the heroes have an endless supply of tricks and a ridiculous amount of good luck, the plot line never fully makes sense and weird creatures abound. With my particular taste in books is it any wonder that I picked up Lish McBride’s debut novel “Hold Me Closer, Necromancer”? The title alone promises a great fantasy read, the chapter titles are awesome and the black and red book cover of the protagonist with a crow on his shoulder is more than enticing. And so I avidly started to read. And once I began I couldn’t stop. The book is about a teenage boy, Sam, down on his luck working a dead-end job in a place where all your dreams come to die. But an innocent prank brings upon him a chance meeting with Douglas, a very powerful and violent necromancer who wants Sam to join him… or else. Sam soon discovers that he is also a necromancer, with very latent powers, and with the help of his Scooby band – Ramon, Frank and a sort of dead Brooke – he must find a way to save himself and those he loved from the clutches of the evil Doug… all in just a week.

Despite the dark undertones of the book, the heavy presence of the supernatural and the creatures that are painted more viciously here than in other books of this kind, the story flows nicely from page to page, and McBird keeps it funny and creepy at the same time, a rare feat. I especially liked the quirky and sarcastic sense of humor of all of the characters. Sam, a self-deprecating, down on his luck kind of a guy, who goes from zero to hero in a matter of days and his friends and family, especially Ramon and Brooke are equally funny and original and I loved the werewolf hybrid, Bird, who is not only strong and smart, but can really kick butt! A werewolf hybrid, where else do you find that?

Of course the book is far from perfect, but then again they can’t all be Harry Potter. As fun and enjoyable as Hold Me Closer, Necromancer was, you can definitely feel that it was McBird’s first novel. The plot never fully reaches its potential and the ending lacks the big finale I expected. Even the characters fall a little flat at the end and the story is wrapped up too fast, as if the author ran out of will to write any more. However, as a first timer, McBird does a pretty good job at keeping the book entertaining and I would most definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a laugh or a fun fantasy read.

-posted by Monika, children’s desk staff

New Books – January 10th

Check out these new books!

Picture Books:

The Busy Beaver
by: Nicholas Oldland
The busy but careless beaver spends his days following random impulses, rarely thinking things through and leaving in his wake a devastated forest filled with stumps, half-nibbled trees and injured, homeless animals. But then one day the beaver finds himself on the wrong side of a falling tree, which as it turns out, is just the thing to knock some sense into him.

Making the Moose Out of Life
by: Nicholas Oldland
The comic-adventure story of a mild-mannered moose who learns how to take life by the antlers. This moose may live in the wild, but he doesn’t act it — he watches from the sidelines as his friends have fun. Every now and then, he wonders if he’s missing out on anything. When the moose finally takes a chance and goes on a solo sailing trip, a raging storm carries him far from everything he knows.

The Magnificent Mario
by: Mike Leonetti
Tyler is already a big Mario Lemieux fan, but he still loves looking at his dad’s memento Mario’s rookie card and hearing about how Mario started out with the worst team in the NHL. Tyler is also on the worst team in his league, and losing so often gets very frustrating. He is inspired by his hero’s work on the ice, especially as he watches Mario through the 1990-91 season, giving a magnificent performance during the playoffs, and, of course, scoring an unbelievable goal against the Minnesota North Stars in the finals.

Young Adult Books:

The Mark
by: Jen Nadol
While in Kansas living with an aunt she never knew existed and taking a course in philosophy, sixteen-year-old Cass struggles to learn what, if anything, she should do with her ability to see people marked to die within a day’s time.

Non-Fiction Books:

Cleopatra: Serpent of the Nile
by: Mary Fisk Pack
The richest, most powerful woman in the world, Cleopatra commanded the East and tamed the West in the time she ruled Egypt. With both cunning and charm, she fought for her right to control the Nile and began an affair with Julius Caesar that would entwine the fates of ancient Egypt and Rome. Facts combine with illustrations to present an intelligent, evocative rise-to-ruin story of a leader who, despite her schemes, lost everything including her beloved homeland.

Cixi: The Dragon Empress
by: Natasha Yim
The last empress of China, Cixi fought ruthlessly to isolate her country from the West while cloistered inside her lavish Forbidden City, ignoring the needs of her people. Her extravagant lifestyle, bouts of bad temper, and brutal punishments earned her a reputation as a cruel and ignorant leader. An exploration of Cixi”s daily lifeincluding what she ate and how she dressedthis story explains how she became one of the most notorious figures of the Qing dynasty.

Agrippina: Atrocious and Ferocious
by: Shirin Yim Bridges
The true account of an empress that was loved, feared, deified, and hated is presented in this illustrated narrative, detailing the life and sovereignty of Agrippina. An ambitious Roman, Agrippina murdered and married her way to the throne and to being declared a goddess, making many enemies along the way, including her own son.