There is a new Winnie the Pooh book out, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, by David Benedictus.  I haven’t read it but I paged through it and enjoyed the illustrations.  We also have the audio version on order read by Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter audiobooks.  Speaking of audiobooks, we just received a fantastic audio version of the original Pooh stories called The Collected Stories of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Narrators include Stephen Fry and Judi Dench, and it sounds like a delightful listen.  A new book that I found reminiscent of Pooh is The Squirrel’s Birthday and Other Parties by Dutch author, Toon Tellegen.  I’m not one to try and predict a Batchelder winner, but I wouldn’t be surprised if The Squirrel’s Birthday got a nod from the committee (if it is eligible,)  come January.

Check out this interview with Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney at School Library Journal.  He explains why he hasn’t quit his job yet and what he’s working on now (hint: Wimpy Kid #5!)

Since every time I mention Diary of a Wimpy Kid on this blog my blog hits go way up, I decided to post my Diary of a Wimpy Kid Readalikes list here.  These books all share some aspect with the Wimpy Kid books, irreverent humor, illustrations, or the trials of middle school.  There is sure to be something here for every Wimpy Kid fan.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Readalikes

Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics by James Sturm

Dork Diaries : Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life by Rachel Renee Russell

Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon

Knights of the Lunch Table by Frank Cammuso

Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

Max Quigley, Technically Not a Bully by James Roy

Raymond and Graham Rule the School by Mike Knudson

True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

Series:

Amelia’s Notebook series by Marissa Moss

Candy Apple series by Erin Downing

Dear Dumb Diary series by Jim Benton

Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka

Underwhere series by Bruce Hale

Wayside School series by Louis Sachar

Authors:

Andrew Clements

Jack Gantos

Andy Griffiths

Dan Gutman

A Second is a Hiccup by Hutchins.  Explains time from seconds, (a hiccup, spinning in a circle once,) to a minute, (singing a short song,) all the way to a year.

Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer, the final book in the Sea of Trolls Trilogy.  The book and the audiobook both already have holds.

How Loud Can You Burp? by Murphy.  (As loud as a motorcycle!) This follow-up to Why is Snot Green? continues to answer real questions asked by kids like: why do we get goosebumps?  Includes a pretty lengthy section on questions regarding climate change, like where will be the best place to live?

Also, why the sudden influx of Toy Story books?  Toy Story and Toy Story 2 have been re-released to theaters in 3-D.

Read or listen to an interview with the author (and producer of The Daily Show,) of the new kids’ book, I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President, here. And an interview with Diary of a Wimpy Kid author, Jeff Kinney, here. And here is an article from The New York Times on the Baby Einstein video refunds. It turns out there is no basis to their claim that watching the videos will make your baby smarter! Surprise!

Some of these books are just sitting on the shelf but should fly out the door if you display them. New Moon opens next month.

Twilight Director’s Notebook

The Twilight Companion

Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion

New Moon: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion

The Robert Pattinson Album

Robert Pattinson: Eternally Yours

And if you have it, how about adding  A Practical Guide to Vampires to the display?  It will be lost in the 398s.

After hearing feedback from FVRL staff at our Readers Collection Confabulation, we made a couple of changes to how we deal with Readers.  First, we changed the wording in the OPAC from Easy Readers to Beginning Readers, since we all know there is nothing “easy” about learning to read. Next we decided to move away from the blue, red, and black tape, and design colored stickers to indicate the level.  These stickers have recently arrived and you’ll be seeing them on your readers soon, if you haven’t already.  The stickers will be placed near the spine label and should make the designation more clear.  I’ve just submitted a graphics request for updated 8.5 x 11 signage to indicate stickers and levels, expect to see those arriving late November.  Please let me know any comments you have or you hear about the new stickers!

Ramadan and Eid have come and gone for 2009, but it’s still a great time to pick up and read Ramadan Moon. This illustrated picture book tells the story of Ramadan and Eid from a child’s perspective. One of the things I was struck by was the narrator’s mourning the passing of the month of Ramadan. I expect this book to receive year-round attention, but will be especially in demand next August and early September.

Just in time for the start of flu season, Mo Willems new book, Pigs Make Me Sneeze, is sure to have the youngest readers laughing through their sniffles.  Elephant can’t stop sneezing.  He concludes that he must be allergic to Pig, which means he can no longer see his best friend.  After a visit to Doctor Cat, Elephant is diagnosed with a cold.  When he excitedly shares the good news with Pig, he finds that Pig has caught the cold.  Another fun beginning reader from Mo Willems!

I mentioned that we had to whittle down the Mock Newbery list to a manageable size. We wanted the list to reflect a range of ages and genres and be short enough that participants could read all of the books before the date and discuss them all in the time allotted. Here are some of the books we had to cut, in case you’re interested:

The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P.T. Barnum

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

All the Broken Pieces

Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

Leviathan

There were even more than these that we discussed and that had some real potential. I can’t believe how difficult it is just to come up with a mock list, I can’t imagine what it might be like to be on the committee!