RovingFiddlehead KidLit

Children's Librarian

Category Archives: Challenges

Award-Winning Books Challenge: Great Britain

by rovingfiddlehead on May 9, 2012

The Carnegie and Kate Green­away Medals are prob­a­bly the for­eign book awards Amer­i­can children’s librar­i­ans know best (I’d like to pre­tend it’s the Gov­er­nor General’s Awards what with Canada being right next door and all, but alas in my expe­ri­ence that is not the case). The 2010 Kate Green­away win­ner, Harry & Hop­per by Mar­garet Wild […]

Award-Winning Books Challenge: Australia

by rovingfiddlehead on May 2, 2012

The Children’s Book Coun­cil of Aus­tralia grants Best of the Year awards in five cat­e­gories: Older Read­ers (sec­ondary school-age), Younger Read­ers (inde­pen­dent ele­men­tary read­ers), Early Child­hood (pre-reading to early reader), Pic­ture Book and the Eve Pow­nall Award for Infor­ma­tion Book.  The lat­ter two awards are for any age up to 18. I choose two of […]

Nature Adventures by Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom

by rovingfiddlehead on April 30, 2012

Nature comes alive in spring­time and with it many fam­i­lies resolve to spend more time out­doors in the com­ing year. Nature Adven­tures by Mick Man­ning and Brita Granstrom is an effec­tive field guide for fam­ily nature explo­rations. In heav­ily illus­trated fash­ion, they show the plant and ani­mal life found in a vari­ety of set­tings such […]

Spine Poetry: Mischievous Rabbits

by rovingfiddlehead on April 1, 2012

With all the spine poetry 100 Scope Notes has been shar­ing, I find myself look­ing at book titles through new eyes. It hap­pened again when I put together a rab­bit sto­ry­time. A cou­ple of chap­ter books helped cap­ture the mis­chevi­ous­ness of Mun­cha! Mun­cha! Mun­cha! Be sure to visit the spine poetry gallery at 100 Scope […]

YA/MG Fantasy Reading Challenge Update

by rovingfiddlehead on March 21, 2012

I signed up for three read­ing chal­lenges this year and this one has had the slow­est start. Per­haps because I nor­mally read a lot of kids’ and young adult fan­tasy I haven’t been as inten­tional about seek­ing out titles for this chal­lenge. Bet­ter fix that once my travel read­ing binge is over! Froi of the Exiles […]

Nonfiction Picture Books: Chinese History, Culture & Folklore

by rovingfiddlehead on March 12, 2012

In prepa­ra­tion for an upcom­ing trip, I’ve been enjoy­ing many books about Chi­nese his­tory, cul­ture and folk­lore. This is just a sam­pling that fits in with the Non-Fiction Pic­ture Book Chal­lenge, but please leave sug­ges­tions for oth­ers in the com­ments! Mao and Me is a beau­ti­ful auto­bi­og­ra­phy by Chen Liang Hong (author/illustrator of Lit­tle Eagle […]

Newbery Heavy Award-winning Books Challenge Update

by rovingfiddlehead on February 16, 2012

I really enjoyed my first read, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, the tale of a brave mouse mother try­ing to save her fam­ily from the impend­ing spring plow and the colony of enhanced rats who have escaped from a research lab. Both sto­ry­lines are filled with hero­ism and inge­nu­ity. The 1972 New­bery win­ner, this […]

Nonfiction Picture Book January Releases

by rovingfiddlehead on January 30, 2012

Jan­u­ary brought a whole slew of new non­fic­tion pic­ture books. Per­fect tim­ing to give me a big head­start on the non­fic­tion pic­ture book chal­lenge before read­ing will have to take a back­seat in February. A cou­ple, The Boy Who Har­nessed the Wind and The Worst of Friends I’ve taken time to review indi­vid­u­ally. Here’s a quick roundup of […]

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

by rovingfiddlehead on January 25, 2012

For a truly inspi­ra­tional book, check out The Boy Who Har­nessed the Wind by inven­tor William Kamk­wamba and jour­nal­ist Bryan Mealer with pic­tures by Eliz­a­beth Zunon. Forced to drop out of school when famine struck Malawi, fourteen-year-old William turned to the local library where the pic­tures of wind­mills inspired him to build his own. Hoping […]

January update: Award Winning Books Reading Challenge

by rovingfiddlehead on January 17, 2012

A rol­lick­ing pic­ture book and two his­tor­i­cal fic­tion New­berys started off this chal­lenge.The Witch of Black­bird Pond by Eliz­a­beth Speare George and Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck are both really good books with like­able teenage girls as main char­ac­ters, but the sim­i­lar­i­ties pretty much end there. The Witch of Black­bird Pond is a […]