Best of 2008 ... so far

Selected by:
Mary Slamin, Sandra Hile & Gail Fell

JP Juvenile Picture Books

(Read Aloud Stories)

JP Toddler Beaton, Claire. Baby's First Book. Barefoot Books. A charming collection of nursery rhymes, colors, shapes, sounds and more.

JP Breen, Steve. Violet the Pilot. Dial Books for Young Readers. Violet's only friend is her dog, Orville, until one of her homemade flying machines takes her to the rescue of a Boy Scout troop in trouble.

JP Burfoot, Ella. Darkness Slipped In. Kingfisher. Daisy doesn't notice that darkness has slipped into her room. When she sees him she is not afraid, but dances with him until she becomes sleepy and says goodnight. Daisy and Darkness's relationship will be an inspiration to kids struggling with sleep because Burfoot has skipped over fear, focusing instead on the fun of nighttime.

JP Toddler Ceelen, Vicky. Baby! Baby! Random House. Baby and animal photos are paired in this bright board book that highlights the similarities between the different creatures, including a yawning baby and an equally tired lion cub.

JP Demarest, Chris. All Aboard! A Traveling Alphabet. Margaret K. McElderry Books. From A for "All Aboard" to Z for "Zeppelin," this highly original alphabet book takes its travel theme seriously. Each letter of the alphabet represents a travel term, a travel place or a travel mode. Recommended for readers of all ages.

JP DiPucchio, Kelly S. Grace for President. Hyperion Books for Children. When Grace's teacher reveals that the United States has never had a female president, Grace decides to be the first. She immediately starts off her political career as a candidate in the school's mock election, but soon, she realizes that she has entered a tough race.

JP Fleischman, Paul. The Birthday Tree. Candlewick Press. Planted on the same day that Jack was born, he and the apple tree grow strong and tall together. The most amazing thing, however, is that the tree seems to mirror his feelings.

JP Harris, Robie H. Maybe A Bear Ate It! Orchard Books. At bedtime, a youngster who cannot find his favorite book imagines the various creatures that might have taken it from him.

JP Hoffman, Mary. Princess Grace. Dial Books for Young Readers. Grace wants to participate in her community festival's princess float, but first she must decide what sort of a princess she wants to be.

JP Knapman, Timothy. Guess What I Found in Dragon Wood. Bloomsbury Children's Books. Here is a twist on the boy meets dragon story. A young dragon finds a boy and introduces him to his family, friends, and teacher, but it is clear that the boy would like to return to his faraway home.

JP Lechner, Jack. Mary Had a Little Lamp. Bloomsbury Children's Books. The Classic rhyme is humorously updated with an appliance twist.

JP Lee, Suzy. Wave. Chronicle Books. A little girl plays with the tide in this beach adventure that lacks text but provides plot aplenty.

JP Ray, Jane. The Apple-pip Princess. Candlewick Press. The King sets his three daughters the task of making the kingdom bloom again, and discovers that sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference.

JP Rostoker-Gruber, Karen. Bandit. Marshall Cavendish Children. When Bandit's family moves to a new house, the cat runs away and returns to the only home he knows, but after he is brought back, he understands that the new house is now home.

JP Shulevitz, Uri. How I Learned Geography. Farrar Straus Giroux. As he spends hours studying his father's world map, a young boy escapes the hunger and misery of refugee life. Based on the author's childhood in Kazakhstan, where he lived as a Polish refugee during World War II.

JP Stevens, Janet. Help me Mr. Mutt: expert answers for dogs with people problems. Harcourt. Dogs across the United States write to Mr. Mutt, a people expert, for help with their humans.

JE Juvenile Easy Readers

(Beginning Reader)

JE Rylant, Cynthia. Mr. Putter & Tabby Run the Race. Harcourt, Inc. Our favorite senior citizen and his cat companion are back in their newest adventure. Mr. Putter is convinced to run in a senior marathon with his neighbor, Mrs. Teaberry, when he learns that second prize is a train set.

JE Willems, Mo. I Love My New Toy! Hyperion Books for Children. When Elephant accidentally breaks Piggie's new toy, they both experience intense feelings before coming to realize how important their friendship is.

JYR Juvenile Young Readers

(1st - 2nd Grade Reader)

JYR King-Smith, Dick. Dinosaur Trouble. Roaring Brook Press. Young dinosaurs Nosy, a pterodactyl, and Banty, an apatosaurus, become friends, despite their parents' prejudices.

JYR Morris, Gerald. The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great. Houghton Mifflin. A hilarious collection of loosely connected stories about Sir Lancelot, King Arthur's most honorable, dashing, and chivalrous Knight of the Round Table, brings to life King Arthur's time for new readers.

JYR O'Neill, Catharine. Annie and Simon. Candlewick Press. Four delightful adventures starring Annie, her patient older brother Simon and Hazel, their dog.

JYR Rees, Douglas. Uncle Pirate. Margaret K. McElderry Books. Wilson's long-lost uncle comes to live with his family. Desperate Evil Wicked Bob and his penguin sidekick, Captain Jack, are not ordinary houseguests.

JYR Tate, Lindsey. Kate Larkin, the Bone Expert. Henry Holt. When Kate breaks her arm, she learns all about bones, from how x-rays work to how bones heal, and by the time she gets her cast removed at the end of the summer, she is an expert.

J Juvenile Fiction

(Novels / Stories 3rd Grade & Higher)

J Birdsall, Jeanne. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. Alfred A. Knopf. The four Penderwick sisters are back again. Faced with the unimaginable prospect of their widowed father dating, they hatch a plot to stop him.

J Blume, Lesley M. M. Tennyson. Alfred A. Knopf. After their mother abandons them during the Great Depression, eleven-year-old Tennyson Fontaine and her little sister Hattie are sent to live with their eccentric Aunt Henrietta in a decaying plantation house outside of New Orleans.

J Burg, Shana. A Thousand Never Evers. Delacorte Presss. As the civil rights movement in the South gains momentum in 1963, the black residents, including seventh-grader Addie Ann Pickett, in a small Mississippi town begin their own courageous struggle for racial justice.

J Cabot, Meg. Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Moving Day. Scholastic Press. Nine-year-old Allie Finkle has rules for everything and is even writing her own rule book, but her world is turned upside-down when she learns that her family is moving across town, which will mean a new house, school, best friend, and plenty of new rules.

J Cheng, Andrea. Where the Steps Were. Front Street. A story written in free verse gives readers a series of snapshots of the lives of five children in an inner-city school.

J DeGross, Monalisa. Donavan's Double Trouble. Amistad. Fourth-grader Donavan is sensitive about the problems he has understanding math, and then when his favorite uncle, a former high school basketball star, returns from war as an amputee, Donavan's problems get even worse as he struggles to accept this "new" Uncle Vic.

J Giff, Patricia Reilly. Eleven. Wendy Lamb Books. When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past. With the help of a new friend at school, his questions are eventually answered.

J Hobbs, Will. Go Big or Go Home. Harper Collins. Fourteen-year-old Brady and his cousin Quinn love extreme sports, but nothing could prepare them for the aftermath of Brady's close encounter with a meteorite after it crashes into his Black Hills, South Dakota, bedroom.

J Korman, Gordon. Swindle. Scholastic Press. After a mean collector named Swindle cons him out of his most valuable baseball card, Griffin Bing must put together a band of misfits to break into Swindle's compound and recapture the card.

J Lowry, Lois. The Willoughbys. Houghton Mifflin Company. The four Willoughby children set about to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

J Mills, Claudia. The Totally Made-up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fifth-grader Amanda finds that exercising her writing talent helps her to cope with changes in her family.

J Orr, Wendy. Nim At Sea. Alfred A. Knopf. Nim is back for another adventure. After Alex leaves the island, and Selkie the sea lion is kidnapped, Nim accidentally stows away on the cruise ship that took Selkie, in the hopes of rescuing her and bringing Alex back.

J Park, Linda Sue. Keeping Score. Clarion Books. During the 1950s, young Maggie struggles to will her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers to a victory in the World Series and wishes that her friend Jim, a soldier in Korea, would answer her letters.

J Rupp, Rebecca. Sarah Simpson's Rules for Living. Candlewick Press. In a journal, twelve-year old Sarah Simpson records important lists and the daily events of her life at home and in school, beginning one year after her father moved from Vermont to California to divorce her mother and marry someone else.

J Snow, Maya. Sisters of the Sword. Harper Collins. Two sisters in ancient Japan disguise themselves as samurai warriors to take revenge on the uncle who murdered their family. An action packed adventure for older readers (grade 5 +).

J Juvenile Nonfiction

(Subject Books)

J398.2 China S. Souhami, Jessica. King Pom and the Fox. Frances Lincoln Children's Books. A Chinese version of "Puss in Boots" starring a young man and a clever fox.

J523.2A Aguilar, David A. 11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System. National Geographic. Brilliant photo-realistic illustration and fascinating up-to-date facts bring you a comprehensive look at our solar system as you've never seen it before.

J571.091T Turner, Pamela S. Life on Earth - and Beyond: An Astrobiologist's Quest. Charlesbridge. NASA astrobiologist Dr. Christopher McKay has searched the earth's most extreme environments to understand what factors are necessary to sustain life. Pamela S. Turner offers readers an inside look at Dr. McKay's research, explaining his findings and his hopes for future

J590S Schaefer, Lola M. Look Behind! Tales of Animal Ends. Harper Collins. An intriguing and fascinating A to Z guide to animal and insect behinds.

J591.56J Jenkins, Steve. Sisters & brothers: sibling relationships in the animal world. Houghton Mifflin Company. This riveting picture book, illustrated in Jenkins' signature style, is packed with amazing facts about how young animals nurture one other or compete for survival and leave home.

J597.89B Bishop, Nic. Frogs. Scholastic. Nic Bishop's photographs show all different kinds of frogs, big ones, very tiny ones, frogs with beautiful colors of skin, and one frog you can see inside of.

J617.6M Miller, Edward. The Tooth Book: a guide to healthy teeth and gums. Holiday House.

J631.4B Bourgeois, Paulette. The Dirt On Dirt. Kids Can Press. This ultimate resource for all things dirt, on and around the planet, includes such fun projects as building a bike racetrack, creating fossil footprints, and growing a garden playhouse.

J636J Jackson, Emma. A Home for Dixie: The True Story of a Rescued Pup. Collins.

J641.3D D'Aulisio, Faith. What the World Eats. Tricycle Press. Every week, families around planet Earth gather for meals at tables, in tents, or on dirt-packed floors, but what they eat depends on where in the world they live. The authors set out to document those weekly meals by visiting twenty-four families in twenty-one countries, from Australia to Mongolia.

J730L Luxbuacher, Irene. 1 2 3 I Can Draw. Kids Can Press. Offers clear, step-by-step illustrated techniques for creating fun and appealing art projects that lead to discovery and a real sense of accomplishment while also introducing art concepts such as color, form, and texture.

J811P Prelutsky, Jack. My Dog May Be A Genius. Greenwillow Books. With illustrator, James Stevenson, Prelutsky creates a decidedly goofy and highly entertaining illustrated poetry anthology.

J970C Children of the U.S.A. Charlesbridge. Informative text and quick facts about American children in 51 communities across the country. Arranged alphabetically by state, the text and pictures show locals having fun eating, attending festivals, playing sports, and much more.

J973T Talbott, Hudson. United Tweets of America: 50 State Birds. G. P. Putnam's Sons. America's 50 state birds are taking part in a United Tweets pageant emceed by a bald eagle (And now we'll tell you a little something about each bird and the state they call home).

J B Bridgman. She Touched the World: Laura Bridgman, Deaf-blind Pioneer. Clarion Books. The biography of a remarkable woman whose brilliant accomplishments were overshadowed by Helen Keller.

J B Cogswell. McCully, Emily Arnold. My Heart Glow : Alice Cogswell, Thomas Gallaudet, and the birth of American sign language. Hyperion Books.

J B Coltrane. Weatherford, Carole. Before John was a Jazz Giant: a song of John Coltrane. Henry Holt. This lyrical picture-book biography of John Coltrane focuses on his childhood and how he interpreted sounds before he made his music.

J B Earhart. Tanaka, Shelley. Amelia Earhart: The legend of the lost aviator. Harry N. Abrams.

J B Hopper. Rubin, Susan Goldman. Edward Hopper: Painter of Light and Shadow. Abrams Books for Young Readers. Ms. Goldman Rubin brings Edward Hopper to life in this luminous and literate work. Young readers will relate to Edward Hopper's fascination with drawing and poetry as a young boy.

J B Maatthai. Nivola, Claire A. Planting the Trees of Kenya: the story of Wangari Maathai. Frances Foster Books. The remarkable true story of Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, who changed the fate of her village in the highlands of Kenya by teaching her people how to care for it.

J B Roosevelt. Kerley, Barbara. What To do About Alice? Scholastic Press. How Alice Roosevelt broke the rules, charmed the world, and drove her father Teddy crazy!

J B Tatum. Parker, Robert Andrew. Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum. Schwartz & Wade Books. Despite being nearly blind, young Art Tatum's passion for the piano and incredible memory in learning music kept his dream of becoming a pianist alive, making him a virtuoso at a young age.

For assistance in finding these titles and others, be sure to ask the Greenburgh Public Library Children's Librarians for help.