The Night Gardener by the Fan Brothers (Booktalk)

[Begin by showing page 2 in which William is drawing an owl on the ground.] William is lonely. He lives in an orphanage. Notice the drab colors in this drawing.

A mysterious man passes him, carrying tools. 

Look what appears the next morning [show owl topiary page].

William stares at it all day, and he goes to bed filled with a sense of excitement. [Show picture of house with cats.] More and more start to appear: what do you notice is happening?

The Night Gardener by the Fan Brothers. Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers: 2016. [48] p. Booktalk to grades K-2.

Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill (Booktalk)

Bo's dads are goldminers (and blacksmiths) who came to Alaska in the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush: an exciting time. That time is past, and many miners have left, but Bo's dads are still there. Wait? Dads? Yes, Bo has two: her mother didn't want her, and she literally handed baby Bo to a man and left. That man, Arvid, didn't have the heart to give Bo up to an orphanage. His best friend, Jack, helped Arvid raise Bo. It's normal for towns in early 1900s Alaska to be mostly men: they're all miners, and life can be tough.

Bo is older now, and I want to share my favorite facts about her. She can swear (bad words!) in both an Eskimo language and in Swedish. It's possible she has no idea what the words mean. She helps cook for the miners and she really loves biscuits. Her favorite Eskimo dish, though, is caribou bone marrow and caribou fat. Yum.

You have to be tough and resourceful if you live in Alaska. You also have to be fast on your feet. One day, when Bo was outside (it was summer), she inadvertently startled a grizzly bear. The bear started to run after her. Bo did what she had been told and dropped to the ground, totally flat. That's not exactly running, though, is it?

If you like adventure, animals, outdoor life, and interesting weather, you'll love a historical fiction novel called Bo at Ballard Creek.

Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill. 278 pages. 2013: Henry Holt and Company. Booktalk to grades 3-8. Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award, 2014.

Book talk: Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark

Sharks are awesome and are often misunderstood. Time for a true/false quiz to see how well you know your sharks.

Question 1: Bullhead sharks are known for their sluggishness/laziness during the day.
Answer: True [page 142]. They are slow and tend to stay in one place. They like shallow waters.

Question 2: Sharks bite surfers because from underwater, surfboards look like sea lions or seals or sea turtles, and those are some of sharks' favorite foods (for some shark species).
Answer: True. [Page 179]

Question 3: Sharks have only been on this planet for the last 5,000 years, so they're sort of a new animal.
Answer: False [page 54]. Sharks -- as they look now -- have been around for the last 120 million years, and prehistoric sharks existed 400 million years ago!

Question 4: There are nearly 500 kinds of sharks in the world, and of these, only about a dozen are responsible for a few unprovoked bites.
Answer: True. [Page 172].

Question 5: Nurse sharks are all white and have a little nurse-hat-shaped head.
Answer: Hahaha! False! You fell for that one? They look nothing like a nurse: [show page 36 to the kids].

If you want more cool information and photos about sharks, I highly recommend Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark.

Booktalk to intermediate grades, middle school.

Book talk: Hello! Hello! by Matthew Cordell (2012 New York Times Notable Children's Book)

[For this booktalk, enlist the help of another person – adult or child (doesn’t matter) who holds a handheld electronic device and ignores you as you say “Hello! Hello!” You’ll also need a copy of this book.]

[You approach the other person who is engrossed with his/her device.] Hello! Hello! [You sigh, loudly.]

Okay, I’ll try again. [Walk away from the person, and then come back.]

Hello! Hello! [Sigh.] Fine, I’ll go outside.

[Show pp. 13-14]. Hello, leaf.

[Show pp. 15-16] Hello, bug.

Gee, there’s a lot going on out here. I should probably go outside more often. This stuff seems pretty interactive, and you don't even have to plug it in.

[Show pp. 21-22] Hello, horse! [Turn page, quickly] Oh my gosh! The horse said hello back to me! What is going on? [Turn a few more pages..] Gee, they all know hello…

Hello! Hello! By Matthew Cordell. Unpaged. 2012: Hyperion. Booktalk to pre-K through 2nd. Good readaloud. 2012 New York Times Notable Children’s Book.

Hello! Hello!

Book talk: Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2013-2014)

Before I tell you the title of this book, I want you to think about all the shapes you see out in nature. What’s one shape that you see in plants and flowers, in animals, in the water, and in weather patterns? [Give the kids time to guess.]

If you guessed a circle, you’re very close. The answer is a spiral. A spiral is a shape that curls around a center point.

[Show the first pages with the snake, woodchuck, and mouse.] In this picture we see a chipmunk, a woodchuck, a snake, and a mouse – all curled up into spirals. They’re sleeping or hibernating. [Turn page.] Fitting into a spiral helps them conserve precious body heat and fit into tiny, hidden spaces.

Spirals are also great at protecting what’s inside. [Show page with hedgehog and millipede.] If a hedgehog feels threatened, it rolls up into a tight spiral, so all you see is a ball of quills. Tiny millipedes use the same tactic: rolling up into a spiral, they’ve got an armored external shell as defense.

[Show page with rose, daisy, and sunflower.] The petals, leaves, and seed heads of many flowers grow in spirals – the spiral shape makes the best possible use of space and sunlight: pretty wise!

You can see spirals in whirlpools, in tornados, and in galaxies. [Show page with spiral galaxy.] There are also spirals inside you: 3-D spirals called helixes in your genetic makeup, your DNA. Read more about the cool, smart spiral in Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman.

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman, pictures by Beth Krommes. Unpaged. 2011: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. Virginia Readers’ Choice, 2013-2014 (primary grades).

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature

Book talk: City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems (Virginia Readers' Choice)

[For this booktalk, put a sticky tab on the following pages: pages {4-5}: “City Dog spotted something…”, pages {22-23, rainy day}, pages {28-29, frog sits on dog’s nose}, and pages {30-31:dusk}.

[Show cover.] Do frogs and dogs hang out together? [Invite brief discussion.] Okay, so maybe they don’t usually hang out and befriend one another.

But City Dog is unique. [Show pages 4-5] He was out in the countryside, probably on vacation, when he spotted a frog, quietly sitting on a rock. He talked to frog, and it turned out that frog was waiting for a friend. Frogs are like that. [Turn the page.] Frog knows all sorts of country games that city dog does not know, and he’s happy to teach city dog. [Turn the page.] What could be more fun than playing in a creek? [Turn page.] I think this picture is one of my favorite picture book pictures ever: city dog is giving country frog a ride on his head in the creek.

But not everything they do is funny like that. Friendship is made of quiet activities too: enduring rainy days [show pages 22-23], talking [show pages 28-29], and just hanging out [show pages 30-31]. All friendships are special, but there is something unique about the friendship of city dog and country frog.

City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems, pictures by Jon J. Muth. Hyperion, 2010. Unpaged. Booktalk to preschool – 2^nd grade. Virginia Readers’ Choice, 2012-2013.

City Dog, Country Frog

Booktalk: Birds by Kevin Henkes [Birds;1]

Booktalker’s note: bring some stuffed birds for this one. Pre-bookmark the page, ‘Once I saw seven birds on the telephone wire…’

Did you ever think about all the birds in your world? Some are big, some are little. Some are colorful, and some blend right in to trees. Some make a lot of noise, and some are very quiet. You have to have very sharp eyes to catch everything that birds do. [Open to page, ‘Once I saw seven birds on the telephone wire…’ and read it aloud to the children. Pause, and turn to and read next page, …they were gone.’] Think about that, in less than the blink of an eye, those birds vanished. There is something magical about birds. If you want to learn more about the beauty of the birds around you, check out Birds by Kevin Henkes.

Birds by Kevin Henkes. Unpaged. Greenwillow Books: 2009. Booktalk to pre-k, kindergarten, 1^st.

Hang in There: Booktalk 2

Have you ever driven your parents crazy with your whining, especially over summer vacation? That is exactly what eleven-year-old Megan is doing to her parents during their summer break in Vermont. Megan’s parents are both artists, and between nine a.m. and noon, Megan is supposed to be engaged in “creative pursuits,” which means art or writing, and no cell phone, no Internet, no television: you get the picture. Poor Megan: she starts to doodle, and then she rips it up. She’s bored. So her mother, one of those “back to nature” types, suggests that Megan go on a hike. Only problem is: Megan gets lost, and she’s got her innocent little dog Arp [not Arf, it’s Arp] with her. Megan actually managed to get lost on the Appalachian trail, too, which stretches on for miles and miles and miles. During my favorite part, she keeps fantasizing about Oreo cookies which are supposedly in a bag hanging from a nail in one of the trail shelters. Only, there’s an animal much larger than Megan that wants those Oreos, too. Can Nature Girl make it on her own? Nature Girl by Jane Kelley.

Nature Girl by Jane Kelley. 236 p. Random House, 2010. Booktalk to elementary [3^rd-5th] and middle school.

Cool, Smart Poetry: Booktalk 3

Poets can get away with stuff that non-poets can’t. For example, only a poet would think about what trees dream about at night. One of my favorite poems in this collection is called “The Oak Trees Are Dreaming” by Patricia Hubbell, and I got to hear her read it on the CD that comes with the book. Hearing her read it made the poem come alive for me. Back to poets getting away with stuff. Only a poet could write an ode to a termite who caused your Cousin May to fall through the floor today. And only a poet could write an obituary for a clam that lived and died 300 million years ago. And only a poet could compare a bear in a zoo to a lost child in the woods. And only a poet could explain to you why everything that lives wants to fly. The great thing about a treasury of poetry like this one is that it has something for everyone. You are guaranteed to find at least a few poems that you really love. The Tree that Time Built: [Poems] Selected by Mary Anne Hoberman and Linda Winston.

The Tree that Time Built: [Poems] Selected by Mary Anne Hoberman and Linda Winston. 209 p., includes index, glossary, and accompanying audio CD. Sourcebooks, Inc, 2009. Booktalk to elementary school [grades 3-5] and to middle school.

Cool Brainiacs: Booktalk 3

Not all brainiacs are math and science geniuses. Sometimes a brainiac is just a smart person who thinks of a brilliant solution to a problem - a solution which no one else has thought of. Mama Miti was that kind of brainiac. She was born and partially raised in Kenya -- in Africa, and during her lifetime, she started to see Kenya getting sick: poverty, scarce drinking water, not enough food, lack of jobs, and the growing disappearance of nature. It scared her, and it saddened her, too. People had been trying to think of solutions, but nothing was working. Mama Miti had an idea: get the local people in villages and tribes to plant more trees, even if it just meant starting with one tree. One tree? You'd be amazed what good things can come from a tree. It can be shelter from the burning sun, it can provide food, it can protect watersheds, and it can protect animals. A tree is a starting point for many good things. The tree movement she started was called the Green Belt movement. It has helped many people and villages in Africa. She had an elegantly simple idea. So, remember: a brainiac can use her brain to help thousands of people, just as Mama Miti did, in this fabulous book called Mama Miti by Donna Jo Napoli.

[Booktalkers: Much of this I got from Mama Miti's [a.k.a. Wangari Maathai] memoir called Unbowed: A Memoir, available in many libraries. If you're booktalking to high schoolers or adults, you might consider using Unbowed.]