The Last Hope (Warriors Omen of the Stars #6) by Erin Hunter

Homer by Diane Degroat

Hooray for Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold

Chomp by Carl Hiassen

Planting the Library Garden

May 16, 2012
4:00 pm

* Ages 4-10 * Main Library *

Join us in our annual planting of the Library Garden with local artist, Susan Brand.

Grolier Online includes six encyclopedia databases:  Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, The New Book of Knowledge, America the Beautiful, Lands and Peoples, Amazing Animals, and The New Book of Popular Science.

Student Resource Center – thousands of primary documents, biographies, essays, critical analyses, full-text coverage of over 1000 magazines, newspapers, over 20,000 photographs and illustrations, and audio and video clips.

Kid’s book review

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

reviewed by Olivia, age 9

Harriet M. Welsh doesn’t go to play and have fun after school. She goes to work. She has a spy route all planned out, and she writes her secret thoughts about everyone in her special notebook.
But when Harriet and her classmates play their own new and improved game of tag, Harriet’s notebook gets bumped out of her hands and she loses track of it. Then she realizes that her precious secret notebook has fallen into the wrong hands.
Her friends look through the notebook, finding out the sometimes awful truth about what Harriet thinks of them, and Harriet’s friendships are torn apart.
Harriet finds out that her friends have formed a club that is against her. She wants to fix the tattered friendships, but will she succeed?

I am like Harriet in a lot of ways. Sometimes I say things that offend people, and it takes a long time for me to fix it by saying sorry. I am sometimes secretive, and I did try to have a notebook like Harriet, but there was nothing very interesting to write about.

One of my favorite parts was when Harriet thought that her nanny Ole Golly was going out with “the boyfriend,” and she spied on them. I liked it because it was kind of funny how Harriet was so horrified by how Ole Golly changed her tone of voice and her opinions when she was with the boyfriend.

Harriet the Spy will keep you wanting to turn the page, and Harriet’s adventures will get wilder and wilder throughout the story. Harriet and her troubles will keep you hanging on to every word. When you meet Harriet and her best friends, Sport and Janie, you’ll realize how odd people can be.

You’ll be feeling along with all of them, scowling when Harriet’s enemy Marion Hawthorne gets nominated as class officer, and wanting to get home for Harriet’s daily cake and milk.

Harriet the Spy will keep you on the edge of your seat, and that is why I recommend this book to you.

Kids! Send your book reviews or list of favorite titles to kids@maplewoodlibrary.org

Remembering Maurice Sendak

Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!

If you do a keyword search in our catalog for Maurice Sendak, you get a list of 74 entries. If you are like me, looking at this list will produce a flood of memories of Little Bear, In the Night Kitchen, Pierre, and, of course, Where the Wild Things Are. Many great author-illustrators have followed in Sendak’s footsteps, but most will agree that they will be nearly impossible to fill.

Sendak died on Tuesday, May 8, 2012, following a stroke. He was 83. Following are links to rememberances of his life and legacy:

NY Times: Author of Splendid Nightmares Dies at 83

The Rosenbach Museum Remembers Sendak

NPR: Fresh Air Remembers Maurice Sendak

Washington Post: Maurice Sendak’s Menagerie