Inside Jacket

In Even Monsters Need Haircuts by Matthew McElligott, on the night of a full moon just before midnight, the young son of a barber does what he’s never allowed to do:  leave the house by himself. Well, he’s not really alone when he’s accompanied by his friend Vlad the Vampire is he?

Together they prepare the barber shop for the regulars who soon will arrive.  These aren’t your ordinary regulars though.  It’s a special clientele: monsters! It’s busy all night and our young barber is prepared for  all kinds of different haircuts and styles.  Rotting tonic, horn polish and stink wax are all on hand.  But things gets tense when there is a knock at the front door – surely it couldn’t be a human wanting a haircut at this time of night? But not to fear, our young barber knows how to take care of business.

A fun book to read this Halloween season.  A great cast of monster characters who are simply taking care of their monsterly looks.

After all, even monsters need haircuts.

Links of interest: Matthew McElliogott website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers.  July 20, 2010
Hardcover, 40 pages. ISBN 080278819X
Source: Picked up a review copy at Book Expo America. A 2010 Cybil’s nomination for which I am a 1st round  panelist.
Even Monsters Need Haircuts is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Be sure to add The Halloween Kid by Rhode Montijo to your picture book Halloween reading this month.

Trick-or-treating has always been fun and safe especially when the town can count on the mysterious masked boy to wrangle up all the Halloween hoodlums.  In fact, he’s done such a good job keeping Halloween safe that for years  he hasn’t had to step in at all.

But that changes when a group of Goodie Goblins shows up wrecking havoc.  There is even talk of canceling Halloween for good! The Halloween Kid back to the rescue!  But are his skills too rusty?  Can he overcome the Goblins or will the town need to come to his rescue?

I loved the fun western take on a “yee-ha-halloween!”  The story was really entertaining to read and so fun to read a loud to the boys by getting into character.  Very clever.  But what I loved even more where the fantastic illustrations.  I adored the vintage feel of the entire book.

The Halloween Kid is a new release so don’t miss it this year!

Illustrations copyrighted to Rhode Montijo.
Links of interest: Rhode Montijo website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction picture book. Approx ages 4-8.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. August 3, 2010.
Hardcover, 40 pages. ISBN 1416935754
Copy Source: Library
The Halloween Kid is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Such a gorgeous picture book!  Last year Amanda at A Patchwork of Books was so enthusiastic about this book that I just knew I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll and illustrated by Howard McWilliams was something special long before I got my hands on it.

Ethan can’t go to sleep properly.  Not when his resident under the bed monster, Gabe, has gone on a week-long fishing vacation.  How would he ever go to sleep without Gabe’s familiar scary noises and his spooky green ooze?  He  missed his ragged breathing, his nose-whistling, and the scrabbling of his uncut claws.  Luckily, he has a substitute monster appear under his bed.  Unluckily, his panting wasn’t scary enough and he didn’t have claws.  A second, third and fourth monster arrive but upon inspection none are as scary as Gabe and quickly dismissed.

Was I being too picky? NO.

I knew that my monster needed to be well-clawed and menacing.

The whole point of having a monster, after all, was to keep me in bed,
imagining all the scary stuff that could happen if I got out.

My boys love the monsters and are quick to fall into a fit of giggles over one particularly monster with a rather large tongue.  I was a bit worried that my boys would be scared of monsters under the bed but no fear, it’s an adorable story of a rather unique friendship.  Almost makes me wish I had my own monster under the bed.

A perfect read-a-loud book and illustrations to drool over.  Seriously gorgeous illustrations.  Highly recommend that you pick I Need My Monster up.  It’s a beautifully spooky book full of monsterly fun!

Links of interest: Amanda Noll website,  more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Flashlight Press.  April 1, 2009.
Hardcover, 32 pages. ISBN 0979974623
Source: Review copy for 2009 Cybil’s nomination for which I was a panelist.
I Need My Monster is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

When  I was in New York City this past May I attended a book signing event at Books of Wonder with a good dozen debut authors. Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards is one book that I picked up there because I simply couldn’t resist it.

One -  it’s free verse.

Two – it’s historical fiction.

Now some of you may be inwardly groaning to yourself because you don’t like free verse or historical fiction.  But for me it’s a match made in heaven.  A guarantee that I’ll read the book. I love free verse novels.  Adore.  Combine that with historical fiction and Three Rivers Rising was a no brainer purchase for me.

Dust jacket summary:

Sixteen-year-old Celestia vacations with her family at the elite resort at Lake Conemaugh, a shimmering Allegheny Mountain reservoir held inplace by an earthen dam.  Tired of the superficial cheer and sly judgements of the society crowd, she much prefers to swim and fish with Peter, the hotel’s hired boy.  It’s a friendship she must keep secret – her parents would never approve – and when companionship turns to romance, it’s a love that could get Celestia disowned.

These affairs of the heart become all the more wrenching on a single, tragic day in May 1889. After days of heavy rain, the dam fails, unleashing twenty million tons of water onto Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the valley below – the town where Peter lives with his father.

Told my multiple narrators, Jame Richards’s searing novel in poems explores a cross-class romance, the random hand of disaster, and a tragic and indelible event in American history.

What I really liked about Three Rivers Rising was how nostalgic it felt.  How I was really taken back in time not to just a different time but to a completely different way of thinking.  To a time where family appearances meant more than that actual family. Where one doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice the limb to save the tree, so to speak.  To a time where romance between the classes was merit for being disowned.  I loved the struggle between the characters as they simply tried to love each other.

I enjoyed the free-verse quite a bit. I always do. I have found with other readers that free-verse is something that either you love or hate.  I’m solidly on the love side.  However, I found the free -verse here to read more as prose rather than poetry making me wonder how the novel would have fared simply as prose.  But it’s fair to say that I’m glad it wasn’t prose but instead free-verse.

I had never heard of the Johnstown flood prior to reading Three Rivers Rising and Richards does an excellent job building up the tension prior to the dam breaking and describing the ensuing disaster and recovery. While Johnstown wasn’t the only city hit in this flood, there were more than 2,200 deaths in that area alone.  Reading about this incredible disaster against the backdrop of family and forbidden romance was exciting.

Jame Richards includes an author’s note, a South Dork Dam chronology, and further reading recommendations.  I have found that I like this kind of extra information in the historical fiction that I read.

I simply loved this book.

Links of interest: Jame Richards website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Free Verse Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers. April 10, 2010
Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 0375858857
Copy source: Purchased from Books of Wonder, NYC
Three Rivers Rising is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

I had to mention Bear in Underwear by Todd H. Doodler here on the blog because as many of you may remember we are thick in the middle of potty training around here (uh . . . for about a year actually).  With a three day weekend here and with no plans to go anywhere we decided to hit it full force again.  When I saw this book on the Cybil’s fiction picture book nomination list (for which I’m a panelist) I knew that it was one that I wanted to look at early on.

Sadly, as has been shown in my earlier posts about other potty training books, my sons love of potty training books does not necessarily translate to success on the potty.  I wish he had has much enthusiasm for the potty has he does reading his books.  I read Bear in Underwear three times back-to-back today with cries of “Again! Again!”  We would have kept going if I wasn’t sick and my voice gave out.  My husband also told me he read it a few times this morning as well.  I did notice my five-year-old pick up the book later and read the text to himself from memory (to clarify: he’s not the one in need of help, that would he his little brother).

In Bear in Underwear, Bear is playing with his forest friends when he finds a backpack full of underwear.  He tries on each pair looking for the perfect fit but they are either too big, too small, too loose, too silly, too girly, too dirty, or too itchy.  It isn’t until he tries on a pair of tighty whiteys that he finds the perfect fit.

What you can’t tell from the cover illustration is that the underwear on the cover is plush.  My boys thought that was hilarious. But their most favorite part of the story is seeing a back shot of Bear’s bum.  They would laugh and laugh over that one a good long while.  Overall, a good book for my boys.  I told my youngest later, “Hey, you’re wearing underwear just like Bear!” to which he responded proudly, “Yes, I am!”  A nice success until I found him in his bedroom slyly changing that wet underwear into a new dry pair.  Sigh . . . off to hunt for another puddle somewhere.

Links of interest: Todd H. Doodler is a pseudonym for Todd Goldman (no surprise there – as soon as I saw the last name Doodler for a children’s author, I figured it was too good to be true). More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Blue Apple Books. March 1, 2010
Hardcover, 40 pages. ISBN 1609050169
Source: Library copy.  A 2010 Cybil’s nomination for which I am a 1st round  panelist.
Bear in Underwear is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.