A Little o' This.

Hidden Assets, by Barbara Meyers and Marlene Stringer. I like to browse MCPL's catalog for Librarians--Fiction and see what's new. Sometimes it's fun to have a main character who has funny little bits of dialogue that only librarians will find funny. That's how I found this book. The last librarian romance I read was so terribly romance-novel-cliche, and I was feeling in need of a good laugh. This is actually a decent book, with no naked bits, and it's decently written. There's only a little bit of that huge change of emotions.  

Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett. I like this one slightly more than A Hat Full of Sky, but it's hard to beat the first one. It's not often I say this, but I sure hope there will be more.  

The Squishiness of Things, by Marc Kompaneyets. I did not enjoy this book. While it does have a good message appropriate for a picture book's older audience, the book was unappealing. The pictures, though beautifully done, are rather dark, with few bright colors. The main character wears dark clothes and is sometimes hard to spot, even when it seems he should be the focus of the picture. The book's title is a bit gross and it's origins in the story may be offensive to some.

Why War Is Never a Good Idea, by Alice Walker; illustrations by Stefano Vitale. I didn't even look at this when I picked it up in the library-- with a title like this, I knew I'd have something to say, whatever ended up being inside. The illustrations are gorgeous and bright, but this book is not for very young children. While the text is very moving, it doesn't flow very smoothly-- it is written in free verse and, while some of the vocabulary is great, on the whole it could have been much better than it is.  

Where Have the Unicorns Gone? by Jane Yolen; illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. This (rather poorly written) poem is illustrated with very nice, but exceedingly girly, paintings. This book must have a very tiny-- but dedicated, I'm sure-- readership.  

Where is the Cake? by T.T. Khing. I loved it! This is a wordless picture book, but there is so much to see, so many little stories to follow throughout, that I kept flipping back and forth among the pages, going back to pick up a story line I hadn't noticed before but wanted to follow. The drawings are bright and cartoony. There isn't really a moral or learning-ending. Some of these characters are really great!  

The Boy Who Loved Words, by Roni Schotter; illustrated by Giselle Potter. Despite the fact that this is a picture book, it is pretty long, with a lot of text, and it has a pretty advanced vocabulary (which is, it would seem, the whole point of the story). I very much enjoyed the story, along with the bright, simple artwork.  

AlphaOops! The Day Z Went First, by Alethea Kontis; illustrated by Bob Kolar. How funny! Watch for the little guy in the bottom corners; he embodied the awesomeness in this book for me! It's the alphabet (or the omegabet or possibly zedbet) presented in a way that will leave lots of time for reader-listener interactions and may help kids identify individual letters, but there's also the message in there about sharing, or letting others go first, if your kid needs help there. I thought it was very funny all around.  

The Apple-Pip Princess, by Jane Ray. I didn't like the collage-bits with the rest of the art-- I thought the drawings were better by themselves. Other than that, nothing really stood out about this book; I feel like there are dozens just like it, with tiny variations of story, but the same moral.