Module 9 - Capture the Flag

Capture the Flag

by Kate Messner

ISBN 978-0-545-41974

Summary:
Three tweens, who have never met, end up at the same party at the Smithsonian Museum of American History's celebration.  The do not become friends until the next day when they are trapped in a snowed in airport and they learn that the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" has been stolen.  Anna is convinced the flag is somewhere at the airport and she convinces Jose and Henry to join her in searching for it.  They encounter some sinister characters, an over the top politician, and a super friendly dog named Hammurabi while searching for the flag. 

My Impressions:
This is a fantastic middle level, contemporary mystery novel.  The three main characters, Anna, Jose, and Henry, are all very realistic and relatable.  I love that Jose carries around a backpack full of Harry Potter novels and that Henry would rather be playing video games.  These kids are not perfect nor are they overly damaged; they are just regular kids.  The plot is predictable (for grown-ups) and it's easy to guess who the bad guy is, but that didn't make me want to put the book down.  The story takes place in two different, but fascinating settings: the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the airport, including a few trips behind the scenes of the baggage handling system.  The story is also humorous such as this bit about Anna's dad: "The notes 'Hail to the Chief' rang out from his pocket, and he pulled out his phone.  'Hold on, this is Mom. . . . Hey, what's up?" (p. 98).


Professional Reviews:
Three preteens are in Washington, DC, to view the flag that inspired the "Star Spangled Banner," which had recently been restored. Anna Revere-Hobbs, a budding reporter and daughter of one of Vermont's senators, is looking for a scoop. She hopes to land an interview with presidential hopeful Senator Robert Snickerbottom, but he isn't interested. Henry Thorn doesn't want to be in DC at all, but he's stuck visiting his Aunt Lucinda while his newly married father honeymoons. José McGilligan's scientist mother has been away for three weeks working on the restoration project. He has missed her terribly and he's hoping his life will return to normal now. Unfortunately, the flag is stolen during the night, and his mother has been detained since she was one of the last to view it. The three meet at the airport as they jockey for available outlets to recharge their electrical devices. A fierce snowstorm is about to strand everyone. As news dribbles in, Anna begins to suspect that the flag is somewhere in the airport and convinces the two boys to help her sniff out some clues. As they do, they learn that each of them has historical pedigree and a parent who is a member of a secret organization called the Silver Jaguar Society.. Think of a "39 Clues" /National Treasure mash-up. There's plenty of action, suspense, and red herrings to keep eager mystery fans turning pages despite a rather buffoonish presidential candidate and huge holes in security at our nation's capital no less. As usual, Messner creates believable characters, nails the dialogue, and deftly weaves history and humor into the mix.

Kahn, B. (2012). Capture the Flag. School Library Journal, 58(10), 145-146.


Having Fun in the Library:
I would have the students individually write a newspaper story about the theft of the American flag.  This would include a lead, the 5 W's and quotes from people involved with the story.  They could type the stories on the computers and then I could print them and hand them either in the library or in the hallway.  

Messner, K.  (2012).  Capture the flag.  New York: Scholastic Inc.

Module 8 - Eragon

Eragon

by Christopher Paolini

ISBN 978-0-375-82668-9

Summary:
Eragon finds a smooth, blue stone on the ground.  He picks it up so he can sell it for food to help feed his family.  One night the stone begins to glow and a small crack appears.  Soon, a baby dragon hatches out of the stone and Eragon begins a life changing journey.  He discovers magic and power and evil.  He and Saphira, his dragon, encounter strange new creatures and learn of an entirely new world as they journey to the Beor Mountains to fight against the Empire.

My Impressions:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I thought it was a great example of fantasy literature, from the basic plot of the hero discovering who he is, to starting his quest, to the end of this particular quest.  There are mythical creatures such as dragons, elves, a witch and a werecat (who reminded me of Crookshanks from Harry Potter).  The escape from the jail in Gil'ead was heroic and exciting to read.  I did think it was a bit too fortuitous that Eragon discovers he can do magic and he's a Dragon Rider and he becomes the owner of the sword Zar'roc.  All of the keys to becoming great and rising above the situation were certainly handed to Eragon.  But, he's only 15 and has lead a tragic life.  I was left wondering about the lineage of his mother and the fate of his cousin, and I'm sure those things are revealed in the rest of the novels.

Professional Reviews:

WITH all the hoopla surrounding the publication of ''Eragon'' and its 19-year-old author, Christopher Paolini, it isn't easy to read this first novel ''plain'' -- that is, without preconceptions. The young author, who has been home-schooled, began writing a planned trilogy at 15, published the first edition himself with the help of his family, then sold it to Alfred A. Knopf for a large advance -- it's a real Cinderella story, one that makes J. K. Rowling's experience with Harry Potter appear modest. Nonetheless, there is the work itself, a 509-page fantasy, and what is one to make of it?

''Eragon'' is about an ordinary boy -- he's 15 at the start of this book, 16 by the end -- who finds a strange blue stone in a stretch of mountains known as the Spine. ''Nature had never polished a stone as smooth as this one. Its flawless surface was dark blue, except for thin veins of white that spiderwebbed across it. The stone was cool and frictionless under his fingers, like hardened silk.''

Eragon has all the makings of a classic literary hero -- he is poor, orphaned, brave and impulsive. His history is mysterious even to him; he scrapes out a meager living working with his taciturn uncle and a cousin -- and his life is swiftly overturned when the blue stone hatches a dragon, commencing a journey into murder and magic, among elves, warriors, kings and monsters, leading, of course, to a battle between good and evil. It is a familiar plot, but originality has never been one of the fantasy genre's strengths.

By its nature, fantasy draws upon archetypes -- less enchanted readers might call them stereotypes -- of heroes and villains, magic and magical creatures. Some writers, like Ursula K. Le Guin and Anne McCaffrey, use exquisite prose. Others, like J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, create reverberating plots that twist and dive with a dramatic flexibility that is like swordsmanship or dance.

Paolini does not yet have these strengths. He often slips into clichéd descriptions -- ''His tanned skin rippled with lean muscles'' -- or

B-movie dialogue: '' 'Boy!' roared Brom. 'You demand answers with an insolence rarely seen.' '' His prose can be awkward and gangly: ''Things that had been permanent and unquestionable were suddenly thrown into doubt. Eventually he had learned to live with it, but he always had a nagging suspicion that he had not been good enough for his mother. I'm sure there was a good reason for what she did; I only wish I knew what it was.''

The plot stumbles and jerks along, with gaps in logic and characters dropped, then suddenly remembered, or new ones invented at the last minute. And yet, as Beatrix Potter wrote, ''Genius -- like murder -- will out.'' ''Eragon,'' for all its flaws, is an authentic work of great talent. The story is gripping; it may move awkwardly, but it moves with force. The power of ''Eragon'' lies in its overall effects -- in the sweep of the story and the conviction of its storyteller. Here, Paolini is leagues ahead of most writers, and it is exactly here that his youth is on his side.

Some of our greatest writers have written badly, at least some of the time, from Tolstoy to Dreiser to Crane. Paolini has a passionate commitment to his story, and he has created some fine images. Eragon's room is cold and bare, but ''covered with objects he had collected. There were twisted pieces of wood, odd bits of shells, rocks that had broken to reveal shiny interiors, and strips of dry grass tied into knots. His favorite item was a root so convoluted he never tired of looking at it.''

The hatching of the dragon's egg is a lovely scene, and more wonderful is the fledgling dragon herself: ''When dawn came, the dragon was sitting atop his bedpost, like an ancient sentinel welcoming the new day. Eragon marveled at its color. He had never seen such a clear, hard blue.''

But this is fundamentally a gloomy book.

Eragon, a true teenage hero, is moody, angry and somber, questioning the meaning of life. ''Love, family, accomplishments -- they are all torn away, leaving nothing. What is the worth of anything we do?'' He punches things a lot, and spends most of the time injured or bruised. Yet it's impossible not to become attached to him and care about his fate. Paolini never dwells on evil, though its presence haunts the novel. But unlike the vast majority of contemporary writers, he keeps most blood and gore offstage; brutality is something to mourn, to resist.

There are marvelous surprises, as in the first contact between Eragon and his dragon, or their first flight together: ''She crouched and her wings rushed upward. They hung there for an instant, then drove down as she flung herself into the sky. Eragon yelled as the ground dropped away and they rose above the trees. Turbulence buffeted him, snatching the breath out of his mouth.''

Paolini's best turns often strike the reader like splashes of icy water, refreshing if stinging: ''The air was chill and dry. Bare walls extended to a vaulted ceiling that was so high Eragon felt no taller than an ant. Stained-glass windows depicting scenes of anger, hate and remorse pierced the walls, while spectral beams of light washed sections of the granite pews with transparent hues, leaving the rest in shadow. His hands were shaded a deep blue.'' His sense of place is acute, with a vividness reminiscent of Poe: ''A mountain of bare rock speared the sky with spires and columns, a tenebrous nightmare ship. Near-vertical sides rose out of the ground like a jagged piece of the earth's bone.''

''Eragon'' is filled with nightmare moments, dreams, visions. It never falters in its velocity. Its plot is episodic rather than climactic; it is clearly part of a larger work. The 500-plus pages race past. I found myself dreaming about it at night, and reaching for it as soon as I woke. Like countless other readers, I am waiting to see what happens next, with wonder, with admiration and with hope. As Eragon's dragon tells him, ''All will be well, little one.''

Rosenberg, L.  (2003, November 16).  Children's books; The egg and him [Review of the book Eragon].  The New York Times.  Retrieved      from      http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/books/children-s-books-the-egg-and-him.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Having Fun in the Library:
1.  Students could draw a map of the realm Eragon lives in, then have them trace his path on the map.
2.  Students could make a character map (graphic or artistic or online) of Eragon.


Awards:

• Arizona Young Readers’ Award (2006: Teen Book, Winner)
• Beehive Award (Utah) (2004-2005: Young Adult, Winner)
• Book of the Year Award (2004: Kids’ Non-Illustrated, Winner)
• Book Sense Book of the Year Award (2004: Children’s Literature, Winner)
• Books I Love Best Yearly (BILBY) Award (Australia) (2007: Shortlist Older Readers)
• Borders Original Voices Award (Finalist, 2003: Intermediate/Young Adult Literature)
• Buckeye Children’s Book Award (Ohio) (2007: Grades 6-8, Winner)
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award (2004-2005, Winner)
• Colorado Children’s Book Award (2005: Junior Novel, Winner)
• Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award (2006, Winner)
• Evergreen Young Adult Book Award (Washington) (2006, Winner)
• Florida Teens Read (2006, Winner)
• Gateway Readers Award (Missouri) (2006: Young Adult Division, 1st Place)
• Golden Archer Award (Wisconsin) (2006: Middle/Junior High School, Winner)
• Iowa Teen Award (2008, Winner)
• Kanga Award (Australia) (2005: Year 6-7, Top 15 Book)
• Nene Award (Hawaii) (2006, Winner)
• Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award (2005: Grades 6-8, Winner)
• Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award (Illinois) (2006, Winner)
• Rhode Island Teen Book Award (2005, Winner)
• Sequoyah Book Award (United States) (2006: Young Adult, Winner)
• Soaring Eagle Book Award (Wyoming) (2005: Grades 7-12, Winner)
• South Carolina Young Adult Book Award (2006, Winner)
• Teens’ Top Ten List (2004, Winner)
• Virginia Readers’ Choice Award (2006: Middle School, Winner)
• Volunteer State Book Award (Tennessee) (2006: Grades 7-12, Winner)
• West Australian Young Readers’ Book Award (2005: Older Reader, Reading List)
• White Ravens Award (2004, Winner)
• Young Readers’ Choice Award (2006: Grades 7-9, Winner)

Paolini, C. (2002).  Eragon.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Module 7 - Purple Heart and The Penderwicks

Purple Heart

by Patricia McCormick

ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2010

NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2010

Contemporary Concerns: Publishers Weekly Best Children 's Book of 2009

ISBN 978-0-06-173090-0

Summary: 
Eighteen-year-old soldier Matt Duffy wakes up to find himself in a Baghdad hospital recuperating from a traumatic brain injury.  He cannot clearly remember the details of the attack that day but has a nagging feeling that it somehow involves his ten-year-old local friend, Ali. Duffy wishes to be back with his unit where he believes he will find normalcy again.

My Impressions:
I can tell that McCormick put a lot of research into this book.  It certainly fits the category of Realistic Fiction and is a good story that pulls the reader into Duffy's world.  I think McCormick does a great job of revealing the horrors of war without sensationalizing it.  Duffy struggles with remembering what happened the day he was injured, as well as with the way his superiors handle the incident.  

There is strong language (plenty of uses of the f-word) in this book, but I don't feel that it is gratuitous.

One example of a small detail that McCormick (2009) uses to makes this book so real includes a phone conversation Duffy has with his younger sister:

          "Jeez, Matt, when did you turn into such a tool?"  She snapped her gum.          

          It was funny, Matt thought, how the tiny sound of a piece of Bubblicious popping                              i         in the United States could travel all the way to the other side of the world in a        m       millisecond (p. 24).

McCormick (2009) shows us Matt's confusion and fogginess through actions:

          If Francis noticed, he didn't let on.  "So what brings you here, Duffy Matt?"

          Matt frowned.  He couldn't remember the name of the thing that happened to his    b        brain.  It was three initials.  "My brain got shook up," he said finally.

          Francis nodded.  "IED?"

          Matt shook his head.  It wasn't an IED.  He knew what that was: an improvised    e       x        explosive device.  A roadside bomb (pp. 34, 35).

Professional Review:

The Book Review

Gr 7 Up--McCormick follows up her best-selling Sold (Hyperion, 2006) with a haunting look at the soldiers in Iraq. Matt Duffy is a private who escapes dying after nearly being hit by an RPG, but cannot remember what happened to him, has a hard time grasping new things, and desperately wants to get back to his squad. Most of the book is about Matt trying to recover from TBI, the soldiers he meets in the hospital and the physical and mental problems they face, and the discovery of what really happened that day he got shot. The characters are heart-wrenching, true, and realistic. The author's research into the war is obvious and brings an awareness to readers of the situation over there that they might not otherwise have. What the text lacks is a sense of the military action. While this is a worthy purchase, teens will get more out of it if they read Walter Dean Myers's Sunrise Over Fallujah (Scholastic, 2008) first.

By Richard Winters, Wasco High School, CA

Winters, R. (2009). [Review of the book Purple Heart]. School Library Journal, 55(11), 114.

Having Fun in the Library:
I'm not sure how to use a novel in the library, but I think a good place to start would be to host an online book club (or it could by tied in with English class) where students have to post a short summary of the book and then their responses to it.  The librarian could be the moderator and make sure the discussion stays on topic.  Maybe after every 5 chapters the students could post their response to the book as well as respond to what others have said about the book.

McCormick, P.  (2009).  Purple heart.  New York: Balzer + Bray.

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The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

By Jeanne Birdsall

2005 National Book Award winner

ISBN 0-375-83143-6

Summary:

The Penderwick family (Dad, Rosalind, Skye, Jane, Batty and Hound) spend the summer in a rented cottage on the back of an estate called Arundel.  Their father is busy with work (but not too busy to lend an ear or a helping hand) so the girls must entertain themselves and explore the estate.  They befriend Jeffrey Tifton, the young son of the estate owner and they create adventures all summer long.

My Impressions:

This is a fun, charming book that brings to mind Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.  
I loved this book.  The characters enjoy life and enjoy each other; the reader feels like a member of the family.  Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty each grow as characters and Birdsall (2005) allows us to be privy to the moments that stretch them, such as Skye standing up to Mrs. Tifton:

          Skye knew she shouldn't go in there.  It wasn't gentlemanly, and it would only give     M        Mrs. Tifton more reason to hate her.  Yes, she knew all that, and even Batty was     t         tugging at her arm to keep her from doing it.  But it didn't matter.  The family--   h        her mother's!--honor was at stake, and she had to defend the people she loved the     b        best.  She took a deep breath, girded herself for battle, and threw open the door   a        and charged across the room toward Mrs. Tifton (p. 188).

Skye proceeds to give the snooty Mrs. Tifton a piece of her mind and the reader is cheering her on for finally being so brave and honorable.

Professional Review:

Gr 4-6-- This enjoyable tale of four sisters, a new friend, and his snooty mother is rollicking fun. The girls' father is a gentle, widowed botany professor who gives his daughters free reign but is always there to support or comfort them. Rosalind, 12, has become the mother figure. Skye, 11, is fierce and hot-tempered. Jane, 10, is a budding writer of mysteries who has the disconcerting habit of narrating aloud whatever is occurring around her. Batty, four, is an endearingly shy, loving child who always wears butterfly wings. The family dog, Hound, is her protector. The tale begins as the Penderwicks embark on a summer holiday in the Berkshire Mountains, at a cottage on the grounds of a posh mansion owned by the terribly snobbish Mrs. Tifton. Her son, Jeffrey, is a brilliant pianist, but her heart is set on him attending a military academy like her beloved father. The action involves Rosalind's unrequited love for the 18-year-old gardener, Skye's enmity and then friendship with Jeffrey, Jane's improvement in her melodramatic writing style, and Batty's encounter with an angry bull whom she rather hopefully calls "nice horsie." Problems are solved and lessons learned in this wonderful, humorous book that features characters whom readers will immediately love, as well as a superb writing style. Bring on more of the Penderwicks!

By B. Allison Gray, John Jermain Library, Sag Harbor, NY; Trevelyn E. Jones, Editor; Luann Toth, Managing Editor; Marlene Charnizon, Associate Editor; Daryl Grabarek, Contributing Editor and Dale Raben, Assistant Editor.

Gray, B. (2005). [Review of the book The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters,      T         Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy]. School Library Journal, 51(7), 95.

Having Fun in the Library:

1.  Jane, the second youngest Penderwick, writes stories based on a character she  made up: Sabrina Starr.  I would have students either write a new Sabrina Starr story or write a letter to Jane suggesting what they think Sabrina Starr should do next.

2.  Batty, the youngest Penderwick, likes to listen to bedtime stories. I would pair the students off and have them tell each other bedtime stories, like Rosalind does with Batty.

Birdsall, J.  (2005).  The Penderwicks: A summer tale of four sisters, two rabbits, and a very interesting boy.      N         New York: Alfred A. Knopf

Module 6 - Creepy Carrots

Creepy Carrots

by Aaron Reynolds

Caldecott Medal, 2013, NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD

American Library Association Notable Books for Children, 2013, WON AWARD

Grand Canyon Reader Award, 2014, NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD

Colorado Children's Book Award, 2014, NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD ISBN 978-1-4424-0297-3 Summary: Jasper Rabbit loves carrots.  He even has a special carrot patch that he stops by several times a day to grab some munchies.  But then one day the carrots follow him home and soon Jasper decides to take action. My Impressions: This is just a fun, fun, fun book.  It is not at all creepy of scary.  I love that the carrots, instead of making creeping noises, make a 'tunktunktunk' noise when they follow Jasper.  The illustrations, done in almost all black and white, with just a wee bit of orange here and there, help tell the story and reveal some of Jasper's fears.  Jasper is a problem solver and takes matters into his own hands to keep the carrots from following him.  He builds a fence around the carrot patch and even adds a moat with alligators.  This book reminded me of Chris Van Allsburg books because you never really know if the story is true or just made up in the child's mind (The Garden of Abdul Gasazi).   Professional Reviews: A children’s librarian is half media specialist, half psychic. It isn’t enough to have to know the books in your collection. You have to know what that pint-sized patron standing before you REALLY wants when they say they want “a scary book”. For a while there I had this very persistent three-year-old who would beg me for scary fare and wait as I dutifully pulled picture book after picture book for him. After a while I’d begin to wonder what would happen if I actually gave him what he said he wanted. What if I’d handed him Alan Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark)? Would it have scarred him for life? Fortunately the shelves of your average children’s room abound with titles that are “scary” enough for a small fry. The trick is to find something that manages to balance the funny and the frightening in equal measures, never overplaying its hand. Had Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds been available when I met that kid, it would have been the first thing I’d have pulled from the shelf. With pitch perfect illustration by the increasingly talented Peter Brown, this beautifully shaded creation is a great example of how to get the tone of a picture book exactly right. Strange and wonderful and weird in all the right places. Jasper Rabbit. You average everyday hare. Jasper has a penchant for carrots. Stands to reason. He’s a rabbit. Every day he plucks them from the Crackenhopper Field. Never has a care in the world either. But one day Jasper has a suspicion. Carrots in his tummy he understands, but carrots in his bathtub? In his bedroom? In the tool shed? Seems that Jasper is being stalked by vegetation. Without realizing it, Jasper Rabbit is crossed out of his everyday existence and into . . . the carrot zone. Before we get into anything else, let’s talk text. As difficult as it may be, I tried reading this book without paying attention to the accompanying illustrations (no small feat) to get a sense of what author Aaron Reynolds is doing here. What I discovered when I went through it on a word alone basis was that Reynolds has penned a really good readaloud. There’s a great inherent drama to lines like, “Jasper was about to help himself to a victory snack.. when he heard it. The soft… sinister.. tunktunktunk of carrots creeping. He turned… but there was nothing there.” This passage is just begging to be read aloud with Vincent Price-esque cadences. The inherent ridiculousness of creeping carrots being scary is paired with the rather effective “tunktunktunk” sound. It reminded me of the sound of the dead son in that old short story The Monkey’s Paw. It speaks of unnatural slowness, always creepy to kids who move at lightning speeds themselves. Reading this book you hit that dichotomy of potentially frightening and potentially funny over and over until, at last, you reach the end. The book’s finale is one of those twist endings that some kids will get while others just enjoy the visuals. I love a picture book with a good twist, and so do child audiences. Particularly when they don’t see where the story is going. It’s interesting that though Reynolds has specialized in child lit noir for years (his Joey Fly Private Eye comic books practically typify the genre) there’s nothing ostensibly noir-ish about the text for Creepy Carrots! Just the same, Peter Brown saw something atmospheric there to be plundered. The decision was the right one and Brown cleverly culled from not a single noir source but from many. There are hints of Hitchcock, Wells, Twilight Zone, and other influences (Vertigo being the most direct reference of them all). The result is a picture of psychosis running rampant. Kids are naturally afraid that there might be monsters under their beds, so they understand paranoia. Only a few books think to take advantage of that fact. Meet one of the few. Atmospheric black and white, when done right, yields picture book gold. Think about the Caldecott Honor winner The Spider and the Fly as illustrated in a 1920s movie house style by Tony DiTerlizzi. Brown’s work isn’t wholly black and white, of course. He allows himself a single color: orange. This is a deep dark orange though. One that goes rather well with the man’s copious shading. Previous Brown books like The Curious Garden had fun with the borders, filling them with creeping smog around the edges. In Creepy Carrots! the borders now teem with encroaching darkness. Each picture is enclosed in a black border that seeps a foglike substance into the images. It’s like watching a television show or a movie where you know something’s gonna get the hero sometime. You just don’t know when. Fair play to Brown with his carrots too. As you can see from the cover alone, he takes care to make them funny and scary all at once. They have a random smattering of gappy teeth like jack-o-lanterns, crossed eyes, and a variety of tops. They’re like The Three Stooges in vegetable form, only more intimidating. Brown also makes the rather interesting decision to give much of this book a cutout feel. His style consists of drawing in pencil on paper and then digitally composing and coloring his images. The result is that he can give his scenes some real depth. That first shot of Jasper sitting merrily amongst the carrots really makes it look as if he’s cut out from the scene, nearer the audience, much like the tufts of the trees behind him. And finally there’s Jasper himself. You’d think the book would just feature the regular emotions like happy and frightened, but Brown does a lot more than that. The scene where Jasper laughs at himself for being so ridiculous to think that the carrots were following him is a triumph of mixed emotions. Worried eyes, smiling mouth, uncertain eyebrows, and hubris-filled ears. Beautiful stuff. Though it has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween, thanks to its black, white, and orange palette (to say nothing of its subject matter) expect to see this book read aloud in many a Halloween storytime for years and years to come. There are worse fates. I would simply remind everybody that scary books aren’t seasonal. That kid who requested them of me asked me for them month after month, never tiring of what I put before him. Kids love to be scared within the safety of their parents’ arms. Happy endings and gorgeous art are just a nice plus at that point. More fun than it deserves to be and thrilling to the core, expect to be asked to read this one over and over again and to willingly acquiesce so that you can pick out more details on a second, third, fortieth reading. A masterpiece of the scary/funny balance. On shelves now. Bird, E. (2012, September 20).  Review of the day: Creepy carrots! by Aaron Reynolds [Review of the book Creepy carrots! by Aaron Reynolds].  Retrieved from: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/09/20/review-of-the-day-creepy-carrots-by-peter-brown/#_ Having Fun in the Library:

I would have the kids cut creepy carrot shapes out of orange construction paper and then glue googly eyes on them and draw creepy mouths.

This would also be fun to pair (pear) up with The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss for a carrot themed story time.  I could serve carrots for a snack!

Reynolds, A. (2013).  Creepy carrots.  New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.