The Martha Canfield Library

Regular Pre-School Story Time - Wednesday mornings - 10:30 to 11:00 am

Wednesday mornings at 10:30 we have some fun winter and holiday happenings planned!  Come & join in.

2012 Caldecott Medal Winner Announced

A Ball For Daisy

This wonderful book is wordless but tells a story that every person that reads it will enjoy.  Daisy has been given a new ball that she loves very much.  But in one sudden movement the ball is destroyed.  Then she gets a new ball AND a new friend.

BOOK REVIEWS for picture books

LET'S DO NOTHING, by Tony Fucile was the 2011 winner of the Red Clover Award, which is given by kids voting for their favorite book. 

This book is very funny.  It is about two boys who are friends.  They have done every thing they can think of and so they decide to do NOTHING!

One of them has a very big imagination and so it is very hard for him to sit still and  - DO NOTHING.

Mrs. McBloom, Clean Up Your Room!,  by Kelly DiPucchio

The whole concept of this story is sure to be a winner with kids familiar with messy rooms of their own that seem impossible to clean up, containing too many wonderful bits of string, rock, and odds bits and pieces that have no apparent value to an adult.

But it is the wonderful illustrations that make this book SO outstanding. I must have spent half an hour (or more!) pouring over each page, making sure I had seen it all.  My favorite item in Mrs. McBloom's classroom is the gopher that has his tunnel and den under the exploding model of a volcano.

BOOK REVIEWS for easy readers

Mr. Putter and Tabby Walk the Dog, by Cynthia Rylant.

If you’re just learning to read, we have a lot of beginning readers for you. There are books about dogs, books about cars, books about children like you. One of my favorite books is Mr. Putter and Tabby Walk the Dog, by Cynthia Rylant. Mr. Putter and his fine cat, Tabby, live next door to Mrs. Teaberry and her small dog, Zeke. One day Mrs. Teaberry slips and hurts her foot, so she can’t take Zeke out for his walk. Mr. Putter agrees to walk Zeke, but he gets into all kinds of adventures with Zeke. Some of the things that happen are funny, and the pictures made me laugh. If you want a funny book, come and borrow one of our many books about Mr. Putter and Tabby.

BOOK REVIEWS for junior fiction

The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

It is 1877, and 12-year-old Oona Crate is the Wizard's Apprentice of Dark Street.  Dark Street is the last of thirteen Faerie roads connecting the World of Man with the World of Faerie.  There are gates at both ends.  The gate at the World of Man opens onto a street in New York City once a day, for one minute at the stroke of midnight.  The gate of the World of Faerie remains closed.

Being the Wizard's Apprentice is an important task, but what Oona longs to be is a detective.  Soon enough she must become a detective and solve one of the most important cases imaginable.  Her helpers are Deacon, a black raven that can talk, and Samuligan, the Wizard's faerie servant.

There are lots of suspects (as there are in any good classical type mystery) and she must use logic to solve the mysteries that surround her.  Dark Street is a magical place, filled with witches, an odd faerie or two and goblins.

The Wizard of Dark Street is a well plotted story that would stand up favorably against any "adult" mystery.  The necessary clues are there, if you can see them; the outcome logical.  And there is the magic element that makes it so much fun.  It is more of a mystery than a book about magic.

Like Pickle Juice On a Cookie by Julie Sternberg"

Chapter One

I had a bad August.

A very bad August.

As bad as pickle juice on a cookie.

As bad as a spiderweb on your leg.

As bad as the black parts of a banana.

I hope your August was better.

I really do".

Eleanor's babysitter, Bibi, the one she has had all her life (she's eight years old) and whom she loves dearly is moving away.  While she is feeling very sad that Bibi has gone, she must get used to a new babysitter, and a new class at school and a new teacher.  Matthew Cordell has made wonderful drawings for the book. You can really see how Eleanor looks and feels.  If you are eight years old, you will love this book.  If you are eighty, but can remember being eight, you will love it too.

The Trouble With Chickens by Doreen Cronin

“It was a hot, sunny day when I met that crazy chicken.  So hot that sometimes I think the whole thing may have been a mirage. But mirages don’t have chicken breath, mister.”

Junior fiction readers, welcome to the world of the hard-boiled detective, J. J. Tully.  He isn’t really “hard-boiled”, he is a retired search and rescue dog, but he does have the hard-boiled detective’s outlook on life.  Only the promised payment of a cheeseburger entices him to take the case of two missing chicks.  Their mother has come to Tully because two of her four chicks are missing.

We don't want to give away the story.  It's lots of fun and the pictures are really funny.

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