 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Christa Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. You can always catch our show and watch it from our archives at your convenience. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think who might be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. We do a mixture of things here on Encompass Live, book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of service and products, basically just anything that libraries might be interested in. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries in our state, and that is for all types of libraries. So you will find things on our show for all types of libraries. Public, K-12, academic, special corrections, any sort of museums or archives are out there that you can, you should be able to find something for somebody on the show. We have our archives here. I want to show you that first. I mentioned that earlier. Our archives are here. Our upcoming shows are here, and then our archives are right beneath. So if you do want to watch any of our previous shows, today's archive will be posted right here at the top of the list for everyone, but this is where you can access any of our previous shows. I just want to mention this while we're here. You can search our archives for a topic, or as I said, any sort of topic you might find, or limit your search to the most recent 12 months. This is because this is our full show archives for Encompass Live, and I'm not going to scroll all the way down because that would be a lot of scrolling, but Encompass Live premiered in January 2009. So we've got over 10 years worth of recordings here. So it's a long list. So just do pay attention to the original broadcast date of anything if you are looking through our archives or something. Many of the shows will stand the test of time. Everything will be correct and information will be useful, but some things will become outdated or will change services and products or programs might not exist anymore. Links may be broken to websites that we talked about five, eight years ago. So just pay attention to the original broadcast date if you are watching any of our archives. But we, our librarians here, and so as we do, we archive things and keep things for historical purposes. We will always have our full archives up here, as long as we have the technical capabilities between us and YouTube to be able to do that. As I said, we do a mixture of things here on the show, and we sometimes have Nebraska Library Commission staff to presentations about things that we're doing here through the Commission, and we sometimes bring in guest speakers. And this morning we have a mixture of that. Actually, today we are talking about Best New Children's Books of 2020. This is a companion, I would call it a companion presentation, to our, which I'll actually show you just here in the archives, to the Best New Teen Reads of 2020, which was done a couple of weeks ago. Sally Snyder, our coordinator of children youth services. Hi Sally. Is here with us today. She did our Best New Teen Reads a couple of weeks ago. And then this morning she is here with Dana Fontaine from our Fremont High School. Good morning Dana. Good morning. To talk about the children's books and I am going to hand over a presenter control to you now. Dana said you can get your screen up. Awesome. There we go. All right, can you see everything. Yep, and if you do present it should go full screen for us I think. Yep. Let me just move this little control panel over. Yep. All right, there we go. All right, I'm super pumped about the books I'm going to show you today. I'm super super pumped. So let us begin new books for the new year. Absolutely. So today we will be, we will be exploring new children's literature in a variety of formats ebooks. We even have manga on here we have graphic novels we have not fiction fiction just a whole bunch of things. But the first book that I'm going to talk about is probably one of my favorites. It's Queen of Tejano music Selena and it's by Sylvia Lopez illustrated by Paula Paula Escobar, and it's so beautiful. It's also published in Spanish and actually the Spanish version is selling a bit better than the English version but this is still a really popular book it focuses on all the positives of her life and they kind of they they address her death and the tragedy of it but it's very it's very like kind of glossed over and they just say she died and it was sad they don't go into anything, you know, too traumatic. So it's, it's just a beautiful book, and the writing is a little small but the illustrations are just amazing. And the story is just great and it's uplifting and it shows how she overcome overcame all this adversity and you know how millions just love her. Still, even to this day, and she's kind of making a resurgence and pop culture. Isn't there a new show or something coming out about there's a mini series on Netflix. I knew there was something I'd seen somewhere. I watched it and it was fantastic as well so I might be a little bit biased I'm a Selena fan. So I really, I really like her but this like even I, I pass this book off to my colleagues and they really liked it and I read it to my students and they liked it so I mean it's a really popular one around here. Yeah. I mean it was Netflix for anyone who's wondering that I was like I think it was Netflix I'm not sure. But part one is on now but they're coming out with a part two, because part one ended with a mega cliffhanger so I know right and this. I suggest buying this book in both formats both in English and Spanish because you will definitely get a ton more readers about this. And then RSP ECT Aretha Frank Franklin the Queen of Soul there's a lot of trending books right now about about pop singers and you know famous people and people like people who are important in culture. But they show a different aspect of their lives which I really, really like in this book. There's been you know beautiful illustrations and it's diverse and it dives deep into her music but it also tells about her civil rights activism. And she was an amazing performer but she also stood up for what is right and what is what is important and that's portrayed in this book. I am every good thing so has anyone read the crowd or crown and it's about a haircut. This is by yeah this is about the same author or this is by like the same people who put this book together and it's again it's just beautiful and it's diverse and it's super uplifting. It is just you know some people just try to bring you down but this this boy he's like I am I am every good thing and he's trying to find out kind of who he is. And it's just such a positive book and it's written in first in poetry form and it's just beautiful. And I'm a really big fan of crown so I really like this one too. For beautiful black boys who believe in a better world. I absolutely love this book. It's timely it's diverse. It talks a lot about great vocabulary it tells what like vigils are and it tells, you know explains to kids what are happening in the world without talking down. Talking down to them you know some books just kind of you know gloss over things and talk down to the kids but this actually says like it explains it what's happening in the world with race and everything and it's completely unbiased. It's also about how some some police policemen were shot and killed and it's about black boys who were, you know, taken from us I mean it's just a great timely read, and it's simplistic without talking down to the reader. So, and it's, it's about this boy who wants his dreadlocks, and his dad kind of goes into goes into dreadlocks and like cultural things and it's just fantastic. Dana. I think it's on the clever 2020 winner but I can't read what it's the 2020 winner of do you know. With the side cbc I think it's a youth book prize for social justice. So maybe can book. I don't know. I think cbc is Canada right Canada book. Oh, order. I'm not sure I will look into that. I'm going to look on the, please, please do novel list and see if it tells us that is an award. Yeah, I'm launching 2017 the guided Riverside Steven Russo book prize for social justice celebrates the power of the written word to create change in the name of justice for all people. So we get that right away. Thank you guys. I'm just sitting here watching so I can go and, you know, I was wondering about that too because, you know it's a fairly new. You know, it's a fairly new book. I'm like, oh, it already won something. So, um, cone cat, speaking of cats Christa cone cat. You must read this. It's so, so funny. And it's adorable illustrations. It's a great real out and it's super relatable because I know we've all had pets that have done something to themselves that needed to, they needed to be in the cone of shame. And, you know, we try to make the cone pleasant, but the cat is super bemused. And he, he finds out that Oh, the cone isn't so bad. And then he does a bunch of things with the cone and decides, I like this cone that's kind of my superpower. And then it turns out he wakes up and there's no cone anymore. He's, he's conniving. He's kind of trying to get his way back into the cone, much to his owner's dismay. This is really cute. And then, okay, this is another one of my super favorites but see flamingo by Shelley Vaughn, and it's so, so, so funny. And it has adorable illustrations. If you were a parent, I'm not, but I know some parents are just like, they won't eat anything. So fussy, fussy flamingo will not eat shrimp. She refuses. And her name's Lola. And she refuses to eat shrimp. Her dad's like, eat shrimp, you'll become pink. And she's like, I don't want to eat shrimp at all. So she goes and she eats an avocado, and she goes and eats various things that turn her feathers colors, because she hates shrimp. They're, they're slimy. And it's a great read aloud. And there's a moral to the story. And there's actually like helpful facts about flamingos. And it's just really, it's, it's really funny because I think parents can relate a lot to this. This one made me a little sad. Evelyn Delray is moving away. So Daniela wakes up one day and then her friend is her friend Evelyn is moving away. And they did everything together. They, you know, they were best friends. And they were actually neighbors too. And so she's like, What am I going to do? You're my best friend. She's like, Well, you can come visit, but it still won't be the same. And so Evelyn moves away. And then they, at the end, they go for a play date to the two Evelyn's new apartment. But, but it's really kind of sad. And everyone has had like a friend that's moved away. And it's never the same because they're never like in your space. And it's so hard to keep in touch. And so that's what this book is about. And then this one, Eyes That Kiss In The Corners just came out yesterday. So if you like hair love, you will love this book. It's kind of a love story for Asian people who, for Asian people who have, who feel self-conscious about their eyes because this little girl feels self-conscious about her eyes. And she wants big blue, like big blue eyes with eyelashes and instead her eyes kiss in the corners. And I love that description. What? I love that description of me too. Me too. Cause like, how better to explain it than that. Cause, I mean, I just, I just feel for this little girl. Cause she's just like, I can't change this, but like her mom and her grandma have the same eyes. And so she kind of feels a little bit better about how special her eyes are. And she's kind of wrestling with, you know, like, I wouldn't look the same as everyone else, but I think this one was beautiful. So, and it's super sweet. We do have a question, actually, that I want to ask right now. Someone wants to know what age group are the books, Cone Cat and Fussy Flamingo? What age group are we talking about here that they would be most appropriate for? I think School Library Journal. I think that said like pre-school, the second grade. And what was the other one? Cone Cat and Fussy Flamingo. Cone Cat is like first to, I mean, it could be a little bit older, like third, first to third, like kindergarten to third. Yeah. All right. So Woke. This is actually a little bit older book. This is for like the middle grade proud a little bit. A Young Poet's Call to Justice by Mahogany L. Brown, Elizabeth Acevedo. And if you, if you read in a young lit, she wrote, I am the Poet X, Clap When You Land, and with the fire on high, and Olivia Getwood illustrated by Theodore Taylor the third. There's great authors. It's diverse poetry. It's just, it's just a really good book about social justice. And she is in this, I mean, it's just about like, it's just a book of poetry. I don't like to say just, because this is a really powerful book. And so it's a great addition to your library or your classroom. And then this is my all time, all time book of 2020, even though I do say that, I know I say that a lot. It's true. Like I feel passionate about every single one of these books on this list. It's awesome. I'm laughing at the cover. I know. Oh, at the end, the gum. Okay, I'm probably going to spoil the ending, but at the end. The gum hops off and says, rude. Because she's like, I just want this gun out of my hair because everybody actually wants, you know, everybody has a solution like her uncles and her aunts and the firefighters come in and like there's so many people just trying to get this gosh darn gum out of her hair. And we've all been there. Anybody with hair has had done it. You can identify with this book. Children and adults alike. Exactly. There we are. What? Even bunny rabbits and cats. Well, the cat will get the gum out of the hair. Well, the cat gets stuck too. It's so funny. And then she, or, okay, so it's really a gender neutral. You don't really know what gender the kid is. And he, and of course I love everything that Adam Rex writes. But at the end, the gum is just like rude. And there's a twist at the end. There's picture day. Of course. Of course it's picture day. Well, what age range would you call this one? All of these are like preschool to grade two, unless like we get to the graphic novels and those are a little older. But these picture books are great actually for all ages. I read these to high school kids sometimes. And they just love them. I think it's funny. And then my very first cookbook, this is super cute. It has, I have a lot of kids request cookbooks and they go home and they cook for their siblings or their parents. And it's super helpful. The very first page has like conversions on it. And it even has a recipe for like laughter and it's easy recipes and it actually stresses like cook with your family. Please cook with your family and have it together activity. So it's really, it's a really cute book. Maybe very good right now when people are still, you know, I'm not in lockdown, but you know, staying home a lot together and, you know, the parents are definitely having to cook more potentially. And get the kids involved too and have a book here that can help you guide them through that. Sure. I know some parents are on top of it. You know, are you find it easier to teach your kids to cook and some are more I don't even know where to begin with it. Exactly. Exactly because they're the recipes are so simple that I mean that anyone can do them, even me. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not very much of a cook. So I try really hard. But yeah, my mom never really taught me to cook and so I've had to teach myself. So I was really impressed with this you have to start somewhere and I would start with this one. Yeah, that's a good point because, you know, and it and the and the ingredients are stuff you have on hand usually you don't need to go by like capers in Timbuktu, you just need to go and like, yeah, you just need to go the high B. So, sorry for those not living in Nebraska high B is like a local girlfriend. All right, the couch potato the fourth installment of the bad seed the good egg and the cool bean. So this is also very timely, because it raises a good point like kids, like with, like, no fall of their own they're sitting more they're sitting more they're kicking their technology more some classrooms are even virtual but then the couch potatoes. electricity goes out all the technology dies. It was like what am I going to do. So he looks outside and is like, I think I might actually go outside today. So, so he, he does that, and I didn't know this but when researching this book after reading it, the term couch potato was coined in like the 70s or 80s about kids that sit too much so I know I wasn't I was because I'm like where did that even come from so and it raises a good point sometimes we need to break from technology and this series is always super good okay so there's a very huge story behind this book my very favorite book in the whole wide world and it's illustrated well it's written by Malcolm Mitchell and he he played football and he was actually a Super Bowl champ so it's kind of a love story to reading you can do so much with this book because this kid started off not liking reading at all and this is a really important book I personally I think I'm going to read this at the beginning of the year next year um to anybody that will have me in their classroom because it's about finding the love of reading so he goes to a bookstore and the book lady says you should read all of these books but they're kind of boring and then he goes to the library and the librarian helps him but he still doesn't find his favorite book and then he says he took a stack of books to the swimming pool and to see if they could swim and the librarian in me is like please don't yeah please don't water water is the enemy and so um yeah you can do so much with this book but by the end the ending is amazing the ending is he couldn't find his book his mom says you know why don't you just write a book or write a book that you want to read and he does he writes a book about himself and he reads it to his class and all of his classmates love it so it's it's it made my made my heart grow three sizes that day and then I I presented this on a previous presentation because I can't say enough about Ryan T Higgins and the Penelope series Penelope is back and guess what she plays guitar and Penelope is at that dinosaur and but she has stage fright but she wants to show off her guitar playing skills to her classmates and so she at the end she goes and she plays guitar and she um she doesn't want her friends to think badly of her and she she kind of overcomes her stage fright so it's and she doesn't even eat any of her classmates this time I was just gonna ask that first book and what's different I know I think she's tempted I think she's tempted with one one student but I think she does ends up not eating him so she does eat a lot of food though so in this one okay so this is what Ali saw and this is actually translated from another language I don't know what language it was in but it was translated but it's super cute I like pigs and so this cover kind of caught my eye and I read it and I obviously fell in love with it because it's it's about Ali and he sees things in a different way so if he's in traffic he thinks of it like as a circus and he needs glasses but he likes things the way they are like when he looks at things he sees them different and he has a great imagination but he really really doesn't want glasses so um it turns out he actually needs them pretty bad so and eventually he has to get them but all right I talk like a river is also for the differently abled it's this this main character has a stutter and he is super self-conscious about it and so he takes a walk with his dad and his dad is like you know it's not that big of a deal you know the river burbles just like you do and um he's really insecure but his dad explains how special he is and how it's okay not to speak super perfectly and the illustrations are really pretty cool and this is really great for parents too because some parents are like what do I do like I want them to just overcome this well this is also good advice for parents too because the dad really makes a good connection with this with the sun oh and then this is my favorite to talk about too because it also has an app it has a free app that you can download and all the all the proceeds all the royalties dan brown is not accepting the royalties he's sending them to a charity so um dan brown the same one that wrote a da Vinci code he's actually quite a good musician I was gonna say is that the damn dan brown we know that's the dan brown we know and love I was so surprised when I got an alert he was coming out with a picture book I'm like yes I'm pre-ordering this I have to read it so um all the illustrations are super cute but also um if you go and you read this book with the app there is a song that you the the words are in poetry they're in verse but if you read with the app every page is a new song and so there's instrumentals to go with each page it says it's an augmented reality app but it's not really an augmented reality app it's basically just playing the songs while you are reading so I don't know it's super cute it's because the even the first page when you turn to the first page um well there's a QR code but the first real page of the story um there's a maestro mouse and he's tapping his little music stand going tip tip tip and it's just really I don't know I was entertained I was entertained by that all right so you want to be an owl so by Jane Porter um this book is non-fiction kind of but it it kind of like folds in the information to convince you to that you want to become an owl or and it's an early reader disguised as learning as entertainment it's super funny with great facts because it kind of just folds it in it folds everything in I mean because it's like if you want to be an owl then your head has to turn 360 degrees or like just facts like that and it shows diagrams and things and so it's learning the skies which is my very very favorite thing all right and one step further my story of math the moon and a lifelong mission so unfortunately Katherine Johnson just passed away not that long ago but this is that Katherine Johnson she wrote this about herself and it's autobiographical and it's by National Geographic Kids and it's STEM and STEAM related and it just tells how she came to build and help with the rocket and she talks about the importance of math in her life and just how she used math to get to the moon so it was super it was super interesting and of course I'm a big Katherine Johnson fan and if you've read the book or if you read the book or seen the movie Hidden Figures Katherine Johnson's portrayed in that as well and then class Sally and I have this both on our list because it can really fit I think in both so this is actually a companion book to new kid it's not considered like a full sequel but this is about his friend about Jordan's friend Drew and he really okay so Drew was struggling with working hard because he feels like he has to prove himself and he feels he has to do better than the kids there because all the kids he goes to a private school and he's in the minority and he feels that he's working twice as hard as his classmates but still not getting ahead and he envies them and he envies his privileged classmates but sometimes life on the outside looking in and actual living that privileged life is different because there are people he finds out that maybe have a different lifestyle than than he assumes and it's intriguing just like the new kid and it's great author you can probably finish this in one setting it's really it's really good Sally do you want to chime in on this or do you want to wait for yours I'll wait till I get to it on my list because my notes are in the middle of the page somewhere okay thanks though yeah and then twins I really liked this book um I really felt okay so it's diverse it's a graphic novel and it's super relatable it's about twins Francine and Maureen except she doesn't go by Francine anymore I really felt the hurt that Maureen felt when Fran was like I want to be different I want to have different class periods than you I want to be different I want to be my own person but Maureen was like I still want my sister I still want to be a twin and she really struggles with that and I feel I really feel for her in this because um you know she's like a built-in best friend but now Francine is growing up and actually doing different things and you know running trying to run with a different friend group and not dressing alike anymore and so it's it's really hard on Maureen and she's not adjusting well to as to middle school as much as Francine is and so it's I really like this one because I loved twins but it's just it's I feel really bad for Maureen because having a sister that you're like super close to and a friend just kind of go on their own path it's kind of hard to watch the next one is the thing about this is that twins is that it's marked as a book one so there there's expectations that it's going to be a series so this is book one from what I've read about it hopefully hopefully there's a sequel soon because I really like that so okay and then snap dragon there's a little bit of LGBTQ LGBTQIA plus in here but not like it's not like super in your face and it's a graphic novel with eccentric characters and it has a little bit of magic in it so snap needs a favor from Jackson jacks is rumored to be a town witch but snap is skeptical that she can actually do anything but once snap starts to work with jacks it becomes apparent that there's more to jacks than meets the eye and there also may be a connection to snaps family and jack in the mix and so nap might be more special than she knows and then pb and j stuck together and pb and j wannabes pb and j stuck together is the first in the series and then pb pb and j is the second and they're super cute in fact i think pb and i think pb and j stuck together is on kindle unlimited so if you have that membership you can read this for free so pb and j wannabes and pb and j stuck together it's hilarious it's a graphic novel it takes place on a farm some of it so there's eccentric characters and great storylines so p is close to his family and he likes to roll around and he likes to roll around one time strawberry is like i dare you i dare you to run across the farm or roll across the farm well then the thunderstorm starts and he gets lost and then he meets b who was who was appropriately named b and then and then he they also run into j who is having trouble flying and so they form this friendship and it's just really silly but really well written and this is my all-time favorite as well yeah so bad kitty goes on vacation and it's beautiful it's such a beautiful book it's in full color now so that's really exciting and so when i got it i was really i didn't i was not aware it'd be in full color so i was really surprised but this is probably i think this is probably one of the funniest books in the bad kitty series because because uncle murray takes bad kitty traveling on on an airplane they try to go on an airplane and he says the dreaded word cat carrier and bad kitty freaks out like just freaks like start shaking and stuff and the airplane the airplane guy is like why can i say cat carrier and then uncle murray goes and says here he's in a cat carrier and uncle murray is shredded and he has bad days all over and anyway so bad kitty and uncle murray uncle murray goes and wins a radio competition to go to love love angel kitty world and it's a sparkly and pink and girly as you could possibly get and uncle murray is not thrilled with this but bad kitty is like so we're going i'm not even gonna discuss this with you i'm gonna go so bad kitty has to has to dress up like a human because they obviously won't let real cats into the world or into the love love angel kitty so it is it is so fun i was like i'm 34 years old and i was reading this and i was just like i was just like i'm like this is so funny i love bad kitty and i love nick rule all right and then this is um i've never really added a manga to my list but this one actually fits with the age group and the fox and little tanuki it's cute it has talking animals it's in black and white so it's just a little simpler um it's actually a new series and it's kid friendly so um please forgive me for mispronouncing these words senju um he's being punished for using his powers for evil and not good and he had to wait 300 years to do these kind things to get back in the god's good graces so he tries to help manpachi trained to be an assistant to the gods however there's a catch every time senju says something bad or has to what does something bad he wears this necklace that kind of gives him a shock or any kind of prohibits him from doing any horrible deeds and so it's it's really cute and funny and he really has to watch his actions and it teaches him to actually be be a good person or character i should say since he's not really a person and then this is an adorable series this is for like your girly girl readers that love animals and fluffy things and glitter and sparkles um cute talking animals it's a new series that's all but it has like meaning and morals to the story it um it's great for reluctant girl readers and um it's all about like loss and bullying her mom gets sick so she has to live with her uncle and um she actually helps at his veterinary clinic so i know like one of the top jobs that students want to be when they're little as a veterinarian so it kind of goes through what it takes to be a veterinarian and all the sad things that you have to deal with yeah all right so that is that is my presentation all right i'm going to make you a presenter now sally okay for that little pop-up and while we're getting slides slides up i'll let everybody know we will have with the recording afterwards we will have the slides that they both used and actual lists too um that you saw sally holding up her list um sally dana dana sally had also sent me you had a word doc of yours as well um so we will have when we do do the um recording the archives you guys have links to their lists into their um slides um dana you can send me the link to your uh google slides so people can i know some people like to see the list and some people like to see the um book covers too so um but we will have links to all of that um when we do the recording up we'll say oh can you see my screen of nebraska library library commission website right now yep okay because as anyone who's heard me talk before i always do this first if you want to get to my complete book list the one attached to this archived program will be the list of books i'm talking about today but i have a complete list of all the picture books and everything else that i think go from 2020 and so that you can get if you go to our webpage and in the search box we type handouts and see how it shows up down there then you go here nebraska library commission handouts these are all my handouts anybody can put handouts here but i'm the only one used i've had i made them make this for me and i'm plopping all my handouts in here so right now it says 2020 best children's books complete list so if you click on that you get a pdf of all the books that i put on my list that i read and think you should think about these so there's your option for that i just wanted to show you where you can find that yep so now i'm going to go to my presentation yep hopefully it'll all be magical yep there you go full screen perfect this used to say originally i had we were planning to do this for nla's conference in october but that got canceled of course so before that it said so far but now i'm just using my that i saw because i don't see every single book it just that dana had a lot of books on her list that i haven't seen yet of course i'm going to be hounding our library to see how many i can get my hands on just to read and enjoy it with you i saw your last i'm like oh i should have had one so this is um the ones that i'm going to talk about today and we might go a little long but bear with us because you can always come back and watch the rest of the presentation after this archive if you have to leave it yep that's another thing to mention yeah for everyone whose attention officially we say our show is it goes from 10 to 11 a.m central time um but if we were on past 11 that's fine we will keep going keep recording um as long as sally has as books to talk about and you guys are all welcome to you know stay along stay on with us but if you only did schedule just the one hour that's fine if you need to leave you will have access to the full recording later and you can watch and and everything and as people also you know i whoops i have my blurbs written out on a piece of paper i will read some of them and others i'll talk about more like dana did because um some of them like the first book pronunciation is key you'll see in a minute dana had a couple of books that because we had the same the same titles and that's okay because i actually started off with a few early chapter books because i thought well i just want to mention these and these do not overlap so the first one here's our pronunciation this is told in full graphic full color graphic novel format and it is set in a small town in none of that canada and school library journal says this is a look at the world of arctic first nations families and legends so um siblings kubu and kutubu are going to the shore to meet kubu's friend lisa they encounter their grandfather on the way there and he says now be careful when you're at the shore don't stay around there too long because you might encounter a qualupilic which likes to hide under the ice and grab kill children so they're kind of one yet well the boy's a little bit worried because he's younger than oh he's just telling us stories trying to scare us there's no big deal when they get to the shore they see they see um her friend lisa's backpack but they don't see lisa and now the boy's really worried because maybe she got grabbed so they walk up to the rock and right behind the rock is lisa oh she was hiding to fool them okay that's good so now they're gonna walk back to the the village and as they're walking wait a minute i'll try to pronounce it again petu quo look and his dog lulu see a qualupilic and they turn and they run as fast as they can this uh he's just crazy and i never know what he's gonna do it's a it's a graphic novel format early chapter book native um arctic native people's legends and life and uh it's really was great fun i think kids will just grab this and oh and there is a pronunciation guide in there you saw how well i pronounced all those words right sort of the boy has a monster under his bed but the monster loves him when the boy's mom reads a story and then tells the boy there's no such thing as monsters the monster comes out after mom left of course to prove that he really does exist as he's looking at the boy he realizes the boy's getting ready to scream so we swallows him well that was the first thing he could think of to do to keep him from screaming and bothering the mom now he has to figure out how to get him back out again because he doesn't want to have the boy in his stomach he just did that to keep things quiet when the boy is finally coughed up he is much smaller than he had been before so now they have another problem how do they get him back to his regular size before morning and so um the things i like about this are oh there are back black and white and awkward illustrations inside the book it's about friendship the monster is really the boy's friend and problem solving and also i like that monsters don't have to be scary infamous rat cells i love these guys i think this is book four the big city scouts are going out on their first camping trip big lou and grandpa rat so are in charge grandpa has the scouts oath just a tad wrong saying that the scouts can fix any problem and do not need help but on this trip they need some help there are quirky characters that who at first seem like odd people out but when everyone is in trouble the whole crew pitches in and whatever is their quirky thing is the something that they really needed to help them get things resolved they're of their issues so um it's it's again another great rat souls book all about the outdoors and working together and supporting each other friendship and problem solving how do you how do you fix these issues we're having i love the rat souls and nate is great this is a full color graphic novel the men in beige are looking for the alien that crash landed in a snowy wooded area outside of town nate the alien runs into local boy fozzle just before the men in beige get there fozzle helps nate escape and then takes him home disguising nate as a school friend the two of them spend some time together at home and at school while nate learns about what a lot more about earth he had come to get pizza for his home planet but now he sees earth has so much more to offer it's about helping others learning about a new place and respecting nate's culture and differences that's all part of the story and kids love aliens as long as they're friendly well now i'm going to talk about fiction for grades like two to five or so rough rough age group this oh no that's not right i got two pages as soon as i look at it i knew that was the wrong page best friends iris and daniel who are about 12 are both african-american and they accidentally discover a lost graveyard for african-americans that was abandoned after the end of segregation they make it their school project to learn more about the segregated cemeteries but a girl avry has buried there and she appears to iris first in her dreams and later as a ghost she wants to be remembered and she wants to have iris as her forever friend which does not sound good over time avry becomes less friendly and more threatening and iris is in danger there's class act yes like we said the the part i wanted to talk about is it touches on microaggressions and inappropriate actions because several people touch drew's hair without asking or even if they ask and he says no they do it anyway which is wrong nobody wants to be touched if they don't want to be touched and then i did also particularly want to mention the the incident when uh jordan's father is driving jordan and drew home they are stopped by the police jordan's father gives them quick no-nonsense instructions phones down nothing in your hands keep your hands where he can see them don't say a word the officer is wide and seems a bit puzzled by mr banks asking if it is all right to open the glove compartment and also to reach into his pocket the tension is obvious and the relief is strong when this turns out not to be a confrontation just a simple traffic stop because of a car the light was out but the point is made so well of how the boys don't quite understand what the issue is at first and the father is very careful how they handle this and and it's just a few pages the whole book is wonderful but i thought that was particularly well done oh hyper is in seventh grade and she considers herself a blender she'd rather blend in than stand out but now her father has been hired as the music teacher at the exclusive chumlee prep she is thrust into a new school where it seems everyone excels the quintessential bean girl is there and ainsley and she is almost non-stop mean while they're piper find some good friends and things are looking up and then a new competition is announced the excelsior prize everyone is determined to win it even though nobody's really sure what the excelsior prize is honoring but they're going to win it piper manages to continue being herself helping others and working hard in class she also would like to win the new prize and the science fair is the first step piper is feeling good about her entry and then she is blindsided by ainsley who uses a technicality to exclude piper from the science fair taking first place for herself and she hopes it will help ainsley herself win the excelsior prize i like how piper can she hasn't down time or she's not feeling good but mostly she's positive she decides to stay herself and her friends are very supportive oh this is a full color graphic novel i love wonder woman i read wonder woman when i was knee-heided you know so it's great plan to encounter her again in several different versions recently this conveys diana's loneliness as the only child on the island and also her love and support for her amazon family her mother aunts and all on the island when she's feeling particularly lonely she makes a friend from clay and sand and she blows on it with a wish and it comes alive oh she's so happy and excited the trouble is her new friend mona encourages diana to get into trouble and to do some unkind things mona may not actually be her friend it's about family love friendships staying true to who you are all included in this shorter graphic novel this is wonderful oh my goodness nora is 12 and she and her family have just arrived in florida from a refugee camp in turkey just at the president's 2017 muslim ban was put in place they had fled from syria jordan is 12 and she and her family are ambassadors from their church to welcome the all one family and help them adjust to life in the u.s jordan and nora become good friends nora loves birds and jordan loves to compete in the swim meets for her school but both of them have some issues they're they're trying to deal with an overcome and they end up agreeing to help each other support each other with their their things they're working on there is violence and someone set the local mosque on fire and nora and her twin brother amar encounter bullying at their new school but they also encounter support from the the other worshipers at the mosque and other people who are very supportive of their arrival here in the u.s so it's a a nice blending of immigration and why and because they were fleeing war and why they want to stay in the u.s there's twins again and i i agree with dana i really felt for moraine because she just at first she's blindsided by this is the first aid school and suddenly francine fran is doing everything different and she didn't know this was coming and she didn't know they weren't going to be in the same classes and it's it's really kind of harsh if you ask me but you do understand why fran wants to explore who she is by herself and she does feel bad and she doesn't really want to abandon moraine but she feels more that she really has to find out who she is so i'm excited too that is hopefully just the first book in a series this is also a full color graphic novel jen is having trouble adjusting to her new life her mom married walter and they moved from the city to a farm jen has chores the worst one being taking care of the chickens which i've never had to do but i sure like to eat chicken anyway walter has two daughters from a previous marriage and they come to spend time with the with their father every weekend and he appears to be perfect to jen the older daughter her younger sister reese is also out of her comfort zone at the farm so she relates more to reese jen is having trouble with math so the staffing staffing the booth at the market puts too much pressure on her she's supposed to be figuring this out in her head what people are buying different things and what does that add up to and it it upsets her but everybody just tells her oh relax it'll be fun you'll be fine well that does not help but that's often how people react to that it's fiction based on the author's life so she's brought in some things that she felt and experienced when she was that age this is a full color graphic novel a fantasy lily is part of a family not by blood of thieves and she is a novice thief she kind of getting grumpy about the fact that she always gets the unimportant jobs like pickpocketing and such she is determined to prove that she is just as good as anyone else at stealing things even if she is a girl then one day she stumbles upon a secret group in their plot to resurrect an evil king can she and her mentor she must do anything to prevent it there's daring do swordplay and lots of arrows so lots of good action this is a full color graphic novel ty fam is 13 he's vietnamese american and he inherits his grandmother's jade ring and is shocked to find out her secret she had been a member of the green lantern core and now ty must learn how to wield the ring and protect others there's dynamic art that really pulls the reader in he redesigns the uniform for comfort because that other outfit isn't so hot and for workability and i like the new uniform for him um this is probably one of my favorite of the of the series that the dc ink or whatever it's called is working on the page this is a companion book to heat this is the blur by turn two for the other book i that's not right it's not a companion book to heat and this one nick garcia is 12 and he is a star pitcher for his little league team the blazers his hero is michael a royal who is now a pitcher for the yankees i think that's the main character in the first book because i didn't read the first nick and his older sister amelia who has lupus were born in the us but their parents are here illegally from the dominican republic having stayed after their visitor visas ran out now the family is fearful of immigration officers and they're just waiting until amelia is 21 and she can sponsor their parents for citizenship at that point but i think she's only 19 or early 20 at this point in the book there's plenty of baseball action friendship and heartfelt recognition of nick's parents and their contributions to our society and the tough place they are in now victor nick's dad acknowledges that he and his wife made some mistakes but they do hope to become citizens so i think this is a good look at what people are some people are going through while they try to live here contribute and support their family zoe is celebrating her 12th birthday when she picks up the mail and finds a letter to her from her birth father who is in prison for a terrible crime she hides it and reads it later and it seems that her father had sent more letters that she has never seen this is the first letter she's ever seen from now thus begins a correspondence and a couple of phone calls because she was helped by her grandma since her mother has forbidden her any contact with him so she's going behind her mother's back and so is grandma he claims innocence but zoe knows he might be lying she's not that naive to immediately believe him however she wants to look into the case and she and her next-door friend trevor start a quest to find a lady who might be his alibi for this murder so it hits on injustices and racial profiling family friends real friends that support you and is she taking too big of a risk in what she's doing without telling her mom her mom finds out in the book and that gets worked out but it's a wonderful mystery and look at how her father ended up in jail in the first place because he was innocent i just got a hold of this book the other day looks i always turn my page too soon in 1954 the federal government terminated the tribal status of several nations one being the ump club part of the confederated tribes of grand ron in the book this is fictionalized but it's based on the author's experiences and life regina pettit was 10 when this happened her father finds them a home in los angeles education for him and a job via the 1957 indian relocation program it sounds great but it was far from ideal racism and prejudice against indians and against the new black neighbors is hard to face and like i said this is based on mcmanus's experiences as an ump though she was only one year old when their nation was terminated they did reinstate the the status uh in the 70s i think it was it's excellent excellent historical fiction the co-author tracy sorrell completed the manuscript she was asked to do that by charlene because charlene had cancer and passed away even though the co-author is a the cherokee nation she did a lot of checking with the umpqua and the people who could verify how how she edited the book i guess is the excellent historical fiction about something that very i would guess very few kids know about that that's ever happened oh you want something scary again look at that guy house flip grove is a neat and tidy town and everyone seems safe we via cat are the only people in town that realize children are disappearing no one not even their parents remember the children once they are gone it's like they never had these kids we via and cat must save the children and the town before everyone disappears so there's a scary bad guy see the cover there are scary unusual animals a mystery to be solved of course and there are black and white illustrations on every page and that really draws readers and certainly drew me in even the scary things and i'm not good here oh the scary ones are my i love the scary well see i'm a real chicken so i could read this book so you know that if i can read it and enjoy it it's scary level this is lower than because other scary stuff no dana you'll have to read those and talk about them and that's something a lot of kids are into the scary books you know scaring themselves to the books the movies the tv shows yeah that's true i'm a chicken my sister loves scary i can't take it this is labeled as book one and it's said in london oma and his family have just moved to a different house in london and he will begin attending a different school he is worried their new neighbor mrs rogers talks to her grown son on the phone all the time complaining about the muslims they turn the other cheek in school he meets charlie who tells him that the only student he should avoid is daniel a bully well the next day the class goes on a field trip to the science museum and daniel is his partner of course they get lost on the underground when they had to change trains daniel falls apart and oma keeps his head they find their way to the london central mosque because oma knows where that is and how to get there and that's when they find help oma is thoughtful and set on being friendly and helpful by the story's end oma charlie and daniel are all friends and mrs rogers joins the family for their special meal on hide it's upbeat positive and informative plenty of humor and there are as you can see on the cover there's doodle light art and lettering on every two page spread and the sequel the second book is an expected super spy oma and his family hear that their mosque needs to raise 30 000 in one month or it will have to close for safety oma and his best friends charlie and daniel agreed to raise all the money they can to contribute to this they sell cookies origami items and old toys but their best idea is a talent show the principal approves and they end up raising 1419 and 50 cents but the next morning the envelope and money are gone from oma's mom's purse it was in there when they got home he thinks who took it oma charlie and daniel work to solve the mystery and again there are good characters a good mystery the solution is there that it's not really that obvious until you read to the end again it's upbeat positive and again plenty of humor and the the drawings on all the pages this is amazing this they call this a biographical novel of muhammad ali it's told in free verse that part's written by kwami alexander with prose by james patterson at each chapter's beginning it's told from the viewpoint of cash's place best friend lucky and the chapters are round one round two round three up to ten which is kind of fun it's based on backs of his young life and his start in boxing competing in the golden gloves tournaments noting his drive and determination it is an outstanding sports book biographical novel and it includes occasional black and white illustrations i think this will be flying off the shelves and you see his shirt where it says cash's clay so they're making it clear that that was his name at that time in his life as a great team up of authors for that yeah yes yes it's this is book two of max and the midnight's i had to buy it i want a copy there i am nice night school is pretty tough for max but she has determined to persevere there is something odd happening happening in by jovia though and it turns out to be there are copies of people that she knows but the weird thing is they act the opposite of how they usually act so someone who was friendly and happy is kind of grumpy and not friendly at all and she knows well that's not like so and so what's going on soon the midnight's are investigating the mystery if there are graphic novel novel pages interspersed with text and there are illustrations on every page like the first book i'm hoping there's going to be more and more and more in this series too i gave them to my niece great niece for christmas i can't wait to hear what she had to say about those both books it has a wonderful ending like yes that's what we'll say in the fictional land of santa maria max 12 learns his father and grandfather had been helping refugees from neighbor from a neighboring country escape the war there and trouble on their way to a better place this time max is the only one home and while he knows it is against the law to help he cannot abandon the girl at the door when he realizes the path path his grandfather took him on regularly for their walks and told him legends to help him remember the route that path is the path for the refugees so he leads the girl forward this is the path his mother took many years before and he hopes and wonders if he'll see her again so this is about family very supportive family helping others handling disappointment and finding the good in others it's a wonderful book and it's a non-existent place but they do have spanish words in the book so it gives the sense that you know it might be because of course panman wrote manos ryan okay more full-color graphic novels i've been in the graphic novels this is book one Natalie or nat is in going to her first day of middle school and finds it confusing her former best friend lily now mostly ignores her and spends all her time with alex a different girl who's very you know popular and that's where lily wants to be on the positive side she begins to realize that zoe who's been trying to help her is actually a good friend nat was too obsessed with winning lily back to see it at first it's about adapting to middle school and accepting yourself who you are letting go with a negative and she begins to embrace her artistic talents i think readers of real friends by shannon hail or the graphic novels of berry brook middle school by svetlana jamal kova will likely grab this title too and there's a i don't have the cover but there's a second book so far called forget me nat nat is smitten with derrick and he's all she can think about and she's beginning to ignore her friend zoe and the thing she promised another friend she was going to do because it's all about derrick he finally tells her that he just wants to be friends so she is devastated it's a good look at a crush and how it can affect a person person's life and that friends need some of your time too and to remember that you are worthy even if someone else does not value you so i think those are good things to have mom and dad divorce this list the list of things that will not change is their assurance to their daughter be who's ten that they both will always love her and she adds to this list throughout the book to father is gay and eventually plans to marry his boyfriend jesse b is looking forward to having a sister jesse's daughter sonia she's so excited about this when sonia comes to visit like a month before the wedding she is not in the same place b is and does not really want to do much but when she comes back for the wedding things are better b is learning about feelings and how they affect people she visits a therapist who helps her with this and with her eczema some routines to do that will help her with her eczema one thing she needed to learn that was that while others forgave her she needed to forgive herself for something that had happened back in the summer she knows families are complicated feelings need to be acknowledged acceptance of others as they are there's a lot in this 216 page book william scoob lamar is escaping his father's grounding due to getting in trouble at school and he's traveling with grandma in her brand new winnebago over time he learns that she has several places she wants to visit or revisit in different states and scoob has been conscripted as her accomplice this is following civil rights history why she and her then new husband wanted to visit certain places and why they ended up bypassing some for particular reasons and now grandma's back grandma is a talented pickpocket and she continues to be willing to use her skills so scoob is who loves his grandma tries to keep her on the straight and narrow and that is not easy there are occasional black and white illustrations and this is an interesting story about about the history of the grandma's life and the civil rights movement and also how people end up where they end up this is book one of a new series ryan hard is in fourth grade she's a girl and she knows ryan means king so her parents remind her to live up to her name her older brother's name is ray her family recently had to move to a smaller older house because her father had to take a different job that pays less but they are making due so this is really all about staying upbeat when life kind of hands you a tough thing and keeping positive on looking for the good while ryan and ray have occasional disagreements the family supports each other as they settle into their new home and new neighborhood and as i said it's upbeat seeing the best and doing your best and i love renay watson's book so another good one and check one woodson oh my this is told in free verse zj's father is a professional football player and he at one point one time was a loving father who had played with zj and his friends and loved music and last laughter and loved his family that was before now his father is experiencing painful headaches and memory loss it's said in the early 2000s when the study of the effects of many hits and football was just getting underway the reality of the father's injuries is tough to see damage that has been done cannot be changed and they have to see where they are and how they're going to move forward i have a few nonfiction titles this is amazing wonderful book full color graphic memoir oma and his younger brother hasan or samali and have spent years in a refugee camp in kenya ever since their father was killed and their mother told them to wait for her but they couldn't wait they had to run they were fleeing from war and if they'd waited they would have been killed too everyday life in the camp is told throughout the book there's boredom frustration and the hungry days food is giving out to each family group in two for a two week period the last few days of the two weeks nobody in the camp has much food left so they all are hungry until the next distribution and this is just a natural part of their lives something they face every two weeks and it's heartbreaking just to know that much they are um omar is envious of those who are selected to leave and go to another country to be refugees sponsored by the united nations or other groups and even after several years in the camp they still look for their mother every time new people arrive at the camp to see if maybe this time she's one of them it's a 2021 2022 golden sewer chapter book nominee so that's um certain to encourage you to get a copy for your library and can you since they put a sticker over the title what is the title there sorry when stars are scattered okay i have my own copy now but i already had that scanned so that sticker project as placement by the library put them where they always put them i guess well as we know steve jenkins and rob robin page have done a number of books about different animals and animal groups this one the subtitle is the strange creatures that live on us in us and around us so don't listen if you don't want to know more yeah isn't and so they um steve jenkins does an enlarged look at 24 creatures you may not want to know about some of them are only the size of a pinprick so he's enlarge it like this cut the one on this cover so you can see how it's really put together and he says in there the the images came from an electron microscope which does not have color so he invented the colors so they may not be actual colors but it um it's what he he came up with this is what those animals really look like so each page has a paragraph of information and a note telling the degree of enlargement to give the reader an idea of the creature's appendages bouts pinchers or other body parts and then there was also an actual size silhouette or a pinpoint to let the reader know how small that creature really is it's fascinating it's sure to be a hit with readers because you know kids they like to know about the thing that's living in your eyelashes i don't know i don't want to know about it but it is fascinating and the last book on my list this is a picture book biography of benjamin franklin the author says it is based on his autobiography so the things that he put in this book were things that ben franklin had mentioned in his autobiography so it gives the reader a look at his childhood his curiosity and determination to find a better way to do things because he was quite inventive and that's just about his boyhood not about how he later became one of the founding fathers so thank you that's that's my list all right awesome all right uh who i should stop that up for now um actually um actually why don't i do this i will yeah leave that up for now so um thank you so much uh dana and sally this is great we do this every year an annual tradition i guess we'll call it and it's great to hear all the great all the new books that have come out every year i get i have um two nieces two nephews and another one on the way so i'm always getting good ideas for books to get for the kids um that of course is great for the libraries too so um thank you much for all of um the great um ideas and um and we got some comments saying thank you so much this has been enlightening and you promoted great titles uh from that again so yeah this is great um i'm gonna pull down pull back presenter control to my screen and um talk about let's get that up there there we go yes and wonderful titles and presentation yeah good job every time um as i said we have been recording today and it will be posted on your encompass live website here in our archive live shows archive and complex it'll be at the top of the list here um everyone who attended today and registered for today's show will get an email from me letting you know when it's ready probably sometime yeah by the end of the day tomorrow everything will be processed and ready to go and you'll get a message from me letting you know that it's here and ready to watch we'll have the video um on youtube and there'll be links to both sally and dana's lists just like uh word documents or pdfs and to both of their slides if you want to see the um book covers as well uh dana you can just email me your link to your google slides whenever you get a chance like i said i'll be working on it uh tomorrow and get everything up and ready so it's plenty of time to get that up there well too um and of course as i mentioned earlier i know people are coming in and out this uh today's show about children's book is a companion kind of to our best new teen reads of 2020 which sally did a couple of weeks ago so if you are you know youth children's and teen librarian or you know through the whole range of ages uh you can take a look at her teen reads um same kind of thing as today the recording presentation slides and her handout of her notes and everything are on there so if you want to catch up on the teen one and the children's one there together um so uh thank you very much everyone for attending today uh just few more rinders we do uh please do sign up for any upcoming shows got our january dates here and our february one started to fill in here sign up for anything coming up uh encompass live also does have a facebook page if you like to use facebook give us a like over there we also use the hashtag and comp live a little abbreviation for anything that we post on our other social media instagram twitter etc so do keep an eye on that out there as well um so if you do like to use uh facebook you can give us a like over there um so that will wrap it for today's show i just want to give one last reminder here at the Nebraska library commission we do this weekly show but we also do an annual online conference uh big talk from small libraries it is held the last friday and february every year and it's coming up end of next month but right now our call for speakers is still open to um through this friday it might be extended depending um so if you are in a small library um you serve population of 10 000 or less this is this chance for you to share what you've been doing at your library so if you are in a library look in that situation uh send in a proposal we're looking for all types of libraries um public academic uh school and from all across the world really anybody who wants to do this isn't this is not a nebresca thing this is a national conference we have presenters we've had presenters and speakers over the years from um u.s canada elsewhere and it's um they are co-sponsored by the association for rural and small libraries arsell arsl they they help us out with the conference as well so get your um proposals into us and uh join us for the 10th annual this is going to be our 10th uh big talk for small libraries i'm very excited about that that's great so yeah if you are at that type of library get your proposal in or share it out um to anywhere and everywhere you want to let people know if you know of a library that might be interested or might um be the right type of library for this conference please do share that other than that thank you everyone very much everyone for attending this morning thanks dana and selly we'll see you again next year or next time you guys are back in a matter of year to talk about whatever comes up in 2021 all the new books that are to be published all right thanks guys thank you