 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly online event. We are a webinar, a webcast, an online show. Terminology is up for debate. We don't care. Whatever you call these things, we're here live online every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. If you're unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's fine. We do record the show every week and then post it to our website where you can watch all our recordings. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where you can go and see all of those recordings and watch everything we have on there. We post recording of the show if there's any PowerPoint slides as there is for this one or any handouts as there also is for this one, this one is both. Any websites that are mentioned during the show, they'll be collected and put into our delicious account. All that will be available to you afterwards on the recording page. The show and the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your colleagues, friends, neighbors, family, whoever you think might be interested in any of our topics here, send them to our website. They can watch the live shows with us or check out any of our recordings. We do a mixture of things here on the show. Interviews, web tours, mini training sessions, book review sessions. Basically anything related to libraries is our only criteria. So things happening in libraries, things libraries are doing. Interesting news services or programs or websites might be of use to libraries. Sometimes it gets a little out of the box. You might look at a title of a show and say, what? But trust us, stick with us. Everything always comes around having to do with libraries in some way. That's the only real criteria here. So it's very broad in that case. We do bring in guest speakers sometimes from outside. But we also have Nebraska Library Commission staff that do presentations. And that's what we have this morning. To my love dear is Sally Snyder. And she is here at the Library Commission. She is our coordinator of children and young adult library services. And she comes on the show a few times a year to share, well, anything about children's youth services, but a lot of book reviews. And this is her best new children's books of 2016 session. She also has the best new team books coming up the last Wednesday of this month. So if you're a team, lean more toward the team librarianship, that would be the one for you too. This is a session that she did at our annual conference. And that's why it says October. Yeah, in October. I didn't think to change that. But it is still the same list from the conference presentation. We always have her come on the show after conference to redo this for us for anyone who wasn't able to attend in person. And anyone who might be interested in seeing what kind of new books came out this year. So I will hand it over to you, Sally, and take it away and tell us about all the new great children books. Let's take a look at, I'm sorry, the fire. Just to look at the commission webpage. If you're searching for the handouts, other handouts, these are others to just type handouts there in the search. And then the top thing that comes up is Nebraska Library Commission handouts. I sound very inclusive, but so far these are only my handouts. Other people are welcome to use this. And in that case, it will probably say Sally Snyder handouts, and then you would see this page. But you can see, we try to keep it in date order and what the event was. Sometimes it's a system presentation that is on another topic. And some are reading some topic lists are here too. You can see it's way down at the bottom. We have like that. One or 2008. We talked about taking those off of there, but then it's not hurting anything for them to be there. So I don't know. So this is the list that we're working with today. There is, as you can see here, and there has been previously, there is a version of the handout with blurbs. That is to be coming soon to the website. It's what she's using right now to do today's show. I fixed them up a little bit, but I've got a little more fixin' to do. Yeah. But at least the list itself is there right now. And the team one will also have blurbs. Right. I have to talk with Jill Annis about sending me her blurbs, and I have to fix some of my blurbs. Fix in that. I have it more as phrasings instead of complete sentences and things like that. No problem. So let's talk about, oh, I guess before I start on the list, I should mention that these books are either, once we've received here at the library commission from the publisher for review, publisher send us books for no charge that I look at. I don't read them all because if you saw that batch of shelves, you'd think that if I didn't sleep at night, I could read them all, but I do like to sleep. So I looked through them and I looked at book reviews about a lot of them. And some of them are more set nonfiction, you know, split out titles like geography and then geography of this, that and the other thing, which are good to have, but don't as much need to review. I also look at the public library to see what they have that I did not get because not every publisher sends me books. I really wish they would, but then I think we're what I put them. And I also buy a few because I just have to have them to review. So they come from different... Things that you've heard of that you know are out there, yeah. The library doesn't have it, I didn't receive it, and so I buy it. And then eventually the books that, the review books that come in are put on a shelf that the system and directors can access and give out to libraries in their system. So if you're going to the summer reading program workshops, there might be some books there that have come from our batches. So we donate them to libraries basically afterwards, so. And every once in a while, one publisher or another will send me a questionnaire asking, what do you do with these books besides who are you, are you still the person we need to send them to? And I always tell them, this is what we do. And they haven't had a problem with that. So that's wonderful. So let's get going. These are the best new children's books of 2016 that I happen to run across. And I'm always surprised at titles that I've never heard of that show up on somebody else's list, but that's okay. So picture books, this first one, Thunder Boy Jr. Thunder Boy Jr. does not like his name. His dad is called Big Thunder, which makes him Little Thunder. That sounds like a burp or a fart. He talks about all the other names he could have based on things he likes to do. He is surprised and thrilled when his father tells him his new name because his father has realized he needs his own name. Worm loves worm is, to me, just a fun book. Two worms are in love and they want to get married and it's not complicated from their point of view. The only way you can tell them apart is one worm has just a dot for an eye and the other worm has the white. Oh, yeah. Either way, they're identical to look at. But the beetle and other insects have plenty of requirements that they need to meet before they can get the marriage done. They need rings, they need a cake, they need a band. And which is the bride and which is the groom? Well, if you know anything about worms, not all worms, but a lot of worms are both. It's not, yeah. It's not cut and dried. So they don't care. They just want to get married. And that's the fun part. So they end up with one worm wearing the bridal veil and the tuxedo and the other one wearing the groom's hat and the bridal gown and they get married. Now, this might cause some distress for some of your patrons, just so you know, because it is a little bit of gender fluidity. But that's what worms are. That's science about worms. It's science about worms. I think an author's note at the back about that worms are this way, he might have helped, and then again an author might have been intrusive to the story. So, you know, it's good to know about this book even if you decide not to add it to your collection. Clarence is an ordinary truck who is often dirty, but one day his boss sends him to the truck wash and while he's in there, lightning strikes. And now he becomes mighty truck who saves the day three times before he lands in a dirt pile and gets all dirty and is himself again. But he's ready to help on another day. Kids who love trucks will love mighty truck. This book is so fun. It's a simple look at colors and concepts. The first two page spread shows 11 brightly colored animals from an elephant to a small bird on a white background. The next two page spread has a bright orange background and all you can see of the hem are her eyes and her comb. The chameleon's eyes are all that show too all through the book after the first page, because he's a chameleon. Different colored backgrounds throughout the book hide different animals except for their eyes. Can the kids remember who's missing? The back end papers have a black background and only the eyes are showing there. It's a fun idea. This is a look at war from a child's viewpoint. The story takes place during the July war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006. A Lebanese boy and his family travel to the city for the weekend leaving his three cats at home. They're all named Lucy. Variations on Lucy. They have food and water there for them, ready for them to come back on Monday. But it isn't until a month later that they feel safe returning due to the war. One of the Lucy's is gone and the boy grieves for her and hopes for a peaceful future. And it includes an author's note at the back. Now remember, this was October, so I was kind of focused on a couple of Halloween-type stories. But the author of Weasels brings us a story, this time Farmer Greg hires ghost hunters to solve the mystery of spooky noises, zombie ducks, and other scary things. The three pigs have trouble because they see and hear scary things, but their Phantom Finder 5000 continues to register zero. What is going on? The crayons are stunned to learn on the front flap of the cover that their book has been cancelled. They do notice someone turning the pages so they are hopeful. And the author writes to the reader about why it was cancelled. It's clever and fun. The crayons have lovely costumes, but they forgot to tell the three crayons playing Frank and Crayon that the book was cancelled. And he's a bit new. It's another sure-get from the author. Along with the next title, Wonderfall, which is a completely different story, the tree that the squirrels play in starts out with all green leaves, but as the pages are turned, told by the tree in brief three-verse poems, this is a celebration of fall and of combined words, like the title. Each title of the next poem uses fall for the second part of the word. Five pages at the back of the book give more information about the animals their reader encounters, and about the tree. Little card was trained to be a birthday card, but he learns there was a mix-up, and now he is being delivered to a library where he runs into the door on his birthday! And he is corrected in his behavior and Sir Ludens learns his new duties and he becomes the library card for a little girl. Imagine his glee when he learns that while birthdays only happen once a year, a library card can be used almost every day. It's fun to see the perspective of the card. Hankis gets us the joy of arriving spring with obliteration and celebration, telling the reader, if you just wait, there will soon be flowers and green everywhere. There will be nibbling in a garden, kittens playing outside, all part of the wonderful changing spring, which we can start looking forward to here pretty soon. I hope so, yes. Every day Sophie and Grandpa play a game when she gets home from school. Grandpa will say he has something, the item changes each time, but now it is gone and Sophie must find it for him. The reader can look for it too. It really is in there. I had one page I had to have people show me they found it. This is kind of like a find Waldo. But each time it is something different. It's a gentle loving story between the girl and her grandfather. I like this kind of books that become interactive when you are reading it to a child or something. To draw them in. Alan was a big scary alligator who loved scaring the other animals with his big scary teeth. He would snap his teeth growl and say, fear my razor sharp teeth. But one day Barry a beaver found a set of sharp scary false teeth and Alan's secret was out. He wasn't scary at all without his teeth so we went into the jungle and cried. The next day the other animals had an idea of how they could still all live together peacefully and Alan could be scary telling scary stories. So a bully situation that is resolved by care and concern. Tiger and Badger are best friends and love to play together. Sometimes though they have a disagreement or with the orange slices or who gets to sit in the chair until they are both so mad they yell and yell. Then Tiger does his funny face and soon all is well again. It conveys the ups and downs of friendships as many books have done before and as the listener will recognize with appealing characters and upbeat illustrations. Quit calling me monster. This creature does not like being called a monster. His name is Floyd Peterson. He doesn't call you a little meat sack after all. It's a clever look at the monster side of things. He does finally admit he is a monster but he does not plan to hurt you. There's a clever ending with this. What is in your closet? Don't worry it's just Floyd Peterson. Perspective and thinking about how others feel. We found a hat. A flap. Two turtles have found a hat. The hat looks good on both of them but there are two turtles and there is only one hat. So we need to resolve this. Joey loves things that fold like maps and his fold away bed. One day Mrs. Takimoto another student's mother comes into class and folds an origami crane. She told him he must practice and practice to become an origami master. He begins to fold everything everywhere even if he wasn't supposed to touch that piece of paper. And he doesn't give up even though his efforts are wrinkly and uneven. Then his mother told him he had to stop because he was handling things. Folding everything? Next door Mr. Lopez who runs a restaurant found out why he was sad and offered to have Joey fold the napkins for the restaurant and they are a hit. So that's a win-win Mr. Lopez and for Joey. This is I think the third picture book by our native author Ted Couser. Charlie visits his grandparents on their farm each summer but the two weeks there are pretty dull. He usually goes to the nearby stream and pokes in the mud checks out a turtle or catches some tadpoles. He would also go to the bridge and drop rocks into the water but one day he hit the metal bridge with a rock and it made a bonging sound. He liked that. Then he heard the echo then another bong. Was there someone, was there another boy ringing another bridge? Finding connections to others, discovering what is in your surroundings and entertaining oneself. We're all part of this quiet story. He tends to write quiet picture books as you might expect. Violet is writing a fairy tale when her twin brother begins to interject facts. He is all about science not fantasy and is currently into Australian animals. Violet was born in a hospital not a castle. It takes a bit of time but they end up with a story that is acceptable to both. At the end they fly away on a cockatoo since dragons are not real. Violet's contributions are on lavender paper while Victor's are on orange paper to help the reader distinguish the two. And of course this will inspire a writing project for a classroom where two people write the same story. Gator Dad is great fun. Gator Dad and his three youngsters packed a lot into a day. Up early for breakfast, take care of Samaritans then off to the wild which is the park. Dad is involved with and obviously loves his children. It's a wonderful day with dad, fun and stories. How many swaps does it take to mend a broken ship? The old broken down ship needs many repairs. The boy is positive they can get it done. Each two page spread has a section while the rest is black and white. The color section is where the action is. Beginning with a loose button on the captain's shirt the boy begins to swap to obtain all the things they need to repair the ship. Careful readers and listeners will realize they don't always swap everything they got for the next swap. Two coils of rope for six oars swap. Two oars for four flags swap. Lots of details in the art as the boy and captain go through the town. It's a great introduction to bartering. Beginning in spring with the mother river otter choosing an abandoned beaver den we join the family when the pups are small newborns and through their first year. While half of it is a fictionalized account in larger type, this still has plenty of good information and facts are included in smaller size type. The watercolor illustrations convey the playfulness of the otters and their joy in wrestling, swimming and sliding down a muddy slope. It's a winning combination for readers interested in North American animals because these are river otters of course. In different illustrations on each two page spread Emma and Julia get up, prepare for the day and look forward to the ballet performance that evening. The difference? Emma is a child learning ballet and attending the event with her parents and Julia is a ballerina performing that evening but they both love ballet. It's an interesting approach to the two viewpoints with a touching meeting between the two characters. Excuse me just a minute. A cat, a dog and a mouse cannot make any sounds. The owl tells them to find the old lady in the tumbledown house and she will help them. They go to her and it takes several tries each of which creates progressively larger and louder thunderstorms in the house and leaves the animals with the wrong sounds. When they finally have the right sounds something odd has happened to the lady. Repetitive language and actions will encourage children listening to join in with the reader. A brief rhyme on each page tells various little animals to sleep tight tickly and feathery in any old weathery good night ducks sleep tight like this. Each two page spread has a half page to flip over to continue the storage. Animals from bears to fireflies are included is a sweet going to bed book. I love this one. Humorous illustrations and clever language play highlight this look at 18 words that name animals as well as act as verbs. Mostly two word texts per page with an occasional three word page such as bugs, bug, bugs. The steering bumper cars is one example of the humorous art. Somewhere on each page in smaller type is a brief definition of the word such as to flounder equals to be helpless. My contribution is bongo's bongo. Okay now later there's a book about bongo but I came up with that before I saw that one. Just saying. Frank and Leckie learn together whenever they can. Leckie went to his school ten times. Frank went to his school thousands of times. Leckie learns by exploring and loves it when he can explore with Frank. This clever book defines science, math, biology, botany, geography all in the context of an exploring dog. Now you really got to have that for your collection. It's also a fun story about the two. School is nervous. During the last summer the people dug up the big field and built the school. The first day of school, for him and all children, begins and he does not know what to expect. He learns what the water fountain and the jungle gym are for, but then he hears some kids say that school stinks and they hate it and it feels bad. He is embarrassed when his fire alarms go off and everyone exits so he apologizes as they walk back inside. It's a good first day of school book with the school itself being worried and nervous and finding out everything is fine. One day, Raj, a young boy, plunked on the keys of the family piano enjoying the sounds. His father signs him up for lessons and he learns so much, but as he learns he enjoys less until one day he leaves the piano alone. When his father is old and ill, Raj returns home and plays again for his father, not a classical song, but the one he made up playing from the heart. This is a touching story perfect for a 2018 summer reading program music-oriented theme with the slogan library's rock. I got a plug in for him. This is a fictional look at the friendship of the two on the day when they got together for tea. School library journal says readers will come away remembering a brief episode in history that demonstrates that cooperation can be found in unexpected places. Factually we know that they did meet and have tea more than once, but we have no idea what they talked about. That's why this is fictional. Let's go to the hardware store. A family moves to a different home that needs fixing. Dad and a young boy and girl go along with him to the hardware store. As they find the items their father needs each is lined up on the opposite page with its name. Lots of items are in their cart, but where are the picture hangers? And off they go again. Always forget something. It's a fun look at tools and their use. This is on the summer reading program list. It's about build a better world. For this year. For 2017. Music is 2018. It's confusing. You know what the ones coming up are. He's looking for Bongo. A boy gets up in the morning and he must look for Bongo, his stuffed toy. He calls him Waila, tells him to remember where he put it next time. He finds Bongo and that night cuddles him in bed. When the string he tied onto Bongo is pulled he sits up and sees his sister taking him. A satisfying tale of cleverness and exoneration as the boy devises a method to solve the problem after Waila implies he was careless. Sophie and her mother make chocolate kisses for her aunt for Ella's birthday. They insist to worry that there will not be enough for her to have one. She makes place cards for each of the guests and there will be one for her. However, the next day cousin Martha calls to say she is also coming to the party. Now what can Sophie do? Will she get a chocolate kiss? Some beginning readers. This is a reissue of an older book. It's refreshed I guess but there is a puppy who lives. Phoebe explains to him that he needs to train his bones so they will stay when he leaves the room. He is sad that his bones are not smart enough to learn to stay when he comes back they're all gone. Okay, the kids will figure this out pretty fast. In the second story, Buster makes friends with a huge dog next door and then helps him train his huge bone which disappears. But they are both so happy when they see Phoebe found it. Oh, surprise! I love the dog's innocence. This is a second book about Rabbit and Robot but this time Rabbit drops by Robot's house to surprise him but Rabbit is surprised that Robot already has company, a frog who only says Ribbit. Rabbit gets a bit jealous and feels left out at first since Robot can understand what Ribbit is saying. Eventually, Robot goes tilt and Rabbit and Ribbit must find a way to reboot him. It's another good friendship about including others. This one is so fun. One of the first two titles in the new Elephant and Piggy-like reading series and so this one, I don't know about the other one. At the beginning of the book and at the end of the book, you have Elephant and Piggy talking about how they like to read and at the end it's about why they like this book. But the story in the middle doesn't have anything to do with them. I see that's the little thing on the top, the Elephant and Piggy up there, okay. So, eight slightly different but overall quite similar plants discover that they are growing each in their own way. They discuss their differences and each determines his or her best feature. I'm the curliest. I'm the crunchiest. What the reader listener sees at the plants don't is a lawnmower in the background and the plants are shocked when it comes over them. The little bug eating one of the blades of grass that is what the carbugs covers them by saying that they will grow again. Self-identity embracing their uniqueness and becoming individuals is all part of this fun, simple story about grass growth. And we'll just skip over the part about one of them being eaten alive at the time. Yeah, because that would have a little bug than other plants too. Well, that's enough grass there for the fun. Yes. This is a continuation in the Pig in a Wig series. Hush and a Shush. The Pig in the Wig follows her routine to go to bed but just as she closes her eyes the other animals come in the window usually two at a time, crowd the bed and keep making noise which the kids will help with. She sends them back to the barn but has a change of heart after they're all gone and she joins them there. Told in rhyming text this is a fun going to bed book as well as a good beginning reader. As is the second one, a Munch and a Crunch which is about having a picnic outside and then it's starting to rain. Elephant Piggy, a routine program list. I can't remember. I think it's the end. But this one is like almost the last book. Piggy really does love Slop and he wants Gerald to try it but one look at the green loop and he says no and he kind of starts to turn green himself. Still Piggy is his friend so finally he gets in and gives the stinky mess a try but please no dessert for him. The quality of the series continues with this title. I love it. They'll see the flies around the slot. You know that that can't be good. Early chapter books. Inspector Flytrap is a new series by Tom Engelberger and C.C. Bell. Inspector Flytrap is a Nina's Flytrap and he will only saw big deal mysteries. His assistant Nina the goat pushes him on a skateboard to get him where he needs to be to solve the mysteries. She is always eating usually things that she shouldn't. Each of these first two books in the series have four stories that are somewhat related. There are ongoing gags and the first book keep an eye out with a sloth reading a newspaper and silly crimes and behaviors will appeal to early chapter book readers. He does solve the cases but not always to the customer's satisfaction. Each two page spread has at least one illustration. There's more of the same silliness in the second book. The sloth is back but he is doing something else and the third book has just come out again. Mercy Watson's neighbor Baby Lincoln has had enough. Her older sister Eugenia has been bopping her around all her life. Baby Lincoln is going a fight train on a necessary journey. Not sure where she is going or what she will do Baby Lincoln ends up having a lovely trip and make some new friends and back home again everyone including Mercy Watson have hot butter toast. This is the first book in another new series called The Dataset. Gabrielle Martinez, Laura Reyes and Cesar Moreno, second grade students known in school as The Dataset are selling candy to raise funds for their science club when they knock on the door of Dr. Bunsen. He's a little unusual but he has a big science laboratory and is excited to share his latest invention with them. But the invention actually does more than what Dr. Bunsen expected and all four of them must work together to come up with a solution. And there are five books all together that are at now but this is the first one that I've seen so I can only assume it continues. This first one was fun and entertaining. This is a companion book to the now completed Binky series. Fluffy is ahead of first pets of the universe ready for space travel and he takes his job very seriously. But now their headquarters is under attack and Fluffy is determined to beat the alien invaders. He and his band of operatives will go after the villains. Fluffy will even risk getting wet. Humorous and clever told in graphic novel format. Very wet. Brave for a cat. And one of the things kids will love is in order to get into the headquarters there's a sandbox out just sitting on the grassy lawn somewhere and they have to do a certain feed in the sandbox before the door opens for them to get to the headquarters. So kids will love it. Really like this book. Max is in third grade and he will now spend weekends with his dad in an apartment since his parents are divorcing. It is an adjustment. The first night there nothing seems right but Max is willing to give it a try. After a few weekends, Max begins to feel more at home in the apartment and becomes fond of the new friends in their lives. The relationship between Max and his father is positive and congenial. This book is about Max and his dad. And I really like how the story goes. Paris. Diva is a small dog who patrols the garden of her home. Flea is a cat who wanders wherever he chooses. Diva is frightened of everything being so small but is enthralled by Flea's stories of life around Paris after he gets passed running away from her. Then one day Flea entices Diva to step outside her fence and see a bit more of Paris. And they become fast friends. Some picture book non-fiction, the first one, will certainly interest kids. As a boy Lonnie was fascinated with how things work. He collected whatever he could find to use in experiments. He built a robot with moving arms and body using his sister's walkie-talkie. I don't know if he has turned on. It won the 1968 Science Fair at the University of Alabama. As an adult, he was one of the NASA scientists who worked on the probe Galileo which went to Jupiter. He is still experimenting with things at home and that is how he ended up inventing the Super Soaker. It's a wonderful breed biography of a dedicated scientist and tinker. Made something really fun that we probably many of us have used before. A look of bioluminescence in nature, fireflies, blowworms and foxfire mushrooms on land and the rest of the creatures are in the ocean. Large type on the top of the page gets shorter reading with limited details. There is also smaller type on each page containing more information which has become more often the case with books. Amazing photos of the deep sea ones use a flash and somewhat dim the glow. That, because of that in the back small outlines of each creature or mushroom shows which part of it actually glows because it's hard. Here you can tell that the looks like the end of the thing does, but it's hard to tell on the tube but they're still wonderful photographs. An upbeat picture book biography that tells the story of Nadia Comonici. She loved the crime trees swim play soccer. She couldn't sit still. So her mother signed her up for gymnastics. This is where Bella Caroli and his wife first saw her and invited her to join their school. The author does include the fact that at her first National Junior Championship competition she came in 13th place at age 9. So, you know, she fell off the beam three times. She improved. Yeah, you gotta practice. Otherwise, the book shows only positive aspects of her life. An afterward and a timeline are included. Narrative nonfiction. This title takes place in an amusement park called Funland. The book talks about how there are billions of people on the earth but only one of you. Through narration and illustrations, the readers and listeners learn along with the main characters of brother and sister that people have individual looks like skin color, height, facial features, body shapes, even different haircuts. It ends with the acknowledgement that people are alike and different in many ways. Basic information on a few, 12 of the more than 5,000 frogs in the world with names and illustrations of eight more at the back of the book. Text is in two sizes again, larger size to reach younger listeners and a smaller size that adds more information for more involved listeners or readers. In the front, the author gives a quick two page outline of basic frog biology. And then with each different frog, he talks about their features. It's a good introduction and of course, by Martin Jenkins. I love this one. This is how the donut came to be. Hanson Crockett Gregory went to see as a cabin boy in 1844 at the age of 13. This book talks about his hard work and heroism and then finally about his donuts. At 16, he was a cook's helper and every morning he made the usual fried cakes tossing a blob of dough into a cauldron of hot lard. The crew called them sinkers because the outside had to be cooked nicely but the middle dough was still raw. One day, he took the rounded off a pepper can and cut holes in the cakes and that made all the difference. The crew loved them and soon everyone was making them. The author also includes a couple of legends about how they were invented and noting how sailors like their stories bold. Primsical illustrations carry the upbeat and fun story and it includes a photo of Captain Gregory and author's note Timeline and Finley Garberby at the back of the book. A poem running through the book names a different bird for each page focusing on ones the young children might be familiar with. Hummingbirds drink flower nectar. Moose flies in a bee. Bluebird sleep at Meadows Edge. There's a brief additional information on each one at the back of the book. Some fiction for grades approximately 2 to 5. This is about the time when I remember to say that my age groupings are not cut and dried. It's just a general look at who the books are aimed at. Somebody might really like reading picture books or they might really be prepared and ready to read older books so it's just a general I think going case by case based on the child. Thank you. This is book one and the new series is called Spirit Week Showdown. This series is the magnificent Maya Tits. Maya 9 loves cowgirls and her new best friend Naomi. She promises to be her partner for the school Spirit Week contest but the name drawing goes sideways on her and she ends up with me Connie Tate as her partner. Now Naomi is calling her a liar and a promise breaker and soon she's going to be a liar too. It takes Maya a little while to learn that Connie is a good friend and Naomi is all about herself. Friendship and bullying and coming through that on the positive side. Okay, enough said. I think this will just get checked out right now. Rocket and Groot have crash landed on a strange planet after fighting giant space piranhas. They have nothing except a tape dispenser named Veronica but it looks like this planet is one huge planet that can get food, water, and other necessities. Not so fast. There are some diabolical things going on here. Wacky, silly, with plenty of illustrations it is obvious Engelberger really enjoyed creating this book. There is no origami but there is a two page spread on how to draw a rocket and the problem is whatever story they go into the first thing that the robots there say is don't you need to go to the bathroom? I guess there's something bad that will happen in the bathroom. So don't go in the bathroom. Corrin 11 who lives in Trinidad is not afraid to go into the old woods even though people say Jumbies live there. But one day she captures the attention of a particular Jumbie and soon that Jumbie is pretending to be a beautiful woman who has bewitched Corrin's father. Her mother has passed away. When Corrin and her friends try to fight the Jumbie it turns into a battle that will take all of her courage to win. Spookyness and bravery abound. The author notes at the back of the book that Corrin had added to age 15 read European paratails but could not find books with the Jumbie tales she heard growing up. So I hope she writes them more because this was a good spooky tale. Jeremiah who's about 12 loves baseball with a passion and knows a lot about it. When he and his adopted father moved to Hillcrest Ohio for a couple of months while his father's troubleshoots a company's computer system Jeremiah is the new kid at school. Hillcrest has won the high school baseball championship for five years in a row but now the team has been dissolved due to steroids. Jeremy cannot play due to a heart transplant but he is a champ at coaching and the soon enough unofficial middle school team is actively seeking opponents. Lots of heart from the health standpoint and the coaching approach and the love between Jeremy and Jeremiah and his father. This is just wacky. A hyena couple finds the clothing and passports of an English couple, the Bulls, who went for an unfortunate swim in a crocodile infested lake. They decide to dress like humans and live in England because it's hot in Africa, maybe England. And nobody will notice. No. Things go along quite well after they learn about money and jobs but their unfriendly neighbor Mr. McNumpty is keeping a close eye on them. Frequent cartoon like illustrations add to the humor. The father gets a job in a factory writing the jokes that are on the pieces of paper since it's in England. They call it that because they are laughing hyenas he can barely control himself most of the time. It's quite silly with some bathroom humor. A community of animals live on the hill. Their children attend school to learn a variety of crafts to see what their life's work will be. Weaving, metal craft or others. Twig, a chipmunk is not good at anything. But one day he finds an egg that hatches a dragon. Keeping Char's secret is hard and the baby dragon's fire makes his metal craft assignments look wonderful. A bully's turn around, a clever escape for Char and an amazing discovery show Twig what his course in life should be. Frequent illustrations enhance the story. Very gentle story. The first book in the Charlie Joe Jackson series with Pete as the main character. Pete has stolen Eliza's pom-pom and hides from her mother in a coffee shop when a lady in the shop asks him some unusual questions. It turns out she is a producer and she has him try out for a major role in a new movie. Doesn't that sound like perfect? It sounds great but after getting the part Pete has to juggle everything and soon his friends are mad because he doesn't have time for them and because also he's a movie star and they're not getting in on it. It's sure to be popular because this gives an upbeat look at the movie industry and also shows the downside to everything. I love the Oodle Suns. I'm sure there's going to be more because this is touted as book number one in the Oodle Suns. This title is Oona Finds an Egg. The Oodle Suns live in a cave and are obviously early humans but that is never specifically addressed. Oona has always wanted a pet but her younger brother Bonk is allergic to fur. When she finds a huge egg she hopes we'll hatch out a pet for her but everyone else has a different idea. They think it will either or the egg will never hatch. Daily life has a lot of similarities to now such as going to school and dealing with the bully next door and some differences such as worrying about being eaten by a T-Rex or a Raptor. Plenty of brown, black and white cartoon like illustrations adds to the story. Book Two Steg Enormous came out in September but I haven't seen it yet. I should look for that at the library. This is the first book in another new series called The Flashback Four. Miss Z finds four children to take a trip to the past to try to photograph President Lincoln while he is giving the Gettysburg Address. There isn't a photograph of him doing that because it was so short. The people who were there with their cameras were still setting things up and checking things that he was done. So that's what is explained in the story here. First they must have authentic clothing and learn about the language used at that time in order not to raise suspicion. Real history and a few photos are included in the fictional story. There is kind of a cliffhanger ending and Book Two the Titanic mission is out in early April. So see how they do it. Another new series under their skin twins Nick and Erin, twelve are upset when their mom tells them she is getting remarried. They are more surprised when they learn her fiance has two children but they will never meet them. This idea sends them out into the snow to find out why their mom even said that what they find out is more shocking. There soon to be steps that means are robots. Is anyone else a robot? There is an interesting take on philosophy and religion in this book and it ends with a cliffhanger. I haven't heard about the next in the series coming up. Said in England Nelson is eleven and learns he must stay with his odd uncle Pogo while his parents travel to Spain to try to find his missing sister. He loves his older half sister Celeste and is happy he cannot help. Things turn to the supernatural and magical when while helping his uncle Nelson accidentally falls on a table in a secret room in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. It ends up taking out his seven deadly sins from his soul and they are manifested as colorful monsters that you see there on the cover. It turns out they can help him find his sister in the Amazon basin in Brazil. She is not anywhere near Spain. A humorous wacky adventure ensues in his past seven doing their best. Occasional pen and ink illustrations add to this adventurous tale. This is the first book in the Beetle trilogy. Darkest 13 is staying with his uncle Max since his father has disappeared. His mother died when he was seven. He meets two new friends at his new school Bertold in Virginia. Home after the first day he finds a huge rhinoceros beetle that appears to like him and he names him Baxter. Uncle Mac and Darkest with the help of Max and Baxter are working together to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance and a couple of other smaller mysteries as well. And it might be that Baxter is his father-in-law. Something strange happened in his laboratory. Emma 12 lives on the edge of a graveyard in the Appalachians of Tennessee with her brethren and her grandmother Granny Blue. She is waiting to have her destiny dream something all of her female experience. She gives tours of the graveyard and respects the history of it and the heritage of their cafe. The time may have come for Granny to sell the property she owns including the cafe. Emma and her best friend Cody Bale are determined to find the alleged local treasure in order to save the land. Magic realism in the cemetery and local flowers add an air of mystery to this treasure hunt. Emma's connection to the area and its residents is touching and contagious. Bale's family moves to America. His father must stay in Pakistan supposedly only for a while. Bilal faces a new culture, language and sport. He was one of the best on his cricket team back home but now he has to start over and learn to play baseball a very different game. This book introduces culture shock the effort needed to find a place in a new home and his concern for his father. Why did he have to stay and when will he finally be able to come to the U.S. and watch and pitch? In 1911 Inga Maria Jensen travels from Copenhagen to a small island off Denmark to live with her strict and tough grandmother now that her mother has died. This seems a harsh beginning but soon small thoughtful things begin to happen. Her new best friend Klaus has his own problems but helps Inga adjust to the new school. When Inga goes over the top of school after trying so hard to be good it turns out grandmother loves the mischievous child. The island of Boholm begins to lose well at least some of the townspeople do. It's hopeful and lovely. Jeanne, his name is Jeanne but they call him Jeanne, he's 11 and he wants to be brave like his brother Ernie but it isn't easy. Their parents take them to their grandparents place in Virginia while they go to, while the parents go to figure things out. Jeanne has started to learn that his grandfather is blind he has some adjusting to do and they are expected to help with chores. The African-American community which is still rural of his grandparents also a new experience for Jeanne, different from the city an exploration of ways people live with believable characters and the challenge of finding one's own way to live. It's a long book but it really flows very well so hopefully the number of pages won't turn too many kids off. They can read it in small small sessions. Yeah, don't like the elements. That's a good idea. This is a fictionalized retelling of the friendship between Jackie Robinson and his eight-year-old neighbor Steve Satlow. Jackie and his family moved into the neighborhood in 1948 and Steve's wish was to be able to see him when they arrived. It turned out to be more than he had hoped for, a friendship and mentor for life. A part of this book, of this story was first told in her picture book Jackie's Gift published in 2010 which tells of the Christmas tree Jackie gave to the Satlow family not knowing they were Jewish but that went down and I think it's a wonderful story of caring. This is the first book in the Cat St. Clair files. Cat, 14, whose mother has left for the third time and not come back, learns her father has been hired as the newest host for the cheesy ghost hunting TV show Passport to Paranormal. 42p. Cat goes with him and will be home schooled along with the producer's nephew Oscar. Cat's grandmother was a champion screamer in several scary movies so Cat is sceptical about the ghosts but some strange things begin to happen when they join the show in Rotterdam. Cat's father is African-American and her mom is white but not much is made of that in the book. Dara is full of drama as her family can well attest. She and her best friend are certain they know all there is to know about acting, mostly learned from their favorite TV show. They practice their faces at lunch, surprised, sad, caring but Dara is deeply hurt when not only does she not get the role of Maria in the school play the sound of music but she gets no part at all. How can that be? The teacher invites her to join the acting club to learn more about it but Dara is resistant. Finally she gives it a try even though her best friend won't and begins to discover so much that she didn't know. And part of the story is that she was adopted from Cambodia when she was a baby and for a little while she thinks that's why she didn't get the part that looked like Maria but that turns out not to be the case at all. Red is about little red riding good. This is the third fairy tale the author has written that shows there is more to the story than what we have heard before. Red's grandmother is a witch and the magic flows in red as well but after a couple of disasters Red refuses to use it again. Now Grandma is ill and Red goes on a quest to find a magical cure for her. Along the way she encounters a wolf, Goldie, Goldilocks, the beast from Beauty and the Beast and the Huntsman. It's another well done fairy tale revisit. Sure to be popular. I feel like a lot of us never redo the story. It's not the same old thing you've already read or heard before. This is expanded like Rump and Jack. So some nonfiction Pulinguito de la Rase The dual language title explores the jungle and the andes of Ecuador. It introduces plants and animals of the area via the Spanish alphabet not the English alphabet and uses alliterative language for the Spanish. Spanish is the first language on each page and the English is translated well and therefore is not alliterative. Short sentences on the bottom of each page leave plenty of room for the beautiful illustrations. Brief additional information on each plant and animal mentioned are included in the back of the book again in Spanish and English. A picture book biography of Vivian Thomas, an African-American man who lost his savings from medical college in the crash of 1929. Almost said 2000. He then was hired as a research assistant for Vanderbilt University. He learned to conduct experiments to aid Dr. Blalock in finding better operating procedures. While there he was asked to research ways to operate on what were then called blue babies. He not only researched it, he developed new smaller equipment and realized that an earlier procedure developed by Dr. Blalock himself could work with the babies. Initially only Dr. Blalock and Dr. Tossig were credited with the new technique but eventually Vivian Thomas's role was recognized. And there's more information in the back of the book. Aaron Philip was born in 2001 in St. John's the capital of Antigua and Barbuda. By late 2003, Aaron's mother took him to New York to better medical facilities and there's where she learned he had cerebral palsy. Here Aaron tells about his life so far, his ups and downs, his dreams, and the people who have helped him and his family. The effort that went into getting him in his wheelchair up and downstairs in apartment buildings with no elevators or getting on the subway to go to school conveys issues that people in wheelchairs meet with often. It is clear we have more to do to make spaces, places available. It's upbeat and positive. It contains some photos and as you read the story you'll find out why it's titled This Kid Can Fly. A collection of 21 poems, clever and inspiring. Especially the last one. Though less concrete than the rest goes like this. The title is Poet Try. Poetry is about taking away the words you don't need. Poetry is taking away words you don't need. Poetry is words you need. Poetry is words you try. Love that one. This is a unique biography with wonderful collage by the author illustrator of E.B. White and his children's books. So it tells the story. It's a biography of the story of his life, but also how he ended up writing the books, the children's books he did, and what his regular work was. Novelist calls it stunning first ever fully illustrated biography of legendary author E.B. White. And it is terrific. Did you get that from... And that's my list. There are some more books on your list that are just that are series books, I shouldn't say just. I leave them at the back so that if you are collecting books in those series, for you to know that another book has come out and they're all recommended, and if you have questions about any of them, I will add their blurbs to the list that's put up on the web page that we said that won't be happening. Probably not till January, but it will be happening sooner rather than later. My list at least is up there of the titles. You can access that and if you really want my blurb list you can email me and ask me and I'll send you my blurb list as it is now. So, not necessarily all complete sentences. I think that's fine. Did we have any questions or did people just get overwhelmed by them? I think everyone is just listening very intently to all your short stories of versions of all of them. Does anybody have any last minute questions? We did just hit 11 to 1, so almost about to our hour, which is pretty much perfect. If you do, type them in, otherwise I'm not sure what questions people would have. You know where to find Sally. She's here at the Library Commission if you do. And as she said, we will have the full blurb presentations up there eventually. Email her if you need it right away. Yes. If you're desperately in need of it. If I didn't enunciate clearly which can happen sometimes. But the PowerPoint presentation and the list of just the titles and the PowerPoint presentation will be up with the recording this afternoon. Right. So, you'll have those so you can have the book covers and everything. So, I think we will wrap it up. I'm going to switch over to that to the website again. So, that will wrap it up for this week's show. We'll see here. Can you type in Encompass Live since you have the keyboard there, Sally? Let's see. There we go. Encompass Live this is our website. If you just Google us, we actually come up first to just any sort of Google search. Luckily, nobody else so far. I've been saying this for a while and so far. Nobody else has called anything that. I would. But you also find it right at the Library Commission website. When the recording is available it will be posted here on the archives page on the main website, the archives listed right beneath our upcoming shows. Here's the one from last week. We had the recording of presentation, a handout and links so it will be similar for Sally's of all that information there. I will email everyone who was here today or who registered for today's show to let you know when it's available so that you can go ahead and re-watch it, share it with other people, whatever you need. Great. So, that's it for today's show. I hope you do this next week when our topic is under the microscope at the library. Valley Public Library here in Valley, Nebraska Well, actually, they got one of your youth grants for excellence. They did, but they also had a wonderful local contributor to the whole project. Okay. That we about and they ordered, bought microscope kits and have been doing a lot of science related programming with it at their library. Right. And Claire Bouchon and the director there and other volunteers, Gary Brown is going to be on the line with us next week to talk about the whole grant process and how they got it and what they've been doing with this cool thing. So, they hadn't heard about it before but it sounds really cool having microscopes that you can come in and use at the library. So, definitely sign up and join us for next week's show if you're interested in that topic or any of our other ones we have coming up here. We've got half a January booked up on the schedule as we get new things scheduled and set up and we'll add them here. So, just keep coming back to the website to see what new topics are coming. Also, end couple slide is on Facebook. So, if you are a big Facebook user, you can pop over there and give us a like. You'll get notifications of when recordings are available, when the shows are starting. Here I did do a login right now for today's show coming on the fly. So, if you are on Facebook a lot, give our page a like and keep up with what we're doing there. Whoops. Let's close that by accident. Let's try this again. There we go. So, other than that, thank you very much for attending. I'll leave it here on this page. I don't see any other questions. No. All right. I think urgent came in. So, that will wrap it up for today's show. Thank you very much and we'll see you next time on Encouples Live. Great. Thank you. Thank you.