Don't make her angry

My quest to make super hero peg dolls has served to reintroduce me to some more obscure female superheroes. This week I rediscovered She-hulk. She makes a great peg.

 

Picture books for everyone

A Place for Pluto by Stef Wade
Pluto is Peeved by Jacqueline Jules

Picture books can be a great way to introduce social and scientific concepts to young readers. They allow kids to engage with the text and concepts at their own level. These two picture books address the same topic: Pluto's demotion from planetary status. Pluto is Peeved takes more of a social angle. Jules's Pluto goes through a museum, comparing itself to other planets and feeling as if it no longer matters. A Place for Pluto is more scientific, examining how we define a planet, the ways in which Pluto fails that definition, and the other space objects that have a similar status in our solar system. 
 
More information: A Place for Pluto releases July 1.
Advanced Reader Copies provided by NetGalley

Non-fiction book review - National Parks of the USA

National Parks of the U.S.A. by Kate Sider

I'd wager most of us can't name more than one or two national parks. This book is a nice introduction to a few of those parks. It's a curious selection, some well known some more obscure. The selected parks get a short overview, a brief description and a few animals, plants, and natural features one might see at the park. Parks are organized by region, allowing the reader to see the spread across the country, which may lead the curious to look into how each park was founded.

More information: National Parks of the U.S.A. releases July 3.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - Kid Normal

Title: Kid Normal
Author: Greg James and Chris Smith
Genre: sci-fi
Similar books: School for Sidekicks by Kelly McCullough
                      Earthling by Mark Fearing
Rating:

superhero fun

Summary (provided by publisher): When Murph Cooper begins his new school several weeks into the year, he can't help but feel a bit out of his depth. And it's not because he's worried about where to sit, making friends, and fitting in. It's because his mom has accidentally enrolled him at a school for superheroes. And unlike his fellow students, who can control the weather or fly or conjure tiny horses from thin air, Murph has no special abilities whatsoever.
But Murph's totally normal abilities might just be what the world needs. Because not far away is a great big bad guy who is half man and half wasp, and his mind is abuzz with evil plans . . . and when he comes after the best and the brightest, it's up to Murph to be the real hero.
With black-and-white illustrations throughout, this laugh-out-loud story proves that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

My opinion: Exploring the realities of being a non-powered kid in a world of superheroes isn't an unheard of concept in kid's fiction. As is the idea of having limited or strange powers. Authors ask us to consider if having super powers automatically makes you better than others. James approaches the subject with a fair dose of humor, making this quite reeadable in spite of being ultimately predictable.

More information: Kid Normal releases June 19th.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Note cards

A few weeks ago I shared an image of some cards I'd drawn for a craft fair. Here's most of the rest of the cards I designed, with varying degrees of detail and quality of image.

That racoon looked really horrible in early stages but came together surprisingly well in the end

 

Books on Screen

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

I wasn't sure at first that this book would work as a movie, for a couple of reasons. 1) The book is largely focused on Jess's internal journey. It's a story of recognizing possibility, of embracing your creativity in a world that demands you become more practical. 2) It's a little dated. While the central barrier to Jess's dreams is poverty, we also see some political issues. There's mild racism and sexism, radical politics. In modernizing the story for the movie, they had to modernize Leslie's differences. She's more quirky than enlightened. The bigger difference is the portrayal of Terabithia. In the novel, we're mostly just told that Jess and Leslie imagine an involved world out in the woods. The movie presents us with several scenes in which this imagined world is almost real, to the point that it borders on delusion. Over all, the tweaks that modernize the story work well and make the movie accessible while remaining true to the intent of the original story.

Non fiction book review - Grandad Mandela

Grandad Mandela by Zazi, Ziwelene, and Zindzi Mandela

Nelson Mandela is one of those figures I grew up hearing about but I never really knew much about him, just that he was imprisoned for protesting apartheid. So I learned a lot from this book about his career. It might have been nice to see the book explain more about apartheid, especially regarding the role of colonialism, but a picture book has inherent limitations. What this becomes, then, is a great way to start a conversation about racism and justice with young readers.

More information: Grandad Mandela releases June 28.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.