Reviews: Professional Reading

This resource provides citations for more than 1100 books that have been successfully booktalked by the authors or that have received positive reviews from SLJ, Horn Book, or Booklist. Ten chapters cover 10 areas of interest to boys in kindergarten through eighth grade, including U.S. history, world cultures, science, action and innovation, disasters and unsolved mysteries, and hot topics like magic, drawing, and fascinating facts. Each section has three parts. "New and Notable" suggests books published since 2004, and includes a complete citation with booktalk. Older books are annotated in the "Not to Be Missed" section, where citations indicate whether a booktalk is available in an earlier "Gotcha" book. The third part of each chapter lists books with favorable reviews that are "Worth Reading." Suggested ages are included for each title. There is a definite need for booklists such as this. For additional reading and programming ideas, see Michael Sullivan's Connecting Boys with Books (ALA, 2003). Highlighting numerous titles on varied topics can only improve librarians' ability to serve this often under-reached segment of our reading population.—Julie R. Ranelli, Kent Island Branch Library, Stevensville, MD

With No Child Left Behind and AYP breathing down teachers' and librarians' necks, Hinton and Dickinson offer a way to introduce multicultural literature into the classroom. Designed to be used as a companion to standard textbooks (which are often above the reading and interest levels of many students), this book is grouped by topics such as "Gender and Sexuality," "Socio-Economics," "Race and Ethnicity," and "Language/Country of Origin." Within each chapter, five or six books are highlighted, with suggestions for classroom use and read-alikes. The authors have included examples from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenplays, and picture books that can be integrated into curricula as writing prompts, discussion starters, art projects, and research ideas that include opportunities for collaboration. A solid reference source.—Lori E. Donovan, Thomas Dale High School, Chester, VA

Librarians who do readers advisory for teens or adults will wonder how they ever got along without this funny, opinionated, wide-angle guide. Hollands has arranged approximately 800 titles, each with a brief, enticing annotation, into over 100 topical lists of 10 or fewer titles. Gathered beneath one of five rubrics dubbed "appeal characteristics"-Story, Character, Setting, Mood, and Language-the lists range from specific themes ("'You Killed My Father, Prepare to Die!' The Fantasy of Revenge") and familiar set pieces ("Armageddon Out of Here: Fantasy's Furious Final Battles") to character types ("Smaug Gets in Your Eyes: Fantasy's Formidable Dragons"), genre-expanders ("Steaming Up the Looking Glass: When Romance Is Nice, but Sex Is Better"), and even length ("Never Toss a Dwarf: Fantastic Fantasies with a Low Page Count"). Nearly all of the titles within those lists are in print and include enduring classics and books recently published. Though the focus is on books for older readers, younger ones are served by a few lists, and titles particularly recommended for teens are marked with a symbol. Award winners are similarly labeled, and also listed by award in an appendix. Other standard resources, such as Ruth N. Lynn's Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults (Libraries Unlimited, 2005) are more comprehensive, but not so current, or as engagingly written.—John Peters, New York Public Library

Honnold offers ideas for programs for both public and school libraries. The book opens with a list of the librarian contributors with their affiliations and their contact information. It is then divided into three parts: "Get Connected for Fun"; "Get Connected for Education"; and "Get Connected for Teen Advisory Groups." Topics within each chapter include developing recreation- and education-based programs, working with different populations, working with teens and social-networking sites, developing and working with TAGs, and introducing ideas for YALSA's Teen Tech Week. The author also discusses start-up costs and how the featured libraries subsidized their programs. This book is a great resource for starting Library 2.0 to connect with teens, whether you are working on your own, with a technology integrator, or within the community.—Lori E. Donovan, Thomas Dale High School, Chester, VA

Well articulated, with an obvious focus on currency of technology and research, this new volume in the Big6 dominion is updated and useful. Jansen states that the current problem in our society is information overload, and that learning and teaching with the Big6 research skills is the smart solution. The first part of this manual offers a modern reiteration of the original Big6 skills while addressing current trends in instructional technologies and media communications. The author encourages readers to remind themselves and students that all research is rooted in context, and to "anchor" themselves by keeping track of where they are within the process itself, and what the basic need (personal or curricular) is that led to implementing the Big6 skills. The second part of the book devotes one chapter to each of the Big6 steps and offers strategies for planning and instruction for each one. The third section provides several project organizers to copy for students as well as reproducibles to use as guides for collaboration, planning, and instruction. This is a huge resource that will be helpful to novices or to Big6 veterans who need a refresher.—Jodi Kearns, University of Akron, OH

Wolk certainly knows the field of comics and has interesting things to say about a wide variety of them. Unfortunately, his first two chapters are so bogged down because of his arrogant and condescending style that it's hard to find any content. In later chapters, some of his excellent assessment of comics and what makes them work as both art and entertainment shines through. The book is not meant to be a canon of what comics are good; as he states, "I'm more interested in starting discussions (and arguments) about comics than settling them with any kind of self-appointed authority." His critiques and in-depth looks at comics creators whose works he finds particularly interesting to discuss certainly meet that goal—but only for readers already familiar with the artists he's discussing. Despite his insight, his overuse of the phrase "more on that later" (oftentimes leaving readers with little explanation until chapters after his first argument) and the extremely antagonizing first two chapters make the book a difficult read. It may find use in classrooms about comics as literature or the nature of criticism, but it will have a difficult time finding an audience anywhere else.—Alana Abbott, James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT