November 30, 2022 - BCPL Children's Series of the Month

Looking for a quirky and fun series for young readers? This month we've got a great pick at Brooke County Libraries! We're featuring the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series this November, written by Jeff Kinney.

Filled with laugh-out-loud hilarious text and cartoons, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series follows Greg Heffley as he records the daily trials and triumphs of friendship, family life and middle school where undersized weaklings have to share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner and already shaving! On top of all that, Greg must be careful to avoid the dreaded CHEESE TOUCH!

The first book in the series was published in 2007 and became instantly popular for its relatable humor. Today, more than 250 million copies have been sold around the world!

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has been a permanent fixture on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The series has remained on the New York Times bestseller lists since the publication of the first book, for more than 775 weeks total, and more than 350 on the series list. The books are currently available in 79 editions in 65 languages.

Since initial publication in 2007, the series has gone on to win many regional and national awards around the globe including two Children’s Choice Book Awards and six Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards for Favorite Book. Jeff Kinney was also named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in the world.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney didn’t grow up wanting to be a children’s author. His dream was to become a newspaper cartoonist but he wasn’t able to get his comic strip syndicated.

Jeff Kinney was born in 1971 in Maryland and attended the University of Maryland in the early 1990s. It was there that Jeff ran a comic strip called “Igdoof” in the campus newspaper. He knew he wanted to be a cartoonist.

However, Jeff was not successful getting his comic strip syndicated after college, and in 1998 he started writing down ideas for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which he hoped to turn into a book. Jeff worked on the book for six years before publishing it online on funbrain.com in daily installments.

In 2006, Jeff signed a multi-book deal with publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc. to turn Diary of a Wimpy Kid into a print series. The first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book was published in 2007 and became an instant bestseller. Just a year later, more than 100,000 copies were in print in the United States alone. With each subsequent book, in-print numbers continue to grow exponentially both in the U.S. and abroad. There are now more than 250 million copies of the series in print worldwide.

A spin-off series has been published, written from Rowley's perspective. The first installment, Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal, was released on April 9, 2019, and is a series of anecdotes about Greg and Rowley's friendship. The second, Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, is in the style of a fantasy adventure and was released on August 4, 2020. The book's original release date was April 7, 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The third, Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories, was released on March 16, 2021.

Interested in giving this series a try? Check out the titles we have available from WV Reads!

https://wvreads.overdrive.com/search/series?query=Diary%20of%20a%20Wimpy%20Kid&sortBy=newlyadded

Don't forget to check in next month, readers! We've got one more young reader spotlight to share before 2022 is over.

Are you a big fan of the Wimpy Kid adventures? Maybe you know of a similar series for middle schoolers? Let us know in the comment section below or on any of our social media pages!

Images and info are courtesy of WV Reads, Goodreads, Google, and author webpages.

 

August 30, 2022 - BCPL Children's Author of the Month

Hello, fellow readers!

This month we're excited to share another installment of our Children's Author of the Month posts. August we are featuring the life of work of Richard Peck. This beloved children's author has several titles available from our libraries. His work has been enjoyed by generations of young readers. With memorable stories and characters, his novels and short fiction are fast becoming classics.

Richard Wayne Peck was born on April 5, 1934, in Illinois to Virginia Grey Peck and Wayne Peck. His mother was a Wesleyan University graduate, and his father owned a service station. A sister, Cheryl, would later become an administrator at a college. He attended elementary and high schools in Decatur, Illinois.

Peck earned a bachelor's degree in English at DePauw University in 1956. He spent his junior year abroad at the University of Exeter.

After college, he was drafted into the US Army as a chaplain's assistant and spent two years serving in Stuttgart, Germany. In a 2003 interview he commented, "I think your view of the world goes on—for the rest of your life—as the world you saw as you emerged into it as an adult."

After his military service ended, he completed a master's degree at Southern Illinois University in 1959.

Peck worked as a high school teacher, but much to his dismay, was transferred to a junior high school to teach English. After a while, he decided to cut his career short and write. However, these observations about junior high school students proved excellent material for his books. He said, "Ironically, it was my students who taught me to be a writer, though I was hired to teach them."

He left teaching in 1971 to write his first novel, Don't Look and It Won't Hurt, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1972, in which "A teenage girl struggles to understand her place within her family and in the world." He wrote a book each year since then — 41 books in 41 years.

Peck was an adjunct professor with Louisiana State University's School of Library and Information Sciences.

"Ironically, it was my students who taught me to be a writer, though I had been hired to teach them," Peck said in a speech published in Arkansas Libraries. "They taught me that a novel must entertain first before it can be anything else. I learned that there is no such thing as a 'grade reading level'; a young person's 'reading level' and attention span will rise and fall according to his degree of interest. I learned that if you do not have a happy ending for the young, you had better do some fast talking."

He lived in New York and divided his time between writing and traveling. Peck died in New York City in May 2018 at age 84.

"You never write about yourself; you just always wind up having written about yourself." — October 10, 2013, to a library full of 4th graders in Pleasanton, California

We hope you'll check in again next month to our author and series spotlights for young readers! Let us know if you've enjoyed any of Peck's work or some of your favorite similar authors.

We have many of Peck's titles available on WV Reads! Click below to check out a few. 

 https://wvreads.overdrive.com/wvreads-wvlc/content/search?query=Richard%20Peck

As always, images and info are courtesy of author webpages, wikipedia, WV Reads, and Google.

July 27, 2022 - BCPL Children's Series of the Month

Welcome back! We're in the middle of Summer Reading and halfway through our profiles on our young readers' favorites.

For July 2022, we are featuring the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riodan. This beloved mythology and fantasy fiction series is popular with middle schoolers but really readers of all ages!

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a pentalogy of fantasy novels written by Irish-American author Rick Riordan, and the first book series in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles. The novels are set in a world with the Greek gods in the 21st century, and follows the protagonist Percy Jackson, a young demigod who must prevent the Titans from destroying the world.

Richard Russell Riordan Jr. (/ˈraɪərdən/; born June 5, 1964) is an American author. He is known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million copies in the US. 20th Century Fox adapted the first two books of his Percy Jackson series as part of a series of films. His books have spawned related media, such as graphic novels and short story collections.

Riordan was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School, and first attended the music program at North Texas State University, wanting to be a guitarist. He transferred to the University of Texas at Austin and studied English and History. He received his teaching certification in those subjects from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He taught English and Social Studies for eight years at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco.

He conceived the idea for the Percy Jackson series as bedtime stories about ancient Greek heroes for his son Haley. Haley had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, inspiring Riordan to make the titular protagonist hyperactive and dyslexic. Riordan published the first novel in the series, The Lightning Thief, in 2005. Four sequels followed, with the last, The Last Olympian, in 2009.

Prior to Percy Jackson, Riordan had written the Tres Navarres series, a series of mystery novels for adult readers.

Set in the mid-2000s, the series follows the story of Percy Jackson, a boy who discovers he is a demigod son of Poseidon. He was abandoned by his father because of an oath made by the Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades), the sons of Cronos, to not father any more children after World War II. The oath was sworn since the demigod children of the three gods are too powerful and have potential for great bloodshed (in-universe, World War II had been a fight between children of the Big Three). Percy's journey turns even more electrifying when he discovers that numerous people and ancient monsters are trying to kill him due to his status as a demigod, latent strength, and growing influence in the Greek world. Percy also finds out that there are even more demigods like him in Camp Half-Blood, a training camp in Long Island.

With his friend Annabeth Chase, and his best friend and companion Grover Underwood (a satyr who Percy finds out is actually his protector), his journey across the frightening mystic worlds begins. Percy soon finds himself fulfilling extraordinary quests, prophecies, and fighting battles with and for the gods against the rising threat of the Titans. He also finds himself at a crossroads: either he helps in the destruction of the world, or in preserving it.

Are you a fan of Percy Jackson? What's your favorite book in the series? Let us know in the comment section or on any of our social media pages! We'd love to hear from you.

Intrigued by this series and this author? Check out some of the titles we have available from WV Reads!

 https://wvreads.overdrive.com/wvreads-wvlc/content/search?query=Rick%20Riordan

May 18, 2022 - Staff Picks

Thanks for checking in to our latest edition of Brooke County Libraries' Staff Picks!

In Staff Picks, one or more of our staff members recommends titles available from our libraries - fiction or non-fiction, young or adult reads, and everything in between. We can't wait to share you...

Here's a glimpse of the titles chosen this Spring by our crew!

Bunny's Book Club - Written by Annie Silvestro. 

"I loved sharing in Bunny's adventure. Discovering a love of reading at any age is so exciting!" - Staff quote.

From the blurb - Bunny as he takes a a top-secret trip to the library in a story that celebrates the love of reading! Bunny loves to sit outside the library with the kids and listen to summer story time. But when the weather gets cold and everyone moves inside, his daily dose of joy is gone. Desperate, Bunny refuses to miss out on any more reading time and devises a plan to sneak into the library at night . . . through the library’s book drop! What follows is an adorable caper that brings an inquisitive, fuzzy bunny and his woodland pals up close and personal with the books they have grown to love. 

Harry the Happy Mouse by N.G.K -

From the blurb - Harry The Happy Mouse is a cheerful, traditional story about a Mouse called Harry who lives in the colorful English countryside. Harry helps a Frog, but asks the Frog to repay the kindness to someone else. We follow the good deed as it moves through other characters, who each selflessly help someone else, making themselves feel happy in the process! We learn that a little bit of happiness can go a long way! 

Puddin' by Julie Murphy -

"Bazillion Stars! I absolutely love this YA series. The order is Dumplin', Puddin', and Pumpkin. I read them out of order but for some strange reason, they are perfect together and standalone. This book takes you through the typical High School drama, teen angst, first loves, acceptance of yourself, etc. The one-liners are funny, and if you listen via Audiobook like I did to this one - you will be driving in your car laughing." - Staff Quote

From the blurb - Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a little girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream of being a newscaster—and to kiss the boy she's crushing on. Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she's more frenemy than friend. When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing that they might have more in common than they ever imagined.

Want to see if the audiobook is for you? Check it out on below! 

https://wvreads.overdrive.com/media/3377162

From the blurb - A stunning novel about love, work, and marriage that asks how far one family and one community will go to protect their future. Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It's 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn't what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened.

Interested in Damnation Spring? Check out our ebook copy!

https://wvreads.overdrive.com/media/5807930

That's all for now, folks! Let us know in the comments below, in person, or on one of our social media pages if we're picked any of your favorites or if you have favorites to share with us. We love to hear from our readers.

As always, images and info are courtesy of WV Reads, Google, Goodreads, Author Webpages.

March 24, 2022 - Staff Picks

Another month is winding down, readers! We're looking to share a new type of post today featuring children's fiction stories. 

National Library Week is approaching! Celebrate it by visiting your local library and meeting fun unusual library patrons. To start the celebration off, read about Bears, Dragons, Circus’, and even Monsters in the libraries. They are great stories for expanding the imagination and love of reading for those in pre-kindergarten to second grade levels. 

In The New LiBEARian, Ms. Merryweather is late to storytime. That never happens. So, Dee and her friends follow clues to find her and during the hunt they find out there is a new LiBEARian working there. Little do they know that he came from somewhere special and does not even work there.

Did we learn our lesson about allowing unusual library patrons to the library? Well…maybe not quite. If Bears can be in a library I guess that means dragons can too…right? In DO NOT BRING YOUR DRAGON TO THE LIRBARY, a friend and his dragon try to enter the library and learn that while there are many things that are going on, it is not quite safe to bring a dragon in. For one they are big, are sometimes rude, and have a little problem with flames. But don’t worry; the librarian comes up with a solution that is perfect for all. 

If bears and dragons are not allowed, surely a one girl circus is. Magnolia saw a sign that said “You Can Do Anything At The Library!” It got her thinking that she could have her very own quiet circus in the library. What can go wrong with cannons, pies, and hula hoops? Check out what happens by checking out the book If You Ever Want to Bring a Circus to the Library, DON’T!

Sometimes there are people who don’t like libraries. But have you ever heard of a monster not liking a library, especially one who thinks the library is a restaurant? Theodore and Oskar came to the library for one thing and one thing only, to read in quiet. But something just does not seem right as they snuggle down on their bean bag chairs. In The NOT So Quiet Library, they learn just what is making the noise and have to use the knowledge they have gained from reading books to stop it.

What are some of your favorite library tales? Are any perfect for little readers?

(AS)

Please note this post was originally shared in OVParent Magazine.