Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

For the next few weeks I’ll be reviewing books new to our children’s department in honor of summer library program.

Do you know what dragons love to eat best?  If you guessed princesses, you’re way off base. Dragons actually love to eat tacos best.  The book Dragons Love Tacos says so!  That title was so popular the author and illustrator have written another: Dragons Love Tacos 2: the Sequel by Adam Rubin and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. At the end of the first book the reader was warned about what might happen if a dragon eats spicy salsa, but no one was prepared for the dragons’ voracious appetite. 

There is only one taco left in the world, and that one must be protected so it can be planted and new taco trees grow in its place! So, the hero of our tale and his trusty canine companion build a time machine to go back in time and stop the dragons from eating ALL the tacos and trying spicy salsa. Two attempts later the timeline is a little messed up and all the tacos are still gone.  A mistake with the time machine produces some silly results, like tacos eating dragons. 

Will the world remain taco-less? Give this short picture book a try to find out. In an uncluttered landscape the colored pencil and ink illustrations stand out. There are even a few sight gags for the grown-ups reading the book.             

​You can get the item reviewed here, Dragons Love Tacos 2: the Sequel by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.

For the next few weeks I’ll be reviewing books new to our children’s department in honor of summer library program.  Programs start Tuesday and Friday of next week.  If you have questions give the library a call on Monday.

Predicting the future is usually best left to weather forecasters and insurance salesmen, but in everyday tasks you can usually predict what will happen.  Forget sunscreen?  You’ll turn red and tender. Feel the need for a glass of milk?  You’ll be leaving the jug just a little lighter.

This week’s review of the board book Before & After written and illustrated by Jean Jullien helps the littlest of readers start to learn the consequences of their actions. The cover shows a hand holding an extra wide ice cream cone with both a perfect swirl and a gloopy mess. Inside the words are mostly “before” and “after” with pictures to illustrate the point.  But it’s not always what you might expect – even the adult readers will be left guessing!  What looks like a series of yellow lines on a black background becomes a delicious plate of spaghetti. Highlighting that age old question, the pages with the egg and the chicken have a question mark after “before” and “after.” 

One fold-out section features not only smiles in a roller coaster car before, but shocked expressions after!  The fold-out shows a pretty wild ride with the word “during.” This book is a quick read that should leave the readers – both young and old – with a few giggles.

​You can get the item reviewed here, which was Before & After, written and illustrated by Jean Jullien , and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.

For the next few weeks I’ll be reviewing books new to our children’s department in honor of summer library program. You still a few more days to sign your school age kids up for our regular program or toddlers up for our Summer Port Tots program.  Call the library for days and times starting in June. The library is closed Monday for Memorial Day.                   

If you’ve ever played the guessing game, or twenty questions, you’ll be familiar with the pace of this week’s review: What Are You Waiting For? by Scott Menchin with pictures by Matt Phelan. In this softly illustrated tale a badger and brown bunny play throughout their day in their green and brown forest home. In the morning sunlight the friends stop and look at a caterpillar.  In the afternoon they explore a cave, count tree rings, and go swimming in a pond.  All the while Bunny is waiting for something and won’t tell Badger exactly what, although Badger asks lots of questions.  Bunny says if Badger falls asleep he’ll miss it.  At sunset the activity of a long day is too much and Badger’s eyes close, but Bunny wakes him up just in time…but for what?  The reader is treated to a gorgeous two-page illustration.  And my listeners out there will have to come check out this book to find out exactly what it was. But here’s a hint: this would be a fantastic bed time book for little ones who always seem to ask questions right at bed time.

You can get the item reviewed here, which was What Are You Waiting For? by Scott Menchin with pictures by Matt Phelan, and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”
 

Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  
           
With the recent rise in popularity of super hero movies in theaters, the public at large has become aware of some of the pantheon of Norse mythological gods, especially Thor and Loki. Those two are part of a much larger and more complex mythology from what is now the northernmost part of Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The Norse myths are complex and sometimes contradictory.  They don’t follow a modern storytelling structure, even in epic form, but they have inspired many modern novelists such as J RR Tolkein, C. S. Lewis, and of course the comic book writers whose works have been made into movies.

Now fantasy and fiction author Neil Gaiman has attempted to rationalize and envision a novelistic arc to the Norse myths and collected them into a reasonably sized novel.  With witty prose, modern sounding dialogue, and even a glossary of characters, author Gaiman makes these myths very approachable and entertaining to even younger readers.  The myths start at the beginning of creation, of course, and continue through the Norse version of the apocalypse. In between are thirteen chapters gathering the most well-known myths, weaving them in an order most coherent to this book, including the story of how Odin lost an eye, and how Thor impersonated a bride to get his famous hammer back from an ogre. If you enjoy Neil Gaiman’s storytelling style the library has several other books from grade school age to adult in the collection.

​You can get the book reviewed here, which was Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”

Hi!  This is Rachel Malay, director at the Port Library in Beloit.  

What do you think is the most widely read type of book?  Is it the cozy mysteries?  Those certainly are checked out a lot at the library! What about self-help books?  The “Dummies” series certainly has published a wide variety of topics to help with nearly every situation in life. Actually, the answer is romance.  This makes sense when you think of all the locations you see little paperback romance books for sale: WalMart, Dollar General, even roadside gas stations.

And no one has tried to produce a comprehensive documentary on that behemoth of the publishing industry until now.  Love Between the Covers may not have been produced by any huge studio, yet since being released about a year ago at film festivals it has earned award after award. The film follows the lives of five published romance authors and one unpublished author as they navigate the changes to the publishing industry and the content of their own genre over the course of the past three years or so. Several names you may not recognize, but nearly any reader out there of contemporary fiction has heard of Nora Roberts – who is featured here.

​The film is insightful and engaging, certainly an enrichment to the reading lives of anyone who peruses romance books in any way.  Woven between interviews with the featured authors is the story of why people love romance stories so much and how literary fiction plays such an important role in informing people about society and their place in it.

You can get the DVD reviewed here, which was Love Between the Covers, and more great titles to watch, read, listen to, or play with at the Port Library at 1718 N. Hersey in Beloit.  This is director Rachel Malay, saying “Thanks for checking us out!”