RE: THE DRAGON

Petsitting a temperamental creature is no easy task―especially when that pet happens to be a full grown, fire breathing dragon. When Eddie’s family agrees to care for his Uncle Morton’s unusual pet, they have no idea what to expect. They certainly aren’t prepared for burnt curtains, noxious poop, ravaged refrigerators, crisped petunias, and singed mailmen.
Eddie narrates the dragon’s escapades through, largely unanswered, emails to his Uncle Morton. The dragon’s bad behavior continues to escalate with each frantic message, and if you think dog poop on your bedroom carpet is bad, just imagine cleaning up after a vindictive dragon! Soon Eddie’s irate mother is appealing to local zoos, animal shelters, and even the fire department for help. Problematically, when you’re dealing with mythical creatures people tend not to believe you... or they think you’re crazy.
Josh Lacey’s The Dragonsitter is a humorous epistolary chapter book, told through fraught email exchanges and picture attachments.
The first in series for grades 2-4.

A BIT OF HISTORY

Living in the mountains can be very lonely experience for a twelve-year old when you don’t have a friend. In Francis O”Roark Dowell’s Anybody Shining the reader is introduced to Aire Mae Sparks who right away shares her complaints about the available children who might be friend material that live in her North Carolina mountains…” These mountains are near to spilling over with children, and none of them is worth two cents. They are all too old or too young or just plain disappointing.” While she does have brothers and sisters, they all have friends of their own to occupy their time. 

To solve her problem Aire starts writing to a cousin that she’s never met, the daughter of her mother’s sister who left the mountains to marry a doctor and live in the city. The letters go unanswered but that does not deter their writer who details her summer in the mountains that suddenly is full of new children and a bit of local excitement. A natural born storyteller, Aire gives the reader an intimate glimpse of life in rural North Carolina in the 1920s.

For 5th and  up. 

BULLIES & APACHE HELICOPTERS

The ninety-one letters Derek keeps in his dad's Knight Rider lunchbox are the only way he can communicate with his dad. Since Derek was five, his dad has spent most of his time flying Apache Helicopters for the Army.  Last year, Derek and his mom thought his dad was home for good, but the Army called him back and now he is in Afghanistan.  His dad's letters help him through all the problems life throws at him.   Like being bullied by the kid he thought was his best friend. Or showing up at the school bus stop in the pouring rain on a Saturday.  Or forgetting his mom's birthday.  Or just plain missing his dad.  

Join Derek in this funny and touching account of how military service affects children and families in David Fleming's novel, The Saturday Boy.  This book is appropriate for children in Grades 5 and above.

HELP ME I'M STUCK AT SUMMER CAMP!

For those of you who enjoy opening and pulling things out or reading other people's postcards and mail then this is the perfect book for you.  Postcards From Camp:  A Postal Story by Simms Taback is a very funny exchange of mail between a father and son, whose first time at camp is not enjoyable at all.  However, it's only for one week, and Michael is willing to try for his father's sake.  

The illustrations are fantastic and it's a good introduction for start for someone going off to camp.  

To be read aloud to someone or can be read by a 2nd grader and up.  

  

WINNERS - WORTH READING STILL?

This is my third attempt at reading Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary. First attempt: ran out of time, only read about 10 pages. Second attempt: I read about 50 pages and was bored by it.

Third attempt: WOW! I get why this won the Newberry in 1984. It's a boy who starts off writing letters to his favorite author as part of a class assignment who winds up unloading his thoughts about the author, his lunch, and his father in a diary (yes, there was a boy writing in a diary before Diary of a Wimpy Kid). I love the ending, because it's a happy ending, but not one that is expected. Leigh grows, befriends a classmate, learns his lessons, fields dissapointments, not all neat and tidy but we get a glimpse of his life during one year of diary entries. This is a sensitive and thoughtful look at a middle school age boy at a time in which life, his parents' divorce, is just too confusing.

This is the book group's selection for the month of June. Join Snacktime Readers on Wednesday, June 23 at 7:00 in the Children's Room of the Central Library, 222 East Harvard Street, Glendale, CA 91205, (818)548-2035.

DEAR GRAN,

I know that you are almost ninety years old, so I won't expect a reply from you very often. That's okay, because I just want to practice typing on my new computer.

Annabelle

Dear Gran,

Why haven't you answered my first letter?

Gran, You've Got Mail! by Jo Hoestlandt is a delightfully quirky little French book of letters written between Annabelle and her great-granmother. Great for reluctant readers 5th & older.