Unicorn Rescue Society PARTY 5

Tomorrow we'll be celebrating our third book birthday for the Unicorn Rescue Society. Yeah, we're fans.  I love these kids and their "twitchy" Professor Fauna. It's like Magic Tree House and Miss Frizzle conquer the Koch Brothers.  I hope that sounds like a super fun read to you because it most definitely is!

In this "episode" Uchenna and Elliot are in Havana to find the mysterious Madre de Auguas of Cuba, the "Mother of Waters."  Could this magical creature responsible for the drought on the island? Hmmm....or could it be related to something else?

The Unicorn Rescue Society regulars fly to Havana in the Phoenix (oh my!) picking up their new friend, Yoenis, on the way in Miami.  A little Cuban history and literature (Jose Marti) are sprinkled throughout as well as environmental and capitalism messages, with bouts of humor, making this enjoyable for kids and adults alike and opportunities for many kinds of conversations.

While reading I thought of other books about Cuba and Havana that I have loved:

Margarita Engle and Mike Curato's, All the Way to Havana:

(The RIF website is helpful again! Here's a word search to pair with the book.)


I was also reminded of a book that we'll be celebrating in August, Letters to Cuba by Ruth Behar. I loved this book filled with hope, perseverance, acceptance and diversity with quotes, like URS, from Jose Marti.  I even wrote in my notes about it to pair with Emma Otheguy's beautiful Marti's Song for Freedom and the already mentioned Engle/Curato book. We'll all be Marti fans before the end of the summer, if we weren't already.

Remember the Pura Belpre honor winning book, The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya? Poetry and Jose Marti make an appearance in it, too, and delicious Cuban food!  If this video doesn't get you hungry for food and parties, I don't know what will!

So let's PARTY!
See you tomorrow at 1:30 to celebrate it up with the URS kids, friends and antagonists.

INTERNATIONAL UNICORN DAY!

I just found out it is INTERNATIONAL UNICORN DAY! What?! I don't know about you, but I know A LOT of unicorn fans,  young and young-at-heart!

International Unicorn Day has a WEBSITE with endless ideas on how to celebrate.

Read Alouds

I hope you are reading this in real time because there are a TON of readings by authors of books with unicorns.  I will try and type fast and get this out ASAP.  I can already tell you that you missed some but usually they stay up for 24 hours so you can catch up later.  Here's the link for the schedule. Picture book are read on the hour, every hour; chapter books on the half hour.  This is amazing! You could be reading unicorn books ALL. DAY. LONG.

DEATAUP

Huh?  Yeah, Drop everything and throw a unicorn party! Didn't you figure that out? This link gives you all the ideas summed up for an awesome unicorn party.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

• If you go to the website, look at the artwork posted and write a story about the unicorn in the paintings.
• Got balloons? Make a unicorn family bouquet out of them.
• From one of my favorite unicorn books, You Don't Want a Unicorn! by Ame Dyckman and Liz Climo, color in this unicorn.
• Got bugles?  Serve those up as "unicorn horns." Or maybe you have something else around the house that can substitute (because honestly, who has bugles around???)
• What's a party without music? Here's a "Unicorn Playlist" inspired by Not Quite Narwal by Jessie Sima.

Chapter Books

The Unicorn Rescue Society

My favorite "unicorn" book series is The Unicorn Rescue Society by Adam Gidwitz and friends. Want to know more? The Society has its own website. Speaking of URS, I was SO excited this week when I received the latest galley of BOOK 5! I have been waiting literally years for it because I love Emma Otheguy and I knew she was a co-writer with Adam for one of the books. Yay! It comes out NEXT MONTH! Stay tuned for a book birthday celebration for sure!

Here's a guide you can use while reading the books. And if you want to stray away from unicorns after today, make sure and check out the other books by Adam and his co-authors.

The Guardian Herd

I don't know this series but this trailer has me intrigued. It looks like our fantasy and unicorn fans will love it.

Fairy Tale Reform School: Flunked

This is another series I don't know much about, although I did meet Jen Calonita in Texas one year (Yay for Texas!).

Here is an audiobook excerpt from the book:

Book Recording | Flunked on TeachingBooks

Check out this website for some ideas to do either side by side with the book or singly. I love the take off on "Heads Up" using fairy tale villains and giving away the book to the winner as a prize.  Is there a way we could play this virtually?

The Triumphant Tale of Pippa North

I was starting to doubt my abilities as a librarian because this final book I didn't know about it either.  But phew.  It just came out on March 24.

Let me get this out to you so you can watch the author read aloud at 2:30 today on YouTube.

There are so many more unicorn picture and chapter books out there.  Go back to the International Unicorn Day website for a list of them! The only unicorn book I love that is missing is Bob Shea's Unicorn Thinks He's Really Great.

Finally...Got Food Coloring?

If you have food coloring, you should be able to make at least one of these rainbow foods. But where do you find purple cheese and black buns?  My favorite? The chocolate horn, for sure! "Doughnuts and unicorns are a perfect match!" she says. Which ones will you try?

Happy International Unicorn Day today and everyday!

ADAM GIDWITZ on JUNE 12

You can thank me if the next time you see Adam Gidwitz he dates your book. Just sayin.' And I'll say that many of the kids in the Maple Hill High School class of 2024, 25 and 26 will probably remember June 12, 2018, for a long time.

I have been a fan of Adam's since the first Grimm book.  Fast forward a few years to winter 2016-17 and we are all behind The Inquisitor's Tale. In fact, it won our Newbery Consensus Club and needless to say we were more than thrilled when it won Newbery Honor in 2017 that I lost my voice that morning.

Now 17 months later, Adam ran through our Castleton red carpet.

And even though he was only at school for two hours, it was worth every second. Students and faculty were all still buzzing about it today.  Which brings me to this post by Evan who chose to spend his lunch with me so he could dictate a mash up of The Inquisitor's Tale review and a recap of Adam's visit.  Enjoy...

"I have to say the Inquisitor's Tale is really good. I never read the author's note but I had to read the author's note because I had to read about how he came up with this book and the research he did.  And the author's note was really good.  He spent a year in Europe and he went to Paris and other parts of France.  Adam was at our school yesterday and I saw him in the hallway signing the posters we have up because it was Adam Gidwitz mania in our school and I saw him with my Newborn [2018] book group leader, Mrs. Warland, and I told Adam that he responded to my blog post.  He said he remembered me but just didn't know my name.  I thought that was so cool that a Newbery Honor author remembered me and responded to me.  

"He was just so nice and so good.  He was up. He was active and was happy to see all of us. He was happy to see all the kids.  He was happy to see all the sixth graders from last year.  You could tell from his expression on his face that he was just "wow."  And I think he really liked the atmosphere of our school. He seemed really excited to be here. I don't even know how many authors we have had our school, but I loved Adam Gidwitz.  He had to be my favorite author to come to my school yet.

"Give some credit, too, to Hatem Aly.  Because it said in the author's note that they would draw in the margins just random drawings and the most popular one they would draw is a guy getting shot in the butt with an arrow.  Pretty interesting, right?

"At the presentation, Adam told us that he actually went to one of the monasteries called Mont-Saint Michel and he had a guide with him because there is quicksand. That's included in The Inquisitor's Tale (read it to find out).  And there was quicksand and Adam had pull himself out of it, which would take a lot of strength! You are sinking and you are trying to pull yourself out.

"I read some of the Newbery books from last year and I think The Inquisitor's Tale should have won THE Newbery award, not just the honor. Whoever has not read this book, please do.  Just please.  It was SOOOOO good. And that's a wrap!"

And then it was time for recess....I'm cool, I know, but just not enough to miss recess....I understand.

Adam with Evan!

It's so intuitive of Evan--As you can see, Adam really does love the kids.

And you really can't leave Castleton without leaping...

And for your reading pleasure, previous blog posts featuring Adam's Inquisitor's Tale:
2017 Consensus Club

The review of 2017 ALA YMA

Unicorn Rescue Society: The Basque Dragon (#2)

This morning, fifth grader, Evan came in beaming! I had given him the arc of Book #2 of Adam Gidwitz new series, Unicorn Rescue Society. He LOVED it! "It was so good!" he exclaimed.  "I hope there are so many more coming out.  I can think of so many more you can come up with. And I really just want to read all of them.  I hope there's like eight more coming." He was speaking so fast and so excitedly, I could hardly keep up!

"I liked the creativeness.  A lot.  The names are really clever.  I would never have thought of that.  I can't even pronounce them like Mr. Mendizabal and the names of the dragons were really creative, too.

"My favorite part of the book was when Uchenna found this seven headed dragon, or what she thought it was.  And the six heads came off and they were just baby dragons.  This was really surprising because I thought it was going to kill her or something like that," Evan says with a big smile on his face. "Can this win the Newbery?"

"Probably not likely," I say sadly.  "I wish," he says emphatically.

"Adam is the best author yet."  His message for Adam, "Keep writing because your books are so great!"  Izzy was in the library, too, and you know she agreed wholeheartedly! 

I'm thrilled because on June 12, Adam Gidwitz will be walking the halls of Castleton Elementary School!  Yes, we were Inquisitor's fans from the beginning! And yes, we are Unicorn Society fans, too!  And moving on to Grimm fans (I just requested a copy from our middle school for Evan.)

ICYMI: 

Here's my blog post on Book #1:
Unicorn Rescue Society: Creature of the Pines

The Unicorn Rescue Society: The Creature of the Pines

I've been a fan of Adam Gidwitz for a while, even after a fifth grader (she's now in 9th) abandoned A Tale Dark and Grim because it was keeping her up at night. Oops.  But last year was when we clinched our fandom for him.

There was a small, but strong, Inquisitor's Tale Newbery book group.  We even scored a Skype with Adam before he was crowned with the Newbery honor.  We could say "we knew him when."  Incidentally, during that Skype he mentioned the new series he was working on about some unicorn society something or other....

Well, wait no more!  Finally, it's here and I can actually tell you the correct title:  The Unicorn Rescue Society: The Creature of the Pines. Yay!  So...Grab your gooey almond bars (no raisins, please) and a mason jar of sassafras tea and get ready for a fun, laugh out loud adventure with the new kid, Elliot, his friend, Uchenna and the weird teacher, Professor Fauna.

The first chapter had me hooked and will definitely get the attention of any middle grade reader.  Farting and nose picking?  Perfect. I'd bet Las Vegas that none of my students returning it before it's finished.

It's Elliot's first day at his new school, a few weeks into the new year.  Poor guy. Who starts a new school after the first day?  And to top it all off, they are going on a field trip to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. The Pine Barrens, home to exotic animals, and truthfully an unusual landscape.  I know from experience, as I camped out at "Scrubby Pines" (outside of Manahawkin) a few times when we couldn't afford a place on Long Beach Island.

After being warned NOT to leave the group, Uchenna does (and Elliot follows).  They end up getting pretty close to this blue creature (part deer, part bird with claws and hooves) later aptly named "The Jersey Devil."

"Danger is the greatest teacher." (Professor Fauna)  If this is the case, Elliot and Uchenna are armed to learn a lot! Not only do they need to keep their new found creature safe but they also have to fight off the Schmoke (which conveniently seems to rhyme with Koch???) brothers who are hoping to make the Jersey Devil the latest addition to their exotic collection.

This is a winner.  A winner for your Inquisitor's Tale fans.  A winner for your Tale, Dark and Grim fans (Oh! I've currently got one of those at school, who happens to wear a unicorn hoodie all the time!).  A winner for your Magic Tree House adventure fans. Even a winner for anyone (what?!) who hasn't heard of Adam Gidwitz. YET. And bonus? It's illustrated by the illuminator from Inquisitor's, Hatem Aly.

Just one question, well maybe, two: When's Book 2 coming out?  Book 3? And, where do I find a recipe for the almond bars? Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

The Castleton Elementary Tribute to Adam Gidwitz

I hope I get to meet Adam again! This is from ALA 2015.  He's going to be at TLA! I hope I see him there!

That's Mr. Chevrier, my former principal, now our Superintendent, 

with his small but strong book group!

Skyping with Adam last January before he won!

Right after The Inquisitor's Tale won the 2017 Newbery honor!