Practically Paradise by Diane R. Kelly Jorge Luis Borges said, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." School Libraries are PracticallyParadise to me!

Forget running away to join the carnival, I ran off to enjoy the American Library Association’s Annual conference held this year in beautiful sunny California. I was privileged to hear the 12 authors speak at the ALSC Nonfiction Blast and couldn’t wait to help out hosting this for Anastasia Suen after her hard work of organizing the Nonfiction Blast. After their talk, the authors staged a formal more serious photo,  but I preferred this one I caught when they let their guard down.

This month on the carnival we have posts from bloggers who didn’t run away but are still celebrating life in our Carnival of Children’s Literature including:

Nonfiction

• Jeanne at True Tales & A Cherry On Top asks “Who doesn’t love pandas? Mrs. Harkness and the Panda tells the captivating story of the American adventurer who introduced the world to Pandas.” I, too, loved this book and wrote about it during National Women’s History Month. Illustrator Melissa Sweet was autographing during ALA, but I was busy in Council so missed out on my chance to tell her how much I loved Mrs. Harkness and the Panda. Fortunately I did find Julie Cummins’ book Women Explorers to add to my must read list.
• Tara at A Teaching Life chimes in: “I’ve reviewed two non-fiction books and one fiction title I plan to use in my classroom.” I found far more on her blog and marvel at her participation level. 
• Jeanette at SpeakWell, ReadWell writes this month about how “A rat, a pigmy goat and a darling puppy helped my students review a new book by Sue Fliess. Take a look and see them in action!” I took my pet rat before to read to preschoolers so I loved seeing her pictures. My favorite had to be the goat reading along.
• Lisa at Shelf Employed shares “A review of George Bellows: Painter with a Punch!” The name George Bellows rang no bells for me, but when I saw the illustrations of boxing, I recalled those paintings and reproductions I’d seen of the Ashcan School of painting. Sounds like an excellent addition to middle school biography and art collections.
• Lisa at Shelf Employed also shares from the ALSC blog “a post to encourage communication between school and public librarians.” I need to go back and share about the success of Nashville Public Library’s collaboration with Metropolitan-Nashville Public Schools called “Limitless Libraries”.  Be sure to leave your comments.
• Shirley at Simply Science writes about The Science of Soldiers. She says “This book presents the wide range of technology used by today’s military to aid the soldiers as they perform their jobs.” Sounds like a perfect book for our STEM Magnet Middle School Cluster. I love the integration of technology, science and the military from Shirley’s description.
• Diane at Practically Paradise (Hey, that’s me) praised Space Exploration: An Illustrated Timeline  While at ALA, I visited the NASA booth to gather more materials for teaching my teachers and students that space exploration is alive and well at NASA. We were able to discuss the recent Chinese space craft docking at the International Space Station with a female Chinese astronaut aboard, too.

Fiction

• Amy  Pertl-Clark at Emmy’s Book of the Day writes “Satchi and Little Star is a heart-warming story of friendship between a little island girl and a wild horse. This book raises awareness of the many wild horses that live on the island of Grand Turk. Satchi learns that wild horses are meant to be wild!” Her review of Satchi and Little Star made me want to 1) visit wild horses, 2) read Satchi and Little Star, and 3) go visit my granddaughters to get some girl reading time.
• Amy Broadmore at Delightful Children’s Books shares “This year I am sharing five not-to-be-missed picture books on the first of each month. This month, I share my favorite Eric Carle book, one of Rachel Isadora’s first books that earned her a Caldecott Honor, an entertaining book from the UK that spawned both a book and TV series, one of my favorite summertime reads, and a powerful book by Australian author Margaret Wild.”
• Wendy at Good Books For Young Souls celebrates some of my favorite readers – BOYS! – with her post “Books Even Busy Boys Will Come Inside For.” You ask and she answers “How can books ever compete with sunny days full of bikes and mud?? Books that will get boys reading this summer.”
• Natalie at Biblio Links writes “Audrey Vernick’s middle grade novel Water Balloon is the perfect summer read for kids aged 9 and up!”
• Kate at Book Aunt shares “A selection of 7 YA beach reads.” These are definitely going on my vacation list.
• Valerie at Barbies on Fire contributes “This post discusses censorship and children’s books and aks the question how much reality is too much for children in today’s literary world.” Excellent comments, also.
• Amy for Hope is the word shares one of my older favorites: “I read The Phantom Tollbooth for the first time this month and LOVED it. I just don’t want people to forget about or overlook this gem.” Think I will have to pull out my 50th anniversary edition to re-read this month. Be sure to check out the publisher’s site with video features.

Early Literacy

• Erik at Kid Book Ratings states “This is the first book I have reviewed in quite a while that has earned my highest rating…”  I was intrigued to read about The Donut Chef and hope you will, too. Some of my teacher colleagues recently confessed to wanting to quit teaching and open donut and cupcake shops, so I know they’ll appreciate this. 
• Nichole at Just Children’s Books celebrates the app announcement that  ”Reading Rainbow was relaunched and I was there to hear about it direct from LeVar Burton! Fun stuff!”  I’m envious. 

Poetry

• Jake Dog’s Blog shares poetry on food. We love Summer festivals and the food that comes with them. However, you can over do a good thing! This silly poem for kids is about fun foods. I loved Food on a Stick – Carnival Foods.
• Renee LaTulippe at NoWaterRiver.com continues her Kids’ Classics poetry video series with the very silly children’s poem “The Moo-Cow-Moo” by Edmund Vance Cooke (first published in 1903).

Book Projects

• Kerry Aradhya on the blog Picture Books & Pirouettes invites all to share reviews for the June Read & Romp Roundup. If you have a post involving picture books or children’s poetry AND dance, yoga, or another form of movement, be sure to participate in her project.  Submissions are due Friday, June 29th.
• Lisa at Newbery Blueberry Mockery Pie shares an invitation from librarians of the Children’s Services Section of NJLA to debate past and upcoming Newbery medalists.
• Lisa at Adventures in Writing & Publishing writes about how she got Help from Beta readers  in her post Consumer Testing my Unpublished Manuscript.

Interviews

• Carmela Martino and her co-blogger April Halprin Wayland at TeachingAuthors.com share a terrific interview with poet David Harrison featuring a giveaway of his book COWBOYS.
• Anastasia at Booktalking interviews Kristy Dempsey. She shares “In this interview, author Kristy Dempsey shares the story behind her new picture book Surfer Chick. Illustrated by Henry Cole, this rhyming picture book is a fun read for the hot, hot summer!”
• Corine at PaperTigers.org interviews Tarie Sabido “to give readers a glimpse of Filipino kidlit and ya lit.” I learned so much about Filipino bloggers and have added traveling to the  Filipino Reader Conference this August 18 to my “wishlist of places to go when I win the lottery. “