Home
Calendar
Directory
News & Weather
Hot Titles
About Us

SCC Elementary School Library

Featured Book Lists
ALA Best Books for Young Adults
Click to search this book in our catalog Salt to the Sea.
by Sepetys, Ruta

ALA Notable Books for Children
Click to search this book in our catalog Small in the City
by Sydney Smith

Caldecott Medal Winners
Click to search this book in our catalog Joseph Had a Little Overcoat
by Simms Taback

Publishers Weekly : As in his Caldecott Honor book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Taback's inventive use of die-cut pages shows off his signature artwork, here newly created for his 1977 adaptation of a Yiddish folk song. This diverting, sequential story unravels as swiftly as the threads of Joseph's well-loved, patch-covered plaid coat. A flip of the page allows children to peek through to subsequent spreads as Joseph's tailoring produces items of decreasing size. The author puts a droll spin on his narrative when Joseph loses the last remnant of the coat--a button--and decides to make a book about it. "Which shows... you can always make something out of nothing," writes Taback, who wryly slips himself into his story by depicting Joseph creating a dummy for the book that readers are holding. Still, it's the bustling mixed-media artwork, highlighted by the strategically placed die-cuts, that steals the show. Taback works into his folk art a menagerie of wide-eyed animals witnessing the overcoat's transformation, miniature photographs superimposed on paintings and some clever asides reproduced in small print (a wall hanging declares, "Better to have an ugly patch than a beautiful hole"; a newspaper headline announces, "Fiddler on Roof Falls off Roof"). With its effective repetition and an abundance of visual humor, this is tailor-made for reading aloud. All ages. (Oct.)

Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms

School Library Journal : Pre-Gr 3-A book bursting at the seams with ingenuity and creative spirit. When Joseph's overcoat becomes "old and worn," he snips off the patches and turns it into a jacket. When his jacket is beyond repair, he makes a vest. Joseph recycles his garments until he has nothing left. But by trading in his scissors for a pen and paintbrush he creates a story, showing "you can always make something out of nothing." Clever die-cut holes provide clues as to what Joseph will make next: windowpanes in one scene become a scarf upon turning the page. Striking gouache, watercolor, and collage illustrations are chock-full of witty details-letters to read, proverbs on the walls, even a fiddler on the roof. Taback adapted this tale from a Yiddish folk song and the music and English lyrics are appended. The rhythm and repetition make it a perfect storytime read-aloud.-Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ontario, Canada

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms

New York Times Bestsellers
Click to search this book in our catalog The Harder I Fight The More I Love You
by Neko Case

Book list Neko Case survived an impoverished, lonely, and unsafe childhood to become a remarkably accomplished and beloved singer, songwriter, producer, and writer. In her memoir, she candidly excavates her fraught family background while lovingly lingering on moments of redemption and grace, the kindness of neighbors, her abiding love of horses, and, perhaps above all, songs, music, and the community of musicians, which serve as the lifeline of a lifetime. Case bravely attempts to describe the ineffable process of writing songs, which “starts in the middle of a world you haven’t invented yet. It’s like trying to decide exactly what a city is like based on one postcard with no writing on the back.” She also deftly shatters clichés with vividly detailed descriptions of what life is really like on the road for middle-class indie musicians; it's not about limos and hot tubs but, instead, heavy amps and smelly microphones. Case shares a raw and inspiring heroine’s journey.

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Library Journal Case, who entered the Pacific Northwest music scene in the 1990s, traces her life as the daughter of teenage parents. Her parents divorced early on and jointly raised her—which she asserts they were ill-suited for—primarily in Tacoma, WA. She writes about experiencing trauma, for example, when her mother inexplicably faked her own death. Family members close to Case, including her father, were in on this ruse; a mock funeral party was even staged for Case's benefit. But her mother eventually resurfaced. A stint living with her mother on the Colville Reservation inspired Case's love for nature, which she later incorporated into her music. Case depicts her childhood as lonely and impoverished until she discovered a passion for music, which created space for friendship, community, and expression. Her music grew and evolved, and the singer/songwriter engaged in frequent and successful collaborations. Three of her albums garnered Grammy nominations. Her success enabled her to purchase a home in Vermont, as well as horses, a lifelong passion. VERDICT A sure bet for Case's many fans: a memoir that is as intriguing and mysterious as the artist herself.—Barrie Olmstead

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus The alt-rock and country singer recalls childhood abuse, misogyny, and a wayward path to success. Case’s memoir is informed by injustice, betrayal, and the serial mistreatment of women. Growing up in Washington state, her family was a study in dysfunction; when she was in second grade, she was told that cancer had killed her mother, who returned home a year-and-a-half later, apparently cured. (She wouldn’t get the full story till years later.) Date-raped at 14, Case spent her teens and 20s in a drug-addled world, then all but stumbled onto a music career. Though her experiences are despondent, the tone of this well-turned book is lively and often funny. That’s partly because Case has a songwriter’s gift for potent imagery. Her parents started out “poor as empty acorns” and drove a car that “looked like a nauseous basking shark”; during winters in Chicago, where her career took off, she felt the “wind hammering in like a bouquet of cold fists”; at a soundcheck, her voice “sounds like it’s being piped through a thrift-store whale’s carcass into a pirate’s wet diaper.” That imagination and wit speak to the other prevailing theme in the memoir, the element that gives it a lift: Case’s observations of her hard-won resilience. By turns, that has meant processing the psychic damage of her rape and her family’s betrayals, a disastrous fit of heatstroke at the Grand Ole Opry, an even-worse encounter with country legend (and overt bigot) Charlie Louvin, and more. Case chronicles her various career achievements as a singer-songwriter (including three Grammy nominations), but those feel almost secondary to her study of her emotional growth, which she discusses with a rare candor. “There are moments so lonely they become like personal national parks,” she writes, but the life of a touring musician is irresistible: “It’s both harder than the myth and also contains a more terrible, crunchy joy.” A sweet-and-sour study of a songwriter’s coming-of-age. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly In her first book, singer-songwriter Case takes a gut-wrenching look at her difficult childhood and her path toward a music career. Case’s parents, she writes, were “the typical cautionary tale of two teens who have sex for the first time ever... and get pregnant by accident.” That made Case, who grew up in rural Virginia, “a child of children” who weren’t especially interested in raising her. In second grade, her father told her that her mother had died of cancer; a short time later, her mother suddenly reappeared, and Case eventually learned that she was never even sick. Following their reunion, Case and her mother bounced between small towns across the country, eventually settling in Tacoma, Wash., where Case was legally emancipated from her parents at age 15. Afterward, she roamed Tacoma and began playing in bands. She discusses moving to and from British Columbia, linking up with Carl Newman to start the New Pornographers, and launching her solo career in prose that’s unfussy but often beautiful (Case preferred walking Tacoma at night because “there was less consciousness to contend with.... I wasn’t so on edge and my cyclonic churning could ebb a little”). With equal doses of grit and self-compassion, Case delivers a riveting autobiography that will fascinate even those who’ve never heard her music. Agent: Jennifer Gates, Aevitas Creative Management. (Jan.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved