WELCOME

WELCOME! For the last 17 years, about once a month, usually on a Thursday evening, a group of writers, illustrators, teachers and librarians meets in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles to discuss children's books. Usually we talk about one picture book and one middle grade or YA novel. After the meeting, Sandy Schuckett, a retired LAUSD librarian, summarizes our discussion. Here are her reports of our thoughts about the books we have read. We'd love to have your comments too!
Thanks to Nancy Hayashi for our wonderful title art! NOTE: We are changing to a new schedule. Our meetings will now be quarterly and during the afternoon. Our group has been meeting since 2007. It was organized under the auspices of the Children's Literature Council of Southern California (CLCSC).

Thursday, July 8, 2010

I AM A GENIUS...by Josh Lieb, and THE LION AND THE MOUSE by Jerry Pinkney, and OLIVIA by Ian Falconer

We had great discussions at our last meeting. On the very-long-titled novel ( I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President), we all agreed that it would probably make a better cartoon or sitcom than a book for kids. Some of us felt it was an insult to excellence in children's literature to even publish this type of 12-year-old gross (and sometimes mean) stuff, while others of us thought it would definitely get some non-reading middle school boys into reading. As for the picture books, we all agreed that Olivia's strength was not in the writing/story, but in the illustrations, and we also agreed that Jerry Pinkney's Lion and the Mouse was brilliant.
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