It's Monday! New, New Titles!

          Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

       I'm grateful to Candlewick Press for these advanced copies shared today. The Dollar Kids was out just a couple of weeks ago, and the picture books are out early September!

       This story feels so good when one reads it, even during the dark times, but especially in the good times. Lowen Grover, a twelve-year-old who loves to draw comics, and loves to do it alone. Sadly, getting a younger neighbor kid, Abe, out of his hair for a while leads to a terrible shooting of Abe and other kids at the local quick mart. Lowen stops drawing, stumbles across an old mill town that’s giving away homes for a dollar, thus begins Lowen’s idea for an escape from his terrible guilty memories and an opportunity for his entire family to have a new start. 
       This risky journey involves Lowen’s parents and older sister and brother, plus several other families we see trying hard to make entirely new lives work. There’s a lot of learning here through observation of each character, many of whom have their own secret wishes. Even the townspeople who have stuck to the old mill town in its own struggles and who don’t know what to think of these newcomers are filled with varied shades of hopes and needs. Jennifer Richard Jacobson manages to write a story that centers on one boy, but includes the richness of family and community so well that I hated seeing the book come to an end. Ryan Andrews has added special knowledge of Lowen’s comic creations with his own comic illustrations throughout the story. 

        This was a surprise when I opened it, a different look in a picture book, enticing young readers to step inside. It's a chapter book and a graphic picture book in nine parts, a tale of a young dog learning how to be a friend. For younger readers, Rosie wakes up with her master who suggests a walk. In that walk, while gazing at clouds, Rosie feels a bit lonely, but when that same master takes her to a dog park, being lonely doesn't seem like such a bad thing. When she sees so many dogs, all of whom are new to her, she feels a little bit afraid. What happens next shows a few lessons for friendships, the "to do" and the "not to do". In wonderful, realistic illustrations, Harry Bliss tells the tale of Rosie, who is a good dog but doesn't KNOW everything there is to know about friends. In a few words, Kate DiCamillo manages to give us another new book that will bring smiles along with the learning.