Mining Books to Map Emotions

April 7, 2013April 6, 2013 / Deborah R. / Leave a comment

So what were the happiest years in the last century? I was driving home on April Fool’s Day listening, as always, to NPR when this fascinating segment aired on analyzing the use of emotional words in books over the last century. A bunch of researchers in England decided that it would be interesting to use a computer program to track the use of hundreds of “emotion” words from millions of books published over the last 100 years and digitized by Google. All kinds of books were included from novels to technical manuals. (Who knew that technical manuals had emotional content!) The original idea was to see if certain words became more popular at certain times, but the researchers didn’t really expect much. However, what they discovered surprised them.

Check it out for yourself! Read (or listen to) the the rest of the article on the NPR Health Blog.

Connecticut Picturebook Authors

February 22, 2013March 1, 2013 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Did you know that some of the most famous, and most loved, children’s authors live in Connecticut? I know that when I sat down determined to find out if any of my favorite authors are, or were, local I was amazed at the caliber of wonderful children’s books that were written right here in Connecticut. Here is a sampling of my favorite picturebook authors that I discovered to be own state treasures.

Mercer Mayer is the writer and illustrator for Little Critter First Readers, as well as Little Critter Spectrum. He began writing and illustrating children’s books in 1966 and has published over 300 titles. He also happens to live in Roxbury Connecticut. I loved the Little Critter books growing up, and now I get to share that love with my children with books like Just for You, There’s a Nightmare in My Closet and Just Go to Bed.

There’s a Nightmare in My Closet

Just for You

Anne Rockwell lives in Old Greenwich Connecticut. You might recognize her name from many picturebooks that are family and library favorites. Many of Anne’s early works were illustrated by her husband Harlow Rockwell. After his death in 1988, their daughter Lizzy stepped up and illustrated many of her books. Apples and Pumpkins, Whoo! Whoo! Goes the Train, and The First Snowfall are some of my favorites.

The First Snowfall

Apples and Pumpkins

Nancy Elizabeth Wallace grew up in Rowayton Connecticut, and now lives in Branford Connecticut. She writes and illustrates her picturebooks with cut paper art style images. Nancy often does research at the library for her science based books. She also collects what she is writing about, so that she can see and touch them in order to spark wonder, curiosity, questions, and better understanding. Stars! Stars! Stars!, Baby Day!, Pumpkin Day!, and Count Down to Clean Up! are some of her books that I remember most.

Count Down to Clean Up!

Baby Day!

Unfortunately, one of my favorite children’s author that was born and raised in Meriden Connecticut has since moved up to New Hampshire, Tomie De Paola. He is best known for his Strega Nona books and unique illustration style. Tomie dePaola has written (and/or illustrated) over 200 books for children. He and his work has received the Smithson Medal from the Smithsonian Institution, the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota, and the Regina Medal from the Catholic Library Association. My children and I love the books about Strega Nona, Big Anthony, and Bill and Pete books.

Pete and Bill to the Rescue

: Strega Nona

Sadly, last year an amazing Connecticut resident, that also happened to be renowned children’s authors and illustrator, passed away. Maurice Sendak, passed away in May of 2012. This Ridgefield Connecticut resident wrote over twenty books, and illustrated more than four times that many. Most connect his name with Where the Wild Things Are, but I fondly remember Chicken Soup with Rice and his illustrations in Else Holmelund Minarik’s Little Bear books as well.

Little Bear

Where the Wild Things Are

There are several phenomenal authors of adult books, young adult books, and children’s chapter books here in our little state as well. I will be sharing some information and favorite books from those Connecticut residents in the weeks to come, so stay tuned.

A Literary Tour of Historical Y.A.

January 24, 2013January 25, 2013 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

The Atlantic Wire put together a list of their favorite historical YA novels and some of the most promising on the way, categorized by historical period or event. Find them in our catalog!

ANCIENT EGYPT (AND ROME)

Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter. (Arthur A. Levine, 2011).The imagined, totally engrossing story of Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Antony.

THE RENAISSANCE

Gilt, by Katherine Longshore. (Viking, 2012). Longshore sets her debut novel during the reign of Henry VIII, in a court that was “a cutthroat world of gossip and wealth, a complex game of social hierarchies rife with jealousy and backstabbing.” She focuses on the story of the king’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, for this novel; her followup, Tarnish, out this June, tells the tale of Anne Boleyn.

Venom, by Fiona Paul. (Philomel, 2012). Paul’s debut in her Secrets of the Eternal Rose series is set in Renaissance Venice, and features the character of 15-year-old Cassandra Caravello, a privileged girl who wants to be free from the proper life that’s been planned out for her, and who is swept up in a mystery when she discovers a dead body. Book two of the series, Belladonna, is out this summer.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

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Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly. (Ember, 2010). This book incorporates both the French Revolution and contemporary Brooklyn, weaving two girls’ stories into one with the thread of a New York Times article about the DNA identification of the heart of Louis Charles, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

THE VICTORIAN ERA

The Madman's Daughter (The Madman's Daughter, #1)

The Madman’s Daughter, by Megan Shepherd. (Balzer + Bray, January 2013). Another Gothic thriller, this one was inspired by the classic The Island of Dr. Moreau (the main character, Juliet, is the doctor’s daughter). It’s part one of a trilogy.

THE TITANIC

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Distant Waves: A Novel of the Titanic, by Suzanne Weyn. (Scholastic, 2009). The tale of a family of sisters who all end up on board the doomed ship. (There’s lots of other history before they get there, though.)

EARLY AMERICA

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The Luxe, by Anna Godbersen. (HarperCollins, 2007). Gaze into the world of the Manhattan elite in the late 1800s.

Something Strange and Deadly, by Susan Dennard. (HarperTeen, 2012.) Zombies rise in 1876 Philadelphia. Holy crap.

Dear America: A City Tossed and Broken, by Judy Blundell. (Scholastic, March 2013). The latest book in the Dear America series is a dramatic account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

The Betsy-Tacy books, by Maude Hart Lovelace. (1945-1955). The later books in the series, when Betsy is in high school and beyond, are some of my favorites of all time. Written in the ’40s and ’50s, they depict life in small-town Minnesota at the turn of the century and into World War I. Read for a depiction of what it was like to be a woman at that time in America (it’s a fairly inspiring portrayal, because Betsy happens to have a great, progressive family). Betsy’s dreams of being a writer with her own career as well as a wife and mother aren’t too far from Lovelace’s, who based the character on herself.

WORLD WAR I

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War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo. (Scholastic, 1982). The book that came before the movie, about Joey, a bay-red foal who is sold to the army and ends up in the war on the Western Front.

THE ROARING ’20S

The Diviners, by Libba Bray. (Little, Brown, 2012). Book one of Bray’s latest series is set in New York in the 1920s and features the light as well as the dark sides of the era. The book is a hefty 592 pages, but it’s well worth the labor of toting it around.

The Flappers Series, by Jillian Larkin. (Delacorte Press; #3, 2012). Vixen, Ingenue, and Diva, the last of the series, take place in the early 1920s, featuring girls who bob their hair, speakeasies, jazz, booze, bad boys, freedom, and a lot of fun (if not always for the characters, at least for the readers).

WORLD WAR II

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein. (Hyperion, 2012). One of the best books of last year, Wein’s story concerns a young female spy and her best friend, the pilot with whom she’s crash landed in Nazi-occupied France.

Berlin Boxing Club, by Robert Sharenow. (HarperTeen, 2012/paperback). Karl Stern, a 14-year-old living in Berlin in 1935, comes from a Jewish family that is not religious. As anti-Jewish violence escalates, he becomes the victim of a beating at the hands of Nazi Youth members at his school. As part of a deal with his dad, German national hero Max Schmeling gives him boxing lessons. “Can Karl balance his dream of boxing greatness with his obligation to keep his family out of harm’s way?”

Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys. (Speak, 2012). Lina’s family is torn apart when soldiers invade her home in Lithuania and she’s sent to a Siberian work camp. Booklist calls Supetys’ acclaimed book “a harrowing and horrifying account of the forcible relocation of countless Lithuanians in the wake of the Russian invasion of their country in 1939.”

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. (Knopf, 2007). This book about World War II and its aftermath, narrated by Death and focusing on a little girl who steals books but, at least initially, can’t read, is itself a must-read for the engaging, heart-rending narrative and unique portrayal of this particular time in history.