Flora & Ulysses

Flora & Ulysses
THE ILLUSTRATED ADVENTURES

Kate DiCamillo
Newbery Medal 2014

A fun book, whimsical and cartoony but poignant. A girl with divorced parents, and a distracted, disinterested mother, saves a squirrel from a vacuum cleaner and their adventures begin. Great vocabulary, some of it comic book creative, and parts of the story are shown in comic style panels. Good read aloud.

Who is this Harris Burdick guy???

http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/flash.html

http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/harrisburdick/

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

by Chris Van Allsburg (1984)

Ah-ha, so that is who this "Harris Burdick" guy is!  Don't know how this one slipped under the radar, we're big Jumanji fans around here, but now that my new best friend amazon.com has dropped off another package I am wiser.  And ready for our next creative writing lesson!

William Blake's Inn

A Visit to William Blake's Inn

Nancy Willard

Newbery Medal 1982

I am a big William Blake fan, painting and writing, but not a big poetry fan. This is one of those "It won the Newbery? Really?" I liked the art (Caldecott Honor) and the ideas behind the poems better than the poems themselves.