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Current Picks from the Watermark Staff
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Watermark Teacher Feature – April 30, 2008
In this issue:
FRESH TITLES:
* “Big Plans” by Bob Shea & Lane Smith
* “Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words” by Jane O’Connor
* “Atherton: Rivers of Fire” by Patrick Carman
* “Thoreau at Walden” by John Porcellino
* “Drama: Show, Don’t Tell” by Paul Ruditis
UPCOMING EVENTS:
* Molly O'Shaughnessy Talk & Book Signing: Saturday, May 10. 3 p.m.
* Elizabeth Berg reading & signing: Wednesday, May 21. 7:00 p.m.
* Tony Horwitz reading & signing: Tuesday, May 27. 7:00 p.m.
* June KMUW Literary Feast: Tony Horwitz
FEATURES: Opportunities for Summer Reading at Watermark
* Literary Feasts
* Book Clubs & Shakespeare Aloud
* Watermark’s War & Peace Challenge: June through August
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This and previous issues of Teacher Feature are available on the Watermark Web
site. You can read on-line, complete with pictures and clickable links, here:
www.watermarkbooks.com/teach.html
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Greetings and salutations,
We at Watermark want to congratulate all the winners of the recently announced
Good Apple Awards given by USD 259! We would also like to warmly thank everyone
involved for including the Watermark staff as a district-level group winner for
supporting reading and the arts in public schools with our author events,
teacher programs, and this very newsletter. It’s been over a week since the
award ceremony, and we’re still smiling. Thank you.
Are you looking to include more reading in your summer plans? Check out some of
Watermark’s special summer offerings below, including a season-long book club
devoted to a masterpiece novel, a series of knock-out Shakespeare readings, and
our ever-popular literary feasts.
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FRESH TITLES
Picture books:
“Big Plans” by Bob Shea, illus. by Lane Smith (Hyperion, 978-1423111009,
$17.99, 48 pages for ages 4 to 8) From the author of last year’s “New Socks” and
the Caldecott-winning illustrator of “The Stinky Cheese Man” comes this
boisterously fun picture book about a young boy with BIG, BIG IDEAS. With its
outsized illustrations, bombastic text, and a silly-making pace, this
high-energy book will appeal to readers of John Scieszka and Mo Willems, and
it’s the perfect way to introduce a new project and to encourage youngsters to
make BIG PLANS of their own:
Read review
“Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words: From Accessories to Zany” by Jane
O’Connor, illus. by Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins, 9780061549236,
$12.99, 32 pages, for ages 4 to 8) In this newest Fancy Nancy picture book,
Nancy takes a time-out from telling smashing tales to share some of her favorite
posh words. It’s a charming, vocabulary-building book that’s fun to read
and--with its delightfully detailed illustrations--lovely to look at!
Read review
Middle-readers fiction:
“Atherton: Rivers of Fire” by Patrick Carman (Little, Brown Young
Readers, 9780316166720, $16.99, ages 9 and up) This second book concludes the
mighty adventure of Atherton, a clockwork island world constructed as the
grandest experiment of a seemingly mad scientist. Three young friends have
survived the great cataclysm that wracked Atherton in the first book, “Atherton:
The House of Power,” and now they risk unimagined dangers to search out their
island’s creator and learn about their own hidden origins:
Read review
Young adult:
“Thoreau at Walden” by John Porcellino (Hyperion, 9781423100386, $16.99,
112 pages, for ages 9 and older) This is the latest in a series of excellent
graphic-novel biographies of famous Americans to be published by the Center for
Cartoon Studies. Comics creator John Porcellino pairs Thoreau’s words with his
own simple cartoon illustrations to convey some of the most important points of
the 19th-century writer’s ground-breaking philosophy:
Read review
“Drama: Show, Don’t Tell” by Paul Ruditis (Simon Pulse, 9781416959052,
$8.99, 240 pages, for ages 12 and up) Paul Ruditis’s highly entertaining “Drama”
series chronicles the eventful goings-on at the Orion Academy, an L.A. high
school with more than its fair share of budding young actors, singers, dancers,
writers, and black-hearted, nefarious schemers. This third installment shows
what excitement--and trouble--these hopeful thespians find during their summer
break when the annual Renaissance Faire comes to town!
Read review
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UPCOMING WATERMARK EVENTS
Molly O'Shaughnessy Talk & Book Signing: Saturday, May 10. 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Join Wichita native Molly O'Shaughnessy for a talk and signing for her new book
“Just Write: The Art of Personal Correspondence.” The book will be available
beginning April 15, and pre-orders are welcome. Please call (316) 682-1181 to
order a copy.
Elizabeth Berg reading & signing: Wednesday, May 21. 7:00 p.m.
Join us as we host bestselling novelist Elizabeth Berg for a reading & signing
of her latest book, “The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: and Other Small Acts of
Liberation.” This is a thoughtful, whimsical, entertaining collection of short
stories about food and family, love and loneliness, denial and the triumph of
desires. Berg’s most recent novel “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue” is also new
in paperback. Visit her Web site at:
http://www.elizabeth-berg.net/
Tony Horwitz reading & signing: Tuesday, May 27. 7:00 p.m.
Join us as we host Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz for a reading
& signing of his latest book, “A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New
World.” It's a travel-filled history of North America from Columbus to
Jamestown, focusing on a nearly forgotten century of American history.
June KMUW Literary Feast: Friday, June 6. 7:00 p.m.
The June book will be “A Voyage Long & Strange” by Tony Horwitz, a Pulitizer
Prize-winning journalist. This new non-fiction book digs into the fascinating,
and nearly forgotten, history of North America in the century between the voyage
of Columbus and the settlement at Jamestown.
Tickets for the feast are available at the Watermark book counter or by calling
(316) 682-1181. Places are limited, and we recommend purchasing your ticket well
in advance. Read more about the book and author on the KMUW Web site:
http://www.kmuw.org/LiteraryFeasts.html
For a full listing of Watermark events, including book clubs and art openings,
visit the Events page of our Web site at:
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/events.html
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FEATURES: Opportunities for Summer Reading at Watermark!
#1. Literary Feasts: If you haven’t attended one of our monthly
gourmet-dinner-and-book-club events, consider taking advantage of the lazy-hazy
summer months to do so. We’ll be reading a stand-out new history by Tony Horwitz
in June ("A Voyage Long & Strange"), a richly engrossing novel partly inspired
by “Hamlet” in July (“The Story of Edward Sawtelle”), and a thrilling novel of
American politics in August (Ethan Canin's "America, America").
#2. Book Clubs & Shakespeare Aloud: As featured this past Monday in the
Wichita Eagle’s “WichiTalk” section, Watermark sponsors eight different flavors
of book club every month, including the summer months! Treat yourself to a
vacation evening of mysteries or chick lit; flex your Spanish or French muscles
with a foreign-language book club; or embrace the power of the spoken word with
Shakespeare Aloud. (From May to July, the group will read Shakespeare’s comedy
“Twelfth Night,” Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 screenplay of “Hamlet,” and the majestic
late romance “The Tempest.”) Come join in!
#3. The War & Peace Challenge: From June to August, Watermark is
challenging you to dive into the new Pevear-Volokhonsky translation of Tolstoy’s
“War and Peace.” This is a summer-long book club set celebrate reading for
pleasure and for life-long learning. We’ll meet for discussion at 11:00 a.m. on
four Wednesdays: June 4, June 25, July 16, and August 11. Think of it as “Lunch
With a Masterpiece.” As with all our book clubs, you’ll receive a 20% on the
book.
To whet your appetite, here’s a quick introduction from our newly made “War and
Peace Challenge” brochure. (Printed copies are available in the book store, and
we’d be happy to mail a copy or e-mail a pdf out to you. Just e-mail me at
mark.bradshaw@watermarkbooks.com)
Why read War and Peace? Why now?
Richard Pevear is an award-winning American poet, and his wife and partner in
translation, Larissa Volokhonsky, is a native of St. Petersburg, Russia;
together, they have become our era’s most celebrated translators of Russian
literature. For each work they undertake, Volokhonsky creates a first literal
translation into English, which Pevear then re-writes for style, and together
they complete several more revised drafts until arriving at a closely considered
final translation. Their superb work has received universal acclaim.
Pevear and Volokhonsky’s new edition of “War and Peace” has been in progress for
half a decade, and we at Watermark are thrilled to make it a focus for group
reading and discussion throughout the summer of 2008. This epic novel is a
pillar of Russian writing and a key work of world literature.
For a Russian man of Tolstoy’s generation writing in the 1860s, setting a story
during Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia would be much like an American
novelist of today setting a book during the American Civil War: both periods
stand as moments that defined nations and directed the push of history.
For us to read “War and Peace” now, in the new-made Twenty-First century, is to
deepen our connection with the great movements of history in Europe and in the
West. The novel’s enduring themes of patriotism, sacrifice, and common humanity
remain timelessly relevant, and its broad, sweeping embrace of characters and
ideas is ideally suited for group discussion and debate.
To tackle a great book is an exciting project, and doing so together makes it
all the more enjoyable. We’ll egg each other on, we’ll share our favorite parts,
and we’ll spend some summer hours in one of the very best ways possible.-
Past reviews and archived issues of Teacher Feature can be read on-line on the
Watermark Web site at:
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/teacharchives.html
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Later educators,
Mark David Bradshaw
Click here for the Teacher Feature Archives
Peruse
back issues of teacher feature since its inception in April
2003.
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