I read this over a leisurely breakfast one morning. I really liked it. It's a cute story of a little girl recognizing that an adult is doing wrong and overcoming it. Very fanciful.

Okay, I'll be honest here. I like more color in my books, and I tend to not really like bedtime stories. I don't remember ever being read Goodnight Moon, and I read it now and am not super impressed. I am impressed with the scratchboard illustrations, but if I were picking the best picture book of the year, I would have gone with something with more color, and a livelier story.

Mo Willems is awesome.

Sometimes I wonder why I continue to read this series. It keeps me reading, but I know that each of the four girls is going to make a mistake or misread a situation and then get in trouble for it. And I don't really feel pity for some of them much longer. So why do I keep reading? I'm not quite sure.

Emmy has always tried her best to be a good girl. However, no one except her nanny, Miss Barmy and the class rat seems to pay any attention to her. Why is that? When Emmy decides to set the rat free one day, it sets forth a series of events that answer that question. I quite enjoyed it.

Theodosia's parents run a museum of antiquities in London. Her parents really enjoy bringing back artifacts from Egypt for the museum's collection. What they cannot see, however, are the black magic and curses that are ingrained on these items. Theodosia can. Set just before WWI, this book shows what happens when Theodosia's mom brings back the Heart of Egypt, an object of black magic so powerful, it could bring down the entire British empire. Can Theodosia stop it?

I was laughing out loud quite a lot at the beginning of this book. It wasn't quite so funny toward the end, but if it had continued in that vein, it would have been my pick for the Maine Student Book Award winner.

I checked this book out because it kept getting stolen from the library, which usually is a sign it's pretty good. It was. I didn't like it quite as much as some of the other books I've read for the MSBA.

Martine's parents die in a fire and she is sent to South Africa to live with a grandmother she has never met. Martine is fascinated by the legend of the white giraffe. Her grandmother tells her that the giraffe doesn't exist, but one stormy night Martine sees it. Why is it a secret? Does someone want to steal it?

I really liked this book. It's the story of Peak Marcello, a boy who loves to climb more than anything else. He gets caught climbing a skyscraper, and ends up being bailed out by his father. There are other motives to his father's rescue: he wants Peak to be the youngest boy to climb Mt. Everest, no matter what the cost. Will Peak survive?

I enjoyed this book a lot, although I wasn't sure I was going to at first. It interweaves the story of a hound dog and cats with a mystical bayou story of a mysterious voice and an alligator. I don't want to say much more than that, because I think one of the best parts of the story is discovering all of that for yourself.

2009/2010 nominee for the Chickadee Award (best picture book as voted by the children of Maine.) Personally, I don't see how this is going to have a ton of appeal for Maine kids, seeing as it's the history of Manhattan. Maybe if they really like history. Also, I know my tastes tend to not agree with the rest of the state, because I was blindsided by this year's winner.