Sam's Story: Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale by Daniel Kirk

Sam was a library mouse who lived in a little hole in the wall behind the children's reference books. Sam loved to read and he loved to write, too. Everyone loved his little books, but Sam was very shy, and no one at the library had ever met him.

Sam, the book-writing mouse first introduced in Daniel Kirk's Library Mouse, (reviewed here just in time for American Library Week on November 7, 2008) is back in his second adventure just in time for Children's Book Week. In this story a boy named Tom finds himself sadly without a partner in the library's Book Week project. Each team of two children are to collaborate, one writing the story and the other creating the illustrations, but the class doesn't come out even, and Tom is left without a friend to work with.

Although Mrs. F., the librarian, offers to partner with him, Tom has another idea which he hopes will work. A big fan of Sam's hand-crafted mini-mouse sagas, Tom's observant detective work leads him to believe that the library's mystery author must be the mouse who left his author's notebook and footprints on the circulation desk, and he soon discovers the entrance to Sam's hole under the reference shelf. Hopefully, Tom secretly slips his carefully written story, "The Shy One," into the opening in the hope that Sam will agree to be his collaborator.

Tom worries that Sam will be too fearful of revealing his identity to take on the job of teaming up with him on the book, but Sam, as always, rises to the creative challenge, and his clever but enigmatic illustrations keep his full identity a mystery.

"So tell us," said Mrs. F., "just who is this Sam who writes so many books? I just have to ask, 'Is it you?'"

"Oh, no," said Tom. "I just wrote the story. Sam is real, but he likes his privacy, so that's all I am going to say. A friend knows how to keep a secret."

Daniel Kirk's new Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale, with its equally engaging illustrations, is a story which emphasizes both the fun of making original stories and illustrations and the power of teamwork in creating literature. Kirk cleverly includes his tribute to many of the authors and illustrators who make children's literature what it is by placing popular books--Frindle, Little Bear, Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon, The Doll People, Goodnight, Moon, Henry and Mudge, and Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type, to name a few--in the background as the story develops, a device which kids will love to point out as they read.

Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale, is an appealing sequel and, like its predecessor, a really fun way to introduce a classroom unit on writing, illustrating, and book production in general. Sam the Library Mouse looks like he has a long career ahead of him--one of teamwork with young writers and artists.

"Meet the Author!": Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk

Lucky Sam is a library mouse, with a home in a hole in the wall behind the Children's Reference section of the library. Naturally, Sam is quite well read:

Every night the library belonged to Sam.

And every night Sam read and he read and he read--picture books and chapter books! He read biographies and poetry, cookbooks and sports books, fairy tales and ghost stories and monsters by the dozen.

Eventually, Sam begins to get the urge to write his own book. "Write what you know," he reads in books about authors, so Sam's first book is titled Squeek! A Mouse's Life, illustrated with self portraits for which Sam posed in front of his little mirror.

Under cover of darkness, Sam sneaks the his mouse-sized autobiography into the Biography section, along with The Big Fall by Egmont Shellton and Super Hippo by Hippy Ottamus), where the next afternoon a surprised little girl comes across it and shows it to Ms. Forrester, the librarian. Both of them are intrigued and impressed with the little tome. Inspired by his success, Sam soon follows up his first book with The Lonely Cheese and The Mystery of Mouse Mansion.

As each little book is located by a different boy or girl, the story of the mysterious self-publishing author spreads through the library. "Who is this Sam?" everyone asks. Then Mrs. Forrester gets an idea. She posts a note for Sam on the bulletin board, inviting him to the library's "Meet The Author" celebration so that all his fans can ask him questions about how he writes his books.

Sam is flattered but nervous. A room full of excited kids seems no place for a shy mouse, but he really wants to share his joy in writing with his fans. Sam comes up with an idea and pulls an all-nighter preparing for the next day's event:

All night long he wrote and drew and snipped and folded and stapled little rectangles of paper into mouse-sized books.

The next morning the librarian and children follow Sam's signs into the conference room where they find an intriguing sight. On the table there is an empty tissue box with a small banner which says "MEET THE AUTHOR." with an arrow pointing downward toward the opening in the box. A little girl follows the directions:

"Oh," she said in surprise, for at the bottom of the box lay Sam's little mirror and the little girl saw her own face smiling up at her. "Me?" she said. "An author?"

Next to the mirror was a stack of tiny blank books and a pile of pencils that Sam had sharpened with his little teeth.

As a happy Sam watches from his hiding place, the children soon sit down and begin to write and illustrate their own little books, finding out, as did Sam, that writing can be a lot of fun.

Library Mouse is an engaging way to introduce classroom units on libraries, authors, or books in general. Kirk's illustrations of Sam's mouse-sized home and his clever pictures of Sam shelving his own creations in correct shelf order will appeal to kids and librarians alike, and this book should become a staple for annual use during American Library Week or Children's Book Week.

Pair this one with Michelle Knudsen's Library Lion (reviewed here September 2, 2007), Carla Morris' The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians, or James Daugherty's Caldecott classic, Andy and the Lion (Picture Puffins).

Artifacts 'R' Awesome: Library Mouse: A Museum Adventure by Daniel Kirk

Late one night Sarah dropped in and asked, "What are you doing, Sam? Writing a new book?"

Sam said, "I'm just making some notes and sketching in my journal."

Sarah said, "You know, Sam, there's a place next door that has the kind of stuff you are looking for in these books. I think they call it ... a museum. We should go!"

And with Sarah's urging, Sam the Library Mouse and his best friend are off on another exploration. Sam is already the mouse master of library research, but Sarah is right--there is yet another place to gather information, a place which makes knowledge available without books--in exhibits of art and artifacts and animals and a myriad of things.

Still, Sam can't go exploring without his trusty journal, and over her protests he finally persuades Sarah to take along her own notebook:

"An explorer can't explore if she's writing in a journal! Explorers want adventure!" Sarah exclaimed.

But when faced with ancient statues and the skeleton of a prehistoric saber-toothed tiger, Egyptian mummies, and famous paintings (George Mousington Crossing the Delaware), Sarah finds that there is plenty for her to sketch in her journal as well. And after a adventurous but scary moment, Sarah learns that even cats can be artists as well, and the the cat artist and Sarah share their sketches with each other.

The two mouse explorers stay as long as they can in the museum, and when they return home to the library, they find their notebooks filled with notes and sketches to inspire further research.

Daniel Kirk's latest in this series, the just-published Library Mouse: A Museum Adventure (Abrams, 2012) continues the adventures of his popular bibliophile Sam the Library Mouse, in a sequel that is a great readaloud story before an up-and-coming museum field trip.

Other books in this series are Library Mouse, Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale, and Library Mouse: A World to Explore.

It's A Bird! It's a Plane! It's SPACE CHICKEN! Chicken in Space by Adam Lehrhaupt

ZOEY WASN'T LIKE THE OTHER CHICKENS. SHE HAD DREAMS.

SHE HAD PLANS.

Clearly Zoey's eyes are on the skies. With a tiny satellite dish atop her space helmet, she is ready for launch.

Well, not exactly. There are plenty of naysayers among her peers.

Henry the napping hound yawns and opens his sleepy eyes.

"I HAVE PLENTY OF SPACE RIGHT HERE."

Pip the mouse is intimidated.

"SOUNDS DANGEROUS!"

"NOT DANGEROUS!" SAID ZOEY. "AN ADVENTURE!"

Clara the cow points out that Zoey has no space ship. But to the ebullient Zoey, that's just an opportunity!

She grabs an empty basket in the barnyard, and caught in an apple tree she spots a bunch of helium balloons.

"ZOEY ALWAYS FINDS A WAY!" SAID SAM THE PIG.

Sam has some reservations about leaving for outer space before lunch, but with pie in the back of his mind, he parks his trotters in the gondola of  Zoey's spacecraft and they cast off for the stars. Their capsule rises above the trees.

The view from space IS spectacular! Spread out below them are the farm fields and the baseball field, a game in progress. A pop fly sails by.

"AN ASTEROID!"

Sam warns Zoey to steer away from a loose kite soaring by.

"A COMET!"

But even when an attack of aliens (a.k.a., a flock of crows) proves the downfall of Zoey's space mission, Zoey proclaims their sudden touchdown in a truckload of corn to be a perfect landing and presents Sam with an appropriate reward.

A MOON PIE!

But while taking a bow to her public, the opportunistic Zoey is already eyeing an open sea chest in the corner of the barn, with an intriguing pirate hat and scimitar inside, in Adam Lehrhaupt's Chicken in Space (HarperCollins, 2016), and while Clara the cow may declare Zoey a bit spacey, youngsters will be happy to follow her into more adventures. You can't keep a good chicken down, and Zoey is one chicken who is sure to rise to the occasion.

Much of the fun of this story comes from the clever illustrations of artist Shahar Kober, who zooms in on Zooey's prosaic barnyard buddies and zooms out for some eye-catching perspectives from our heroine's voyage to outer space. No need to worry that youngsters may be lured by this fanciful tale into ill-conceived space flights; author Lehrhaupt makes it clear that Zoey is all too aware that hers is mostly a jolly flight of fancy, the sort of game of "play like..." that kids love. "A fun story for inspiring positive thinking, problem-solving, and old-fashioned imaginative play," says School Library Journal.