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clarahumble
Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers
by Anna Humphrey (Author) and Lisa Cinar (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Clara Humble may seem like your average fourth-grader who doesn’t look before she leaps, but she has a secret: she thinks she might have superpowers. Which is convenient, because things aren’t going so well for Clara. Students from rival R. R. Reginald are moving into her school for the term, and Clara’s favorite neighbor, Momo, is moving to a faraway retirement home.

Together with her best friend, Bradley, the winsome and overconfident Clara becomes convinced that her knack for making liquids spill, overhearing her parents’ conversations, communicating with her pet chinchilla, and maybe even mind-controlling teachers could be used to put a stop to these injustices.

Snippet: I’d seen the For Sale sign on her lawn from the bus window when we went past. It had that lady with the very white teeth and very big hair on it–the same one who seemed to sell all the houses in our neighborhood. Above her picture there was a sign that read, “Coming soon.” It meant that Momo was about to break her terrible news to me. Under any other circumstances, I would ahve felt like crying. but for a girl who’d just learned that she has the power of mind control (in addition to her power to spill things, move things with her mind, burn out lightbulbs and batteries, wake up at 7:14 exactly, and communicate with chinchillas, a little For Sale sign didn’t seem like much of a match.

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk
by Jan Thornhill (Author / Illustrator)

Booktalk: For hundreds of thousands of years Great Auks thrived in the icy seas of the North Atlantic, bobbing on the waves, diving for fish and struggling up onto rocky shores to mate and hatch their fluffy chicks. But by 1844, not a single one of these magnificent birds was alive.

Great Auks were pursued first by Vikings, then by Inuit, Beothuk and finally European hunters. Their numbers rapidly dwindled. They became collectors’ items — their skins were stuffed for museums, to be displayed along with their beautiful eggs.

Although undeniably tragic, the final demise of the Great Auk led to the birth of the conservation movement. Laws were eventually passed to prevent the killing of birds during the nesting season, and similar laws were later extended to other wildlife species.

Snippet:

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It’s Nonfiction Monday!