Children's Books discussion

In May, the Picture Book Club will dig around for some good books as we explore the world of gardening! :-)

This is the Master List and General Discussion for the books not chosen as our Official Selections for May 2014.

I have enjoyed the following, all suitable for about ages 4-8:

The Gardener

Plant a Little Seed

Quiet in the Garden

Mortimer's First Garden (this might be good for slightly younger crowd)

Jack's Garden

Counting In The Garden (a counting book, also good for the younger crowd)

The Imaginary Garden (not exactly about gardening in the dirt, but such a wonderful story!)


And one of my very favorites:
The Curious Garden

A couple of books that I've been wanting to read: Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table and The Plant Sitter. And then I also can't help but think of And Then It's Spring and maybe even Grandpa Green. Love The Curious Garden as well ...

All, except Zion's book are very recent.

Jo MacDonald Had a Garden

Water, Weed, and Wait

Sylvia's Spinach

Up, Down, and Around

Lily's Garden

The Carrot Seed

A Place To Grow

A Gardener's Alphabet

What's in the Garden

Community Soup

May I suggest the beautifully illustrated and magical The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs by William Joyce.

Hopefully I can get back to participate in May

Just one nomination

Two Old Potatoes and Me

Linnea in Monet's Garden

My Garden/ Mi Jardin looks very simple
My First Garden

Planting a Rainbow

(Heh, I logged on to nominate Planting a Ranbow, and see that Emily has beaten me by 53 minutes! lol)

But I'll add One Potato: A Counting Book of Potato Prints

June 29, 1999 - loads of fun and wonderful illustrations

Growing Vegetable Soup
What Does Bunny See?: A Book of Colors and Flowers
Good Morning, Garden
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!
Inch by Inch: The Garden Song
Who is in the Garden?
Tops & Bottoms
The Enormous Carrot

Thank you for all the wonderful nominations (how are we ever going to choose just five!?) It is now time to VOTE for your top choices.

Please choose the five books you would most like to read from the official nominations (messages 2-13) and post them in a comment below. Votes will be accepted until April 21st.

Thank you! :-)

Plant a Little Seed
Jo MacDonald Had a Garden
Lily's Garden
Community Soup
The Carrot Seed

These are my five votes (hard to choose).

Here are five for me:

Tops & Bottoms one of my favorites!

Linnea in Monet's Garden

The Imaginary Garden new one for me!

The Gardener

Planting a Rainbow

And one extra because everyone has probably already read this timely classic:

The Carrot Seed

What Does Bunny See?: A Book of Colors and Flowers
Tops & Bottoms
The Curious Garden
Grandpa Green
Growing Vegetable Soup

The Curious Garden
Linnea in Monet's Garden
Jo MacDonald Had a Garden
The Imaginary Garden
Community Soup

The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs
The Curious Garden
The Imaginary Garden
The Gardener
Linnea in Monet's Garden

Here's a little observation that's a bit late to be of much use, but there exists a great list around the gardening theme: Picture Books About Gardens.

I just realized that the The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs is the story they based the movie Epic on. We've read a couple of William Joyce's books and he seems like an intriguing author. I'm really curious by The Imaginary Garden as well, so I think I'll settle for:

The Imaginary Garden
The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs
The Gardener
Tops & Bottoms
Grandpa Green

my votes:

Jack's Garden
The Imaginary Garden
Plant a Little Seed
Two Old Potatoes and Me
Who is in the Garden?

The Gardener
A Seed Is Sleepy
Two Old Potatoes and Me
Linnea in Monet's Garden
A Place To Grow

Thank you for the great turn-out in voting! I can tell many of our members love gardens ;-) Here are the winners:

The Imaginary Garden

Tops & Bottoms

The Gardener

The Curious Garden

Two Old Potatoes and Me

Sixth/Alternate:
Linnea in Monet's Garden (longer than the standard picture book, just FYI)

Please keep in mind that if you read any of the other nominated books, or find any additional books fitting our "Gardening" theme, you are encouraged to post your reviews here. (Many of these books look interesting to me, so I'm not sure I will be able to stop at just six this month! ;-> )

I cannot help but being a bit annoyed and insulted that from all of the people voting, I was the only one who had none of her books chosen. Sorry, but I am feeling as though I have been a bit snubbed here.

I'm sorry you feel that way, Gundula. I assure you I did not mean to offend. I do not look at who is choosing what books, only at the book titles themselves and none of your books were top vote getters this time around. I do not even factor in my own preference except in case of a tie. In reviewing the list, the "Jo MacDonald" book did tie with "Two Old Potatoes" but I chose Potatoes because It is available at my library. Please keep in mind that this is a labor love for me and that I do not set out with any intention other than providing a place for fellow picture book lovers to come together and share good books.

Kathryn wrote: "I'm sorry you feel that way, Gundula. I assure you I did not mean to offend. I do not look at who is choosing what books, only at the book titles themselves and none of your books were top vote g..."

I realise you did not mean to offend, but I was just kind of taken aback when none of my books were chosen as that had never happened before. I will see which books are available at the library, but will not try to get any through ILL because ILL is a pain in the neck (and I might consider posting about the books I chose in the master list thread).

I hope you will. I'm sure we would enjoy hearing about the other titles. I thought "Community Soup" looked wonderful, too, but it wasn't available at my library, either. And ILL costs patrons $3/book so that is not really an option for me, alas.

Our library has 4 of 5 of Gundula's nominations (not Community Soup), and I am unfamiliar with three of them. So I plan on reading those as well.

Despite not being all that into gardening (as far as I'm aware) I find myself super excited about this theme and all the books suggested. So, I may end up reading a lot more than the six chosen titles.

I will admit, that when I saw that the titles I suggested weren't picking up any steam I decided to vote on more popular titles in order to give my votes more weight. But I noticed that many of the titles you suggested, Gundula, got support from other voters, so surely your suggestions did not go ignored. When the titles are little known though, it's hard to find the time to read up on all of them, to make an ideally more informed choice. It's therefore great when the suggestions are accompanied with a little comment describing the selling points of each book. I will try to keep this in mind next time ...

Kathryn wrote: "I hope you will. I'm sure we would enjoy hearing about the other titles. I thought "Community Soup" looked wonderful, too, but it wasn't available at my library, either. And ILL costs patrons $3/bo..."

How annoying that ILL costs $3.00 a book. For us, ILL is generally free (except that there are some books where a fee is charged because the libraries themselves charge fees). However, there are a lot of picky rules and regulations and if the book is not easily available at/in Canadian libraries, you are often out of luck (that is especially a problem with many of the older Newbery and Caldecott books).

Gundula wrote: "I cannot help but being a bit annoyed and insulted that from all of the people voting, I was the only one who had none of her books chosen. Sorry, but I am feeling as though I have been a bit snub..."

Gundula,
I'm not sure if it will make you feel much better, but I voted for Plant a Little Seed because I saw that you did. It's a new book for me (unlike 4 of the 6 books selected) and it was available at my local library. I will read it and likely comment on this thread.

I tend to be a bit of a contrarian voter - I really liked Tops & Bottoms, The Curious Garden, The Gardener, and Linnea in Monet's Garden, but I've read them before, so I didn't vote for them. They are wonderful books that certainly fit this topic and will generate a terrific discussion, I'm sure. But I love this group because I discover new books that I might not have read otherwise. (That's another reason why I tend not to vote for books I nominate - usually I will recommend books that I've already read.)

I vote for books based on what's new (meaning I haven't read it yet) and interesting to me, what our girls might like, and what I can get at my library. I enjoy discussing books I've read before, but I will rarely reread. (Too many books, too little time)

I would've voted for Community Soup, Lily's Garden, or Jo MacDonald Had a Garden also, but I can't get them at my local library. We have a great (and free!) ILL program, but none of the libraries had them. Bummer.

Dolly wrote: "Gundula wrote: "I cannot help but being a bit annoyed and insulted that from all of the people voting, I was the only one who had none of her books chosen. Sorry, but I am feeling as though I have..."

The main reason I did not vote for The Curious Garden or even consider nominating it was because of the fact that it had already been featured as a choice in the club (it was one of the choices for the first picture book club theme we did, on nature, in honour of Earth Day, I think); I did not even realise that it had been nominated. And like you, I had read it before (and while I liked the story, I found it kind of annoying that all of the gardens created were formal, fantasy gardens, that none of them were natural or nature-inspired). I will at times vote for books I have read before and enjoyed because I do like rereading books, and for books I truly love(d), like Plant a Little Seed, I will often vote for them because I want them to be more widely known and appreciated.

I almost always do a combo of things when it is time to vote...I check to see if I can get them in the two library systems I belong to, check to see what others are voting for and take that into consideration and then vote for those that I haven't read before. On rare occasions I have voted for books I have read before, but like you, Dolly, I generally want this club to be a chance for me to find new books that I may not have otherwise.

No matter what books end up on our monthly discussion - I love the group's interaction and the wide range of books that are mentioned. Through the nomination process alone, I usually discover at least a dozen books I hadn't heard of before and typically, I am able to borrow at least half of them.

Dolly wrote: "No matter what books end up on our monthly discussion - I love the group's interaction and the wide range of books that are mentioned. Through the nomination process alone, I usually discover at l..."

Doing the research, posting possible book selections is not only entertaining and enlightening, I also hope that the lists we generate help others find great picture book possibilities for themselves, their children, their grandchildren, their students.

I am wondering though, if perhaps it would be a good idea to have a separate folder in the picture book club which only contained the master lists (for easier perusal).

Gundula wrote: "... posting possible book selections is not only entertaining and enlightening, I also hope that the lists we generate help others find great picture book possibilities..."

This is why I was wondering about using Listopia more. For one, a Listopia automatically shows the book cover (which is already a little bit more engaging, although we could post the covers of course with our book suggestions, whereas covers are not displayed by the Books Mentioned in Topic feature.

Like I mentioned earlier, a fantastic list on our gardening theme exists already: Picture Books About Gardens. If you wish to contribute to a book getting more exposure, a book like for instance the Plant a Little Seed suggested, by all means go vote for it. Also, you may want to keep this list in mind as we read and discuss the other books next month. I went ahead and voted for a bunch of books suggested in this thread, as a means of getting them onto the list, for posterity. I will typically vote first for my favorite books, then for other books that I wish to read depending on my enthusiasm for them.

Finally, I apologize for having opened the subject of creating lists out of these group discussions, while not getting around to acting on it yet. I still plan to create a thread around a group listopia. There is still the issue of themed lists turning into marketing forums for newly published authors, and I haven't quite figured out a workaround for that. I want to stress that in principle I have nothing against newly published books, and I have even discovered some wonderful new authors in this very group, but since I opened this topic on Listopia here I've had a couple of private interactions with authors that I wasn't very comfortable with, even found a bit intimidating. So, not wanting to get into any flaming, more than ever I think author involvement in these lists has to be dealt with in some way that is ultimately satisfying for the readers too.

Thanks for the ideas! Just wanted you to know I'm not ignoring the suggestions, simply pondering them ;-)

Kathryn wrote: "Thanks for the ideas! Just wanted you to know I'm not ignoring the suggestions, simply pondering them ;-)"

Thanks, Kathryn. I'm in turn excited in making contributions to listopia and frustrated by what's been happening with them. I keep discovering more and more non merit books getting "fake" votes. I started shelving some of those on an exclusive shelf, just to keep track of them personally. This resulted in one of the authors trying to befriend me and another started messaging me to ask why I didn't want to read her book. I'm not sure I want to get all that personal and "friendly" with authors I'm not drawn to. In fact, being vocal about disapproving of fake votes/reviews is sure to get you enemies. And I really don't need that, but I don't know if there's anything to do about it.

Fjóla wrote: "Kathryn wrote: "Thanks for the ideas! Just wanted you to know I'm not ignoring the suggestions, simply pondering them ;-)"

Thanks, Kathryn. I'm in turn excited in making contributions to listopia ..."

Befriending authors who have noticed that you have shelved their books as "not for you" (especially if there has been shenanigans with regard to possible fake reviews, sock puppet accounts and fake listopia ratings) is probably not a good idea and in a worst case scenario, could leave you open to spamming and worse. I would not befriend them if I were you, and if they start being a problem, block them or if they are being abusive, flag them.

Gundula wrote: "The main reason I did not vote for The Curious Garden or even consider nominating it was because of the fact that it had already been featured as a choice in the club"

If a book has been one of our club reads in the past, but still fits the current theme, I think it's fine to add it to the list so that the list can be as complete as possible.

In this case, I was surprised (but happy) that The Curious Garden was a top vote-getter, but that just goes to show how many new members we have since 2010 (yay!)

With only six books chosen each month it is, on one hand, a shame when they overlap but I also feel that many of our newer members don't have time or interest in looking back at past years' themes. So it's good to have a complete list now, or for anyone coming to the group looking for a particular theme, to have all the books under that Master List.

I suppose those of us who have been here from the beginning will just have the fun of choosing another book and discussing it here in the General Discussion in place of the book we've read before, if that is our preference.

Fjóla wrote: "Finally, I apologize for having opened the subject of creating lists out of these group discussions, while not getting around to acting on it yet. I still plan to create a thread around a group listopia. "

No worries! I appreciate you bringing the idea to light and the listopias can be created at leisure.

I agree that the issue of authors pushing their own books is troubling, and certainly being badgered by authors is unacceptable.

My hope is that there will be enough genuine votes to dilute the author-pushed ones, or that the author-pushed ones will be so obvious that savvy readers will see them for what they are.

Gundula wrote: "I am wondering though, if perhaps it would be a good idea to have a separate folder in the picture book club which only contained the master lists (for easier perusal)."

Thank you for the suggestion, Gundula. Is there a way to make folders-within-folders? I thought one could only make threads within a folder?

If it is possible to create a folder-within-a-folder, then I agree it would be a great way to help organize the past Master Lists. However, if not, I wouldn't want to create two separate folders for the PBC within the larger Children's Book group.

Kathryn wrote: "Gundula wrote: "I am wondering though, if perhaps it would be a good idea to have a separate folder in the picture book club which only contained the master lists (for easier perusal)."

Thank you ..."

I would not know, but I think that would be the best choice (because you are right, two separate folders for the PBC could get confusing).

How about posting a new topic/discussion thread in the Picture Book Club folder called "All master lists" (and you could make it "sticky", or not), where someone/moderator would just add links to the master lists for each monthly club read? Something like this:

Kindness Theme: Suggested titles for Club Discussion - February 2014
Ireland Theme: Suggested titles for Club Discussion - March 2014
Gardening Theme: Suggested titles for Club Discussion - May 2014

Or simply post
May 2014: Gardening (Master List and General Discussion)

And then just add one link to the thread every month ...

Fjóla wrote: "Kathryn wrote: "Thanks for the ideas! Just wanted you to know I'm not ignoring the suggestions, simply pondering them ;-)"

Thanks, Kathryn. I'm in turn excited in making contributions to listopia ..."

If you create a list, are you not able to delete from that list any books that you deem do not fit the criteria for the list? That way you can keep your list pruned to the titles you deem appropriate, and delete spam titles.

Beverly wrote: "Fjóla wrote: "Kathryn wrote: "Thanks for the ideas! Just wanted you to know I'm not ignoring the suggestions, simply pondering them ;-)"

Thanks, Kathryn. I'm in turn excited in making contribution..."

Unfortunately, if the individual who added the in inappropriate book is an easily offended author (or one of his/her fans), this could create a rather ugly scenario (does not have to happen, but it has happened).

Beverly wrote: "If you create a list, are you not able to delete from that list any books that you deem do not fit the criteria for the list?"

You are right, in principle you can. And I do believe that for a list to be useful it may need to be pruned. But since it can be open to interpretation whether books belong on a list, this is somewhat subtle. And Goodreads rules emphasize "Only delete books from the list that are totally miscategorized. Deleting books that aren't will result in a loss of librarian privileges, and possible deletion of account." I suspect that when you're in disagreement with an overzealous author, Goodreads staff may side with the author. Maybe this is what Gundula is referring to.

So, lists on the favorite books from your childhood continue to display freshly published books from Goodreads authors in the top spots. I've tried to flag those, but it has no effect. Maybe authors can argue that they're personally "still stuck in childhood" (I'm sure it's called "being a child at heart"), thus the books fulfill the criteria. "Beautiful illustrations" is another highly subjective criteria. It may mean that your kid drew a couple of pictures for a little story you wrote, and you happened to find them beautiful. I created a list of "fractured fairy tales" and before I knew it sported a book about "a duck who goes for a swim on a pond" (yes, added by the author). This is just a few examples of how wildly the criteria can be interpreted.

Fjóla wrote: "Beverly wrote: "If you create a list, are you not able to delete from that list any books that you deem do not fit the criteria for the list?"

You are right, in principle you can. And I do believe..."

Ever since the Amazon/GR merger, there has unfortunately been more of a shift towards GR staff siding with authors (not saying that there has not been problems with both authors and GR members attacking and bullying authors but it does now seem as though GR listens more to author complaints and seems to side with authors if there are issues or if inappropriate books are flagged).

In that case, can you create a list where only you, the creator of the list, is allowed to add titles?

Fjóla wrote: "How about posting a new topic/discussion thread in the Picture Book Club folder called "All master lists" (and you could make it "sticky", or not), where someone/moderator would just add links to t..."

I like this idea. The PBC will be on hiatus for June so I will try to get started on this then, if not sooner. Thank you for the suggestion (and to Gundula for the original suggestion of consolidating the threads).