All joking aside, my poor husband really did a number on his toe the other day. (You know it’s bad when the doctor gasps in horror upon first sight of the injury.) Consequently, our household is upside-down at the moment. Mountains of laundry. Miles of gauze. Children, children everywhere. (Oh, wait, that’s the norm.) Our usual routine is torn to ribbons, and the time I’d slotted for Carnival prep has gone to other things like carrying Scott up and down the stairs. Which means you won’t be getting the oh-so-clever “literary gardens” theme I was planning. I know, I know, the crushing disappointment…

Ha. We all know you’ve come for the posts, not the panache. So here it is, the bare bones version (so to speak) of the 4th Carnival of Children’s Literature.

In the There’s No Such Thing as Too Many Books Dept., our contributors offer a wide range of book reviews:

Susan of Chicken Spaghetti (and March’s Carnival of Children’s Literature host) offers her review of Fly, Bessie, Fly, a picture-book biography of the pioneering aviator Bessie Coleman.

Dawn of By Sun and Candlelight shares her thoughts on Chessie the Long Island Squirrel, a wonderful nature story.

Over at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, Liz is raving about The King Of Attolia, the third of Megan Whalen Turner’s books about Eugenides, The Thief of Eddis, and the warring nations of Sounis, Eddis and Attolia. Says Liz: “My favorite book of the year so far!”

Meanwhile, Karen Edmisten and her daughters are finding much to connect with in Caddie Woodlawn and Only Opal.

At Sweetness and Light, Meredith and her children are enchanted by A Fairy Went A-Marketing.

GrrlScientist asks: “Hermione vs Barbie: Who Would You Rather Be?“, while Kelly of Big A little a explains why she thinks Lyra is the best female hero in children’s literature.

Dana presents Pearl Plants a Tree, saying, “This is a review of a simple book I stumbled across at the library. Not expecting much, it turned into a wonderful source of discussion with my seven-year-old and inspired us both in different ways.”

Next up: a couple of Bonny Glen favorites: Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays, reviewed by Jen Robinson, and those delightful Penderwicks, reviewed by Gail Gauthier.

At A Scholar’s Blog, Michele piques our curiosity about Charles Butler’s Death of a Ghost.

Hungry for more? Semicolon (host of last month’s carnival) gives us a nice long list of books for Summer Reading. And Mary Ellen explains why she thinks summer reading lists are a very good thing.

Lists! Lists! Lists! I love ’em. You know you do too. And we’ve got ever so many to enjoy this month:

A Fuse #8 Production presents The Top 21 Children’s Books Turned into Films, saying, “This is my list of the best of the best of the best children’s books turned into films. I could only find 21, all told. Such a shame, but a perfectly nice list.”

Breaking up is easy to do. Reconstruction is hard. Chris Barton says, “With the Civil War and the decades-long run-up to it behind us, I had hoped to find some books for this month’s U.S. history reading that overtly addressed Reconstruction. In May we’re covering 1850-1900, and how this country went about (imperfectly) putting itself back together is a pretty key theme for that time period.”

Editor’s choice: I couldn’t pass up this nice listy post from Jen Robinson’s Book Page: What books would you like to live in, and what schools from books would you like to have attended?” (For the record: in high school I used to write stories about how I got zapped back in time—and reality, apparently—and found myself living at Mrs. Jo’s Plumfield school. I suppose even now I’m doing my best to recreate Plumfield right here in the Bonny Glen…although so far we’ve got far more Little Women than Little Men.)

Next to Plumfield, my favorite place to be is in the garden. Elizabeth Foss can relate: here’s her family’s book-inspired adventures Down the Garden Trail.

For Alice, being inspired by books is a way of life. You’ll love her list of picture books that have inspired years of games, crafts, and make-believe for her little ones (and mine).

Then it’s out of the garden and around the world, as Becky carries us away with There Is No Frigate Like a Book. Oh how I love The Scenic Route!

Back home, Kim Winters of Kat’s Eye continues her musings about how yoga informs her writing. Anna G. Joujan presents a School Librarian’s Mission Statement. And in Authenticity in Storytelling, Mitali Perkins ruminates on whether white authors have the right to create non-white protagonists and vice versa.

Maureen O’Brien shares her family’s encounter with Roland Smith, author of The Captain’s Dog and other books.

In the Always Leave ’em Laughing Dept.:

In a parody as far-fetched as the work of fiction it makes fun of, Jay presents The dePaola Code: “Tomie dePaola is one of the most respected author/illustrators in children’s literature, and many of his books have religious overtones. Over the next few weeks, we will decipher many religious secrets hidden within Tomie’s words and illustrations.”

Greg Pincus gives us his on-the-mark Oddaptation of The Rainbow Fish. (Brilliant!)

And in another Editor’s Choice (oh, the power…), I cannot resist directing you to 12-year-old Agnes’s Lewis Carroll-like sendup of a Keats poem. Priceless.

That’s it for this month! Many thanks to all our contributors. If you find a broken link or a typo, please give me a holler. We know about broken links around here. And for more great reading about children’s books, do pay a visit to the latest edition of The Edge of the Forest, the simply smashing online children’s literature magazine.

Next month’s Carnival will be hosted by Big A little a. Submit your posts using our handy-dandy carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Oh, and about Scott’s toe. The doctor said the healing process would be greatly accelerated by chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. Preferably dark. You can mark it “In Care of Lissa.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.

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