(DLA Las Piñas GS LRC) April Book of the Month - Where Is The Cake?

A stimulating look-and-find book originally published in Dutch as Waar is de Taart? told entirely through pictures by award-winning 82-year-old Netherlands-based children's book illustrator T. T. (Thé Tjong) Khing with new endearingly comical story lines to follow and items to discover in each browsing. It's a puzzle, a maze—and so much more! The beautiful watercolor pages make for a perfect backseat activity while encouraging lateral thinking and optical awareness at the same time.

Mr. and Mrs. Dog’s mouthwatering cake is mysteriously stolen from a table outside their house by two very odd creatures! But that’s just the beginning...

As they chase the thieves through a variety of landscapes, one calamitous event after another ensues. Baby Bunny loses her toy., mischievous monkeys take Miss Cat’s hat, and Little Piglet goes astray.

Readers must track the mischievous marsupials and, of course, the cake which looks as if it has been lost forever.

While it is important especially for young readers to read books with rhyming words to practice vocabulary, wordless picture books cannot be overlooked to allow some room for story development and narrative creativity with a blank canvas and your own choice of words. The art is fun and very hip but the best thing is that they expose kids to major time shifts in stories before they can even get their hands on Geronimo Stilton or The Hunger Games.

Astonishingly clever and filled with genius wit, it's meant for fans of Where’s Waldo? and similar works. A companion picture book called Where Is the Cake Now? by the same author follows its beloved groundbreaking predecessor and is also told entirely in detailed illustrations brimming with wordless whimsical characters. These two will probably make you look forward to more books from the author in the future.

(DLA Las Piñas HS LRC) April Book of the Month - The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak

Can uptight and laid-back co-exist? This Stonewall Book Award-winning author Brian Katcher's hilarious he said/she said romance about two teens discovering themselves on an out-of-this-world accidental first date is perfect for fans of The Big Bang Theory, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, and Rainbow Rowell's work. The book quite possibly has the most improbable (as promised) plot someone could've come up with but somehow, it works.

It all begins when type-A Ana Watson's brother, Clayton, ditches the quiz bowl semifinals to run wild at the Washingcon sci-fi convention on what should have been a normal, résumé-building high school trip.

If slacker Zak Duquette hadn't talked up the geek fan fest so much, maybe Clayton wouldn't have broken the rules or jeopardized Ana's last shot at freedom from her uptight parents.

Now, teaming up with Zak is the only way for Ana to chase down Clayton in the sea of Star Wars, zombies, bikini-clad princesses, card games, and Smurfs before morning comes. Zak learns he may have more in common with Ana than she thinks in spite of his devil-may-care attitude.

They certainly don't expect the long, crazy night which starts as a nerdfighter manhunt to transform into so much more... On the surface, it's a lighthearted and entertaining romp but serious undertones explore the fractured side of parent-child relationships and misfits desperate to find a tribe. Heavy on clichés from the opposites-attract protagonists to the utterly predictable points, the book will sometimes feel more like a screenplay treatment than a novel.

Even so, teenagers will relate to the quirky and funny characters featured in alternating narrations with perfect comic timing and outrageous twists. It's geeky, silly, and makes no sense at times but every moment is enjoyable. The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak is partly a coming-of-age story which will show you that there are always two sides to a story and that first-impressions aren’t always intended to stay because everyone has more to them than who they appear.

(DLA Las Piñas GS LRC) April Author of the Month - Patricia MacLachlan

Patricia "Patty" MacLachlan was born March 3, 1938 on the wide-open Wyoming prairie although she has lived in Massachusetts most of her life and carries a small bag of prairie dirt with her wherever she goes to this day as a reminder of what she knew first. This love comes through strongly in the 1986 Newbery Medal-winning novel Sarah, Plain and Tall and its sequel, Skylark, as does another of her loves — the sea.

After spending a few years in Minnesota, Patty traveled to the East Coast to attend the University of Connecticut. She subsequently married psychologist Robert MacLachlan and had three kids.

Even if Patty didn't officially put pen to paper until around the age of thirty-five--after her children were all in school--her childhood was heavily populated with stories and storybook characters. Her parents, she writes, invited her into books. It’s no wonder then that she grew up to become one of today’s most respected children’s authors of many timeless novels for young readers and many beloved picture books, many of which she co-wrote with her daughter, Emily.

She says that young people who want to be writers should be readers first. Patty recommends writing every day, even when you don't want to. "The more you do it, the stronger you get at it…. But I don't love to do it every day. Children are really interested to hear that I don't love to write every day because neither do they, so we have something in common but it does help you tell your story in a more efficient way."

Patty loves writing for children because of their openness and the comments she gets from her young readers either in letters or during her visits to classrooms. Patty is a board member of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance (a national not-for-profit that actively advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries). She lives with her husband and two border terriers in western Massachusetts.

(DLA Las Piñas HS LRC) March Book of the Month - The Fault in Our Stars

Graduation means transition time. Whether it is a graduation from high school where everyone is going separate ways in a few months time or not, it is a scary time of self-discovery. This month, we're featuring a bestselling YA contemporary cancer love story that you can relate to when you have to take that plunge into a different life and move on. It's basically about two teenagers who meet at a cancer support group for kids.

Why all the hype? Apparently, it's not your typical beautifully tragic love story. While there are countless books on teenagers in love, BOTH of the characters here have terminal cancer. While falling in love can be hard enough, it's even more breathtaking to see two characters lose themselves completely to each other while battling cancer.

If that's not enough, the story itself isn't very lengthy thus you can easily finish it anywhere and the physical copy can actually be carried everywhere without that much difficulty. This gives readers an opportunity to reread it repeatedly too.

What's more is maybe you'll be surprised with how the ending turns out, seeing as how the story began in the first place. Still can't relate? For people not feeling their prettiest, the turns out to be a good read for that boost it gives you. If they still fell in love and found their matches in each other while looking definitely sick (e.g.: carrying an oxygen tank that connects to a nose through a tube called a cannula or losing half a leg), why can't you? In lieu of this, only TFIOS has successfully made being ill a bit more glamorous and well, positive which totally helps if you are especially indeed sick.

If you needed any more reason to feel prettier than you already are... the book helps you become part of the popular crowd because you now know what everyone's been talking about after you read it! We're sure lots of fans can think of more amazing reasons why you should take this book with you on that summer vacation as we can go on and on so make sure you finish before seeing the film.

(DLA Las Piñas GS LRC) March Author of the Month - Dav Pilkey

What it's like to top banned book lists around the world? Liberal British site, The Guardian, got American author and illustrator David Murray "Dav" Pilkey, Jr. just August last year to argue why the bestselling Captain Underpants books shouldn't be pulled out from shelves and out of children’s hands for being inappropriate and anti-establishment worldwide as is currently happening (except here at the fREADom hub!).

Born March 4, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio to Barbara and David Sr., Dav has one older sister. In elementary school, he was diagnosed with (and still suffers from) ADHD and dyslexia.

Dav was frequently reprimanded for his behavior in class and thus usually sat at a desk in the school hallway, where he created the Captain Underpants character.

The atypical spelling of his first name came from a period of employment in a Pizza Hut when the "e" was omitted from his name tag. Even though it is spelled D-A-V, it is pronounced "Dave". He has took to using the pen names, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, as well which are the names of two of the main characters in the aforementioned series. Dav entered his very first book called World War Won in a national competition for student authors and won in his age category. His books contain scenes which may be too silly for grown-ups, small animals and some types of houseplants.

Additionally, he is the author of illustrated numerous popular, award-winning children's books including DOG BREATH, winner of the California Young Reader Medal; THE PAPERBOY, a Caldecott Honor Book; the Dumb Bunnies series; and two series for younger children, Ricky Ricotta and Super Diaper Baby. Dav took a break from writing for a few years to care for his terminally ill father (who died on November 13, 2008) but agreed with Scholastic to publish four new books in 2010.

He lives with his wife in the Pacific Northwest. In 1996, Dav moved to Seattle, Washington. He then took a ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, WA where he has lived since 1999. Dav currently divides his time between Bainbridge Island and Minami Izu in Japan.

(DLA Las Piñas HS LRC) March Author of the Month - Kass Morgan

Kass Morgan is an American young-adult author and editor who wrote the epic New York Times bestselling science fiction trilogy called The 100 which inspired the CW post-apocalyptic drama television series of the same name about a ragtag batch of juvenile delinquents dispatched from space to recolonize a post-nuclear Earth. She was born July 21, 1984 in New York.

She's had an unhealthy obsession with books that first manifested in third grade when she brought a copy of Mallory and the Dream Horse to her own birthday party.

When Kass was ten, she moved from Brooklyn to Santa Monica where kids thought she was strange for wearing so much black then she went back to the east coast for college where kids thought she was strange for wearing so much pink. Kass studied for a bachelor's degree in English and History at Brown University, reading gothic novels in the library where Edgar Allan Poe conducted secret love affairs, auditioning unsuccessfully for a number of plays, and learning important truths about walking on ice in high heels. After college, she crossed the pond to pursue a Master’s degree in 19th century literature at Oxford which was like attending Hogwarts but with more costume parties.

Kass returned to the states with a deep appreciation for clotted cream, a suitcase full of cocktail dresses, and a thesis on George Eliot that she has since misplaced. She settled in Brooklyn, New York to work in publishing where she lives in constant fear of her Ikea bookcase collapsing and burying her under a mound of science fiction and Victorian novels.

When Kass isn't editing novels for young bookworms to sneak into their own birthday parties, you can find her jostling for table space at Brooklyn coffee shops, asking strangers if she can pet their dogs, and e-mailing her middle school crush to thank him for introducing her to science fiction which turns out to be very fun to write. The 100 is her first book for teenagers. Follow @kassmorganbooks for Twitter updates.

(DLA Las Piñas GS LRC) March Book of the Month - The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is a novel about inspiring self-discovery by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Initially published in serial format beginning in 1910 and first published in entirety in 1911, it's now popular and is considered to be a classic of English children's literature. The story shows two appalling cousins -- one motherless, the other an orphan -- are so monstrously spoiled that no one can stand them and they can hardly stand themselves.

1611 cover

With the help of a boy of the moors and some natural magic, they discover an abandoned garden and return it to abundance. As the garden grows, the children grow into their own better selves. Be caught by the mysterious world that unfolds.

It shows that people can do anything that they put there mind to and that we can help each other to get better. Additionally, it also shows us that life is very important and beautiful if we let it be. If you think a story this old might be too stodgy to interest kids, you might want to reconsider.

Amazingly, children happen to like the English-American writer's ability to tell the truth about her characters without condemning them. Mistress Mary, quite contrary, "was a self-absorbed child," and Colin "thought the whole world belonged to him" but Frances makes it clear that they have been raised without their parents' love. She sets a tone balanced between unflinching realism and high optimism -- not too hard but not too soft. Frances captures the reader's heart and takes it to places never heard of before.

Highly suggested by an astonishing number of bookworms from all walks of life and truly an excellent eyeopener brimming with twists and role models, it's a fantastic story that one will want to read repeatedly with no regret. You'll probably have a hard time choosing a favorite character. It's just something you won't forget that easily. There are even film adaptations to look out for afterwards.