Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Briar’s Journal (October 11 to October 28, 2011)

Dream Entry*

March 15, 2003


It’s Halloween. My friends, three beagle puppies, a duck, and I are trick-or-treating. Most of us are dressed in butterfly costumes. Bigfoot and the duck are a pair of argyle socks. One of the beagle puppies floats overhead.


“I’m a Great Spangled Fritillary,” he says.


The first house we go to is made of straw. We stand in the front yard and shout:


“Trick-or-treat! Smell our feet!”


At the “feet part,” Bigfoot and the duck take a bow.


A snub-nosed man opens the door. He holds out a hair dryer. He turns it on. Warm air catches in our tissue paper wings and blows us to the curb. Bigfoot and the duck trip over each other and tumble into the shrubs. When the man goes back inside, we tip over all the ceramic cows in his radish garden.


The second house we visit is made of sticks. A frail old lady answers the door.


“Trick or treat!” she says before we get a chance to say it to her.


“We don’t have any treats for you,” Beverly says.


“Then a trick it shall be,” the frail old lady says.


She reaches out with her wrinkled hand to press the doorbell. A torrent of chocolate milk soaks us from above. The butterflies’ tissue paper wings dissolve. Bigfoot and the duck look more like designer dishrags than argyle socks.


The third house is made of bricks. It’s a creepy place. Ghosts look out at us from the upstairs windows. Bigfoot doesn’t want to stop, but Penny insists. On the porch is a pumpkin with a apple-scented candle lighting him from within. Next to him is a bowl of treats.


“Please take one,” the pumpkin says.


I reach into the bowl and pull out a peanut butter cookie. I put it in my treat bag.


Bigfoot takes his treat. It’s a book. He takes another and another until his bag is bulging. So do my other friends, the puppies, and the duck.


“Come on guys,” the pumpkin says. “I could lose my job over this.”


“Do you really want to be a porch pumpkin the rest of your life?” Bigfoot says.


“Actually, I’ve always wanted to be a pie.”


“Well, there you go,” Bigfoot says. “If you get fired you can be a—”


“An apple pie,” the pumpkin says dreamily. “Everybody loves apple pie.”


At that, each of the trick-or-treaters puts a book or two back into the bowl, but they still keep plenty. Even though I only took one peanut butter cookie, when I look in my bag there are dozens. I start to return a few, but I accidentally eat them instead.


We go back to the library. We all dump our treat bags on the floor in the non-fiction section so we can count our goodies. These are the Halloween treats my friends collected:




BIGFOOT’s treats:


LIFE: AN EXPLODED DIAGRAM by Mal Peet

[YOUNG ADULT]

Candlewick

October 11, 2011


NURSERY RHYME COMICS: 50 TIMELESS RHYMES FROM 50 CELEBRATED CARTOONISTS edited by Chris Duffy

[COMIC FOR VERY YOUNG READERS]

First Second-Roaring Brook

October 11, 2011


GIRLS DON’T FLY by Kristen Chandler

[YOUNG ADULT]

Viking-Penguin

October 13, 2011


DUMB LUCK by Lesley Choyce

[YOUND ADULT]

Red Deer Press

October 15, 2011


AMPLIFIED by Tara Kelly

[YOUNG ADULT]

Henry Holt

October 25, 2011


AU REVOIR, CRAZY EUROPEAN CHICK by Joe Schreiber

[YOUNG ADULT]

Houghton Mifflin

October 25, 2011


MAGGIE & OLIVER OR A BONE OF ONE’S OWN

by Valerie Hobbs, illustrated by Jennifer Thermes

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Henry Holt

October 25, 2011


STRAW HOUSE, WOOD HOUSE, BRICK HOUSE, BLOW:

FOUR NOVELLAS by Daniel Nayeri

[YOUNG ADULT]

Candlewick

October 25, 2011



MORZANT’s treats:


AROUND THE WORLD by Matt Phelan

[GRAPHIC NOVEL—NON-FICTION]

Candlewick

October 11, 2011


TREASURY OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY: CLASSIC STORIES OF

GODS, GODDESSES, HEROES & MONSTERS

by Donna Jo Napoli, illustrated by Christina Balit

[MIDDLE GRADE]

National Geographic Children’s Books

October 11, 2011


BOOKSPEAK!: POEMS ABOUT BOOKS by Laura Purdie Salas,

illustrated by Josee Bisaillon

[POETRY—PICTURE BOOK]

Clarion-Houghton Mifflin

October 25, 2011


IN SEARCH OF SASQUATCH:

AN EXERCISE IN ZOOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

by Kelly Milner Halls

[NON-FICTION—MIDDLE GRADE]

Houghton Mifflin

October 25, 2011


POEMS I WROTE WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING by Alan Katz, illlustrated by Edward Koren

[POETRY—MIDDLE GRADE]

Margaret K. McElderry-Simon & Schuster

October 25, 2011



PENNY’s treats:


DAVID by Mary Hoffman

[YOUNG ADULT]

Bloomsbury USA

October 11, 2011


THE SILENCE OF MURDER by Dandi Daley Mackall

[YOUNG ADULT]

Knopf-Random House

October 11, 2011


THE WATCH THAT ENDS THE NIGHT:

VOICES FROM THE TITANIC by Allan Wolf

[YOUNG ADULT]

Candlewick

October 11, 2011


BEAUTIFUL CHAOS by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

[YOUNG ADULT—THIRD IN THE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES SERIES]

Little, Brown-Hachette

October 18, 2011


DEARLY, DEPARTED by Lia Habel

[YOUNG ADULT]

Ballantine-Del Ray-Random House

October 18, 2011


THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater

[YOUNG ADULT]

Scholastic

October 18, 2011


THE CHRONICLES OF HARRIS BURDICK:

FOURTEEN AMAZING AUTHORS TELL THE TALES

illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

October 25, 2011



THE DUCKS’s treats:


THE OTHER FELIX by Keir Graff

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Roaring Brook

October 11, 2011


STEAMPUNK!: AN ANTHOLOGY OF

FANTASTICALLY RICH AND STRANGE STORIES

edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant

[YOUNG ADULT]

Candlewick

October 11, 2011


DARWEN ARKWRIGHT AND THE PEREGRINE PACT

by A.J. Hartley

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Razorbill-Penguin

October 13, 2011


TUESDAYS AT THE CASTLE by Jessica Day George

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Bloomsbury USA

October 25, 2011



NORMAN’s treats:


SECRETS AT SEA by Richard Peck,

with illustrations by Kelly Murphy

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Dial-Penguin

October 13, 2011


THE ORPHAN OF AWKWARD FALLS by Keith Graves

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Chronicle

October 19, 2011


ZOMBIE MOMMY by M.T. Anderson,

with illustrations by Kurt Cyrus

[MIDDLE GRADE—FIFTH IN THE PALS IN PERIL SERIES]

Beach Lane-Simon & Schuster

October 25, 2011



BEVERLY’s treats:


A YEAR WITHOUT AUTUMN by Liz Kessler

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Candlewick

October 11, 2011


THE MASTERWORK OF A PAINTING ELEPHANT

by Michelle Cuevas, with illustrations by Ed Young

[MIDDLE GRADE]

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

October 11, 2011


A MONTH OF SUNDAYS by Ruth White

[YOUNG ADULT]

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

October 11, 2011


MY NAME IS MINA by David Almond

[MIDDLE GRADE—PREQUEL TO SKELLIG]

Delacorte-Random House

October 11, 2011


NEVER FORGOTTEN by Patricia C. McKissack,

illustrated by Leo Dillon and Diane Dillon

[PICTURE BOOK]

Schwartz & Wade-Random House

October 11, 2011


HOW TO SAVE A LIFE by Sara Zarr

[YOUNG ADULT]

Little, Brown-Hachette

October 18, 2011


MY NAME IS NOT EASY by Debby Dahl Edwardson

[YOUNG ADULT]

Marshall Cavendish

October 28, 2011



OLIVER’s treats:


PAUL THURLBY’S ALPHABET by Paul Thurlby

[PICTURE BOOK]

Templar-Candlewick

October 11, 2011


OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW by Kate Messner

[PICTURE BOOK]

Chronicle

October 19, 2011


WILD ROSE’S WEAVING by Ginger Churchill,

illustrated by Nicole Wong

[PICTURE BOOK]

Tanglewood Press

October 18, 2011



LENNY’s treats:


SCRAWNY CAT by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Alison Friend

[PICTURE BOOK]

Candlewick

October 11, 2011


E-MERGENCY! by Tom Lichtenheld and Ezra Fields-Meyer

[PICTURE BOOK]

Chronicle

October 19, 2011


MITTENS, WHERE IS MAX? by Lola M. Schaefer,

illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung

[EARLY READER]

HarperCollins

October 25, 2011



VIOLET’s treats:


MUSTACHE! by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Kevin Cornell

[PICTURE BOOK]

Hyperion-Disney

October 25, 2011


PRINCESS SUPER KITTY by Antionette Portis

[PICTURE BOOK]

HarperCollins

October 18, 2011






* The dream entries from Briar’s journal contain premonitions of books that will be published in the future. Briar’s dream self foresees the books’ summaries and knows which will likely appeal to each of her friends. Briar always wakes up before she can see whether her friends will enjoy the books.

5 comments:

Mirka Breen said...

Awesome list. Wow!

Cherie Colyer said...

So glad I found your blog. Great list, thanks!

Briar the Psychic Beagle said...

Mirka and Cherie, Which of my friends’ reading tastes do you share the most in common with?

Kelly Hashway said...

I need to add some of these to my TBR list. Thanks!

Briar the Psychic Beagle said...

Kelly, my psychic senses tell me I’ve got several upcoming new releases lists that you’re going to want to take note of. You’ll have a lot of reading to do! I don’t have any proof, but I think peanut butter cookies probably help a person read faster.