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Events in February
Eeboo Goodies
Counting Down to Easter
Storybook Picks
Middle Reader Picks
Young Adult Picks
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calApril Events:
4/3 - Poker Hill Arts Student Art Reception

4/8
-Graphic Novel Night

4/12 - Essex Art League "Spring" Art Reception

4/13 - Knit Night (Crocheters, too!) 

25% Off Select Eric Hill Titles This Month!
illustration
April is Spot the Puppy Month at Phoenix!

Eric Hill left school when he was 15, and took up cartooning while working as a messenger at an art studio. He created Where's Spot? as a bedtime story for his two-year old son.

The playful puppy soon became hugely popular and a series of adventures followed, including the introduction of Spot's friends and family. The newest additions to the series are Spot's First Colors, Spot's First Shapes, and Spot's Toys (which includes the illustration above)!  
Coming Soon, by Billy Collins!
Cover Image

Memento Mori

It doesn't take much to remind me
what a mayfly I am,
what a soap bubble floating over the children's party.

Standing under the bones of a dinosaur
in a museum does the trick every time
or confronting in a vitrine a rock from the moon.

Even the Church of St. Anne will do,
a structure I just noticed in a magazine--
built in 1722 of sandstone and limestone in the city of Cork.

And the realization that no one
who ever breasted the waters of time
has figured out a way to avoid dying

always pulls me up by the reins and settles me down
by a roadside, grateful for the sweet weeds
and the mouthfuls of colorful wild flowers.

So many reminders of my mortality
here, there, and elsewhere, visible at every hour,
pretty much everything I can think of except you,

sign over the door of this bar in Cocoa Beach
proclaiming that it was established--
though established does not sound right-- in 1996.

Copyright 2010 by Billy Collins.  This poem may not be reproduced without permission from the author. 
Northern Lights Candles
candles
These gorgeous candles are the newest addition to our gifts section! 
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Books!
Store Hours:
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Sat:  10am-7pm
Sun:  11am-5pm

at the Essex
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 April 2011
Dear Friends,

March came in like a lion and went out, more or less, like a lamb, so we're expecting April showers will bring May flowers.  Until those violets and roses bloom, we're celebrating National Poetry Month, and we'd like to invite you to enjoy a 20% discount* off our selection of local, contemporary, classic, and children's poetry.  Please also check out the sidebar, where you'll find "Memento Mori," a new poem by Billy Collins.

We've chosen an array of titles below for our teen and younger readers, including some storybooks that are just right for springtime, and some imaginative gifts that are just right for your little ones' Easter baskets!

Sincerely,

Mike, Renee, Beth, Colleen, Heather, Katie, Kristen, Nora,

Rachel M., Rachel O., and Tod

 
*In-store titles only.  Some exclusions apply.

  YOU'RE INVITED TO...
...Arts and Crafts Events at Phoenix

 

POKER HILL ARTS STUDENT ART RECEPTION & EXHIBIT   

Sunday
, April 3rd from 11:00am-12:00pm   

Join us to celebrate the work of young artists from Poker Hill Arts! This event is free and open to the public, and everyone is invited.  (If you can't make it, you can still visit and enjoy this delightful artwork through mid May.)  Read more.

 

GRAPHIC NOVEL READERS & CREATORS  

Friday
, April 8th from 5:30-7:00pm 
Get together to discuss graphic novels past and present, talk about the graphic novel you're reading now or the one you're working on, network with other readers, writers and artists, or just come to gab about comics in general. No style or genre will be ignored. If you are a creator, be ready for real critiques.  Rick Evans will act as facilitator.  Read more.

 

ESSEX ART LEAGUE "SPRING" ART RECEPTION & EXHIBIT 

Tuesday, April 12th from 6:00-7:00pm
 
Join us to celebrate spring-themed art by approximately two dozen local artists!  If you can't make the reception, you can still enjoy this exhibit through the first week in June!
  Read more. 

 

KNIT NIGHT (CROCHETERS, TOO!)   

Wednesday
, April 13th from 5:00-7:00pm   
All skill levels welcome.  See you there!


    SPRING- AND STORY-THEMED GOODIES FROM EEBOO
Fill Their Easter Baskets with Treats for the Imagination!
 

 

cover imageWe have a slew of eeBoo toys and games just in! Eeboo is a boutique toy manufacturer that specializes in useful, beautiful, well-made educational games and gifts.  Their items are 100% original (no licenses), and they commission their artwork from well-known and well-loved children's book illustrators.  Everything they make is meant for wholesome individual or family play.

Pictured here are a couple of our favorites:  The Gathering a Garden board game is a cheerful quest to gather flowers, herbs, cover imagetrees, vegetables, and birds to fill the garden in your corner of the board.  This game is completely free of plastics, is made of 75% recycled materials, and is printed with soy-based inks.  The Tell Me a Story card deck is an imaginative pre-reading activity for the whole family.  These fancifully illustrated cards help children (and adults!) create their own stories.


  COUNTING DOWN TO EASTER
Please visit to check out our whole Easter/spring display!  In the meantime, here are a couple of items that caught our eye.


Easter Bugs: A Springtime Pop-upby David A. Carter  
All kinds of bugs are hiding behind colorful Easter eggs,cover image just waiting for you to find them!  (And there are lots more fun surprises, too.)  David A. Carter is a master paper engineer who created the Bugs series.  He's also the author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed color series featuring One Red Dot, Blue 2, and White Noise.  (Hardcover)

Easter Countdown Calendars, easter countdown
from Vermont Christmas Company  
Build the anticipation for Easter with one of three countdown calendars.  (Other designs include Easter rabbits and a Lenten cross). Beginning 30 days before Easter, open window No. 1 - and then another each day to reveal a cute picture and a corresponding passage from a classic Rabbit Tale. The front is accentuated with glitter. These Easter countdown calendars measure 11"x14" - easy to hang or display anywhere!


 

  RAISING PASSIONATE READERS
Storybook Picks of the Month for April


Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad
by David Soman and Jacky Davis  

Lulu is so excited for the Bug Squad to come over for

cover image

a playdate, and she has all kinds of things planned for them to do.  But when things don't go just the way Lulu planned, feelings are hurt and apologies are necessary.  Sounds like a job for Ladybug Girl, who knows how to be brave and say she's sorry, even when it isn't easy. (Hardcover)



Noodle & Lou
by Liz Garton Scanlon, illus. by Arthur Howard   cover image
Noodle and Lou are unlikely friends. One is a worm and one is a bird. When Noodle is having a bad day, Lou knows just what to say to cheer up his wormy friend and help him see what it means to be liked just the way you are. (Hardcover)

Say Hello to Zorro, cover image by Carter Goodrich  
Mister Bud is a dog of routine. He has wake up time, nap time, rest time, dinner time, and so on. Everyone knows to follow his schedule. Then disaster strikes:  A stranger comes home at "make a fuss time" and throws everything off! Zorro is little bit bossy and Mister Bud wants nothing to do with him. But when the dogs discover they like the same things (like chasing the cat and napping), everything becomes more fun. As long as everyone follows the schedule.   (Hardcover)
 

  MIDDLE READER PICKS
Poetry, Puzzles, and Powerful Words


Lemonade
,
cover image by Bob Rakzka, illus by Nancy Doniger    Play with your words! A brand new poetic form that turns word puzzles into poetry. Part anagram, part rebus, part riddle - these poems capture a scene from a child's daily life and present a puzzle to solve. Sometimes sweet and sometimes funny, but always clever, these poems are fun to read and even more fun for kids to write. Bob Raczka is a fresh, new voice in children's poetry who knows that fun and games can turn a poetry lesson into lemonade!  (Hardcover)


cover imageA World Without Heroes, by Brandon Mull
Jason Walker lives a predictable life:  going to school, playing baseball, volunteering at the local zoo - until one day he falls through a tunnel near the hippo tank and ends up in a new, utterly foreign world.  In Lyrian, the people dress differently, behave differently, and all live in fear of their malicious Emperor, Surroth.  But in Jason's search for a way home, he learns of a magical, ancient word that could destroy the terrifying Surroth...    (Hardcover)     


  YOUNG ADULT PICKS
Captures, Connections, and other Daily Challenges


Wither
,
cover image by Lauren DeStefano
At age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years to live.  Thanks to a botched effort to create a perfect race, all females live to be twenty, and males live to age twenty-five.  Orphans roam the streets and polygamy abounds.  After Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she is desperate to escape from her husband's strange world, which includes a sinister father-in-law in search of the antidote and a slew of sister wives who are not to be trusted. 
Wither is a staff pick of three Phoenix booksellers!  (Hardcover)


Outside Wonderland, by Lorna Jane Cook
Alice, Griffin, and Dinah Stenen's parentsCover Image died tragically when they were quite young.  The loss haunts them into adulthood.  Alice is an actress who can't commit to a relationship.  Griffin and his partner are settled into a contented domesticity, but Theo's insistence that they adopt a child throws Griffin into a panic.  Dinah has a short, passionate love affair that leaves her pregnant and alone.  What they don't know is that their parents are watching them from a place outside time and space - worrying, reminiscing, and perhaps guiding their children as each makes their tentative way toward happiness.  (Hardcover)

 

Ten Miles Past Normal
,
by Frances O'Roark Dowell  
Janie wants to be normal, but she's not:  She's
Cover Image smart and creative and a little bit funky.  She's also an unwilling player in her parents' modern-hippy, let's-live-on-a-goat-farm experiment.  This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie reach that "normal target."  It would be nice to go back to her old suburban life...but Janie knows normal isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Why else would she learn bass and join Jam Band?  How else would she get arrested while doing a school project on a local freedom school?  Janie was going for normal, but she missed her mark by about ten miles - and we mean that as a compliment. (Hardcover)

 

Between Shades of Gray
,
by Ruth Sepetys    
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old LithuanianCover Image girl in 1941.  She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys.  Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known.  Lina, her mother, and her young brother are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives in the cruelest of conditions.  Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp.  It is a long and harrowing journey, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. (Hardcover)    





The Master Scholars' Club
On March 19th, we had the "Master Scholars' Club" visit to discuss Jane Yolen's Owl Moon. From left to right are: Ellis, Graham, Becky (moderator), and Burton. All enjoyed hot chocolates and great discussion!