Flora and Ulysses By Kate DiCamillo Illustrated by K.G. Campbell Candlewick Press ISBN: 978-0-7636-6742-5 $17.99 Ages 9-12 On shelves September 24th I like a bit of subtlety with my “meaning”. What I mean by that is that when I pick up a book for kids, it’s tough on me, as a reader, to go through [...]
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made By Stephan Pastis Candlewick Press $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-6050-5 Ages 9-12 On shelves February 26th Call it the attack of the syndicated cartoonists. For whatever reason, in the year 2013 we are seeing droves of escapees from the comic strip pages leaping from the burning remains of the newspaper industry into [...]
Splendors and Glooms By Laura Amy Schlitz Candlewick Press $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5380-4 Ages 10 and up On shelves now. Do you remember that moment in the film version of The Princess Bride where the grandfather is trying to convince his stubborn grandson that the book he’s about to read is fantastic? He lures the kid [...]
Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover By Cece Bell Candlewick Press $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5475-7 Ages 5-8 On shelves now It would be simpler if kids read at exact levels at all times. Wouldn’t it be grand if you had a kid go strategically from easy books to early chapter books to older chapter books without so [...]
Step Gently Out By Helen Frost Photographs by Rick Lieder Candlewick Press $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5601-0 Ages 3-8 On shelves now I have lots of little soapboxes scattered around my home that I like to pounce on in idle moments. Big soapboxes. Little soapboxes. Anyone who knows me is forced to hear me expound from one [...]
The Secret of the Stone Frog By David Nytra TOON Books (an imprint of Candlewick Press) $14.95 ISBN: 978-10935179-18-4 Ages 7-12 On shelves September 11, 2012 It’s the old if-a-tree-falls-in-the-woods quandary reinvented for the comic book age: If a graphic novel for children references a century old comic predecessor, does it matter if no one [...]
Me and Momma and Big John By Mara Rockliff Illustrated by William Low Candlewick Press $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-4359-1 Ages 4-8 On shelves August 28th The people of New York City are spoiled beyond belief. Many’s the time I’ve traipsed down the street and glanced at one of the passing skyscrapers or cathedrals thinking “in any [...]
You’ve got your big-time fancy pants New York publishers on the one hand, and then you have your big-time fancy pants Boston publishers on the other. A perusal of Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus provides a pretty good explanation for why Boston is, in its way, a small children’s book enclave of its own. [...]
Sadie and Ratz By Sonya Hartnett Illustrated by Ann James Candlewick Press $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5315-6 Ages 7-10 On shelves now Children are literal creatures. They have to be. If you tell them something that says one thing and means another they need a certain level of sophistication to be able to parse your speech. And [...]
A House in the Woods By Inga Moore Candlewick Press $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5277-7 Ages 4-8 On shelves now When I ask adults what their favorite picture books were when they were children, their answers tend to fall into two categories. Either they’ll name a famous classic (a Where the Wild Things Are or a Goodnight [...]
The Luck of the Buttons By Anne Ylvisaker Candlewick Press $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5066-7 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. There are kids out there that like historical fiction. I know that there are. I’ve met them. They come into my library and curl their lips in disgust at the covers with the shiny dragons and sparkly [...]
Belle, the Last Mule at Gee’s Bend: A Civil Rights Story By Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Bettye Stroud Illustrated by John Holyfield Candlewick Press $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-4058-3 Ages 4-8 On shelves now Certain historical figures inspire multiple generations of children’s authors to go a little hog wild and pig crazy writing up their lives for [...]
A Monster Calls By Patrick Ness Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd Illustrated by Jim Kay Candlewick Press $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5559-4 Ages 11 and up On shelves now I don’t mind metaphors as much as I might. I think that generally I’m supposed to hate them when they show up in children’s literature. I [...]
Ghetto Cowboy By G. Neri Illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson Candlewick Press $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-4922-7 Ages 10 and up. On shelves now. Fun Fact: Parents these days speak in code. As a New York children’s librarian I had to learn this the hard way. Let’s say they want a folktale about a girl outwitting a [...]
The Unforgotten Coat By Frank Cottrell Boyce Photographs by Carl Hunter and Clare Heney Candlewick Press $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5729-1 Ages 9-12 On shelves September 13th. Contemporary Mongolia doesn’t have all that many English language children’s novels to its name. And if you asked me to name everything I knew about Mongolia today, I’d probably find [...]
Recent Comments