Monster On the Hill By Rob Harrell Top Shelf Productions $16.28 ISBN: 978-1-603090759 Ages 8-12 On shelves now See, people? *shakes book in the air* How hard is this, really? I stand beside thousands of children’s librarians who have, for years now, been in a bit of a pickle with the kiddos when it comes […]
The Meanest Birthday Girl By Josh Schneider Clarion Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-547-83814-4 Ages 6-9 On shelves now. Life is easier when you can categorize it. When you can slot it in a distinct category and reduce everything to black and white terms. Gray is problematic and messy, after all. […]
Lockwood & Company: The Screaming Staircase By Jonathan Stroud Hyperion Books for Children $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3 Ages 10 and up On shelves September 17th I’m sick of historical fiction. I’m sick of contemporary fiction. I’m sick of realism and science fiction. Fantasy I watch with a wary eye. I don’t always feel this way but […]
The Year of Billy Miller By Kevin Henkes Greenwillow (an imprint of Harper Collins) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-226812-9 Ages 6-10 On shelves September 17th I don’t readily compare books to Ramona (now THERE’S a sentence opener, ladies and gentlemen). To compare any children’s book to Beverly Cleary’s classic series just leaves one wide open to ridicule. […]
Morning, fellow plebes! And isn’t the weather just fine and dandy these last few days? It has been in New York anyway. Which is to say, it feels like we briefly stole San Francisco’s temperatures for our own use this week. Giving it back is going to be awful. To take my mind off that, […]
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 […]
Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great By Bob Shea Hyperion Books $15.99 ISBN: 978-1423159520 Ages 4-8 On shelves May 28th I feel like it’s only recently that pop culture has opened its eyes and realized that when it comes to mythical creatures, unicorns are the funniest animals. Sasquatches rank a close second and zombies have their […]
Pickle: The (Formerly) Anonymous Prank Club of Fountain Point Middle School By Kim Baker Illustrated by Tim Probert Roaring Brook Press (a division of Macmillan) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-59643-765-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves now When I was in college I took a course in journalism to fulfill an English credit. I had no real desire to […]
The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom By Christopher Healy Walden Pond Press (an imprint of Harper Collins) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-211743-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. Since when did fairytales become the realm of the girly? I blame Disney. Back in the days of Grimm your average everyday fairytale might contain princesses and pretty gowns […]
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad! By Nathan Hale Amulet (an imprint of Abrams) $12.95 ISBN: 978-1-419700396-6 ISBN: 978-1-4197-0395-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves now If you should find that you share your name with a Revolutionary War Hero you have various ways of making use of that […]
A Boy and a Bear in a Boat By Dave Shelton $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-385-75248-0 Ages 9 and up On shelves now First off, I like it. I think it’s important to make that note right upfront. Particularly since I’m probably going to break out terms like “bizarre”, “peculiar”, “odd”, “weird”, and “eerily strange” (or “strangely […]
Fake Mustache: how Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (And Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election From a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind) By Tom Angleberger Illustrated by Jen Wang Amulet Books (an imprint of Abrams) $13.95 ISBN: 978-1-4197-0194-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves April 1, 2012 I said it about Laini Taylor. I said […]
Oh man. Sometimes I just don’t manage to keep up with all the news. Lightning fast round today, folks! Keep up if you can. A show of hands. How many of you knew that the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU was hosting, in conjunction with the Institute of African American Affairs, a […]
The Popularity Papers: Research for the Social Improvement and General Betterment of Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang By Amy Ignatow Amulet Books (an imprint of Abrams) $15.95 ISBN: 978-0-8109-8421-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves now There are good and bad results that occur when a book like Diary of a Wimpy Kid hits the stratosphere. On […]
Yeah. Too dang quiet around here. Need to needle the masses. Get a little controversy started. Here’s an idea. I’ll throw out a sentence and then you can jump on my head with the reasons why this sentence is wrong. Here’s goes nothing: Why do some writers (sometimes women and more often men) have such […]
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