The Dark By Lemony Snicket Illustrated by Jon Klassen Little Brown & Co. $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-18748-0 Ages 4-8 On shelves April 2nd You do not know the temptation I am fighting right now to begin this review with some grandiose statement equating a fear of the dark with a fear of death itself. You have [...]
All the Wrong Questions: “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” By Lemony Snicket Illustrated by Seth Little, Brown and Company $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-12308-2 Ages 9-12 On shelves October 24th Last year I was running a bookgroup for kids, ages 9-12, when the subject of children’s books adapted into films came up. We talked about [...]
Starry River of the Sky By Grace Lin Little, Brown and Company $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-12595-6 Ages 9-12 On shelves October 2, 2012 I remember when Grace Lin first started writing chapter books for kids. She’d been doing picture books (mostly for others) for years and when at last she started creating small semi-fictionalized memoirs based [...]
There are many reasons to love Little, Brown but at the moment the company has my heart because their last librarian preview consisted of less than thirty books in total. And when you’re dealing with less than thirty books, typing up what they have is much easier on the old post-natal still-carpal-tunnely digits. So it [...]
Previews, previews! Lovely little previews! And we find ourselves back at the Yale Club, across the street from Grand Central Station, and a whopping 10 minutes away, on foot, from my library. There are advantages to living on a tiny island, I tell ya. As per usual, Little Brown pulled out all the stops for [...]
“I’m feeling very refreshed because I just washed my hands with the mouthwash in the bathroom.” When one finds oneself invited to a librarian preview at the Yale Club for the Little Brown Spring/Summer 2011 season, it is useful to remember the following: – Do not appear in jeans. I know it is your day [...]
Mmm. Fall. How quickly we desire to see the shiny and new. Spring and Summer 2010 books? Old hat. Gimme the sparkly new stuff that won’t even begin to hit bookstore and library shelves until the leaves start turning brown. Yep, it was a good old-fashioned Little, Brown librarian preview the other week. There was [...]
Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same By Grace Lin Little Brown & Company $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-02452-5 Ages 5-8 On shelves July 1, 2010 If you want to gauge the merit of a children’s author it’s easy as pie. Simply hand them a piece of paper and a pencil. Sit them down in a comfortable [...]
The Curious Garden By Peter Brown Little, Brown and Company $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-316-01547-9 Ages 4-8 On shelves now. They say that children’s books are inherently didactic. Particularly those of the picture book variety. There’s an idea that you can’t tell a story to a child without including some of your own personal values in the [...]
The Mysterious Benedict Society By Trenton Lee Stewart Illustrations by Carson Ellis Little Brown and Company $16.99 ISBN: 978-0316057776 Ages 8-13 On shelves now How do librarians decide what children’s book they want to read next? Well, there are professional reviews, online reviews, and good old-fashioned word of mouth. And when it came to “The [...]
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