The Penderwicks at Point Mouette By Jeanne Birdsall Knopf (an imprint of Random House) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-375-85851-2 Ages 7-12 On shelves May 10th When Jeanne Birdsall’s first middle grade novel The Penderwicks was published in 2005 it committed a crime. A crime shared, I might add, by books written by authors like Dr. Seuss, J.K. [...]
Words in the Dust By Trend Reedy Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-545-26125-8 Ages 11 and up. On shelves now. A children’s book, written by a soldier about an Afghani girl, set in the recent past. That’s a toughie. There are a lot of easier books out there to review [...]
Crunch By Leslie Connor Katherine Tegan Books (an imprint of Harper Collins) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-169229-1 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. Leslie Connor forgive me; I sometimes forget how awesome you are. It’s nice to rely on an author. To know that you can trust them to write book after book that isn’t crap. That’s true [...]
Sugar and Ice By Kate Messner Walker & Company (a division of Bloomsbury) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8027-2081-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves December 9th They say to write what you know. We’ve all heard that line. It’s bounced about countless writing groups. But there’s an unspoken rule amongst children that’s as pervasive as it is harmful: Read [...]
Mockingbird By Kathryn Erskine Philomel (a division of Penguin) $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-399-25264-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. Children’s librarians read quite a few books for kids and the result is that we tend to want to discuss them with one another. Unlucky librarians are surrounded solely by people who agree with their opinions. You’re much [...]
Where the Streets Had a Name By Randa Abdel-Fattah Scholastic $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-545-17292-9 Ages 9 and up On shelves November 1, 2010 When I was a child I had a very vague sense of global conflicts in other countries. Because of my Bloom County comics I knew a bit about apartheid in South Africa. Later [...]
Bamboo People By Mitali Perkins Charlesbridge $16.95 ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2 Ages 10-14 On shelves now. There is a perception that many children acquire over the course of their education that learning and fun are mutually exclusive ideas. If a book has so much as a smidgen of a fact in it then it’s no good to [...]
The Rock and the River By Kekla Magoon Aladdin (an imprint of Simon and Schuster) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-4169-7582-3 Ages 10 and up On shelves now I have a variety of different bugaboos that I’ll periodically remove from my bag of standard complaints and shout about for long periods of time. They’re comforting. They bring me [...]
I Am Not Joey Pigza By Jack Gantos Farrar, Straus & Giroux (an imprint of Macmillan) $16.00 ISBN: 978-0374399412 Ages 11 and up On shelves now A good author has the ability to piss off their fans. Pissing off fans is a delicate art, though. On the one hand, if you can emotionally engage your [...]
The Qwikpick Adventure Society By Sam Riddleburger Dial Books (Penguin imprint) Ages 9-12 $16.99 ISBN: 0803731787 On shelves now As a children’s book reviewer there is one fact that you must keep at the forefront of your mind at all times: You are not a kid. Not usually anyway. And because you are not a [...]
Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf By Jennifer L. Holm Illustrated by Elicia Castaldi Comics by Matthew Holm Ginee Seo Books, (Simon & Schuster) $12.99 Ages 9 and up On shelves now I remember being 13 or so and talking with a much older cousin of mine. When he asked me what grade I was [...]
The Lemonade War By Jacqueline Davies Houghton Mifflin $16.00 I am about to describe to you a true situation that I have experienced time and time again as a children’s librarian. A parent will walk up to me and ask for a work of fiction for kids dealing either with money or business. Money or [...]
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