Penguin Young Readers Group Fall 2008 Librarian Preview
If they were nervous, they didn’t show it. Here it was, the day of their debut, and not a droplet of sweat graced their brows or marred the perfect surface of their faces. They were cool. They were collected. It was Tuesday, June 10th at the Penguin Group’s very first librarian preview and they were determined to put on a good show.
I don’t know if they studied the librarian previews performed by other publishing companies, but they certainly seemed to have the routine down.
Food besides bagels and cream cheese for breakfast? Check.
Food for lunch (optional) with lots of delicious pesto? Check.
Tables for librarians to sit and listen to editors, rather than having to stare at a podium? Check.
Editors who come to you and not the other way around? Check.
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Large publishing companies like Penguin can conduct their previews one of two ways. Option number one is to seat you in an audience and then make their imprints tromp up onto a stage one by one, perhaps with a PowerPoint presentation in the background. This is fine, if a bit impersonal and without interacting with an editor right there in front of you it can sometimes get a little dull. Option number two is to place you at a table and allow you to speak with the people responsible for putting out these books. Instant feedback from librarians helps them (in theory) and makes you feel important. The problem is that often you’re the one leaping from table to table, while the editors have to repeat the same lines six or seven times. Some companies allow you to sit and eat while the editors come to you, but again you have these poor marketing and editorial types repeating themselves over and over. Penguin solved this problem in a rather clever fashion. There were five tables in the room. One person from each imprint, be it Dial or Dutton, Putnam or Razorbill, then came into the room and sat down with you to discuss their upcoming season. When they finished, into the room waltzed the next imprint, and five of those people would split up amongst the tables to speak. You see how logical this is? The same energy you get with one-on-one interactions is there, but these marketing and editorial types are allowed to give a speech only once and then go back to work. Very clever.
Most important of all, there was a small table of free ARCs, yes. But Penguin had realized that librarians don’t like to carry heavy books around all the time. So they shipped us boxes of the books discussed to our libraries instead! I cannot tell you how clever this idea was. It made the entire experience all the more pleasant.
But that’s not what you want to hear, is it? You wanna know what Penguin has coming out this fall. Well, each place setting at the tables contained a fall catalog, a small Post-It Note pack, and a Sharpie with which to take notes. They also had little water bottles at each table, which they replaced regularly. Nicely done.
No fool I, I planted myself at the table of Scottie Bowditch. Scottie was, as far as I could ascertain, one of the main people wrangling this whole process into place with a sure, keen eye. Scottie is the person you cling to when you want to see something done and done right. I was also at the same table as some of NYPL’s YA librarians. They are very hip people, too hip for me really, but I like to hear their insights on different topics. It was a good table to choose.
Rather than introduce the books in the order in which they were presented, I’ll just go through my catalog.
Philomel Books were presented by a Mr. Kiffin Steurer. I’ve always had a soft spot for Philomel. They seem to take personal pride and attention in their lists. Fans of the Ranger’s Apprentice series will be happy to hear that Book Five: The Sorcerer of the North is due out this November. This new title apparently takes place a couple years after the last book, and sports the usual gorgeous cover art we’ve come to expect from Flanagan’s series. I was a little perturbed to be reminded that Paul Haggis (Crash) has picked up the movie rights to this puppy. I don’t trust Haggis as far as I can throw him. Hopefully he’ll do Flanagan right and prove my fears and myself wrong.
My first thought on seeing Janet Taylor Lisle (pronounced "Lyle" apparently)’s new book Highway Cats was that it looked like a Penderwicks knock-off. Closer inspection, however, proved that this was simply because illustrator David Frankland has a very distinctive silhouette style. In this book, the silhouettes (which are rather lovely and intricate) are spotted throughout the entire novel. The story actually seemed to resemble nothing so much as a title that Penderwick fans would love anyway. Consider it a light alternative to Appelt’s The Underneath, then.
Berkeley Breathed’s newest picture book Pete and Pickles features an elephant and a piggy. And elephant . . . and a piggie. Sounds oddly familiar until you see that the piggy is an uptight boy and the elephant a fun loving girl. Still, it’s odd how often these two breeds of animal show up in picture books these days. An unconscious trend, methinks.
Barbara Joosse has a new book out with the title Love is a Good Thing to Feel. I mention this mostly because I was delighted to see the catalog mention that Joosse is also the author of one of my favorite unsung picture books Nikolai, the Only Bear. I discovered it while weeding the stacks the other day, and I think that it is one of my favorite titles right now. So so sweet.
On display in the room was some original art from some of the books presented. One of the most striking images came from Floyd Cooper’s upcoming picture book Willie and the All-Stars. A book that would make a good, if younger, companion piece to Kadir Nelson’s We Are the Ship, the story centers on an African-American boy who wants to play in the major leagues. If Cooper’s writing complements his gorgeous pictures then this might be a title worth taking a gander at.
A new Enola Holmes Mystery is due out this September! Whoop! The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan involves Enola running into Sherlock and having to decide whether or not to join forces with him. Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait . . .
And then, this was very exciting to me. I turn the page and there is the Redwall graphic novel with a blurb from little old me! Penguin put me in their catalog! It was a quote from one of my blog reviews of the book, and it credited me to NYPL rather than Fuse #8, but who cares? I was in a catalog! It is fortunate indeed then that NYPL has actually purchased this book. Could be a little embarrassing if they hadn’t. In any case, whoop!
T.A. Barron has written a slightly younger book for kids in grades 4-6. It sort of spans the time between his Merlin series and his Avalon titles. Called Merlin’s Dragon, it was given great love by David Mowery of Brooklyn Public Library who had already read it. Something to keep your eye out for then.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar will be reaching its 40th anniversary in 2009. As such, Philomel has created a Braille edition of the book with squishy images and a "large, tactile format" meant to complement the Braille letters. I’ve never really seen a big publisher do much of this before on an old classic title. Carle appears to be a natural choice for such a book.
Razorbill can be credited with this. When you turn to the Razorbill section of the catalog, you are immediately met with the gaunt, haunted, raccoon-like eyes of the unhealthy Olsen twins. I was not the first person to get to this page and offer a choked scream in response. But where one publisher might make the foolish mistake of actually trying to promote this book with us, Razorbill didn’t even try. Thanks, Jessica! Instead we heard about some of their other titles, which were far more interesting and 20% less gaunt.
Everyone these days wants Gossip Girls alternatives. Parents catch their 11-year-olds reading them and beg librarians for "clean" alternatives. Each publisher offers this and in Penguin’s case it’s the Talent series by Zoey Dean. An interesting trend.
Dystopian novels are hot. I suspect that the nation’s increased awareness of global warming is behind it all, but on the other hand I’m a big dystopia fan. So Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island looked quite choice to me. The way they decided to sell it? "It’s Lois Lowry meets 1984". Ever noticed how 1984 dystopian novels are also on the rise (I’m thinking of Little Brother here)? Anyway, the cover of Goodman’s novel doesn’t really convey its content, but I was impressed that the art director would put a girl with a face this young on a book for Grades 7 and up. I think that it’s a good choice, but a surprising one. Goodman’s an adult author dipping her toe into the world of children’s literature, so it remains to be seen whether or not this crossover is at all successful.
In Your Room by Jordanna Frailberg is kind of a fun concept. A boy and a girl’s families swap houses and the kids fall in love with one another when they poke and pry into one another’s rooms. I’m both a poker and a prier, so there was much that I liked with this storyline.
So I had never heard of John van de Ruit’s Spud. Have you heard of Spud? I haven’t heard of Spud. In spite of being South Africa’s "fastest selling novel ever" I’ve never seen hide or hair of it. Apparently it’s a very funny boy book, but the blurbs in the catalog were from odd sources like BookDivas.com and Redbook (Redbook?). It was sold to us as "funnier than Adrian Mole" and is great for reluctant readers. You know those 13-year-old boys who will only read Diary of a Wimpy Kid and nothing else? This is apparently for them. The sequel Spud – The Madness Continues … will be out this October.
Blah blah, vampires, blah blah blah. So the newest Vampire Academy novel is coming out, but you know what I realized? The author herself (one Richelle Mead) is an incredibly pale redhead. So then I get to thinking . . . lots of redheads are really pale. Someone should make a case that vampires can only be redheads. Redheaded vampires. That book I would love to read.
I was very pleased to see that Jay Asher’s novel Thirteen Reasons Why got a HUGE two-page spread in the Razorbill section. I mean, I knew Jay was a blogger turned author made good, but I don’t think I knew that the book had actually acquired a much desired cult status amongst its readers. Jay’s doing so well, in fact, that they’re pushing back the paperback release of the book just so that they can continue to sell all those lovely pricey hardcovers. Go, Jay, go!
Just one quick note about Razorbill. You know what I didn’t see with their covers? I didn’t see disembodied females, eyeless wonders, torsos, feet, or any of the usual boring book jacket tropes. I saw a lot of age-appropriate kids, cool concept images, and great takes on old standards. I saw covers that were successful without being ridiculous. It did the old heart good.
Dial Books for Young Readers was all thanks to Lauri Hornik. Dial is launching with a particularly beautiful book called Wonder Bear by newcomer Tao Nyeu. You may remember that I mentioned this title on my Caldecott prediction round-up the other day. Well, it was lovely enough to justify that praise. Done in silkscreen with a graphic feel, the book is big and wordless. Nyeu will be signing at ALA apparently, so if you get a chance to stop by the Penguin booth to check out her stuff, so so. This book was her thesis project at The School of Visual Arts. Review to come.
Nancy Werlin has a new novel out called Impossible. Back in the day, before I stopped reading YA titles, I was quite the Werlin fan. Well, this new one sort of sold me with its description, "Inspired by the ballad ‘Scarborough Fair, . . ." Stop right there! Don’t say another word! I’m in.
Fun Fact: Caralyn and Mark Buehner’s last name is pronounced "Beener". Huh.
Okay. So we know that 2009 is the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And we know that it’s the anniversary of Lincoln’s 200th birthday. But on top of all that it also appears to be the anniversary of the moon landing as well. So Jerry Pinkney (who survives in this world without rest or sleep it would seem) is coming out with The Moon Over Star as written by Dianna Hutts Aston. The cover is very pretty with a girl looking up at a large beautiful moon. I was kind of hoping that maybe on the dust jacket the moon would be tactile and you could feel its craters, but this probably too much to ask. We were informed that as it happens, Pinkney was one of the artists commissioned by NASA to paint the shuttle Columbia. A picture on the backflap of this book shows Pinkney posing before that very spaceship.
During my Harper Collins Fall 2008 Library Preview recap I mentioned that there is this crazy trend out there involving girl notebooks filled with doodles. Now the ranks of Ellie McDoodle, The Zoey Zone, Amelia’s Notebook, and Addy McMahon comes Paisley Hanover. Not willing to commit entirely to a notebook, however, Dial is putting this book out in a "folder" of sorts. Open it up and on one side is her novel and the other side her notebook (or "not book" as she would prefer that it be known). Illustrations are by Alli Arnold.
Wordless was perhaps the name of the game this day, since it looks as if Allison Jay is coming out with a wordless title of her own called Welcome to the Zoo. Jay goes Anno on us with just a hint of Walter Wick. The book bears some similarities to Suzy Lee’s The Zoo of yesteryear, and due to her gorgeous style is probably worth seeking out.
My co-worker Rebecca used to enjoy doing Karen Beaumont’s I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More for class visits. Now Beaumont has hooked up with David Catrow once again for the title Doggone Dogs. Note.
And finally, I’m a great big Shakespeare fan but I never got around to reading Alan Gratz’s fun mystery novel Something Rotten, based loosely on Hamlet. Now its hero Horatio Wilkes is back and it’s in Something Wicked, a MacBeth mystery. Clever titles, no? Authentic recognizable Shakespearean quotes and everything (though my husband points out that the first quote is actually "Something is Rotten". Sadly Gratz will have to diverge with his third title. Based on A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Something Foolish is close enough to a quote that I don’t really mind. Plus I was oddly charmed by the character names in this newest book. Mac and his controlling girlfriend Beth. His best buddy Banks. It works. Sure it does.
Ah, Viking. Towering over all the other imprints, you are. The great and powerful Sharyn November was our presenter at this particular time and she brought the goods, so to speak. First of all, some side notes. John Bemelmans Marciano, grandson of Ludwig Bemelmans and Brooklyn resident (does he get free drinks at the Bemelmans Bar?) is putting out a NEW Madeline book. Called Madeline and the Cats of Rome, I must confess to you that Marciano replicates his grandfather’s style very convincingly. My notes that I wrote on the page of the catalog that discusses this book are: "Woah. Woah-oh. Woah. Uses the same pen nibs." Marciano does indeed use the same pen nibs of his grandpa. Woah.
I’d already seen the sequel to The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages called White Sands, Red Menace but I was all too glad to see it again. Gorgeous cover (it almost makes up for that super-crummy Green Glass Sea paperback cover) and more of what I love. I need to read this puppy pronto.
But the real catch of the day, and the book I was the MOST excited to get, was Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link. Why so excited? Because the spot illustrations inside are by none other than The Arrival‘s Shaun Tan. Some of these stories I’d read before, but who cares? I’ll be devouring it as soon as I can justify it.
We really hadn’t seen Penguin’s answer to the Lincoln 200th birthday thingy thing in 2009 up until this point. Then we turned the page and saw Staton Rabin’s Mr. Lincoln’s Boys. Every new children’s Lincoln bio needs a hook. Rabin’s (she’s a member of the Lincoln Society, by the way) is in the byline. Mr. Lincoln’s Boys: Being the Mostly True Adventures of Abraham Lincoln’s Troublemaking Sons Tad and Willie. With a title like that you might expect a David Catrow or Robert Stevenson type but the illustrator they went with here was Bagram Ibatoulline. I showed this book to my husband and he was very amused by how you could spin this story happy. Basically I think it comes down to stopping the action before they started dying off and their mom went mad and their dad died and . . . yeah. Hm. I’ll have to read this one to see how it deals with these details.
Simms Taback + riddles = Simms Taback’s Great Big Book of Spacey, Snakey, Buggy Riddles. Nuff said.
Author/illustrator Deborah Kogan Ray has a picture book biography of Wanda Gag (the author/illustrator of Millions of Cats) coming out called Wanda Gag: The Girl Who Lived to Draw. The interior design is a little clunky but the art looks positively keen. I’ll be looking forward to adding this one to my collection soon enough.
I didn’t take many books from this preview, you know. Just one or two here and there. But one book I did take, or rather snatch like a bandit from Sharyn November’s hands, was Tanya Lee Stone’s Sandy’s Circus: A Story About Alexander Calder. I was very pleased to hear Sharyn mention that, yes, Maira Kalman came out with Calder’s Circus years ago, but this is completely different. And after taking a gander at the art, I agree. Boris Kulikov has until now never quite gotten the picture book subject matter he deserves. I’m betting that with Sandy’s Circus he’ll garner himself some serious, much needed, attention.
I mentioned earlier that Razorbill never chopped off any female heads on its covers for this upcoming season. Well, Viking has but it’s equal opportunity cutting. Dishes by Rich Wallace chops off a boy’s head for once. I know this must happen from time to time, but danged if I can think of any examples besides this one.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons was brought to us by John Rudolph. Fans of Jan Brett and Jan Brett’s picture book Gingerbread Baby will be pleased to hear that its follow-up Gingerbread Friends is slated, not for December, but for September of this year. A recipe for gingerbread will actually be within the story’s borders, and apparently Brett has a website worth checking out (4,170 pages of free activites, coloring pages, and projects?). I was amused to see that the marketing campaign will consist of "Consumer advertising in . . . Good Housekeeping and Country Living," because when I think of those two publications I always imagine gingerbread cookies or houses on their covers anyway.
Of course, gingerbread aside, I don’t tend to dig Christmas picture books. They’re too hard to do and unless you’re Marla Frazee or somebody, I just ain’t interested. Except . . . Santa Duck by David Milgrim kind of won me over. John was clever and read us most of the book and there’s something about Milgrim’s simple good-spirited style that was better than the average Xmas fare. Curiously, this book is also slated for September. Someday I shall decode the mysteries of the publishing world so as to ascertain why these things happen.
Actually, now that I think about it maybe John Rudolph has some kind of secret power that can make people fall in love with goofy picture books that they might otherwise ignore. Take as an example Humpty Dumpty Climbs Again by Dave Horowitz. This is precisely the kind of picture book I tend to ignore. Nursery rhyme tropes done with a twist? Yawn. But this book was different in so many ways. First of all, Horowitz is a pretty goofy guy from the start. He has a love of spherical protagonists as in Five Little Gefiltes or the almost-round Ugly Pumpkin. In this particular book, Humpty falls off the wall, gets depressed, and spends his days sitting around in his underwear watching a lot of television. When he finally does scale the wall yet again, he uses a lot of good mountain climbing gear (appropriate since Horowitz is a mountain-climbing instructor). So even if I didn’t originally think it was my cup of tea, I was sad when I learned that the F&Gs wouldn’t be in my box of galleys. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it as well then.
Nice guy Royce Buckingham’s Goblins! An UnderEarth Adventure will be coming out in September. I met Royce during an SCBWI Conference in Seattle. Really a good fellow and a fine speaker. Glad to see more of his stuff getting out there.
One of the more curious titles on this list was Voss: How I Come to America and am Hero, Mostly by David Ives. They’re billing it as a kind of Borat for kids, only it struck me far more as a younger Everything Is Illuminated, more than anything else. Actually, now that I think of it, wasn’t Borat a kind of knock-off of Everything Is Illuminated too?
Art From Her Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter is by Kathy Whitehead. A Mr. Shane W. Evans illustrated it. To which I began to wonder, "Who the heck is Shane W. Evans?" I would like to see more of this man’s work, I think. Worth noting.
After bestowing upon Robin McKinley that gawdawful cover for her book Dragonhaven, McKinley’s newest title Chalice is appropriately lovely. I would SO buy this book if I were a romantically inclined teenaged girl, on the basis of its jacket alone.
Tomie dePaola meets Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart? Okay, I’m interested. Oh, and Tomie will be doing something Strega Nona related? I am IN! I love Strega Nona. She is, without a doubt, my favorite creation of Mr. dePaola, and I just don’t think she gets enough attention. Well, the book Brava Strega Nona! will be out in October and it’s an interesting new look at the pop-up genre. The book serves less to tell a story than to introduce you to Strega Nona’s world. They had me at, "The pasta pot overflows into your lap."
Dutton up, and Lucia Monfried takes the helm. The first book in each section often stands as the flagship item for that imprint. Little surprise that John Green’s newest YA novel Paper Towns sat there staring at me. I may just have to read this, you know. Did you know that John and Hank will be in Flint, Michigan in November? The coolest thing here, though, were the new paperback covers to John’s books. All new girls grace his paperbacks. The odd thing is that they don’t resemble the usual cover ladies. They look like cute intelligent girls. Which, in turn, would cause actually intelligent girls to pick up the books and read them. If I’m 17 and I see a cover that looks like this new An Abundance of Katherines and then one with the Olsen twins on it, which one am I going to take home? This seems to be a case of an Art Director knowing their audience. Paper Towns, as you may have seen, has two different covers. We heard that Dutton would see which one sold better and then make changes accordingly. So, libraries? Go buy the yellow one. Yell-ow, yell-ow, yell-ow!
Eve Ibbotson fans, rejoice. The Dragonfly Pool comes out in September and it falls into her realistic historical fiction category. No wizards. I read the description of the book and I have the perfect byline for it. "Eve Ibbotson: Now battling Nazis!"
Neal Shusterman has an umlaut over the "u" in his last name. FYI.
Dan Greenberg is known, to my mind, primarily for one book. Slugs. Once you’ve read Slugs you cannot unread it. Victoria Chess, your illustrations shall haunt me unto mine grave. So the last thing I’d expect Greenberg to do would be a novel about growing up during the Civil Rights era. But that’s just what A Tugging String is. As Greenberg’s own father was an actual civil rights lawyer, this story came based on fact. And since I haven’t found much historical fiction this year, I’ll certainly bite.
Lucia didn’t talk about this one, but I was thrilled beyond measure to find that Susan Jeffers has illustrated an all new edition of The Wild Swans as retold by Amy Ehrlich. It’s one of my favorite stories. Wasn’t there a YA novel that came out a couple years ago about the brother that lives with one of his arms as a swan wing? I should like to track that one down.
One of the best ideas for a book series was Kathleen Kudlinski’s "Boy Were We Wrong" series. First you had Boy Were We Wrong About the Dinosaurs and now, with extra special pictures from illustrator John Rocco, Boy, Were We Wrong about the Solar System. I love books that talk about how smart we are today.
Nobody from Frederick Warne & Co. graced us with their presence. Ah well. But nobody from minedition came either, and that was a pity. minedition brings in a lot of great authors and illustrators from overseas. So we never got to learn why Robert Ingpen chose to make Tiny Tim resemble a small wretched very hungry zombie on the cover of the newest A Christmas Carol. There were books from Austria, Germany (LOTS of Germany) , the Czech Republic (looking tres Czech), and Japan there. Aw. Overlook Press didn’t speak either, which was fine. I was a little surprised to see that they’re reprinting Donald Barthelme’s The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine. My library has a circulating copy, actually. Demand is not as high as you might expect.
Usually when a paperback imprint talks up their books, that’s when it’s sleepy time for the librarians. But when Karen Chaplin introduced Puffin Books, the result was anything but sleepifying. One of their books is PeaceJam: A Billion Simple Acts of Peace by Ivan Suvanjieff and Dawn Gifford Engle. Now I went to a Quaker college, right? There were people in that school that majored in Peace and Global Studies. So whenever I see a "peace" book, I get suspicious. The last thing I want is something that contains sentences like "Peace is rainbows". I didn’t get a chance to really pore through this pup, but I did read the advice in the back that talked about how kids could help the cause of peace. So I’m thinking, "Uh-huh. It’s gonna say plant a tree." And maybe it did, but the advice that I zeroed in on was "#6: Investigate Privatization Policy." Huh! Why that actually . . . actually . . . wow!
The new Puffin Classic paperbacks are gorgeous, every one. This September we’ll be seeing Anne of Green Gables with an Intro by Lauren Child, Five Children and It with Intro by Quentin Blake, and A Christmas Carol with Intro by, uh, Anthony Horowitz (???).
The Roman Mysteries are all getting new paperback covers. And so are three Barthe DeClements novels that made me very excited. Our old 80s paperbacks of Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade Can Really Kill You still are checked out in spite of their horrid, dated images. Now they’ve new girls on them, alongside The Fourth Grade Wizards. The sole problem with these covers is that the girls Fourth and Sixth appear to be 21. I have never seen a fourth grader who looked more like homecoming queen a day of my life. Cover models strike again.
The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy is getting an all new cover as well. It’s very pretty but unfortunately it’s one of those chop-off-her-head ones. On the other hand, it reminded me of the paperback cover for Sue Stauffacher’s Harry Sue, and I do really like that jacket. Then again, I’m not so certain that plaid All Stars are very 1970s. Looks like the person designing the cover forgot that the book was historical. *sigh*
Finally the day brings us Grosset & Dunlap and Samantha Schute. This is an imprint that does a lot of series and the like. We were unwholesomely attracted to Magic Kitten, because the covers are oddly hypnotic if you stare at them too long. Kittens . . . . sparkles . . . . kittens. . . . The Ruby Gloom books (which come with the sly wink of a subtitle "Happiest Girl in the World") appears to be Goth lit for 8-year-olds. I do not think that this is a bad thing. And for people looking for multi-cultural series books, Amy Hodgepodge may or may not fit the bill.
And we’re done. Well, almost. Special guest star Jon Scieszka was there to speak to us as we devoured our lunches (pesto, mmm!). Jon had been the guest star at the last Simon & Schuster librarian preview I’d been to too, promoting his Truck Town series there. Here he was able to promote his new autobiography Knucklehead (review forthcoming).
Here is Jon reading from said book.
So of course I had to ask whether or not he dined solely on a diet of bagels and strawberries. Turns out, he doesn’t. Jon told about his "Ambassadorial travels and happenings" then read us some selections from his book that were very funny. Particularly when they involved urination and school janitors.
And now, my favorites!
Best Title of the Day:
Blood and Goo and Boogers Too by Steve Alton (sadly not due on store shelves until 2009)
Favorite By-Lines Found Promoting Certain Books:
"Guys aren’t the only ones using steroids in high school."
"Lucy has nine months to break an ancient curse in order to save both herself and her unborn daughter."
"Hatchet meets The Cay in this dramatic survival story."
And my personal favorite . . .
"Imagine Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – on Mars!"
Conclusion? Penguin does itself a very nice preview. My thanks to everyone involved.
Filed under: Librarian Previews
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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Thanks for a great wrap-up! I’ve now added several more titles to my fall reading list. And THANK YOU for mentioning that “super-crummy” GREEN GLASS SEA cover. It’s a great novel, but what kid will ever pick up a paperback with that deadly design? I’m counting the days till they wise-up and change it. Peter
Wowza. That’s one goody-filled post.
The brother with the swan wing book is Birdwing, by Rafe Martin.
Birdwing! That’s the stuff! Thanks so much. Am I crazy to think that there was a second one as well?
Thanks, Betsy! The new Ellen Klages? Me want! Me want NOW! Lauren Child worked great for “Pippi” but I’m not so happy about that “Anne” cover. Also, Penguin has pushed “Spud” really hard as a boy book…but I just don’t think that’s a “boy” cover…I can only see it getting checked out by tween girls that think the boy on the cover is cute.
They have a new and different Spud cover, which unfortunately isn’t available online so I wasn’t able to put it in my post. Rest assured that it is more “boy” though. I should note that Penguin has been very good at putting most of their fall selection online for easy linking. There’s nothing worse than writing a Librarian Preview recap and being unable to link to the jackets being discussed.
I’m gonna take a stab at the christmas books in september (santa duck) question: I don’t know about bookstores, but if it’s published in september, we get it here at the library in october and we’re backed up at all, it could take most of october to get it processed and on the shelf. that sounds like perfect timing. to me. i hate it when we get a holiday book a few weeks before the holiday and have to rush it through processing so it will get checked out at least once before it’s put to sleep for the year.