MORE 'BEST-BOOKS-OF-2013' POSTS
A Girl Called Problem By Katie Quirk Eerdmans Books for Young Readers $8.00 ISBN: 97800-8028-5404-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. Who says that mystery novels for kids all have to include the same tropes and settings? I tell you, half the time when a kid comes up to a reference desk asking for a mystery […]
Picture a Tree By Barbara Reid Albert Whitman & Company $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8075-6526-1 Ages 3-6 On shelves now. If you weren’t a teacher or a librarian you wouldn’t necessarily be aware of how critically important tree units are to our school systems. They’re huge. Each and every year when I worked as a children’s librarian […]
Okay, folks. This is where we start the self-promotion machine. I’m looking at it right now and it’s rusty and corroded and clearly falling apart at the seams. Nonetheless, I shall grab my proverbial gas can, fill the tank, pull the cord, let ‘er rip, and see where she takes me. So first and foremost, […]
No Fits, Nilson! By Zachariah Ohora Dial (an imprint of Penguin) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8037-3852-2 Ages 3-7 On shelves June 13th The small child is a frightening beast. A truly terrifying creature that can level the most powerful adult with the mere pitch of their fury laden screams. As a children’s librarian I used to tell […]
Brick by Brick By Charles R. Smith Jr. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-192082-0 Ages 4-8 On shelves now Sometimes I feel like the older I get the more interesting history becomes. Not that history, real history, wasn’t always fascinating. It’s just that when I was a kid you couldn’t have named a subject […]
The Water Castle By Megan Frazer Blakemore Illustrated by Jim Kay Walker Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Bloomsbury) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-8027-2839-5 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Where does fantasy stop and science fiction begin? Is it possible to ever draw a distinct line in the sand between the two? A book with a […]
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 […]
Ariol: Just a Donkey Like You and Me By Emmanuel Guibert Illustrated by Marc Boutavant Translated by Joe Johnson Papercutz $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-59707-399-8 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. The French are different from you and me. They have better comics for their kids. Sure, America’s been doing passably well in the last few years, but […]
Doll Bones By Holly Black Illustrated by Eliza Wheeler McElderry Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-416963981 Ages 9-12 On shelves May 7th I don’t watch much horror in general. I’m what you might call a chicken. When I do see it, though, I’m not particularly disturbed by random splattering and gore. […]
One Came Home By Amy Timberlake $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-375-86925-9 Ages 10 and up On shelves now I like children’s books that sock you in the gut. Not the books that telegraph their hits or do the old one-two punch you can see coming from a mile away. No way, man, I’m talking about the books […]