MORE 'HISTORICAL-FICTION' POSTS
The Romeo and Juliet Code By Phoebe Stone Arthur A. Levine (an imprint of Scholastic) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-545-21511-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves now It seems unfair that my attention was first drawn to The Romeo and Juliet Code because of its cover. No book deserves to be held responsible for its misleading jacket and Phoebe […]
Wonderstruck By Brian Selznick Scholastic Press $29.99 ISBN: 978-0545027892 Ages 9 and up On shelves September 13, 2011 Hype. What’s the point? A publisher believes that a book is going to be big so they crank up the old hype machine and do everything in their power to draw attention to it long before its […]
Jefferson’s Sons By Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Dial (an imprint of Penguin) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-8037-3499-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves September 15th When I was in high school I started reading Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved on my own. At the time, my mother said something about the book that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever […]
There was a kerfuffle this weekend. Did you notice? It was a YA kerfuffle, which I generally tend to avoid, but sometimes inanity makes for good blogging. And nothing was quite as inane as the recent Wall Street Journal article Darkness Too Visible. The gist: My goodness, my gracious, have you seen what kids are […]
Dead End in Norvelt By Jack Gantos Farrar, Straus and Giroux (an imprint of Macmillan) $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3 Ages 10-14 On shelves September 13, 2011 What makes Jack Gantos tick? It’s a question that haunts every book he writes, from the simplest Rotten Ralph to his own YA autobiography Hole in My Life. It’s a […]
Inside Out and Back Again By Thanhha Lai Harper Collins $15.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-196278-3 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Thinking about the most memorable of children’s novels, one trait in all of them has to ring true in order for them to click with their readers. The books must contain some kind of “meaning”. Even the […]
Eliza’s Freedom Road: An Underground Railroad Diary By Jerdine Nolen A Paula Wiseman Book (Simon & Schuster) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-4169-5814-7 Ages 7-11 On shelves now Name me all the films you can that involve slaves escaping via The Underground Railroad. No? Okay then, I’ll make it easy on you. Name me a single film, just […]
Thunder from the Sea: Adventure On Board the HMS Defender By Jeff Weigel G.P. Putnam’s Sons (a division of Penguin) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-399-2509-7 Ages 8 and up. On shelves now Kids don’t pretend to be sailors anymore. Did they ever? I think so. There must have been a time when the lure of seaside battles […]
We begin today with a mild pet peeve of mine. Here we go. You see this lovely new paperback edition cover of the book Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me? Well I had great affection for the original story, though I was relatively lukewarm on its first cover. […]
Wiff and Dirty George: The Z.E.B.R.A. Incident By Stephen Swinburne Boyd Mills Press $17.95 ISBN: 978-1-59078-755-7 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Once in a great while I get a little bored with the usual children’s book tropes. Another new kid in school who meets a seeming outcast and bonds with them? Whoopie. A foster kid […]