Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Tag: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

April 22, 2021 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: The Raconteur’s Commonplace Book by Kate Milford

Ms. Milford’s skills have at last come together to produce her magnum opus. I’ll tell you true – there’s not a soul alive I’ve handed this book to that didn’t get sucked into it. Every book has its reader. It just happens that this book’s reader is you.

March 26, 2020 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: Outside In by Deborah Underwood, ill. Cindy Derby

Right now, in the Spring, when the world seems scary, this may be the comforting book about what’s beyond our back doors that we all need right now.

May 10, 2019 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: The Crayon Man by Natascha Biebow and Steven Salerno

The ideal use of great writing without cheating. Filled with facts and backmatter, it also makes the subject interesting to kids. It’s beautiful to look at and while I would have made some changes, it stands as a pretty darn good look at a man, a plan, a crayon. Crayola.

Review of the Day: Crab Cake by Andrea Tsurumi

April 24, 2019 by Betsy Bird

A book that effectively establishes normality, disrupts it with horror, and then assures the reader that normality can return. If Tsurumi's previous picture book, Accident, was about taking responsibility for your mistakes, Crab Cake is about taking care of yourself when the mistake is not your own.

Review of the Day: Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, ill. Kadir Nelson

February 14, 2019 by Betsy Bird

Kwame Alexander’s words are grand. Kadir Nelson’s art soars. But when you put those two things together, and they work in tandem, they bring out the best in one another. Unrelenting, undeniable, unavoidable. Fail to read this book at your peril. I hope it is only the beginning.

Review of the Day: Beavers – The Superpower Field Guide by Rachel Poliquin and Nicholas John Frith

June 14, 2018 by Betsy Bird

Beavers: The Superpower Field Guide By Rachel Poliquin Illustrated by Nicholas John Frith $18.99 ISBN: 9780544949874 Ages 9-12 On shelves December 4th Here, sit down a sec. I wanna tell you a story about this beaver I once knew. So I’m at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, which, if anyone asks, is my favorite […]

Review of the Day: Accident! by Andrea Tsurumi

July 7, 2017 by Betsy Bird

Accident! By Andrea Tsurumi Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-544-94480-0 Ages 4-7 On shelves October 3rd There is no accident so small that a forward thinking six-year-old can’t turn it into World War III. You see, there are certain things they won’t tell you when you prepare to become a parent. They’ll conveniently fail to […]

Review of the Day: Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood

August 29, 2014 by Betsy Bird

Bad Bye, Good Bye By Deborah Underwood Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-547-92852-4 Ages 3-7 On shelves now As a mother who recently spent the better part of twenty hours in a car with a three-year-old and a three-month-old baby, I feel a special kinship with parents who have also engaged in the ultimate endurance […]

Review of the Day: Princess Sparkle-Heart Gets a Makeover by Josh Schneider

July 21, 2014 by Betsy Bird

Princess Sparkle-Heart Gets a Makeover By Josh Schneider Clarion (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-544-14228-2 Ages 3-7 On shelves now Sometimes I’ll just sit back and think about how the advent of the internet has affected literary culture. I don’t mean book promotion or reviews or any of that. I’m talking about […]

Review of the Day: Greenglass House by Kate Milford

June 19, 2014 by Betsy Bird

Greenglass House By Kate Milford Clarion Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-544-05270-3 Ages 9-12 On shelves August 26th When I was a kid I had a real and abiding love of Agatha Christie. This would be around the time when I was ten or eleven. It wasn’t that I was rejecting […]