The chapter titles of this splendiferous collection of images of people around the globe read like a poem: Touch / Feel / Love / Hope / Laugh / Hurt / Fear / Believe / Try / Play / Rest / Need ...
Apparently the big book controversy this week (besides the Wal-Mart $10 vs. Amazon $9 pre-order pricing war) is David Small's 2009 National Book Award nomination in the Young People's Literature category for his graphic memoir, Stitches. YA or not YA, that is the question ...
Here's a joyful little gift to share with your children over the long weekend ...
Certain kiddie authors whose books that my children have outgrown I can't bear to part with – in fact, I keep buying their latest titles anyway, even as my children have moved on to Steinbeck (our now-teenage daughter) and Cisneros (our tween son) to keep...
First a little note about the creators: Meomi is a dynamic design duo made up of Vicki Wong, based in Vancouver, and Michael Murphy, who calls Los Angeles home. Together, they also happen to write adorable, colorful kiddie books ...
The Booklist review blurb on the stark black back cover (with a heart-breaking pink balloon floating away) should serve as quite the warning: "Not for gentle readers." Probably best known as a playwright, Adam Rapp has certainly created a busy, award-winning career by exploring the darker characteristics...
"At first I was afraid, I was petrified ...
The already well-established X-Men franchise of books (and films) gets a somewhat peculiar makeover in the first of a new series designed for the middle grade/13+ crowd. "Don't fix what ain't broke," comes to mind. But that might be an old-age reaction ...
Two young mice, out "on a cold, lonely night," meet a mysterious older mouse who leads them to a magical place where "departed loves ones" appear to remind the two adventurers that they will never be alone. "They're not truly gone, but watch over you...
Logizomechanophobia: the fear of computers. That would be me! Of course, none of the four 12-year-old protagonists in this chuckling read suffer from such fears (young 'uns these days are all so wired!), but they do each have their own quirky phobias. As every chapter...
Husband-and-wife author/illustrators, Ted Lewin and Betsy Lewin, who also happen to both be individual Caldecott Honor winners, travel the world in search of adventure. Their latest book together combines the experiences of two trips to Mysore, India in 1997 and 1998 during which they came up close...
Every mother and daughter needs to share this book. Actually, every woman should have a copy of it. Given the incredible success of Eve Ensler's revolutionary play, The Vagina Monologues, "the menstruation monologues" are the natural next step! Of course, this funny, touching, memorable collection could...
Two years after her father is killed in a car accident, Emily moves with her mother and younger brother Navin to a faraway family home, once owned by her great-grandfather who disappeared decades ago. On the top floor of the neglected house, she finds a...
And since I was reviewing that latest Delhi Noir (see below post for Brooklyn Noir) for a San Francisco paper, I figured I ought to check out the local entry to the series, too. I'm all about procrastinating! So the Fog City version, compared to the...
Can't start without a little backstory: I was recently assigned to review Delhi Noir (link forthcoming if and when the review is published – one never makes absolute assumptions when freelancing!). Delhi is the latest in the "Akashic Noir Series" which offers specific city-based collections filled...
In her reader's guide at book's end, Naseem Rakha explains how in 1996 she was assigned to cover Oregon's first excecution in over three decades. Once finished with the assignment, she continued to ask questions and "by far the most compelling [stories] were those told...
Wherever you are in the world, education is a key element to a more fulfilling life. Ruurs, herself an education specialist, celebrated the love of reading in her award-winning previous title, My Librarian Is a Camel: How Books Are Brought to Children Around the World....
Through a collection of sparse free verse, Cheng captures a family in crisis. Ann, not yet 15, can't tell her friends that her mother just lost her breasts to cancer. But everyone seems to know already, asking after her mother and bringing chili with beans...
Just look at the energy that jumps off even these tiny thumbnail covers. What's not to love? In her debut, our spunky heroine, whom everyone calls Freckleface Strawberry, needs to "get rid of her freckles fast." She tries everything from scrubbing them off, coloring herself with...
For about-to-turn-sweet-16 Belly (no one calls her Isabel), summers at the beach is where her real life happens. The rest of the year pales to comings-and-goings of the large rambling seaside house, populated by two best-friend mothers and their two children each for the three...
