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  <!-- START INTERCHANGE - THE YEAR OF THE BOOK -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} <!-- END INTERCHANGE --> What better way to start the new year than with The Year of the Book byAndrea Cheng and illustrated by Abigail Halpin? If I ever wrote a book, The Year

Do  you have a collection of children's poetry and stories in your home right now? I'll wager you don't. Oh sure, you have Where the Sidewalk Ends and maybe a fairy tale collection or two, but that's not quite the same. Every house needs a book like Bananas in My Ears: A Collection of Nonsense Stories, Poems, Riddles and Rhymes by Michael Rosen (We're Going on a Bear Hunt, among others) and

If you do not know Zita, please read my review of the first book in this amazing series by the delightful Ben Hatke, Zita the Space Girl. While I love the story lines that Hatke writes for his graphic novels, I think it is his illustrations that really draw me (and my son, who gobbles these books in one sitting) in. While the space creatures may be odd, and a tiny bit fierce at times,

Even a relatively short graphic novel, depending on the creator's use of words and images, can feel like a combination of reading a 250 page book and seeing a feature length film by the time you get to the last page. Even so, I am a bit greedy when it comes to graphic novels and I always think, "The longer, the better!" That's one thing that is so exciting to me about Mark Fearing's debut

The Fog Mound trilogy by Susan Schade and Jon Buller, bills itself as part graphic novel part heroic fantasy, and an adventure like no other! And it is all true! I LOVE this book! A week of reading books with squirrels as main characters - realistic squirrels, cartoonish squirrels, villainous quasi-medieval squirrels - has lead me here to Travels of Thelonious (published in

The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier has been on my radar since it came out in 2010. At a glance, it looks like it might be a little bit Harry Potter, a dash of Indiana Jones and a slice of Treasure Island. While those are all great references, after reading - devouring - this first book in what I hope will be a series, I can tell you that The Unsinkable Walker Bean is something even

Libby of High Hopes, written and illustrated by Elise Primavera, is a gem of a book. Besides being ideal for readers ready to move up from Magic Tree House and Junie B Jones but not quite ready for the 300+ page books that take up so much shelf space these days, Libby of High Hopes is a thoughtful story about an almost eleven-year-old girl trying to figure things out for herself after her

Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies is now in paperback!! Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by Dan Santat (author and illustrator images at left - you can't tell, but Andrea's eyes are all swirly and hypnotized, and, yes, that fanged bunny is Dan)is a comic book-horror show mash up, a little bit like if Goosebumps, Mystery Science Theater and Captain Underpants got

I have so many reasons to recommend The Six Crowns series by Gary Chalk and Allan Frewin Jones I'm not sure where to start. The Six Crowns is a highly readable, fantastically illustrated fantasy series that can easily take its place next to standards like Brian Jaques' Redwall series and Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart's Edge Chronicles. In fact, The Six Crowns is a perfect blending of these

Before there was Erin Hunter and the Warriors cat clans, before there was Brian Jacques and the rodents of Redwall Abbey, even before Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, there was the hill and those who inhabited it. Reading Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson again, I am moved by the sense of community and companionship that he creates amongst the various woodland animals as well as forging a

With My Extra Best Friend, Julie Bowe wraps up her Friends For Keeps Series that began in 2007 with My Last Best Friend. As always, the wonderful Jana Christy provides the colorful cover art and the fantastic illustration of the whole gang at camp on the inside. With this, the fifth book in the series, Bowe brings the eventful fourth grade year of Ida May to a close and brings her series

Tua and the Elephant is a beautiful, delightful little book set in Thailand about a girl and an elephant by RP Harris with marvelous illustrations by Taeeun Yoo. Aptly, Sara Gruen, author of the adult novel Like Water for Elephants, wrote a great review of Tua and the Elephant that ran in the New York Times Book Review in May. The prologue of Tua and the Elephant tells us that "when Tua was

I remember the original Choose Your Own Adventure books from when I was a kid with a gleeful fondness. After all, thirty years ago there wasn't much innovation or marketing going on in the world of kid's books. The word "tween" hadn't even been invented yet. In 2002, when the rights of the titles in the CYOA series reverted back to author and series founder RA Montgomery, he began

Tom Angleberger has to be the greatest author to come along in a while when it comes to writing books for kids who just don't want to tackle the 400 page fantasy novels that have been so popular for the last decade or more. His books The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda and the sequel, Darth Paper Strikes Back are excellent alternatives to Diary of a Wimpy Kid for those of you who don't want

There are publishers who put out great stories and there are publishers who put out beautiful books and there are a handful of publishers who manage to do both. In the world of kid's books, Candlewick Press and Amulet Books stand out as publishers of beautiful books that contain superlative stories. When it comes to graphic novels, :01 First Second publishes books that are equally compelling,

Many years ago I discovered Lauren Child's wonderful picture book I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, a very funny and clever book about a picky eater and her older sibling charged with feeding her dinner. Charlie and Lola, stars of this book and many others, went on to become television stars as well. Lauren Child has quite a way with kid-speak and presenting the world from a kid's perspective

Since I started writing book reviews I have become the kind of person who reads the quotes of praise on the back of the book, the dedications and always, always the author notes and acknowledgements. Katherine Applegate's newest book, The One and Only Ivan, comes with some very high praise from award winning authors Patricia MacLachlan ("Beautifully written, intelligent, and brave, this story is

I fell in love with the works of Sara Varon when I came across her first graphic novel Robot Dreams a couple of years ago. I was  very new to graphic novels at the time and her wordless story of friendship was charming and just a little bit haunting as well, her illustrations simple, sometimes silly and always deeply descriptive. And I love robots. Now, with Bake Sale she covers another favorite

The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary by Candace Fleming is nothing short of brilliant. Everyone has heard of Aesop and his fables and, if nothing else, most people know the big three: the tortoise and the hare (slow and steady wins the race), the story of the ant and the grasshopper (there is time for work and time for play) and the story of the lion and the mouse (a kindness is never

With My Forever Friends, the fourth book in her Forver Friends series, Julie Bowe brings (almost) to a close the eventful fourth grade year of Ida May. When we first met Ida May at the start of the school year in My Last Best Friend, she was mourning the loss of her best friend, Elizabeth, who moved away. Ida resolves not to make any friends at all in fourth grade. The arrival of new girl

I have no doubt that you all know the picture books of Kevin Henkes (pronounced Hen-kis), including his Caldecott winning Kitten's First Full Moon and the Caldecott Honor winning Owen, as well as the modern classics Chrysanthemum and Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, which came out in 1996 when my daughter was three. This book was a huge part of our lives (we have Lily and little brother Julius dolls

  Nicola Davies is a zoologist and her author bio is so great I have to quote it in full here.  Of her passion, she says, "In the wild, I've seen dwarf chameleons smaller than my little finger and blue whales bigger than my house, and I couldn't say which is more thrilling. I'd love to see the world's smallest mammal - the bumblebee bat, which is the size of . . . yes, a bumblebee. Imagine how

This year in celebration of National Poetry Month, I want to celebrate by featuring books written in verse instead of books of poetry. I can't think of a better way to start this off than with Robert Paul Weston's marvel, Zorgamazoo. Written entirely in quatrains and couplets, Zorgamazoo screams to be read out loud, although is just as entertaining read on one's own. But, before I share the

The Doll's House, written in 1948 by British author Rumer Godden, with illustrations that were added in 1962 by Tasha Tudor,  is, along with Rachel Field's Hitty:  Her First Hundred Years, a significant influence in the relatively small genre of books about dolls.  Having read or reread The Doll People, Big Susan and Hitty, as well as many picture books featuring dolls and or doll houses, some

Julie Bowe continues the story of fourth grader Ida May, her new friend Stacey Merriweather and her old nemesis, Jenna Drews in her Friends for Keeps series that began with < href="http://www.books4yourkids.com/2009/04/my-last-best-friend-by-julie-bowe-146pp.html" target="_blank">My Last Best Friend. In the second book in the series, My New Best Friend, Ida feels secure in her friendship with