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At last! The season for previews has begun yet again! And as of right now I am (checks watch) four previews behind.
Yipes!
Guess we better get started then. If you want to read a recap of this same preview done already (and on time) though, check out this Early Word post by Lisa Von Drasek.
This Fall I’ve been hurry scurrying to each preview in a whirlwind gust of bad timing. Either I’m entering late or I’m leaving early. The Penguin preview was no exception. With only a little time to spare before I conducted that day’s storytimes at my own branch, I burst in, grabbed a muffin, hit a chair, hyperventilated for precisely 3.8 seconds, and then ZOUNDS! We were off!!
First up . . .
Grosset & Dunlap
Who surprised me by being the first imprint of the day (a fact that got me in trouble later, but the less said about that the better). I had little time to be surprised when I saw which editor would be speaking to my table. It was Editorial Assistant Karl Jones. I may have seen Mr. Jones around and about before. He’s been with Penguin little over a year, after all. At this time, however, all I could see was the man’s mustache. It was, to be blunt, epic. I’m a huge mustache fan over here. If I had my way every man I know would sport a handlebar (and maybe a monocle too, if I’m pushing my luck). Though not precisely a handlebar, the mustache of Mr. Jones kept me thoroughly enthralled for the better part of his presentation. Fortunately I had the wherewithal to keep notes all the while.
If the kids in your library system are anything like my own then there’s just something about that Who Was? series that makes them happy. I don’t know if it’s the bobblehead portraits on the covers, the reading level, or the interior illustrations but the kiddos are kooky for these things. Looking at the full list of subjects I see that they’ve covered almost all the bio basics. Seems the only folks left at this point that get regularly assigned are Helen Keller and Matthew Henson. At least three titles in 2012 are coming out in Spanish this April (Martin Luther King, Jr., Sacagawea, and a Thomas Edison that out of the corner of my eye keeps looking like James Dean). This January Babe Ruth is joining the ranks in Who Was Babe Ruth? by Joan Holub. Cover illustrator Nancy Harrison has really gone to town too. The man’s multiple chins are on full display. I suspect my Yankee loving patrons (this is New York after all) will snap it up right quick.
I’ve a girl in the children’s bookgroup I run who only wants to read books of the girly girl persuasion. If it’s got a cheerleader on the cover, she’s interested. As a result, I try my darndest to steer her towards similar books that have a little more meat and a little less glitter. Elizabeth Cody Kimmel is now coming out with a series in the vein of Luv Ya Bunches or The Babysitters Club that follows four new friends as they work together on a school magazine. The series is called Forever Four and the first two books in the series should be out this January.
10 Comments on Librarian Preview: Penguin Young Readers Group (Spring 2012), last added: 11/3/2011
I like a lot of things about Lerner, but probably what I like the most is the fact that they’ve managed to transition from rote titles that are of primary use in schoolrooms to publishing of all kinds of books. Not that they don’t still create useful books for class use, but this preview should be a pretty exhaustive look at the sheer range of titles they’re capable of putting out in a given season. Prior to the birth of my young I sat down with some Lernerites and got a glimpse of what’s on the fall menu.
First up, the primary grades. Lerner includes the Reading Levels on their books, so I may as well follow suit.
Reading Level 1
First up, blogging about a blogger. How meta. In this particular case I am blogging about Brit blogger Jane Brocket. She’s done books for the Millbrook Press imprint of Lerner before, previously about textures. With Ruby, Violet, Lime: Looking for Color she presents photographs of hues and shades ala Tana Hoban. Part of the allure of Brocket’s books is that kids can easily apply what they see t their own lives. The cool photography doesn’t hurt matters much either.
Reading Level 2
Every fall it’s the same. On my reference computer I have a list of autumnal titles for display. First come the apple books. Then the leaf books. Anything that refers to the season directly comes out, you bet. About the time I start searching for pumpkin books, you know we’re running out of titles. Author Martha Rustad sort of figured this out so she created a series where a single topic (fall) is extended over several books. You have the standard apples, pumpkins, and leaves as well as books about harvests, animals in the fall, and how the weather changes. It almost makes me wonder if fall is the most popular season to study because it’s so cool or because it comes at the beginning of the school year. Hmmm…
A different series eschews minor seasonal changes and goes for the big guns. Planet Protectors will undoubtedly circulate best during the Earth Day season, though I get kids and parents throughout the year that ask for environmental fare. For the K-2 crowd, these books will fit since they cover pollution, recycling, clean water, and others of this ilk. I also like the literalism behind Watch Over Our Water’s cover. Oh, she’s watching all right. She’s watching.
0 Comments on Librarian Preview: Lerner Books (Fall 2011) as of 1/1/1900
Prior to my babyfied state I met with two publishers who gave me the rundown on their upcoming seasons. Not knowing when I’d get to their previews I had the vague hope that I’d be able to do so before their books came out (Fall 2011). Fortunately, sometimes life works out just the way you’d hoped it would. So here now, fresh off the presses, comes the fascinating Fall 2011 season Albert Whitman & Co. have whipped up for us here.
First off, until now Whitman has not typically done a lot in the area of young adult literature. But as other smaller publishers have made in-roads into courting the YA market (Chronicle, for example, comes to mind) so too has this company. In this particular case, Whitman has committed to two YA novels for the fall season, both published overseas originally. The Poisoned House by Michael Ford is the first of these. Now I took one look at this cover and thought to myself, “A kid would grab that instantly if they saw it.” So I decided to try a little experiment. For the final children’s bookgroup meeting of the year, prior to my maternity leave, I pulled out a cart of galleys and new books. The kids were allowed to take one book each, and we determined their order by pulling their names out of a hat. As I had suspected, the very first book to go was The Poisoned House. The kid didn’t even have to look twice. All she saw was (A) an awesome cover and (B) a description of a story that involved Victorian ghosts, scullery maids, and madness. I didn’t even have to describe to her the fact that in this story handprints start appearing on windows where handprints cannot go.
A very different title is the other YA novel Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera. Here, I think Whitman got a little too subtle with the cover. This, for example, was the British cover:
And here the American:
I know which of the two I’d find more appealing. That said, this book (shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award in the UK) tells the story of a kid who spends two years in Guantanamo. Sound unlikely? Fact of the matter is that 12-year-olds have been held in that particular detention center. So in a sense, the book is examining why good people do bad things (like build places like Guantanamo Bay). In September its author will be coming to the U.S. which is awfully good timing. Also well timed: The timeline in the back of the book will include Bin Laden’s death.
Best Byline: “Innocent until proven guilty? Not here you’re not.”
I’ve always had a healthy appreciation for picture books that know how to use plasticine. They’re rare, though.
Saying that one is spoiled in New York City is sort of like saying that water is wet or snow is cold. There are tradeoffs, of course. The filth. The crowds. The teeny tiny apartments. But for all of that, you instantly forget your previous discomforts when you get to visit gorgeous landmarks as part of your daily job. One such example is the Flatiron Building where Macmillan holds its previews and far too tasty treats. The treats are a bit of a problem, particularly the brownies that are small and delicious and very easy to cram in your mouth with both hands. Prior to entering the building I had killed some time in a park that lies across the street from the building where I watched for, perhaps too long a period, a squirrel eat a gigantic muffin that was twice the size of its own head. I took this as a sign that I should partake of the edibles.
In the past the Macmillan previews would consist of small groups of librarians leaping from office to office. There was a great deal of fun to be had in this, since you got to see where folks like Neal Porter or Frances Foster worked. The downside is that it meant that sometimes one group would still be speaking while another group waited around outside. Now they’ve streamlined it a tad. So while you don’t get to sink into Nancy Mercado’s couch, say, you do get to sit down while the editors and such come to you.
So it was that my group was led to a large and comfy conference room with big framed covers of popular books published by Macmillan (Generation X, All Creatures Great and Small, etc.) loomed above us as we discussed what the hashtag for the day should be (this is the advantage of attending a preview with the #1 preview Twitter-ers Jennifer Hubert-Swan and John Rocco). Each chair held a bag with some galleys inside and the bags… the bags! They were canvass and small with these thick ropy straps. They’re fantastic. I hope they have them at ALA for you guys this June. As for the handouts, they were full color and contained (and this is marvelous and perhaps unprecedented) a Table of Contents. Wow!
Before we begin, I will note that I had to split halfway through the preview to cover the reference desk at work. As such, you’ll be hearing about what I encountered, albeit briefly.
Farrar Straus & Giroux
We’ve always had minimalist children’s books, though the number increases and decreases depending on the trends of the day. 2011 is shaping up to be a particularly shape-driven year, though. Look on the New York Times bestseller list and you’ll see that Herve Tullet’s Press Here is selling like hotcakes. Check out Harper Collins and Perfect Square, that loveliest of the lovelies. And here at FSG there’s Dot by Patricia Intriago. The book is not only Intriago’s own debut, but it will be one of the first titles launched with the Margaret Ferguson imprint that’s coming out this fall. We were told that this was a case where the agent sent
I just searched my archives to see if I ever made a “monted eggs” joke in conjunction with Egmont USA. To my chagrin, I did that very thing during the last Egmont preview. Gah. I hate being so predictable that even I can figure out what old jokes I’ll be pulling out at a given moment.
In any case, Egmont recently hosted the Summer/Fall preview of all their upcoming titles for the librarian hoards of New York. And while their children’s offerings pale in the face of the YA fare, they provide me with cheese and so I go. On this particular day the temperature was swelling well into the 90s in New York, giving me a brief glimpse of what pregnant women must normally endure in August. An unpleasant sensation.
Picture Books
Just as it was at the last preview, Egmont has all of one picture book to their name per season. And this year, that would be Little Lost Cowboy by Simon Puttock, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church. The book was introduced with the joking caveat, “We only want to do animals that you can cuddle and are cute.” Crayfish, you are outta luck. In this book a rolly-poly coyote cub is separated from his mommy. He manages to indulge in a couple key “Aroooo”s, which reminded me of the Aroooos of one of my favorite picture book readalouds Katie Loves the Kittens. A well placed Aroooo is worth its weight in gold. Trust me.
And that polished off the picture books right there. No time lost, eh?
Middle Grade
Y’know, for a supervillain Vordak the Incomprehensible sure seems to align himself with some pretty up-and-up causes. Our attention at this point in the preview was directed to a nearby Reading Rules poster, as created by ALA. There you may see Vordak tearing up just a little over The Velveteen Rabbit.
For fans of Vordak, a sequel was announced at this time. I can count on one hand the number of children’s books written with adult protagonists that are human. The general rule when it comes to making adults your heroes in books with kids is that they have to be a furry animal or no ten-year-old will be interested (call it The Redwall Conundrum). Vordak flips that theory neatly on its ear . . . or at least he did until the book Vordak the Incomprehensible: Rule the School was announced. Voluntarily
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on 4/22/2011
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Previews, previews! Lovely little previews!
And we find ourselves back at the Yale Club, across the street from Grand Central Station, and a whopping 10 minutes away, on foot, from my library. There are advantages to living on a tiny island, I tell ya.
As per usual, Little Brown pulled out all the stops for the average children’s and YA librarian, in order to showcase their upcoming season. There were white tablecloths and sandwiches consisting of brie and ham and apples. The strange result of these previews is that I now seem to be under the mistaken understanding that Little Brown’s offices are located at the Yale Club. They aren’t. That would make no sense. But that’s how my mind looks at things. When I am 95 and senile I will insist that this was the case. Be warned.
A single day after my return from overseas I was able to feast my eyes on the feet of Victoria Stapleton (the Director of School and Library Marketing), bedecked in red sparkly shoes. I would have taken a picture but my camera got busted in Bologna. I was also slightly jet lagged, but was so grateful for the free water on the table (Europe, I love you, but you have to learn the wonders of ample FREE water) that it didn’t even matter. Megan Tingley, fearless leader/publisher, began the festivities with a memory that involved a child’s story called “The Day I Wanted to Punch Daddy In the Face”. Sounds like a companion piece to The Day Leo Said “I Hate You”, does it not?
But enough of that. You didn’t come here for the name dropping. You can for the books that are so ludicrously far away in terms of publication (some of these are January/February/March 2012 releases) that you just can’t resist giving them a peek. To that end, the following:
Liza Baker
At these previews, each editor moves from table to table of librarians, hawking their wares. In the case of the fabulous Ms. Baker (I tried to come up with a “Baker Street Irregulars” pun but it just wasn’t coming to me) the list could start with no one else but Nancy Tafuri. Tafuri’s often a preschool storytime staple for me, all thanks to her Spots, Feathers and Curly Tails. There’s a consistency to her work that a librarian can appreciate. She’s also apparently the newest Little Brown “get”. With a Caldecott Honor to her name (Have You Seen My Duckling?) the newest addition is All Kinds of Kisses. It’s pretty cute. Each animals gets kisses from parent to child with the animal sound accompanying. You know what that means? We’re in readaloud territory here, people. There’s also a little bug or critter on each page that is identified on the copyright page for parents who have inquisitive children.
Next up, a treat for all you Grace Lin fans out there. If you loved Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat then you’ll probably be pleased as punch to hear that there’s a third
I’d been feeling a bit guilty about Penguin recently. If my calculations are correct (and I think that they are) I haven’t been to a Penguin preview since April of 2010. The timing just never worked out! I do hold down a 9-5 job in the library, after all, so angling my free days to be on preview days doesn’t always work out for me. Fortunately I was able to make up for my missing mug at the most recent librarian preview so as to see the goodies and not be caught in the cold when something like A Tale Dark & Grimm comes down the pike (one of the books I missed hearing about last year).
Preparations this time around included:
- A promise to myself not to eat ALL the desserts on the dessert table at lunch.
- A orange concoction placed in my purse that I would have to drink at precisely 1:30 for my doctor’s appointment. It’s a pregnant thing. There’s a test they do where they make you chug what essentially amounts to a drink that has more in common with that horrid orange pop McDonalds used to serve when I was a kid (not quite juice, not quite good) only warm and flat.
But enough of that! You want to hear about books, and I want to tell you about what’s on the roster. To the previewing!
Dutton Children’s Books
Lauren Myracle. Is there a nicer gal in the business? Place your bets now, but I’m telling you that I have the inside track on this one. Lauren’s the sweetest, hands down. There are some authors out there you just feel grateful to the universe for properly appreciating (“properly appreciating” = “allows them to make a living at writing”). Lauren is one such person. I say all this in preparation of the glorious news that she has a new book out in her Winnie Perry series. Ten will be a prequel to the books Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, and Thirteen Plus One. Think of it as the thing Phyllis Reynolds Naylor did with her Alice series. Actually this particular series is now being rebranded “The Winnie Years”, so be warned librarians. When desperate ten-year-olds cling to your leg demanding a particular book in “that Winnie series” know now what that will actually mean. By the way, any idea who the cover artist is on these books? Seems to me that this person deserves some of the credit for the popularity of the series. Or at the very least, the look.
You’re not gonna get a whole lot of young adult books out of me this time around, but I feel obligated to mention Nova Ren Suma’s upcoming novel Imaginary Girls, in part because her de
Whew! Boy, am I getting this last one in right under the gun or what? Which is to say, before the end of January has passed. The new round of previews begin in February so I didn’t want to have any loose stragglers waiting about when I saw the new crop of 2011 titles.
A month ago Michelle Bayuk did me the very great favor of sitting down and showing me a couple of the offerings Albert Whitman & Company have on their roster. AW & Co. is a smaller publishing company than most of the folks I cover. Located in what I assume to be the lovely but currently freezing Park Ridge, Illinois (though who am I to talk?) the company is able to indulge in smaller more personal titles that the biggies out there. That’s why I like ‘em. This season? No exception.
First up, their logical catalog begins with board books. There’s the usual cluster of previous titles turned into board books, like Alison Formento’s This Tree, 1,2,3 or Rebecca O’Connell’s Done With Diapers!: A Potty ABC. My eyes, however, were fixed on the new batch of books from one Martine Perrin. Already a hit in her native France, Perrin’s board books are entirely splendid from a visual standpoint. AW&Co. is translating and bringing to our shores two of her books for starters. The first is Look Who’s There, with a snazzy die-cut board book cover. The other book, What Do You See?, is reminiscent of the work of Laura Vaccaro Seeger with its visual cut-out puzzles. Very cool. Put ‘em on your board book wish list then.
Next up, British author/illustrator Sarah Gibb also makes an appearance on our shores. Her version of Rapunzel should be out in March and it’s perfectly situated to appeal to those . . . fine. Those girls (I’m sure there are boys that like princesses too sometimes, y’know) who incline towards Disney-esque figures. This Rapunzel does bear some similarities, at least on the cover, to Disney’s Sleeping Beauty right off the bat. The title itself tells some of the tale in a series of silhouettes. They’re gorgeous silhouettes, though, showing things I’ve never seen before. Things like a perfect layout of at least four of the floors in Rapunzel’s tower (love the spinning wheel in one of the rooms). We all love our Zelinsky Rapunzel, but this one has some points to recommend it as well. I found some of the interior spreads online. Here’s a taste:
10 Comments on Librarian Preview: Albert Whitman & Company (Spring 2011), last added: 1/27/2011
It’s a bit late in the season for me to keep typing up these librarian previews, but due to the fact that the “Spring” has only just begun, I think I have a little leeway for my two remaining previews before I start hearing about the Summer 2011 books that are right around the corner.
If I’ve not done HMH before it isn’t because I don’t like their books and more because they are based out of Boston whilst I languish here in New York (languish means to carry on and have a fine old time, right?). Fortunately all that ended with a delightful lunch and a peek at what the future has in store.
First off, an ode to catalogs. Soon they shall go the way of the dinosaur, which is a pity since as of right now it is still much easier to write notes and stick Post-Its in catalogs than it is to do the same to a website. The HMH Spring 2011 catalog had a couple distinguishing characteristics that I would like to point out to you now. Mainly:
- They split their books up by genre rather than imprint, which is a far more manageable form for librarian types when ordering.
- They list their bookstore representatives in the back.
- They also list their authors and illustrators by state and include those people’s websites. This is a very good idea. Just the other day in my library I had a parent who informed me that she needed a book by either an author from South Carolina or a chapter book that took place in South Carolina. A search of the South Carolina SCBWI chapter didn’t yield much and in the end I sent her home happy with a copy of The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis (which takes place there) instead. Would that I had known about this catalog! Why, we could have rustled up books by Gene Fehler instead. But I digress.
The board book section of the catalog comes first, as is right. We didn’t talk much about it, though. I mean, it’s kind of cool to see the new BB version of Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers (illustrated by Marla Frazee) or Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar’s Bubble Trouble, but picture book to board book transformations must be viewed firsthand in order to determine if they’ve successfully edited down the unnecessary. Fortunately I have a test subject in the works that will help me to determine these facts with me soon.
From there we go on to picture books, and here we find the first surprise of the day. 2010 was the year that folks couldn’t help but get excited about The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska. It won the Gold at the Society of Illustrators event, but was ineligible for a Caldecott since the illustrator, for all her charms, lives in Canada. And thus a nation weeps. But dry your eyes, folks! This spring we’re going to see The Loud Book come our way! Yup. Everything from “Aunt Tillie’s banjo band loud&r
Did you get the new Simon & Schuster catalog the other day in the mail? If you did, did you feel the cover? It’s a strange thing to ask, I know, but I did. I felt that cover. I felt it because there was something new going on there. It has a thick comfortable texture very different from the slick and shiny covers we’ve grown so accustomed to.
Why all the cover luvin’? Because it’s bloody hard to find a new way to introduce a librarian preview these days. When a Simon & Schuster preview rolls around there are certain elements I know I will be able to count on. (1) Orange juice. Orange juice with a variety of pulp-preferences, I should add. (2) Muffins, preferably those of the chocolate variety (no bagels, thank you). (3) A special guest.
The S&S special guests appear to alternate between guests for the children’s book side of things and guests for the YA folks. On this particular day we were looking at a newbie YA author by the name of Lauren Destefano. She’s the author of a new dystopian YA series beginning with a title by the name of Wither. We were given little test tubes full of chocolate covered sunflower seeds as part of our goody bags with the name Wither on the side, which is a rather novel notion. The test tubes made sense too since the series is about a society in which boys and girls don’t live past their twenties anymore. Which, when you consider the average age of your debut YA authors these days, probably means that in this society you’d still have a nice number of YA writers alive and kicking (not as many children’s authors, I’m afraid).
All right. So for this preview I’m pretty much going to skip the YA side of things again, unless there’s something particularly strange or attractive to my weird little eyes. With that in mind let’s dive right into the picture books. It’s a very good place to start . . . . even if it’s with a celebrity picture book (oh my).
Spike Lee. He’s back. He’s back with Tonya Lewis Lee and a whole new bright n’ shiny illustrator, Sean Qualls. Qualls I like, though it’s interesting to see Lee with someone other than Kadir Nelson. Giant Steps to Change the World falls squarely in the graduation book category. More interesting perhaps was the fact that Justin Chandra explained how Mr. Qualls got his start with S&S. Apparently seven years ago Justin saw Sean displaying some of his art at a street fair. Impressed, Justin suggested that perhaps Sean should consider making some picture books, to which Sean replied that he already had two books under contract. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The story behind the republication of The Secret River by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillo
“I’m feeling very refreshed because I just washed my hands with the mouthwash in the bathroom.”
When one finds oneself invited to a librarian preview at the Yale Club for the Little Brown Spring/Summer 2011 season, it is useful to remember the following:
- Do not appear in jeans. I know it is your day off. They make you feel more relaxed, sure. But you will find that you are, in fact, quite scruffy when the fellow at the front desk calls you on them and you have to explain that you are a guest of Little Brown, thereby possibly casting aspersions on that venerable institution. I confess, I got a small thrill out of it anyway. Jeans in the Yale Club! Woo-hoo!
- Do not mistake the mouthwash in the ladies room (yes, it really is mouthwash) for the hand soap. Fortunately, the Yale Club does not outfit that room with an attendant. Otherwise you might have some ’splaining to do.
Instead, Megan Tingley, the Senior Vice President and Publisher of Little Brown Books explained how she had herself mistaken one item for another, thereby allowing her guests the opportunity to avoid the same mistake (which, in the past, I too have made). And as we were feted with brie/ham/apple sandwiches and coffee baked desserts, we got to hear about a new season with a real twist on the expected.
By the way, rather than end this round-up with the usual info, I’m going to play with fire and tell you right off the bat that if you would like a galley of anything you see here today, you need only contact Victoria Stapleton at [email protected] with the title(s) you desire. Be sure to include your full contact info. Sadly, if you have a P.O. Box you are out of the running. Little Brown isn’t allowed to ship to them.
Now the first, and maybe most unexpected, book of the day comes to us via Patrick McDonnell. See, I’ve always like McDonnell’s look. I like how his artistic style (the one he uses to make that Mutts comic strip) mimics that of Krazy Kat. However, I’ve never taken to his picture books. They tend to be pet-centric, or the kinds of books that go for the warm fuzzy feeling crowd. I am not a member of the fuzzy feeling crowd. That said, McDonnell has made a recent departure with his book Me…Jane that will interest non-Mutts reading folks like myself as well as his stalwart fans. The book is based on the childhood of Jane Goodall, and adapts rather beautifully to the old 40-page picture book format. As a child, Jane was given a stuffed chimpanzee (not a real one) as a toy. She kept extensive notes about the great outdoors (which are reproduced in the book). Mostly, though, the story just shows Jane climbing trees and hanging out in nature. The fact that she read Tarzan as a child is almost too perfect for words. And when you get to the end . . . I’m not a member of the fuzzy feeling crowd at all, but even just looking at the galley for this book for the first time, I admit . . . I welled up a little. I won’t spoil it for you. You’ll just have to find this little biography for yourself. And apparently a significant portion of the proceeds of this book goes to Jane’s foundation. Nicely done.
10 Comments on Librarian Preview: Little Brown and Company (Spring 2011), last added: 12/1/2010
These look great! Thank you very much-I love reading the preview posts. Were any Olympics books mentioned? They seem to be a bit absent from the 2012 catalogs that are out.
Thanks for the shout-out, Betsy!
I always look forward to reading your Librarian Previews — the next best thing to actually being there!
Ooh. La. La. A brand new Librarian Preview! Thanks so much for posting.
I’m a bigger fan of the Tedd Arnold’s earlier style than what he’s doing now, so i’m kind of sad to see NO JUMPING ON THE BED redone. I guess my hope for a reissue of my favorite Arnold title THE SIGNMAKER’S ASSISSTANT probably won’t be happening unless it too gets new illustrations.
I’m a huge fan of books told in stuff (even wrote my final YA lit paper on them) so I’m super excited to see Chopsticks!
“The general consensus was that A Hat for Minerva Louise is the best in the series.”
No argument from me!
Thanks, folks!
Olympics books? Maybe, but not while I was there. Maybe someone who was there will see this and speak to that.
That Robbie Forester cover looks like Half-Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer too.
Okay, I’ll bite, how did they get Zombie Lloyd Alexander to do a quote?
Well, it’s a quote for her previous book which came out quite some time ago. However, I love the name “Zombie Lloyd Alexander” so much that I think I’ll have to go as that next Halloween.