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Before I write anything about these two wonderful books, I have to mention Sophie Blackall (The Crows of Pearlblossom by Aldous Huxley, Mr and Mrs Bunny - Detectives Extraordinaire! by Polly Horvath) a favorite illustrator of mine an now book reviewer! While I had More in my pile of books to review, it was Blackall's review of Springman's book in the NY Times on May 11, 2012 that introduced me

Dead Boys by Royce Buckingham begins with a prologue that tells the story of an old sycamore tree growing in Richland, WA in the arid, eastern part of the state.  Just down the road from the Hanford Nuclear Plant, site of some serious toxic waste dumps into the Columbia River in the 1940s.  This dump fills the tree with toxic energy, turning it hungry and violent.  When a twelve-year old boy

The Roar by British author Emma Clayton is so many amazing things at once and has stirred up such visceral feelings in me that I hope I can do it justice here. For a very concise review by that hits all the right spots, check out Pink Me, which is a book review site written by a children's librarian with great taste and insight when it comes to YA books. For my longer, slightly more rambling

There are plenty on non-fiction books for children on the market these days covering everything earth related from recycling to global warming, getting the point across with facts, crafts and mazes. Any bookstore or library you walk into this month should have a display of some or all of these books.Having a literary focus on my blog, I will leave the reading of these books up to you. I want

With his first book for children, former National Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser tells the story of a plastic grocery bag, the "color of the skin of a yellow onion," as it blows out of a landfill and into the lives of several townsfolk. Bag in the Wind is beautifully and somberly illustrated by Barry Root, subject of a great interview over at Just One More Book. About Bag in

Almost every child I have ever had the pleasure of knowing has been fascinated by bugs, which usually also involved some form of "playing " with them... Yucky Worms by Vivian French, with pictures by Jessica Ahlberg, illustrator of the Toon Tellegen's marvelous forest books, the first of which is The Squirrel's Brithday and other Parties and Insect Detective, written by Steve Voake, author of

Standing for Socks, the debut novel from Elissa Brent Weissman employs one of my favorite plot devices in adult literature, children's literature and even movies, namely, how one, seemingly miniscule, unconscious act can shape and change a person's life forever.  In Standing for Socks, fifth grader Fara Ross unwittingly wears one white and one dark grey sock to school and starts a kid-sized

Reading Toby Alone by French playwright Timothée de Fombelle, translated by Sarah Ardizzone, winner of the Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation, and illustrated by François Place, is a bit like looking at an optical illusion where two different images vie for prominence - in a good way. The story of Toby Lolness, thirteen at the start of the story, and the events that cause him

Once again, the remarkable academics of Professor Ari Berk and multifaceted artistry that made The Secret History of Giants a treasure of a book come together to bring us The Secret History of Mermaids and Creatures of the Deep, another look into the archives of the Order of the Golden Quills. Like the Ology series of books published by Candlewick Press, Berk's Secret Histories (a series, I