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This month's best selling kids series from The Children's Book Review's affiliate store, Pete the Cat, is great for highlighting a glass-half-full outlook.

Hot New Releases & Popular Kids Stories We think our list of the best new kids books for October is sensational! It highlights some amazing books from many different genres: non-fiction, reality fiction, and fantasy. Take a gander and let us know which titles and covers catch your eye ... Read the rest of this post

We have selected three picture books, a middle grade novel and two young adult books to highlight for this month's new release kids books. Enjoy perusing our picks for kids and teen books that we feel represent some of the best new kids stories ... Read the rest of this post

HarperCollins has established a new partnership with JetBlue. Henceforth, the content platform on JetBlue’s Fly-Fi (a special inflight Wi-Fi program) will feature content from HarperCollins books.

For this month, passengers will be able to read excerpts from Patricia Cornwell’s thriller novel Flesh and Blood, Amy Poehler’s memoir Yes Please, and James Dean’s children’s book Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses. Readers will have also have the option to purchase any of the available titles from a plethora of booksellers.

Here’s more from the press release: “At launch, JetBlue customers will be able to choose from excerpts of books by Daniel Silva, Martin Short, Anthony Bourdain, Patti Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Carine McCandless, Paulo Coelho, Patricia Cornwell, Dorothea Benton Frank, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Dick Couch, Amy Poehler, James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton, Peter Lerangis, Herman Parish, James Dean, Nate Ball, Dan Gutman, Lauren Oliver, and Erin Hunter. Titles will change monthly. Books from these HarperCollins authors will be available to customers as e-samplers via JetBlue’s Fly-Fi Hub, which is currently accessible on 35% of their fleet.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I remember distinctly the last time I held it in my hands. Shiny, yellow, beautiful – a huge exhaust pipe rolling out the back billowing imaginary smoke as my hotrod peeled rubber and raced away topping speeds of 210 miles per hour. I set my favorite Hot Wheels car on top of my dresser one night, went to bed, and never saw it again. I’m sure there is a logical explanation – factory recall, aliens, jealous friends, Hot Wheel collecting criminals. I looked for it everywhere to no avail. Whenever I read Robert Frost’s poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, I think of my car. It was just too good for this earth.

Did you ever lose something and it drove you nuts?

I lose stuff a lot. Big stuff, little stuff.

I had a jean jacket once. When I wore it, I was invincible. Cool like James Dean. All of my friends had them. When we felt cocky, we’d flip the collars up. In truth, we always felt cocky so they may as well have been starched. Those were the days

.

By the time I settled down into a job, that jacket had lived a pretty good life and didn’t really fit into a young professional wardrobe. It hung in the closet alone. Every once in a while, I would get it out just to smell it. It had the scent of autumn, the great outdoors, cheap perfume, debauchery, friendship and youth all rolled into one. I never dared wash it, lest I forget.

Then it was gone. On a chilly night, my girlfriend took it from my closet to warm her on her way home. I married the girl, but never saw my jean jacket again.

Was she jealous of the jacket? I don’t know. There are two predominant theories:

1. She tried to wash it but couldn’t make the smell go away or the collar go down.
2. She washed it and realized it would never be the same. Ruined.

She swears she never took it. (It’s not like I have a history of losing stuff…)

And then, there are these polka-dotted shoes she owned. I hated those shoes. Somehow, in a move, they disappeared. Although I shoulder the blame, I will go to my grave denying I had anything to do with their demise.

What happens to the stuff we lose? When we get to heaven, will there be a pile of it waiting for us? If so, I fear my pile will be huge. However big my mansion is, the closets are likely stuffed full already. Maybe when I show up, St. Peter will hand me jean jacket so I can inhale it in pure oxygen while I vroom my little yellow car across the clouds. I hope it smells the same, although they probably filter debauchery scents.

My wife can dance through the mist in her shoes I did NOT destroy.

Who knows where all of the stuff goes. One of the great mysteries of life.

The question is: does it matter? Am I the poorer for losing stuff?

Nah… Stuff is just stuff and most times, the memories are better than the stuff ever was. I never filled out that jacket as well as I remember. The collar should have stayed neatly down. But in my memory and a couple of pictures I have yet to lose, I was legendary.

Our best selling picture book for the past month is Herve Tullet's completely awesome Press Here (Chronicle Books, 2011). As per usual, we've shared our hand selected list of the most popular picture books from the nationwide best selling picture books, as listed by The New York Times

Need a little dose of positivity and acceptance today? We’re here to help you out!

Watch this trailer for PETE THE CAT AND THE NEW GUY, which is on sale today. We guarantee it’ll make you feel groovy!

And here’s another little bit of grooviness to take with you into the coming school year: a Common Core-aligned teaching guide to all of Pete the Cat’s picture books and I Can Read titles!

“Keep walking along and singing your song. Because it’s all good.”

Enter to win an autographed copy of Mighty Dads, story by award-winning author Joan Holub and illustrations by James Dean, creator of the bestselling "Pete the Cat" books. Giveaway begins April 15, 2014, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends May 14, 2014, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

The New York Times bestselling "Pete the Cat" picture book series tops The Children's Book Review's best selling kids series list. And the list of hand-selected series from the nationwide best selling Children's Series list, as noted by The New York Times, features the same popular dystopian thriller series as last month from the likes of Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins, the adventurous Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan, and the relatable Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney.

#20 Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean (2010)
68 points

Once the song is downloaded and played, it will never leave your head! Catchy in a good way. Also, it teaches an important lesson to “not sweat the small stuff.” Great for kids and adults alike. – Gina Detate

Do not be fooled by the simplicity of this little picture book. As with Mo Willems’ Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, there is more here than meets the eye; there is genius in the pages.

Here is my Tip-slash-Promise: If you will teach your little ones two things before you start reading, you will have an instant-favorite on your hands.
1] Teach them to say, with enthusiasm, of course, “”Goodness, no!”"
2] Teach them the song Pete sings. You can see a video of the author himself reading this book with kids at PetetheCat.com. Super-simple to learn and sing. Kids lovelovelove it.

One of my favorite things about Pete the Cat is the moral of the story, which speaks to adults more than it does to kids. Winner.

Warning: You will find yourself singing, at odd times of the day, “I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes….” – Kristi Hazelrigg

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a serious upset! A show of hands from all of you who saw this one coming. A few? Well done then. Though aware of Pete’s popularity I had mentally relegated him to that genre of popular picture books that get a lot of attention then fade slowly into the mist. I had not counted on Pete’s ability to attract not only the masses but the gatekeepers as well.

The plot according to SLJ reads, “Pete the Cat strolls down the street singing, ‘I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes.’ Then he steps in (actually climbs up) a huge hill of strawberries that turn his pristine sneakers red. ‘Did Pete cry? Goodness, no! He kept walking along and singing his song. I love my red shoes….’ He proceeds to step in a mound of blueberries and then a mud puddle, each incident changing his sneakers to a new hue (the colors never blend). Unsmiling but placid, Pete takes it all in stride. After stepping into a ‘bucket’—more like a tub—of water, he notices that his sneakers are not only white again, but also wet.”

The story behind the book is one of those once in a blue moon success stories.  Artist James Dean started out as an electrical engineer, actually.  After quitting his job to paint full time he adopted a small black cat, named it Pete, and started painting it with blue fur.  The real Pete took off for parts unknown but James kept painting him.  That’s when Eric saw the paintings around town (the town in question being Atlanta) and started writing songs about him.  Eventually the two men collaborated and voila.  Instant picture book.  The original Pete picture book was published by the author and illustrator in 2008 by their own Blue Whisker Press.  Two years later Harper Collins snapped him up and wasted no time in introducing him to the wider world.

Of course the flipside of this book being the massive success that it is is that now publishers are far more open to finding and publishing self-published picture books.  The successful ones that already have a following, anyway.  And because Pete is such a 21st century hep cat, I suspect that his rise has as much to do with his YouTube video as the book itself.  Can another picture book say the same?  I think not.

• Want some Pete art of your own?  Find it
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I know that, for some of you librarians, it feels like summer (and summer reading) will never end.  But I was visiting my family in California recently and my sister-in-law mentioned that my niece is starting school on August 10th!  August 10th!  That seems so early, doesn’t it?  Here in NYC, the public schools don’t start until after Labor Day.  What about your part of the country?  When does school start?

With school starting just around the corner, here are some new books to consider adding to your library to refresh and update your collections:

KINDERGATORS: HANDS OFF, HARRY! by Rosemary Wells
This is an excellent picture book recommendation for kids with personal space issues.

AMELIA BEDELIA’S FIRST FIELD TRIP by Herman Parish, illustrated by Lynne Avril
Take a look at activity ideas for your classroom and library.

PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean
It begs to be sung out loud – check out the video!  You can also download activities.

And for those of you librarians with another couple weeks of summer reading, hang in there!