Small Reads for Brighters Days
I’ve been corresponding with author Kate Hosford recently for an interview, and she read on my site that one of my daughters is named Annabelle.?Kate immediately and generously sent?Annabelle a signed copy of her picture book Big Birthday (Carolrhoda, 2012), a charming rhyming story that features a girl named Annabelle who wants an out-of-this-world birthday […]
Bonny Becker's latest Mouse and Bear book, The Sniffles for Bear (Candlewick, 2011), had me laughing the other day. The very first page clues in the careful reader to the conflict: Bear was sick, very, very sick.His eyes were red. His snout was red.His throat was sore and gruffly.In fact, Bear was quite sure no onehad […]
Seriously, is there anything that J. Patrick Lewis can not write? The Children’s Poet Laureate has plenty of non-poetry books, too. And Tugg and Teeny is his series of easy readers from Sleeping Bear Press. Tugg’s a gorilla, Teeny’s a monkey, and they’re best friends. And they are adorable! In both Book One and Book […]
Coming Soon (March 16, if you want to be particular) to a Blog Near You (that would be right here one week, and then Susan Taylor Brown’s blog the next)!!! I told you about our online book club last week, and how we’re going to read through parts of writing books we like and–gasp!–actually do […]
The Finalists were announced over the weekend for the Minnesota Book Awards. I was so happy to see some books I love recognized and surprised to see other books I love NOT recognized. But I guess that’s how it goes. If a few books won every award, fewer books would get love. I also wondered which […]
I met Kate Messner last year at ALA at (I think) a Toni Buzzeo event hosted by Esme Raji Codell. And it’s taken me THIS long to get around to read the book she was promoting at that time! But it was worth the wait. The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (Walker, 2009) is wonderful, and […]
Nikki Grimes’ Dyamonde Daniel books (Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel is the first; Rich, the second, is out; and the third, Almost Zero, comes out in September) have gotten tons of great buzz, so maybe you’re way ahead of me in reading them! Saturday morning, I got up early to grocery shop. I was having […]
Donna Gephart is a friend of a friend, and I’ve been meaning to check out her books for ages. I recently read two of her books. I started with As If Being 12 3/4 Isn’t Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running for President, which I really enjoyed. But then I moved on to How Survive Middle School […]
I’ve read/listened to a streak of good YA novels lately, which is unusual for me. The latest one I’ve read that I loved is Split, by Minnesota writer Swati Avasthi. I met Swati at an event a year ago and was looking forward to reading her first book. And now I’m looking forward to reading her […]
I was excited to score a free ARC of Jody Feldman’s new book, The Seventh Level (Greenwillow, 2010), which comes out tomorrow! I really liked The Gollywhopper Games, about a kind of modern-day Charlie and the Chocolate Factory contest full of puzzles and intrigue. I love puzzles and intrigue. The Seventh Level also delivers both, […]
