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Cindy: Just when you think there’s no need for another rehash of a familiar folktale (although, really, are there ever enough folktale retellings?) you find an author and illustrator who add important elements to the tale. In The 3 Bears and Goldilocks (Atheneum, 2008) when Willey’s Goldilocks gets to the bears’ house it’s not embroidery [...]

Our hearts are heavy today with the news of the tragic accident at the close of the ALA Conference that took the lives of two talented librarians and friends of children’s literature, Kathy Krasniewicz and Kate McClelland. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and close friends today and in the difficult days to [...]

Lynn: So there we were at the airport, 5:30 am, suitcases in hand and giddy with anticipation. ALA Midwinter was a short flight away and we would be set loose on the publisher booths in the exhibit hall, ready to scoop up all the enticing arcs for the new publishing season! Dinners, friends, committees and [...]

Our lists of top books of the year would not be complete without our favorite picture books. I miss my days as a public library children’s librarian for the storyhours and the picture books. Even though I work with middle school students now, I’ve kept my puppets, Where the Wild Things Are dolls and my [...]

Lynn: We both love food, cooking and, of course, books about food so how Dear Julia (HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2008) flew under our radar is a mystery. Happily I got the opportunity to read this during the holiday and started pestering Cindy immediately with demands that she read this right away! (I have found this technique distracts [...]

Lynn: It is exciting that we are inaugurating Bookend’s association with Booklist as Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. We are admirers of our new president and wanted to find just the right book to celebrate. We thought it would be fitting to choose a book about Abraham Lincoln, [...]

Choosing our top ten titles this year (Lynn’s list / Cindy’s list) was so hard. Even when Lynn cheated and added an extra title many of our favorite books were still left out. So we decided to list our top five nonfiction titles too. These are chosen for their outstanding quality and are listed alphabetically [...]

Why 13 titles? Everyone makes a top ten, and besides, Cindy and I can’t possibly narrow our favorites down that far, so we’re giving you a Baker’s Dozen of 2008 favorites. Mine are here and Cindy’s are in a separate post. Our first ten are selected on literary merit alone and are in alphabetic order [...]

Why 13 titles? Everyone makes a top ten, and besides, Lynn and I can’t possibly narrow our favorites down that far, so we’re giving you a Baker’s Dozen of 2008 favorites. Mine are here and Lynn’s are in a separate post. Our first ten are selected on literary merit alone and are in alphabetic order [...]