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Lynn: In the early days of Bookends we posted about picture books that my grandsons and I read together and loved. But now that we are with Booklist I’ve been thinking I need to sound more serious and less like a doting grandmother. Cindy and I talked about calling the boys our focus group which [...]

Lynn: I am one of those people who needs a good dose of indignation now and then but even if you are hard-wired for calmness the story told in Almost Astronauts (Candlewick, Feb. 2009) is guaranteed to hit a ten on anyone’s IQ (indignation quotient) scale. While working on another book, Stone came across an [...]

Cindy: How do arch rivals survive together? Very carefully. Lynn is a dyed in the (black and gold) wool Purdue Boilermaker while I am an Indiana Hoosier fanatic. Big Ten Basketball season tests our friendship every winter. When we worked in the same library we used to threaten to put a line down the middle [...]

Cindy: Lynn has been waiting for me to read this for forever. I have no excuse except that it is a thin book and kept getting lost in my stacks and piles of reading despite my eagerness to read it. Fortunately it is just publishing this month, so I’m not really too far behind. Tales [...]

Lynn: When I sat down to read this fascinating book, I was immediately aware of the impact of the book design. Newspaper sized, the cover appears worn on the spine and edges and has a lovely smooth feel. Interior pages of Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Remembered (Feiwel 2008) are yellowed and appear stained in [...]

Lynn: Just two short weeks ago we were gleefully visiting the publisher booths at ALA Midwinter in Denver, looking hungrily at the wonderful new books on display. Many kind publishers noted our pitiful state and we eventually staggered to our hotel with armloads of galleys to ship home. The boxes arrived quickly and now we [...]

Lynn: Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809, a birthday shared with Abraham Lincoln. Deborah Heiligman begins this biography not with Darwin’s birth but with his debate about whether to marry. The result is a fresh and unique book that allows readers not only to know the Darwins but also to understand Charles’ scientific thought [...]

Cindy: We have a friend who authors the blog, 100 Scope Notes, who occasionally reports on book covers that feature similar jacket art. Travis Jonker is an elementary librarian with a great writing style and awesome sense of humor and literary taste. In addition to great book reviews you’ll find “Sunday’s Link du Jour,” “Nonfiction [...]

Cindy: I’ve been a fan of Ruth White’s work since first reading Weeping Willow and the Newbery Honor book Belle Prater’s Boy. I knew there were autobiographical details in her novels, but with Little Audrey (Farrar, 2008) we learn more about a tough period in White’s childhood. The book starts off with a remarkable photograph [...]

When we read John Green’s novel, Paper Towns, we learned about the concept of cartographers using fictional towns on their maps for copyright protection.  You can even read more about that practice on Omnictionary, I mean, Wikipedia. We were recently gifted with a 1946 Esso Map of New York State that shows the town of [...]