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Cindy: Ladies and gentlemen, Children Of All Ages, with delightful derring-do and glitzy grammatical garnishing, Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan, in conjunction with the superior cyberspectacular known as www.Ringling.com are proud to present the following fabulous book review! (this website will Barnumize your email or text!) Where to start in describing the wealth of interesting [...]

Lynn: “I tried to make August last because September, and school, didn’t look good. We were not only newcomers, but we were P.K.’s – preacher’s kids. So everybody’d be gunning for us, and we’d be living in a fishbowl.” 11-year old Bob has a lot to worry about. Not only is his family new in [...]

Lynn: Here in Michigan we have two glorious weeks left before the school bell rings the day after Labor Day. Many families are wedging in one more trip and we’d like to remind everyone of a terrific way to while away the miles, avoid squabbles and enjoy something together. Listen to an audio book! I [...]

Cindy: Our local newspaper, The Grand Rapids Press (Mich.) runs a weekly feature called the Sunday Profile that provides a lengthy biography of someone in the community that has a passion for what they do. Earlier this summer I was surprised by Lynn’s collusion with one of the reporters who has covered our library exploits [...]

Cindy: Oh, we’ve all seen the toddler in the grocery store having a melt down (usually in back of us when we are in a really long line). Or we, ourselves, have woken up and everything is just WRONG about the day. Elliott captures that drama perfectly in Finn Throws a Fit (Candlewick, 2009). Finn [...]

Lynn: If you are a regular reader of this blog you have heard us say over and over what a tremendous year it is for nonfiction. Sorry to sing the refrain again but, wow, what a year for nonfiction! Here is another remarkable nonfiction book that MUST be added to collections everywhere. This is Mother [...]

Lynn: Nighttime in the village of Eel-Smack-By-The-Bay and a lone writer sits on the third floor of the lighthouse pouring out his thoughts into his diary, anguish in every sentence. Yes, gentle reader, this man has been bound into servitude as his family has been bound before him to the infamous Bellweather family. Almost 200 [...]

Lynn: Phineas Bump, Assistant Marshal of the United States, is assigned to count the people of the great state of Vermont in 1790. He is “saddle-sore, heartsick and down on his luck” when he rides into Tunbridge. In the first house he calls on he meets Mrs. Pepper who fears that the tally will be [...]

Cindy: Biome research never looked so gorgeous as it does in Life in the Boreal Forest (Henry Holt, 2009). My sixth graders know this biome as the “tiaga” but Guiberson references that alternate name for this important ecosystem. The boreal forest covers most of the Northern Hemisphere and shelters so many creatures, many of which [...]

Lynn: We left Todd Hewitt and Viola Eade in a breathless cliff-hanger at the end of The Knife of Never Letting Go. It has been a long year of waiting! The second volume, The Ask and the Answer (Candlewick, Sept. 2009), picks right up from that point. Todd and Viola have run right into the [...]