Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

Lynn: I have awesome news to share on this Memorial Day. Cindy has just been appointed as one of the three judges on the Young Adult Literature Panel for the Los Angeles Book Prize. She will serve for 2010 and 2011. Huzzah! I am really excited! Cindy will be awesome and my book-nagging can kick [...]

Lynn: How about these ingredients: fascinating animals, an urban animal rescue team, a group of resourceful kids and a lively family? Yup, cannot miss for kid appeal. Add well-written stories based on actual events and you’ve got a winner of a new series for middle grade readers. I read Gator on the Loose! (Random/Knopf, May [...]

Lynn and Cindy: This month Booklist was featuring mysteries so we think it’s time to investigate a real-life mystery that has been puzzling and frustrating us! Where did all these bloated 500+ page books for teens come from? YA novels used to be trim, slim and just big enough to fit nicely in a purse [...]

Cindy and Lynn: It’s time to vote for your favorite Nontraditional Nonfiction Monday blog post from yesterday! The variety of entries was inspiring, and if you haven’t taken a look, please do. There are many fun ideas for book sharing among the entries. And if the dizzying array of options leaves you indecisive, then VOTE [...]

Cindy: 100 Scope Notes is hosting today’s Nonfiction Monday blog round-up highlighting youth nonfiction and Travis has thrown down a creative challenge for us to blog a book in a Nontraditional way. He had a lot of intriguing (and hilarious ideas) in a recent video post of his own and I’m eager to see what [...]

i

Lynn: There is always a big demand for mysteries for the middle school set so it was doubly exciting to find one that provides a well plotted puzzle AND a lot more besides. Crunch (Harper/Katherine Tegen, 2010) features the charming Marriss family: narrator 14-year-old Dewey, his 18-year-old sister Lil, shy 13-year-old Vince and the five-year-old [...]

Cindy: The illegal immigration problem in the U.S. is multifaceted and complex but this moving story illuminates some of the issues for young readers. Star in the Forest (Random House, 2010) features Zitlally, a young girl in Colorado, whose father is pulled over for speeding, found to be illegally living in the U.S. and is [...]

Cindy: One Crazy Summer is not only a description of the months ahead in the Dobrez household with a daughter fresh home from her first year of college and another graduating high school in a month. One Crazy Summer (Harper/Amistad, 2010) is the new middle grade book from Rita Williams-Garcia, who usually writes for older [...]

Cindy: Am I the only one who sometimes pays dearly for not reading a book’s flap copy before reading the book? If I’m looking for a book to read I’ll read the flap, but if I already know I want to read a certain book, I don’t like to know too much about it before [...]