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: You are all book lovers out there so I know you will understand when I say that there are some books that I just want to clutch tightly to my heart when I’ve finished them. I can hardly bear to put them down and break the reading spell. Snook Alone (Candlewick 2010) is one [...]

Lynn: Who knew! Zeus, ruler of heaven and earth, started out as a lonely kid just wanting someone to play with! Well – that is G. Brian Karas’ take on it anyway in his exuberant romp, Young Zeus (Scholastic 2010). Karas starts his version with a cast of characters and pronunciation guide that will be [...]

Cindy: I can’t decide what I like more about this book, the text or the illustrations! Does it really matter? This is a delightful whole. I have said that my favorite kind of book is one that makes me laugh, cry, and think, and leaves me wondering what the characters are going to do next. [...]

Cindy: Sometimes the best bulletin boards are the simple ones. It’s easy to make displays busy and cluttered and that can overwhelm your patrons who are quickly passing them. Here’s one that has been popular with our middle school students and staff. Yellow paper with a hand drawn smiley face brightens up the room, makes [...]

Lynn: We have a great friend currently serving on Notable Children’s Book committee that we get together with every month to happily discuss books. Ed Spicer often generously lends us books that we haven’t seen yet. Recently I came home with a whole stack and they were all so enticing I hardly knew where to [...]

Cindy: I have a new appreciation for the spork. You know, that plastic combo spoon/fork that is usually seen in fast food restaurants or school cafeterias where the clientèle can’t be trusted with a real fork? Well, count me in as a new fan. In Spork (Kids Can Press, 2010) multicultural literature gets an innovative [...]

Lynn: As our focus group started to read independently, I girded my mental loins for the arrival of beginning readers. What our school calls “Baggy Books” started coming home in their backpacks to be read every night. It’s a great concept and I have faithfully supported its practice but the books did nothing to change [...]

Cindy: I am so grateful for Margarita Engle’s recent books that shed light on Cuba’s history. The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006) and 2009′s Newbery Honor book The Surrender Tree were both excellent, but The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba ( Henry Holt, 2010) is my favorite to date due to its themes. [...]

Lynn: I’m giving you all fair warning. Kids will LOVE Yes Day! (Harper 2009) and they will also LOVE the idea behind the story. Our focus group started asking for a Yes Day before we even finished the book! Bright cartoon-style illustrations describe one action after another that are a kid’s idea of heaven–from pizza [...]

Cindy: Gary Paulsen first achieved fame with his Newbery Honor winner Hatchet, a tale of young Brian’s wilderness survival. He also wrote the acclaimed Soldier’s Heart, illuminating the horrors of the Civil War. In Woods Runner (Random House/Wendy Lamb, 2010), he combines war historical fiction with his strong suit of wilderness survival in a slim, [...]