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Cindy: I’m still digesting carbs from all the cookies I’ve consumed in the past week, but I am also chewing on the Cover Story blog post over at Booklists’ Book Group Buzz blog. Neil Hollands asks us to think about book covers that trigger memories or are iconic. I left a comment there this morning about how [...]

Lynn: “Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock,” is a rhyme most of us know from childhood.  Even in today’s too-busy-to-read-world at least some nursery rhymes are passed along to children.  Nursery rhymes have never been as much fun though as in Nursery Rhyme Comics:  50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists (Roaring [...]

Lynn: Peer into the heart of any of us who have watched a ballet performance and you will find a secret wish to join the corps!  Those gorgeous costumes, the beautiful music, those amazing leaps that must feel like flying!  After seeing my first ballet at 8 I too fell in love with the idea [...]

Cindy: When you read as many books as we do, strange moments of serendipity are bound to arise, but they still often surprise–like reading two books back to back in which an undertaker’s process of sewing shut the jaw of a corpse is described in great detail! The Titanic’s undertaker did so in The Watch That Ends [...]

Lynn: One of my tests for new book kid appeal is to leave a stack lying casually on the table and watch what the focus group picks up.  Stuck (Penguin/Philomel 2011) passed the first test with high marks as the focus group grabbed it right away.  It quickly passed all our other tests too and [...]

Lynn: Our focus group loves science and I think they share that love with lots of kids.  We’re always looking for great new science-related books for the younger set and this week we have something a little unusual – picture books that are fiction yet also present scientific topics.  These two are ideal for common [...]

Lynn: The amazing Terri Windling conceived the idea of Bordertown in 1986, invited some amazing writers to contribute stories and together they created a place that took on a life of its own in the imagination of scores of readers.   The 4 anthologies and 3 novels about that world included the work of writers such [...]

Lynn: Here is a book that has to be one of the most innovative designs we’ve seen in quite a while.  When the focus group and I opened this, I thought at first we had been sent a puzzle – and it is.  The “pieces” can be fitted together into a flat thick floor puzzle.  [...]

Lynn: Long-time readers of Bookends will remember that I am not a big fan of verse novels or of sad books.  So you are probably surprised to see me leading off a review of this door-stopper of a verse novel about an immensely famous disaster.  I’m pretty surprised myself but every so often a book [...]

Cindy: Not at my house, it’s not. The tree is up (but not decorated) and nothing is hung by the chimney with care. I’m a little behind in my holiday decorating this year. Fortunately, there are Christmas books to add some holiday cheer to my home and for us to recommend for your collections or [...]