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

Cindy: I’ve been immersed in teen lit this year but being the klutz I am, I couldn’t help but notice the cover of E-mergency! (Chronicle 2011) with poor E slipping on a flight of stairs headed straight for O. Oh-no! The importance of the most frequently used letter E is made perfectly clear in this funny story [...]

Lynn: Jurmain opens her charming book, Worst of Friends:  Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the True Story of an American Feud (Penguin/Dutton 2011) by asking a most intriguing question, “Can Presidents be pals?”  In many cases the answer was no.  “Theodore Roosevelt thought McKinley had the backbone of a chocolate eclair.”  But sometimes the answer was [...]

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: Polka-dot houses, broken dolls hanging from telephone poles, old shoes in trees  – for 25 years Tyree Guyton has created controversial art in a special place.  Magic Trash:  A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art (Charlesbridge 2011) is an exuberant celebration of Guyton’s Heidelberg Project in East Side Detroit. Tyree’s mother worked hard [...]

Lynn: It’s waaay too early to begin making lists but Balloons Over Broadway:  The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade (Houghton 2011) is already one of my favorites for this year.  First there is the fascinating story of how the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade came to have its signature giant balloons.  Then there [...]

Lynn: “Those DARN squirrels” is a cry that echoes frequently through our house  – or at least words to that effect.  Here in Michigan bird feeders are everywhere and the constant battle with squirrels is just as common.  Our feeder bristles with complicated gadgets my engineer husband has added, hoping to baffle the squirrels who [...]

Lynn: Halloween is a BIG deal with our focus group despite the current politically correct efforts in our local school to homogenize it.  The boys start planning their costumes the minute the first leaf falls and have lofty schemes for decorating the front of my house this year.  They also love to cook so when [...]

Cindy: Lynn found this delightful autobiography of a man who befriended Picasso as a child. The Boy Who Bit Picasso (Abrams 2011) obviously illuminated the great painter’s life, but in a unique way for a youth biography: looking at a famous figure from the perspective of someone who sat on his lap, visited his studio [...]

Lynn: I am sad to report that I am horrible at math – so horrible that the thought of anything even vaguely math-related is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat!  So the fact that I am writing about a book that has the word “equation” in the title should be a [...]