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: “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 [...]

Lynn: Ah – sibling relationships!  Ask even the shyest child if their brother/sister ever does anything annoying and stand back.  George and narrator Nancy Carpenter have mined this rich field with their charming Emma Dilemma:  Big Sister Poems (Clarion 2011).  I’m an older sister myself and this book is right on target!  (Notice I said [...]

Lynn: Inquiring minds want to know!  What happens when a superhero sneezes?  If you guessed that it wouldn’t be pretty, you guessed right.  Captain Amazing is allergic to peanuts and when his symptoms are triggered by a stray groundnut it is clear he needs an assistant.  His lonely pets agree – he’s never home with [...]

Cindy: I’ve read a few teen biographies about pop culture artist Andy Warhol but I have to admit I went into Fabulous! A Portrait of Andy Warhol (Henry Holt 2011) thinking, what? A picture book biography for young children of the controversial Warhol? I needn’t have worried. Obviously, Christensen left out some of the details of Warhol’s [...]

Lynn: What happens at your house when the lights go out?  Shrieks of dismay?  Frantic calls to the power company?  John Rocco’s wise and funny book Blackout (Disney/Hyperion 2011) shows us that it can also be a great opportunity to slow down and appreciate our world and the people in it. On a normal summer [...]

Lynn:  My family are zoo and museum-addicts.  I freely admit it and will further admit that we have sometimes eschewed a famous site or two for the pleasure of going to yet another zoo or crazy museum.  So I was instantly drawn to Strange Creatures:  The Story of Walter Rothschild and His Museum (Disney/Hyperion 2011).  [...]

Lynn: A lot of stray and battered creatures have found their way to my door over the years.  Some stayed just till they were healthy and some moved in for good.  My husband grumbles that there must be some animal equivalent of “soft-touch lives here” marking wherever we have lived.  So while I am a [...]