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: Paper or plastic? We are all familiar with that question, but I wasn’t familiar with the female inventor who gave us the machine to make a paper grocery bag. In The Bag! Margaret Knight Wraps It Up (Tundra 2011) is a delightful picture book biography of a little known inspiring woman. The book opens [...]

Cindy: Do you mind if I gush? I’ve fallen in love with the Wren family. I don’t get to read as many children’s books as I do middle school and teen books so I missed What Happened on Fox Street, the prequel to Mo Wren, Lost and Found (Harper/Balzer & Bray 2011). Readers can easily [...]

Cindy: Elise Broach, forgive me, but THIS was the book that I was supposed to write! Missing on Superstition Mountain (Holt 2011) is far better than anything I would have written…but still! My grandparents moved from New York state to be in Zane Grey country sixty odd years ago and settled on a couple of [...]

Cindy: When my oldest daughter first took guitar lessons, she struggled as the instructor made her pluck out the notes for ”Mary Had a Little Lamb.” My brother was disdainful of that method. He said, “I can teach her three chords and she’ll be able to play any Bob Dylan song she wants, and what more would she [...]

Cindy: I picked up Pie (Scholastic 2011) a few months ago to read as a palate cleanser between review books. It had a pie and a cat on the cover and looked like a lighthearted read. I live in Michigan and it was prime berry season when I started writing this post in early August. I didn’t know [...]

Lynn: I usually don’t think much about my age but while I certainly wasn’t around in 1896, the time of Basketball Belles:  How Two Teams and One Scrappy Player Put Women’s Hoops on the Map (Holiday 2011), I did play “Girl’s Basketball” rules in high school.  Girls were considered too delicate to do more than [...]

Lynn: Once upon a time there was an elephant called Birch who dreamed of beauty and a boy named Pigeon who lived on Birch’s back.  Pigeon never leaves Birch’s back – never ever.  He has everything he needs and even goes to 5th grade from the safety of the elephant’s back because elephants are so [...]

Lynn: Did you know that Cleopatra believed a concoction of horse teeth, deer marrow and roasted mice would cure baldness?  Or that Queen Elizabeth I had more than eighty wigs – all in shades of red?  Or that Japanese skin doctors invented hair implants in 1939?  I could go on and on but really you [...]

Lynn: We believe in unbiased reporting here at Bookends and in presenting ALL sides and opinions.  It’s not easy to pursue this noble goal in book reviewing and sometimes the cost is high.  In my case that cost has been domestic harmony.  Yes, faithful readers, the focus group and I have been engaged in 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 [...]