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: Did you know that craft books work for Mystery Month too? They do when they are Sneaky Art projects. Jocelyn’s creative ideas for creating and hiding mystery “sneaky” art in public spaces will leave the recipients wondering “whodunit?” Sneaky Art: Crafty Suprises to Hide in Plain Sight (Candlewick 2013) is full of fun ideas, [...]

Lynn:  The lives of artists are often a challenge to write about for children and none more so than Diego Rivera.  Controversial in almost all aspects of  his life, Diego Rivera was also a towering figure in the art world (and in stature) and his work remains incredibly powerful today. Susan Goldman Rubin’s new book, [...]

Lynn:  Count me as one who never tires of immigration stories!  They are the heart and soul of who we are as a nation and each one brings a new version of the experience.  There are so many good ones but Paul Fleischman and Bagram Ibatoulline have teamed up to give us something special in [...]

Lynn: Monkeys are always popular with kids and we have two really special monkey books today.  First up is Anthony Browne’s gorgeous One Gorilla:  A Counting Book (Candlewick 2013).  This is a counting book, yes, but is also one of those versatile delights that can be used in, well, countless ways.  Counting book, science book, [...]

Lynn:  In an age of expensive entertainment, the opening sentence of Look Up!:  Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard (Candlewick 2013) has a refreshing simplicity: “You don’t have to go anywhere fancy to watch birds!” In fact, Cate goes on to assure young readers that all they really need to do is learn to keep quiet [...]

Lynn:  Fear is a huge issue in the lives of children and it is a frequent subject of picture books.  Levi Pinfold’s approach to the subject is highly original yet imbues a sense of classic timelessness that is as reassuring as it is engaging.  Black Dog (Candlewick/Templar 2012) is a book that was high on [...]

Cindy: Before the last of the skating ice melts, be sure to skate on over to your local library or bookstore to get your hands on Bunnies on Ice (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter 2013). Bunny comes from an ice skating family of bunnies but she proclaims herself to be a champion. One of the things a [...]

Cindy: I feel as if I shouldn’t really say anything about this wordless picture book, Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad (Scholastic 2012), other than to urge you to set your eyes on a copy and “read” it with a child. The story opens with a quilt draped over a farm rail fence and [...]

Lynn:  Schools are spending a lot of time on the issue of bullying recently.  I hope for good results as such “programs” come and go in schools with varying success.  Bullying IS a serious problem and as a school librarian I know how many of our lunch-time customers were escaping that misery.  I don’t know [...]

Cindy: Grab your art teachers and show them Mousterpiece: A Mouse-Sized Guide to Modern Art (Roaring Brook 2012). Janson the mouse lives in a museum and one night she stumbles into the Modern Art wing and, oh my! “Her little world opened.” She began to make her own paintings, copying the paintings she found on the [...]