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 and Lynn:  One of the interesting and exciting developments in the book world has been the recent efforts to publish more quality books for emergent and newly independent readers. There is a real need for these!   So we are excited to tell you about a new series from Holiday House called I Like [...]

Lynn:  We’re talking about cockroaches, sharks and huge chocolate eggs today.  Can’t go wrong with that!  Well, we’re also talking about chapter books for emergent readers and I get to start with the first of a series by Steve Voake called Hooey Higgins and the Shark (Candlewick 2012).  In this American launch of a delightful [...]

Cindy: I just picked my first tomatoes of the summer from my small deck garden so Secrets of the Garden: Food Chains and the Food Web in our Backyard (Knopf 2012) is perfect reading this week. The illustrated story of a family planning, planting and harvesting a vegetable garden is heartwarming but it so much [...]

Cindy: If the cover of Flip Flop! (Random House 2011) doesn’t say “SUMMER,” I don’t know what does. Sitting on a dock with a friend, a popsicle, an ice cream cone and wearing flip flops….ah. The two girls in this book are not only wearing flip flops, but their minds are flip flopping with all [...]

Cindy: I can’t decide what I like more about this book, the text or the illustrations! Does it really matter? This is a delightful whole. I have said that my favorite kind of book is one that makes me laugh, cry, and think, and leaves me wondering what the characters are going to do next. [...]

Lynn: As our focus group started to read independently, I girded my mental loins for the arrival of beginning readers. What our school calls “Baggy Books” started coming home in their backpacks to be read every night. It’s a great concept and I have faithfully supported its practice but the books did nothing to change [...]

Lynn: Here is a book that is going to take very little work to promote. Just set Pika: Life in the Rocks (Boyds Mills 2010) on display and stand back. The eye-catching cover will guarantee that this book will be checked out immediately. I am always excited to find excellent nonfiction books for our youngest [...]

Lynn: Hayes, winner of the 2010 Geisel award for Benny and Penny in the Big No-No, brings Benny and Penny back for their third adventure in Benny and Penny in the Toy Breaker (Raw Jr. 2010). As the enticing cover proclaims their cousin Bo, the dreaded toy breaker, is also back. The furry siblings hide [...]

Cindy and Lynn: So here we are. Last year we listed our Baker’s Dozen of top books and who are we to argue with tradition? These are our choices for the most outstanding teen books for this year in terms of literary merit. Each list is arranged alphabetically by title. We’ve always wondered how authors [...]

Lynn: I had forgotten what a milestone losing a tooth is for kids until my grandsons developed wiggly teeth. Suddenly teeth were falling like rain and they and their kindergarten classmates seemed to have more gaps than teeth. I instantly started looking for good loose tooth books to share with them. I found Arthur’s Tooth [...]