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:  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, [...]

Cindy: Some books grow on you in surprising ways. I read On a Beam of Light (Chronicle 2013), liked it, and set it aside to take to school to show my 6th grade science teachers but I wasn’t planning to write a blog post about it. But overnight its messages haunted me.  One of my [...]

Lynn:  Cindy and I really are reading the new 2013 titles but in true Bookends style we can’t bear to give up on some wonderful books from 2012 that we haven’t managed to wedge into our writing schedule.  So many good books!  Queen of the Track:  Alice Coachman Olympic High Jump Champion (Boyds Mills 2012) [...]

Lynn: OK – I admit to being a word geek but I knew very little about the amazing man featured in Noah Webster & His Words (Houghton 2012).  Versatile and opinionated, the energetic Webster wrote spelling, grammar and reading books for schools, lectured, published a newspaper and magazine, gave singing lessons, raised a family and [...]

Lynn:  Few people have heard of Harry Kellar yet he was idolized by Harry Houdini, was immensely popular and had a career that lasted for decades.  In The Amazing Harry Kellar:  Great American Magician (Calkin Creek 2012) author Gail Jarrow asserts that Kellar was even a more talented magician than Houdini whose fame lives on.  [...]

Cindy: “He is the superstar of silence, the maestro of mime–acting without words.” So begins this picture book biography, Monsieur Marceau (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter 2012) of the most famous mime to ever perform. I remember as a child watching Marcel Marceau perform on television variety shows, probably The Red Skelton Show or The Ed Sullivan Show. [...]

Cindy:   When this galley first arrived very early in the year, Lynn saw it and exclaimed: “Oh, Temple Grandin! I can’t wait to read that!” And I was thinking, “Temple who?” Now that I’ve read Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World (Houghton Mifflin 2012) I am glad [...]

Lynn:  Every time I embark on a new recipe, make salad dressing or cut basil from the plant on my patio I think about the debt we American cooks owe to Julia Child.  Of course we owe her for moving American cooking from casseroles using canned mushroom soup into cooking sophisticated recipes that highlight flavor.  [...]

Cindy: Pair the subject of a secretive, powerful government figure with the skillful research, intriguing questions and suppositions of author and historian Marc Aronson and you are sure to have another book that will provide much to debate and discuss with high school students. Master of Deceit: J.Edgar Hoover and America in the Age of Lies (Candlewick 2012) uncovers [...]

Lynn:  Pandas are so familiar to us today that it is hard to realize that in 1934 hardly anyone in the West had ever seen one.  We wait in long queues to see them in zoos, watch them on live cams and the World Wildlife Federation has adopted its image as their symbol.  The fascinating [...]