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: Our focus group loves science and I think they share that love with lots of kids.  We’re always looking for great new science-related books for the younger set and this week we have something a little unusual – picture books that are fiction yet also present scientific topics.  These two are ideal for common [...]

Lynn: Animals have always been a big part of my life and that has also meant I love to read about animals almost as much I like being around them. There wasn’t any such thing as YA literature when I was a young teen so I turned to adult books. Probably my favorites were the [...]

Cindy: I came home a few weeks ago to find a wild turkey strutting through my front yard. I frequently have to slow down and wait for a flock to saunter across the road on my way to work, but that was the first one to walk my garden path. Jim Arnosky’s new picture book, [...]

Cindy: We haven’t gotten over our fall fascination with the National Parks and so this week for Nonfiction Monday we are headed to California to explore the mighty redwoods. According to Redwoods (Roaring Brook/Flashpoint, 2009) since 1850 and the advent of large-scale logging “more than 95% of the original redwood forests have been destroyed. Only [...]

Cindy: Biome research never looked so gorgeous as it does in Life in the Boreal Forest (Henry Holt, 2009). My sixth graders know this biome as the “tiaga” but Guiberson references that alternate name for this important ecosystem. The boreal forest covers most of the Northern Hemisphere and shelters so many creatures, many of which [...]

Cindy: I’ve wanted to write about this book all spring, but kept rereading it and finding new treasures so I hadn’t handed it over to Lynn. Finally, the bright orioles feeding on my oranges on my deck rails prompted me to get moving on sharing this book. The Cuckoo’s Haiku (Candlewick, 2009) is a tribute [...]

Lynn: “Bluebirds rock,” says award-winning photographer/author Pamela Kirby and it takes only a few pages of her glorious intimate pictures to agree with her. Kirby’s stunning photographs chronicle a pair of Eastern bluebirds as they raise five chicks in the nesting box in her backyard. Simple clear text provides fascinating information that is ideal for [...]