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:  Most mystery fans love sequels.  We fall in love with a character and can’t wait to read along as he or she takes on a new case.  I’m in that camp and I love nothing more than another installment of my favorite sleuth.  So for our continuing celebration of Mystery Month, here are two [...]

Cindy: Sometimes the biggest mystery about a book is the cover art! When Lynn and I worked together in the library we did tandem booktalking a lot. It was good for the students since we each had our own genre strengths and preferences (hers were science fiction and mystery and I favored horror and sad [...]

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:  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:  Sometimes you have to stand up for what is right for you but what happens if the result is not what you intended?  Can you back down on one element without jeopardizing your hard-won independence?  This is just one of the fascinating issues Sara Zarr explores in her beautifully nuanced new book, The Lucy [...]

Cindy: We believe that poetry should be celebrated every month (every day!) and not just during April, but here’s a perfect book for those April is Poetry Month celebrations. Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse (Houghton 2013) is a story in 40+ poems using 30+ different poetic forms. Haikus and Limericks and Free Verse are [...]

Cindy: I was totally sucked in by the cover of Zebra Forest (Candlewick 2013). Add the promise of family secrets and I’m in. Annie and Rew live with a grandma who has good days…and bad. Annie has three wishes: 1. Get tall. 2. Have an adventure. 3. Meet my father. She realizes her chances are [...]

Lynn:  I have to start this post with a confession.  I have had copies of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series on my to-read shelf of adult books for a long time but never found the time to squeeze them in.  So I was really excited to see Carriger’s teen debut and it was the first book [...]

Lynn:  It’s March and we bloggers have mostly leaped into the new publishing year.   I’m still playing catch-up though and I’m so glad I didn’t miss Shadow on the Mountain (Abrams/Amulet 2012).  Preus writes about a part of WWII history that most of us know little about and bases her book on the “true [...]

Cindy: I wonder what kind of cake Cady would bake  to bring me optimum happiness? Given the mouth-watering recipes sprinkled throughout the text, I think I would be happy with any of them. And I do plan to try a few of them myself! It would be easier to bake a perfect cake than to [...]