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: “Most folks my age and complexion don’t speak much about the past. Sometimes it’s just too hard to talk about…So it’s important that you pay attention, honey, because I’m only going to tell you this story but once.” Fortunately for us, the story has been captured in a gorgeous book so we can read [...]

Cindy: The 7th graders that I booktalked Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition (Roaring Brook 2011) to last week were shocked that alcohol was once illegal. They are quite familiar with medical marijuana legislation but only one student in eight classes could tell me what the word “prohibition” meant. One girl did [...]

Lynn: I usually don’t think much about my age but while I certainly wasn’t around in 1896, the time of Basketball Belles:  How Two Teams and One Scrappy Player Put Women’s Hoops on the Map (Holiday 2011), I did play “Girl’s Basketball” rules in high school.  Girls were considered too delicate to do more than [...]

Lynn: Did you know that Cleopatra believed a concoction of horse teeth, deer marrow and roasted mice would cure baldness?  Or that Queen Elizabeth I had more than eighty wigs – all in shades of red?  Or that Japanese skin doctors invented hair implants in 1939?  I could go on and on but really you [...]

Lynn: It was a sunny Saturday, March 25, 1911.  New Yorkers were enjoying the weather in the park when they heard the fire engines racing to a ten-story building housing the Triangle Waist Company.  The top three floors were ablaze in what was to be the deadliest workplace fire for 90 years.  Albert Marrin recounts [...]

Lynn: How DID the Sphinx get to the museum?  The title totally captured my attention and the charming cover illustrations drew the focus group in immediately.  The twins are fascinated by the ancient Egyptians so I knew How the Sphinx Got to the Museum (Blue Apple 2010) was going to be a favorite.  (A Playmobile [...]

Lynn: I think in my next life I’d like to be Sally Walker.  First she’s a terrific writer, second she’s investigating the most fascinating subjects and meeting amazing people and third  she’s turned her curiosity into her work.  How cool is that?  Frozen Secrets:  Antarctica Revealed (Carolrhoda 2010) is the award-winning Walker’s latest book and [...]

Lynn: I love books where I learn new things especially in subjects that I thought I knew something about. I REALLY love books that make me say, “Wait a minute! What makes you say THAT?” Marc Aronson is really good at that and his new book with Marina Budhos, Sugar Changed the World: A Story [...]

Lynn: Cindy and I were lucky enough to hear Susan Campbell Bartoletti talk about her research for They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group (Houghton 2010) at ALA Midwinter. Every person in that room walked out yearning to get their hands on the book. This is definitely a case where [...]

Lynn: Kathleen Krull is known for her humorous and innovative biographies and she and husband Paul Brewer have brought that approach to one of our most important and well-spoken presidents. The number of biographies of Lincoln is mind-boggling but here is a fresh and funny approach that is also smartly written and will give young [...]