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:  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:  Don Brown brings a pivotal historical event to life for young readers in Henry and the Cannons:  An Extraordinary True Story of the American Revolution (Roaring Brook, 2013).  This IS an extraordinary story!   I remember studying this in school in Boston and thinking it was pretty cool but it wasn’t till we visited [...]

Lynn:   Desperate people with armed men intent on their capture, an entire town racing to their rescue, facing down the villains and risking their very lives for what is right.   It sounds like the plot for a terrific action movie but this is the true story being told in The Price of Freedom:  How [...]

Cindy: I started reading Lincoln’s Grave Robbers (Scholastic 2013) on the plane ride home from ALA Midwinter the day that Sheinkin won a 2013 Newbery Honor and the 2013 YALSA Nonfiction Award and the 2013 Sibert Medal for Bomb. This one may not be quite as destined for award stickers at the end of the year, [...]

Lynn:  It was one of those shining moments in history when “the first Negro enlisted man accepted for the airborne forces…and the first officer” met.  They were the start of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the first black paratroopers in our nation’s history created in the midst of the dark days of WWII.  Tanya Stone [...]

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:  Rappaport’s Introduction to Beyond Courage:  The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust (Candlewick 2012) echoes what so many of us, Jewish or not, have thought or felt. “Even as a Jew growing up in a Jewish household I had only ever heard that “Jews went like lambs to the slaughter during the [...]

Cindy: When I was perhaps 10 years old, I saw the Cardiff Giant on display at the Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown, New York. I was rebelling against my father driving out of our way to take my brother to the Baseball Hall of Fame when he was never willing to drive out of the way [...]

Lynn:  I know how long everyone’s “To Read” list is but here’s one that needs to jump the queue to the top of your lists!  Bomb:  The Race to Build – and Steal – The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon (Roaring Brook 2012) is my favorite nonfiction book this year.  I frequently have several books going [...]