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: 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 [...]

Cindy: Lynn raved about Countdown (Scholastic, 2010) early this spring, as did many other bloggers and reviewers so I’ve been eager to read it but we were waiting for its publication to discuss it further. I was not disappointed. If you’ve not read it yet, hunt it down and do so. If you’ve not bought [...]

Lynn: If Stones Could Speak (National Geographic 2010) is the best nonfiction book I’ve read so far this year! I really loved this book for lots of reasons. First, it has almost instant appeal. Like so many people I am fascinated by Stonehenge. The mysteries about its origins and purpose are irresistible. Who built it, [...]

Lynn: In 1827 a music teacher and his young student, Ferdinand Hiller, paid their final respects to the dead musical genius, Ludwig van Beethoven. Hiller clipped a precious lock of Beethoven’s hair and preserved it carefully in a wooden locket. In 1995 in Tucson, Arizona, two new owners of that same locket carefully opened it [...]

Lynn: If Spies of Mississippi (National Geographic, 2010) were a TV plot, we’d be shaking our heads and talking about how improbable it was. In fact I found I had the theme of the old series Dragnet running through my head as I read this. But this is real. It is actual history: jaw-dropping, unbelievably [...]

Lynn: In December it was my great pleasure to meet Paula Young Shelton during her book tour through Ann Arbor. Mrs. Shelton, a first grade teacher in Washington, D.C., talked about the Civil Rights History unit she taught each year and the difficulty in finding materials appropriate for her young students. Every year she told [...]

Lynn: Murphy opens Truce (Scholastic 2009) with a quote from Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, “What would happen, I wonder, if the armies suddenly and simultaneously went on strike and said some other method must be found of settling the dispute?” In the course of his research on The Great War, Murphy [...]

Lynn: There have been many outstanding books about the Dust Bowl but Marrin’s Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl (Penguin/Dutton, 2009) is a book that belongs in every public and school library in this country. Even in this year of extraordinary nonfiction, Marrin’s new book stands out with its exemplary writing. Marrin, [...]

Cindy: Ladies and gentlemen, Children Of All Ages, with delightful derring-do and glitzy grammatical garnishing, Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan, in conjunction with the superior cyberspectacular known as www.Ringling.com are proud to present the following fabulous book review! (this website will Barnumize your email or text!) Where to start in describing the wealth of interesting [...]

Lynn: If you are a regular reader of this blog you have heard us say over and over what a tremendous year it is for nonfiction. Sorry to sing the refrain again but, wow, what a year for nonfiction! Here is another remarkable nonfiction book that MUST be added to collections everywhere. This is Mother [...]