Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

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: This time of year makes me really miss my public library days. Halloween storytimes were so much fun. Sally Walker’s new Halloween pour-quoi tale, Druscilla’s Halloween (Carolrhoda, 2009) offers an explanation for how witches came to ride brooms. Aging Druscilla can no longer quietly sneak up on children by tiptoe to scare them–her [...]

Lynn: “I tried to make August last because September, and school, didn’t look good. We were not only newcomers, but we were P.K.’s - preacher’s kids. So everybody’d be gunning for us, and we’d be living in a fishbowl.” 11-year old Bob has a lot to worry about. Not only is his family new in [...]

Cindy: Poetry and collage art combine for a colorful celebration of the seasons in Red Sings from Treetops (Houghton, 2009). What’s not to love? It’s summer, so I’ll focus there. A bright yellow sun fills half a page of a summer picnic on a dock.
 
 
In SUMMER,
White clinks in drinks.
Yellow melts
everything it touches….
smells like butter,
tastes like [...]

Cindy: My teenage daughters think April Fool’s Day is hilarious when I get caught by one of their jokes. And, I never seem to learn, although I now check the sprayer on the kitchen faucet to be sure it hasn’t been rubber banded into the “on” position before I try to fill my coffee maker. [...]