Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Cindy: I think of this series of delightful books every August as my summer vacation winds to an end. In The Exiles (Margaret K. McElderry, 1991), the four Conroy sisters, Ruth, Naomi, Rachel, and Phoebe are excited when their parents come into an inheritance and they gleefully begin plotting how to spend their share. Their [...]

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: Oh, we’ve all seen the toddler in the grocery store having a melt down (usually in back of us when we are in a really long line). Or we, ourselves, have woken up and everything is just WRONG about the day. Elliott captures that drama perfectly in Finn Throws a Fit (Candlewick, 2009). Finn [...]

Lynn: Nighttime in the village of Eel-Smack-By-The-Bay and a lone writer sits on the third floor of the lighthouse pouring out his thoughts into his diary, anguish in every sentence. Yes, gentle reader, this man has been bound into servitude as his family has been bound before him to the infamous Bellweather family. Almost [...]

Lynn: Phineas Bump, Assistant Marshal of the United States, is assigned to count the people of the great state of Vermont in 1790. He is “saddle-sore, heartsick and down on his luck” when he rides into Tunbridge. In the first house he calls on he meets Mrs. Pepper who fears that the tally will be [...]

Lynn: “Bobby Bramble liked to climb, somersault, jump, bounce, slide, swing, sprint, flip, hang upside down, and generally give gravity a run for its money.” Everyone worries that Bobby will crack his head open and, of course, one day he does just that. His brain, a curly pink mass on legs, makes a break for [...]

Cindy: I’ve been lusting after this book, since hearing the title, Let’s Do Nothing (Candlewick, 2009) announced at ALA Midwinter in Denver! Like most adults, my days are over-filled with responsibilities and chores and I long for time to “do nothing.” My teen daughter gave me a quote card this year that says “Doing nothing [...]

Lynn: Meet Sylvie, a young flamingo definitely in the “why” stage. “Mama,” she asks, “Why are we pink?” It’s a great question and when Mama answers that it is because the shrimp they eat are pink, the curious Sylvie gets an idea. What happens if she nibbles items of other colors? [...]

Lynn: Do not be deceived by the saccharine sweet cover! This wonderful little gem is a wacky mix of Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes and Jack Gantos at his bizarre best. Wealthy orphaned Petronella Arbuthnot is celebrating her sixteenth birthday with an assembly of friends. Her guardian, Augustus T. Percival, laughing widely at a joke, inadvertently [...]

Cindy: March Madness is behind us and I’m at a loss. College basketball is my favorite fan sport, and even the excitement of the Masters golf tournament doesn’t completely satisfy the hole I feel in my sports world each April. Fortunately, there’s a tonic for us round ball fanatics in David Gill’s debut novel, Soul [...]