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:  Here’s a sweet funny book that will get the giggles started right from the title page  – and kids will love it too!  How to Babysit a Grandpa by Jean Reagan (Random/Knopf 2012) is one of those delightful books that kids and the adults reading to them will enjoy equally.  A shared joke is always [...]

Cindy: Lynn found this gem of a series, and I am so glad. Good storytelling in early chapter stories is always a treat and Anna Hibiscus (Kane Miller 2010) one sings on many levels. Most stories for this age level are set in the United States so to have an African setting is awesome, especially since the [...]

Lynn: I have been clear that I really don’t like books that make me cry so the fact that this one did and I am recommending Layla, Queen of Hearts (Farrar 2010) anyway should send a loud message! Layla Elliot has a problem. Senior Citizen Day is approaching fast for her third grade class and [...]

Cindy: When you travel, do you like to read a book that is set in the area you are visiting? I love matching books with locales, seasons, moods, etc. I’ve just returned from Spring Break on a beach in southern Florida, and while I didn’t get to Key West, the setting of Turtle in Paradise [...]

Cindy: Brother is just shy of twelve-years-old when he must step up and help his grandfather run their Oregon farm after his father is shipped off to Iraq. The theme of conflict and loss runs throughout the story from the opening chess sequence to Brother’s fights with his older brothers when they come home and [...]

Lynn: Marcus Jordan, star quarterback of his previous team, is the new guy in town. To make things worse, the local football team was undefeated last year and no one sees any reason to change the starting line-up. Marcus makes the team but resigns himself to working hard and riding the bench for the year. [...]

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 [...]

Lynn: Sometimes you just fall in love with a book and that is the case with The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Holt, May 2009) for me. I read it under trying circumstances too. I was suffering from a really horrendous case of poison ivy. (Yes, yes, I know about shiny leaves of three but who [...]

Cindy & Lynn: Happy Mother’s Day! Mother Poems (Henry Holt, 2009) is an emotional journey through grief and healing after a young girl loses her mother too soon. To honor the extraordinary powers of mothers everywhere, we’d like to share the celebratory poem that accompanies Smith’s collage illustration seen on the front cover. We’ve known [...]