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: Excuse me while I hop in my dirigible and zip down to the coffee shop.  This was Alberto Santos-Dumont’s preferred method of getting around Paris and the doormen were used to tying his airship to posts while Alberto shopped or visited with friends.  In the Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont (Abrams 2011) readers [...]

Cindy: Want to hook young readers on the genre of biography? Give them All Aboard! Elijah McCoy’s Steam Engine (Tundra, 2010). The opening scene shows a 6 year-old Elijah happily running to fix his father’s broken horse-drawn mower. His talent and love of working on machines started early. In 1866 Elijah returned to his ex-slave [...]

Lynn: There is always a big demand for mysteries for the middle school set so it was doubly exciting to find one that provides a well plotted puzzle AND a lot more besides. Crunch (Harper/Katherine Tegen, 2010) features the charming Marriss family: narrator 14-year-old Dewey, his 18-year-old sister Lil, shy 13-year-old Vince and the five-year-old [...]

Cindy: Why don’t I immediately listen to Lynn when she really begs me to read a book? She wrote a solo blog for When the Whistle Blows (Philomel, 2009) last October when I hadn’t gotten to it. Everything about the premise spoke to me: stand-alone chapters that build into a cohesive novel, a complex father-son [...]

Lynn: I just want to say up front that I’m starting a new campaign to make this book required reading for every teenage girl before she gets her driver’s license. In the Driver’s Seat (Zest Books, 2009) begins with this introduction, “This book will elevate you from clueless newbie to a total car star who [...]

Cindy: Who knew garbage could be so much fun? If you’re looking for a different spin on “green” literature, try Here Comes the Garbage Barge! (Random / Schwartz & Wade, 2010). Before I even read the story I was sidetracked by the cover tease telling me to look inside the book jacket to learn how [...]

Cindy: All week I’ve been reading sad library news about the cuts coming down in the state of Michigan as our districts are looking to balance their budgets in the face of mid-year drastic cuts. Post after post talks of librarians being eliminated entirely from districts and replaced with volunteers or a single librarian serving [...]

Lynn: This quiet little masterpiece is one of my favorite books this year. When the Whistle Blows (Penguin/Philomel 2009) may be a debut novel but Slayton writes with a polished skill that many a veteran author would envy. The novel has an interesting construction – seven complete short stories that build upon each other, adding [...]

Cindy: There’s nothing scarier than navigating your first school bus ride, unless it is working as a middle school bus driver! Talk about an underappreciated profession! I’m Your Bus (Scholastic, 2009) is a book to soothe young children and to give to your favorite bus drivers as a thank you gift. The digitally designed, large, [...]