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: I’m reading for Newbery this year so I’ve gifted myself with only an occasional upper YA book and most of them have been on audio.  Few have shaken me as much as Mal Peet’s newest, Life:  An Exploded Diagram (Candlewick 2011).  When brilliant narrator Simon Vance (Brilliance 2011) read the last sentence, all I [...]

Cindy: Gary Paulsen first achieved fame with his Newbery Honor winner Hatchet, a tale of young Brian’s wilderness survival. He also wrote the acclaimed Soldier’s Heart, illuminating the horrors of the Civil War. In Woods Runner (Random House/Wendy Lamb, 2010), he combines war historical fiction with his strong suit of wilderness survival in a slim, [...]

Cindy: War makes monsters of men (and women) and war is upon the citizens of New Prenticetown in Monsters of Men (Candlewick, 2010), the conclusion to the stunning Chaos Walking Trilogy. If you’re not familiar with the trilogy, then what are you doing reading this post? Get thee to a library or bookstore and get [...]

Lynn: Perhaps it is the enormity of tragedies such as war that make them hard to grasp. Despite embedded reporters and dramatic photographs, such events often remain distant and unimaginable. Somehow it is the small stories that bring the reality of the suffering into our hearts and minds. Saving the Baghdad Zoo (Harper/Greenwillow 2010) does [...]

Lynn: The publication of a new book in the Thief of Attolia series is exciting news and the latest, A Conspiracy of Kings (Harper/Greenwillow, 2010) will publish in April. We were very lucky and received arcs in December and of course we sat down and read them instantly. We normally don’t like to blog new [...]

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: I have confessed here before about the flaw in my character – I am not a huge fan of poetry and I mostly dislike verse novels. Therefore I hope, gentle readers, that you will pay special attention to a verse novel that I love. Crossing Stones (Farrar/Frances Foster 2009) is extraordinary. First of all [...]

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 [...]

Cindy: Lonnie Collins Motion (Lo-Co-Motion) is back in this sequel to the Coretta Scott King author honor winning Locomotion. In Peace, Locomotion (Penguin/Putnam, 2009) Lonnie continues his story of life in a foster home with Miss Edna, separated from his sister Lili, in another foster home. I like the letter format of this installment even [...]

Lynn: I’m convinced that our house has a sign clearly visible to all animal species that says, “Hopeless sucker lives here.” A mind-boggling array of creatures have wandered in over the years and many of them stayed. So with that and the fact that one of my sons served in Iraq, I knew I might [...]