Publications about books for children and young adults
The books recommended below were all published within the last several years and reviewed by The Horn Book Magazine. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual child is the real criterion. Picture Books Suggested grade level for each entry: K–3 Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty written by Linda Glaser; illus. [...]
Never Say Die by Will Hobbs Intermediate, Middle School Harper/HarperCollins 212 pp. 2/13 978-0-06-170878-7 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-06-170879-4 $17.89 e-book ed. 978-0-06-222384-5 $9.99 Set in the Yukon Territory hard by the Beaufort Sea, Hobbs’s latest turbocharged wilderness survival story has heavy weather, savage river waters, treacherous trails, and, as chief antagonist, a “grolar bear.” Just [...]
Victorian- and Edwardian-era England — whether in our own history or in an alternate reality — provides a vivid backdrop for these YA tales of derring-do. Performers in a Victorian freak show are detective heroes in Kieran Larwood’s Freaks. Sheba, a hirsute girl who can morph into wolf form, joins with a “monkey boy,” a [...]
March is Women’s History Month, and these four picture-book biographies of remarkable women who broke down boundaries and changed the world should find an audience of primary-aged girls and boys. Michelle Markel brings the plight of early-twentieth-century female garment workers to life in Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909. Persecuted in [...]
Four new titles for preschoolers star animal characters, every young child’s favorite picture book stand-in. In Construction Kitties by Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges, four indisputably cute overall-clad kitties don hard hats and hop into colorful earthmovers to dig into a kid-friendly building project revealed on the back endpapers. Shari Halpern’s gouache illustrations channel Byron Barton’s [...]
From golems to pirate kings, dragons to wilderness quests, these action-oriented middle-grade novels featuring strong boy protagonists are packed with magic, intrigue, and page-turning plot twists. Sammy is a victim of bullying in Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple’s B.U.G. (Big Ugly Guy). Things improve when he starts a band with a new student named Skink. [...]
My Brother’s Book by Maurice Sendak; illus. by the author di Capua/HarperCollins 32 pp. 2/13 978-0-06-223489-6 $18.95 g If, as Wordsworth wrote, “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity,” Sendak’s vision of a Dante-esque search for his beloved brother Jack (1924–1995) is poetry in both [...]
Courage Has No Color, the True Story of the Triple Nickles: America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone Middle School, High School Candlewick 148 pp. 1/13 978-0-7636-5117-6 $24.99 e-book ed. 978-0-7636-6405-3 $24.99 “How does one survive and outlast the racism that was our daily fare at that time?” asks artist Ashley Bryan in the [...]
Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet by Andrea Cheng; illus. by the author Intermediate, Middle School Lee & Low 143 pp. 1/13 978-1-60060-451-5 $17.95 g Readers familiar with Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier’s 2011 Caldecott Honor–winning picture book Dave the Potter will appreciate Cheng’s interpretation of the man’s life [...]
