Publications about books for children and young adults
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 [...]
Recommended love stories, all published in the last few years and reviewed by The Horn Book Magazine.
Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor High School Little, Brown 517 pp. 11/12 978-0-316-13397-5 $18.99 Star-crossed lovers Karou and Akiva, torn apart by unforgivable betrayal at the end of Daughter of Smoke & Bone (rev. 11/11), are now engaged in the renewed war between the chimaera and the seraphim. Both are repulsed by [...]
Four nonfiction books on African American history for middle-school readers.
Four farm animal–themed picture books for preschool and primary readers.
Four recommended pairs of board and flap books for toddlers.
