Publications about books for children and young adults
Each week we publish a review of a new book people are--or should be--talking about.
Water in the Park: A Book About Water & the Times of the Day by Emily Jenkins; illus. by Stephanie Graegin Primary Schwartz & Wade/Random 40 pp. 5/13 978-0-375-87002-6 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-375-97002-3 $19.99 On a warm day, just before six a.m., a city park starts to stir: turtles laze on rocks by the pond, [...]
Ask the Passengers by A. S. King High School Little, Brown 295 pp. 10/12 978-0-316-19468-6 $17.99 Astrid would be the quintessential Q-for-Questioning girl in her high school’s LGBTQ support group if her small-town, small-minded school had such a thing — and the gay question is only one of many weighing her down. When her humanities [...]
Review of The Dark by Lemony Snicket. From the March/April 2013 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell High School St. Martin’s Griffin 328 pp. 2/13 978-1-250-01257-9 $18.99 e-book ed. 978-1-250-03121-1 $9.99 It’s the start of a new school year in 1986 Omaha when sophomores Eleanor and Park meet for the first time on the bus. They are an unusual pair: she’s the new girl in town, [...]
Deadly!: The Truth About the Most Dangerous Creatures on Earth by Nicola Davies; illus. by Neal Layton Primary, Intermediate Candlewick 64 pp. 3/13 978-0-7636-6231-8 $14.99 Readers with a taste for the grisly realism of nature will revel in the latest Davies and Layton collaboration, featuring the ways in which animals cause lasting harm or death [...]
Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer; illus. by Josée Masse Primary Dial 32 pp. 2/13 978-0-8037-3769-3 $16.99 g “It’s not easy,” warns Singer in a note about the “reverso,” a verse form she created and first used in Mirror Mirror (rev. 3/10); and the first poem (“Fairy Tales”) in this companion [...]
Miss Moore Thought Otherwise: How Anne Carroll Moore Created Libraries for Children by Jan Pinborough; illus. by Debby Atwell Primary Houghton 40 pp. 3/13 978-0-547-47105-1 $16.99 Nowadays, Anne Carroll Moore is remembered as the fiercest of the library ladies whose influence on children’s library service and publishing was both inspirational and — sometimes — intractable. [...]
Poison by Bridget Zinn Middle School Hyperion 280 pp. 3/13 978-1-4231-3993-5 $16.99 g Sixteen-year-old Kyra is a girl with more than her share of secrets. Living in the world of witches, dwarves, potion masters, shape shifters, and the like, she is reluctant to trust anyone, even her best friend and the future queen, Ariana. Readers [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
