Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

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In Sonya Hartnett’s Sadie and Ratz, the titular characters are the pair of hands that belong to Hannah — and get her into trouble. Most especially, they try to rub the ears off Hannah’s little brother, Baby Boy. But Baby Boy has his own impish side, blaming Sadie and Ratz for everything from spilled milk to a broken clock, and Hannah must learn not to strike back. This tale of temper and self-control is an original take on sibling rivalry. Sensitive drawings by Ann James add to Hannah’s psychologically sophisticated journey. (6–8 years)

At the start of Steve Voake’s Hooey Higgins and the Shark, young Hooey and his friend, Twig, spy the world’s largest chocolate egg. The price (sixty-five pounds) is daunting, but the boys figure they can raise the money by capturing a shark recently seen offshore, and Hooey’s older brother devises a plan involving ketchup, a cricket stick, and a bathtub. Emma Dodson’s wacky spot art helps readers pick up on the tone of this over-the-top screwball comedy. (7–10 years)

The protagonist of Diana Wynne Jones’s Earwig and the Witch is not your average orphan in distress. Adopted by an unpleasant witch, Earwig teams up with the witch’s familiar, a talking cat. Readers are treated to a nonstop plot, memorable characters, and fantastical details. An accessible page design incorporates Paul O. Zelinsky’s plentiful line illustrations, the best of which are showstoppers. (7–10 years)

In Dutch import Eep! by Joke van Leeuwen, Warren finds a rare creature — “a bird in the shape of a little girl. Or a little girl in the shape of a bird. Or something in between” — and brings her home, where he and his wife, Tina, care for her. Slowly Beedy walks, talks, and fledges — until one day she flies away. Tina and Warren set off to find Beedy to say goodbye. Insightful, affectionate humor and whimsy suffuse this fantasy, which is illustrated throughout with van Leeuwen’s clever, comic drawings. (8–11 years)

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Olivier Dunrea welcomes a new gosling to his series of books that began with Gossie and Gossie & Gertie. Gideon is a “small, ruddy gosling who likes to play. All day.” Play all day is right. “No nap! I’m playing!” says Gideon repeatedly, until all played out, he collapses in a tiny heap atop a haystack. Gideon & Otto introduces Gideon’s “favorite friend,” a stuffed-toy octopus. Constant companions, the two are briefly separated; their reunion is a sweet surprise. Dunrea’s pictures are as beguiling as ever — the art is filled with clever details kids will appreciate. (2–5 years)

In Faster! Faster!, the thrill-seeking heroine from Leslie Patricelli’s Higher! Higher! takes an imaginative joy ride. Riding on Daddy’s back, she commands, “Faster! Faster!” Turn the page, and the girl is now riding on the back of a dog. The next double-page spread shows a pooped pup and the girl speeding away on a rabbit. Exhausted rabbit (“pant pant”) is replaced by ostrich, ostrich is traded for horse, then cheetah, then hawk (all, tellingly, wearing Dad’s purple polka-dotted tie). The book’s playful design and richly colored cartoonlike acrylics speak directly to its young audience. (2–5 years)

“Swing the ball. Swing the ball. / Thump and smash and whack. / Bring the top floors tumbling down. / Bang! CLANG! CRACK!” As they did in Roadwork, author Sally Sutton and illustrator Brian Lovelock capture the excitement and energy of big trucks hard at work. Demolition follows a crew as it tears down an old building, sorts scraps of material, and hauls the debris off to make room for a new construction project. Sutton’s rhythmic text is full of onomatopoeia and muscular action words. Lovelock’s meticulous digital ink illustrations give the job site a suitably dusty patina and put the equipment and vehicles center stage, just where truck-obsessed kids want them. (3–6 years)

In The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? — Mo Willems’s first new Pigeon book in four years — the Duckling asks politely for a cookie and gets one. Enter the Pigeon. Shocked that the Duckling “got a cookie with nuts just by asking,” the Pigeon sets off on one of his egocentric tirades: “I ask for things ALL THE TIME!… But do I get what I ask for?” Kids will recognize the Pigeon’s strong emotions, but here they aren’t the ones out of control, which makes the gentle lesson in behavior as sweet as a cookie. Simple speech-balloon text, animated illustrations, and a clean design continue to be a successful formula for Willems’s brand of storytelling. (3–6 years)

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Ophelia and her eccentric bookseller aunt Emily, both poets, also share a connection to the supernatural in Michael Bedard’s The Green Man. Emily has vivid, unsettling dreams; “O” glimpses great poets of the past roaming the bookshop. Whether or not readers are familiar with French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s belief that one must be mad to be a poet, this imaginative explication of the idea makes for an entertaining tale. (11 years and up)

Protagonist Tina ponders identity and the universe in Keshni Kashyap’s graphic novel, Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary. During her semester-long journaling project for philosophy class, the high schooler comes to find existentialism a useful tool for navigating adolescence. Tina is surprisingly relatable, and her unusual perspective is enlightening. Mari Araki’s expressive illustrations range from realism to more abstract depictions of Tina’s imagination. (14 years and up)

In Aidan Chambers’s Dying to Know You, a famous author agrees to help Karl (who’s dyslexic) write a letter to his dream girl, Fiorella. Since the author happens to be Fiorella’s favorite, the plan seems flawless, but the deception doesn’t last long. Chambers delivers a satisfying novel with equal parts philosophy and repartee. (14 years and up)

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman follows high school senior Nora as she cracks the code of an ancient manuscript and uncovers the key to the Lumen Dei, an alchemical device intended to give man limitless knowledge and communion with God. She’s caught between two secret societies racing to build the device — both of which will kill to find out what Nora knows. Wasserman weaves contemporary American adolescence, sixteenth-century occultism, and atmospheric history into a complex plot. (14 years and up)

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Audrey Vernick’s Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team highlights the Acerra family of Long Branch, New Jersey. In 1938, the oldest nine boys (there were twelve in all) created their own semi-pro team, coached by their father. During World War II, six of the boys went off to fight; all came back safely to return to baseball and to raise families. Steven Salerno’s mixed-media illustrations capture the feel of this slice of Americana. (4–8 years)

Baseball has developed a whole language of hand signals — bunt, steal, take a pitch, etc. — and some baseball historians attribute them to William Hoy, the first deaf major league everyday-position player (Hoy signed with the Washington Nationals as an outfielder in 1888). Bill Wise’s biography Silent Star: The Story of Deaf Major Leaguer William Hoy covers Hoy’s many accomplishments on the field and at bat and celebrates his courage and determination. Adam Gustavson’s oil illustrations provide historical details — handlebar moustaches, old uniforms — that will put readers in the games alongside Hoy. (6–9 years)

There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived is an ode to the famed Boston Red Sox slugger. Williams’s most memorable season was in 1941, when he batted .406, but his career ran until 1960, when he hit a homer in his last at-bat. Matt Tavares’s present-tense narrative lends drama and immediacy to the all-smiles-and-heroics biography, and the watercolor, gouache, and pencil illustrations depict Williams as large as a double-page spread can hold. Published in time for Fenway Park’s centennial celebrations, this full-of-life biography will be a hit with young baseball fans. (6–9 years)

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Photo by Drew Nelson

To tell the complex story of her great-uncle, bookseller Lewis Michaux, 2010 Coretta Scott King Author Award–winner (for Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal) Vaunda Micheaux Nelson employs an amalgamation of historical research, family stories, and her own imagination. No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller is a uniquely collaged novel, and so I asked Vaunda just how she put it all together.

1. No Crystal Stair is an aesthetically daring combination of fiction and nonfiction, word and image. How is it different from what you imagined it would be when you began?

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson: I set out to write a straight biography for teens. In my early drafts I used quotes by Lewis as chapter headings and envisioned photos as part of the final work. But at some point in the process, and after feedback from people I respect, I saw that it wasn’t working. Unavailable and conflicting information left many crucial questions unanswered. More important, I didn’t feel I’d told Lewis’s story in a way that would move readers to care about and understand this amazing man and the significance of what he achieved. After the project evolved into the “documentary fiction” format, I found more pleasure in the storytelling. It allowed me to explore Lewis in a deeper way and to get to know the people around him more intimately. Sometimes you have to do an awful lot of writing to figure out exactly what it is you have to say. The project may have taken fifteen years, but as I think back on the process, I realize it needed those years. I needed those years to become a better writer. And I made exciting discoveries along the way that led me in unexpected and rewarding directions. I’m relieved the book is finished, but I miss being immersed in Lewis’s world.

2. Lewis Michaux was a supporter of such still-controversial men as Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey — names you don’t see in children’s books nearly as often as Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Rosa Parks. Do you think we have a tendency to play it safe in African American history for young readers?

VMN: I don’t know that I would call Lewis a supporter of Elijah Muhammad. But to address your question, the importance of, and emphasis on, individuals and events in our history are often determined by the media. People like Dr. King and Rosa Parks received greater coverage because they were more palatable to the general public, or have been portrayed as so by the press. There have been a handful of books for youth about Marcus Garvey. I could find none on Elijah Muhammad, though I believe he had a smaller circle of followers than either Malcolm X or Garvey. There is a respectable offering about Malcolm X, but, as you say, nothing like what is available on Dr. King. Garvey and Malcolm were out of the comfort zone, even for some blacks. They were explosive, enigmatic personalities. Most of the grownups in my world saw Garvey’s Back-to-Africa movement as extreme and Malcolm X as intimidating. I was eleven years old when Malcolm X was murdered. I’m sure it was covered by the media, but I don’t recall the kind of national mourning that came with the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. King. Both of these events saturated the news. I don’t know if publishers are playing it safe so much as looking at the market, a market that is strongly influenced by media, more now than ever. As Lewis said, “If you’re in the book business, you’ve got to sell books.” It’s up to us — the literary community — to help create a demand for topics we find important. I’m not suggesting that publishers don’t take risks. They often do and I’m grateful for that. But they do have to balance the risks with the safe bets in order to stay in business.

3. What bookstore was most formative in your development as a reader?

VMN: There was no bookstore in our small town, nor was there a library. My parents were key in my development as a reader. My mother read to us nightly, and my father introduced us to the work of poets such as Langston Hughes, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Walt Whitman. And Dad wrote poetry himself. Mommy took us to the bookmobile when it came every other week, which I loved, but I didn’t really find a bookstore that had a major effect on helping build my reservoir of children’s literature until, as an adult, I was introduced to Pinocchio, a bookstore for children in Pittsburgh. I worked there in the 1980s and read probably a thousand books during that time. The store no longer exists, but I will always be grateful to owner Marilyn Hollinshead for all that I learned while at her literary paradise. I wrote my first book and made the decision to go to library school while there.

4. What would a twenty-first-century National Memorial African Bookstore look like?

VMN: Hypothetical questions are always difficult for me, but I’ll take a shot. I’m pretty old-fashioned and often feel I don’t belong in the technological world. With the decline of independent bookstores, I can’t imagine a National Memorial African Bookstore like Lewis’s existing today unless the owner is doing it for love, not profit. A twenty-first-century National Memorial African Bookstore would still offer books by and about blacks and, of course, there would be tons of discussion through blogs and other online networks. Lewis would surely get a kick out of having such platforms from which to share his two cents. Instead of street speakers, discourse would be broadcast through Skype or YouTube. The Internet would enable Lewis to reach more people and perhaps offer a larger selection. Sadly, the heart, the spirit, the human interaction, the one-on-one, and the excitement that came with a rally at Harlem Square would be lost.

5. What is the most important thing being a children’s librarian has taught you about writing for children?

VMN: To not underestimate what kids can handle. They’re smart and beg to be challenged. I hope my writing stretches them. Sometimes we make the mistake of believing young readers need to have everything spelled out, that they can’t deal with subtlety. That which is left unsaid is often what gets them thinking beyond the text. The reading process becomes an interactive one, a give and take, a private affair that adds to a repository of experience they can draw from as they negotiate life.

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More book lovers
The Green Man by Michael Bedard, Tundra, 11 years and up.
Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary written by Keshni Kashyap, illus. by Mari Araki, Houghton, 14 years and up.
Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers, Amulet/Abrams, 14 years and up.
The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman, Knopf, 14 years and up.

Preschool books you’ve been waiting for
Gideon and Gideon & Otto, both by Olivier Dunrea, Houghton, 2–5 years.
Faster! Faster! by Leslie Patricelli, Candlewick, 2–5 years.
Demolition written by Sally Sutton, illus. by Brian Lovelock, Candlewick, 3–6 years.
The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems, Hyperion, 3–6 years.

Kooky chapter books
Sadie and Ratz written by Sonya Hartnett, illus. by Ann James, Candlewick, 6–8 years.
Hooey Higgens and the Shark written by Steve Voake, illus. by Emma Dodson, Candlewick, 7–10 years.
Earwig and the Witch written by Diana Wynne Jones, illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky, Greenwillow, 7–10 years.
Eep! written by Joke van Leeuwen, trans. by Bill Nagelkerke, Gecko, 8–11 years.

Opening day
Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team written by Audrey Vernick, illus. by Steven Salerno, Clarion, 4–8 years.
Silent Star: The Story of Deaf Major Leaguer William Hoy written by Bill Wise, illus. by Adam Gustavson, Lee & Low, 6–9 years.
There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived by Matt Tavares, Candlewick, 6–9 years.

From the Editor
A Family of Readers: The Book Lover’s Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Literature by Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano, Candlewick, adult.
Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin, Holt, 8–11 years.

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