What better way to mark the start of the school year than by reading about school? Four new books for elementary-age kids (two picture books and two chapter books) all involve classroom adventures, whether the setting is a one-room schoolhouse, the protagonist is a baked good, or the lessons learned reach beyond report cards. For [...]

The continuation of a popular comic novel series, new work from a Caldecott Medal winner, and a novel about the 1950s Soviet Union — three new illustrated novels feature compelling stories not only for proficient middle-grade readers but for reluctant ones, as well. With the art doing as much to advance the plot as the [...]

As I write, Kitty Flynn and Lolly Robinson, along with our web team in New York, are busy readying a revamped www.hbook.com. Go take a look. There’s some neat new stuff there, including some children’s book satire inspired by Project Runway and an interview by Leonard Marcus with Maurice Sendak about the great artist’s new [...]

Nazi Germany, ancient Egypt, and 1893 New York City are the settings for new historical novels for teens, while a biography of Dickens takes readers to Victorian London. In 1936 Berlin, Karl Stern is surprised when he’s beaten up by Nazi bullies: he’s blond and fair-skinned, and he and his family aren’t observant Jews. Then [...]

Caterpillar or tadpole, “little bitty man” or “little little girl,” the diminutive characters of these new picture books have big adventures — proving that what they lack in size, they make up in personality. The pond gets crowded when Ken Kimura’s 999 Tadpoles transform into 999 frogs, but relocation is hazardous: a hungry hawk nabs [...]