Book Reviews
Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen Intermediate, Middle School Farrar 368 pp. g 1/21 978-0-374-31415-6 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-374-31416-3 $10.99 The prolific Paulsen dips into his seemingly inexhaustible well of memories to pen yet another memoir. Employing the same third-person narrative voice he used in...
Dear Treefrog by Joyce Sidman; illus. by Diana Sudyka Primary Houghton 40 pp. g 5/21 978-0-358-06476-3 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-358-06671-2 $12.99 In what is in essence a nonfiction early-chapter-book in verse, a young girl moves to a new home. She’s lonely, but when she explores the garden, she observes a...
Starfish by Lisa Fipps Intermediate, Middle School Paulsen/Penguin 256 pp. g 3/21 978-1-9848-1450-0 $16.99 e-book ed. 978-1-9848-1451-7 $10.99 Since she was five, Ellie (now eleven) has lived by a list of Fat Girl Rules: “Make yourself small”; “Move slowly so / your fat doesn’t jiggle”; “When you hear laughter, /...
The One Thing You’d Save by Linda Sue Park; illus. by Robert Sae-Heng Intermediate, Middle School Clarion 72 pp. g 3/21 978-1-328-51513-1 $16.99 e-book ed. 978-0-358-52601-8 $9.99 Ms. Chang has asked her students to think about what one thing they would save — beyond their families and pets — if...
Amber & Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz; illus. by Julia Iredale Middle School, High School Candlewick 544 pp. g 3/21 978-1-5362-0122-2 $22.99 Curation, historical fiction, performance piece — Schlitz (Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, rev. 11/07) brings a bundle of learning, artifice, and intentionality to this highly stylized tale of ancient...
The Islamic month of Ramadan is a solemn holiday of fasting, charity, and additional prayer, culminating in the joyous feasting of Eid al-Fitr. Ramadan mubarak to those observing, and Happy Eid! We’d like to call your attention to reading suggestions from our friends at KitaabWorld, who review and recommend children’s...
International Holocaust Remembrance Day (established by the United Nations General Assembly) is January 27 and Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, the United States, and other countries) is in April or May (in 2021 it's April 8). All of the following titles were recommended by The Horn Book Magazine and...
Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown v. Board of Education by Lawrence Goldstone Middle School, High School Focus/Scholastic 288 pp. g 1/21 978-1-338-59283-2 $18.99 e-book ed. 978-1-338-59285-6 $11.99 Goldstone (Unpunished Murder, rev. 9/18) takes a long view of the historic 1954 civil rights case Brown v. Board of...
The Rock from the Sky by Jon Klassen; illus. by the author Primary Candlewick 96 pp. g 4/21 978-1-5362-1562-5 $18.99 In this collection of five connected short stories, clocking in at over ninety pages and composed solely of dialogue, Klassen introduces readers to a turtle, an armadillo, and a snake...
3,854 articles