My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson Middle School, High School Namelos 88 pp. 11/15 978-1-60898-196-0 $21.95 Paper ed. 978-1-60898-197-7 $11.95 e-book ed. 978-1-60898-198-4 $9.95 Seneca Village in Manhattan was founded in 1825 by free African Americans; by 1857 it had been razed to make way for the construction of Central Park. In forty-one poems Nelson […]
Review of The Marvels
The Marvels by Brian Selznick; illus. by the author Intermediate, Middle School Scholastic 671 pp. 9/15 978-0-545-44868-0 $32.99 Selznick defined his own format with The Invention of Hugo Cabret (rev. 3/07) and Wonderstruck (rev. 9/11), and this book looks the same, on the outside. But Selznick has created something wholly different here, by introducing one […]
Review of Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla
Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate; illus. by G. Brian Karas Primary, Intermediate Clarion 40 pp. 10/14 978-0-544-25230-1 $17.99 g Applegate introduces young readers to the true story that inspired her Newbery Medal–winning novel The One and Only Ivan (rev. 1/12). “In leafy calm, / in gentle arms, […]
Review of Egg & Spoon
Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire Middle School Candlewick 479 pp. 9/14 978-0-7636-7220-1 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-7636-7582-0 $17.99 An imprisoned man tells his story, Scheherazade-like, in letters to the tsar. He begins with Elena, a young girl in the impoverished Russian countryside who is nursing her dying mother and who has witnessed her brother […]
Newbery 2012: The Year in Words
Newbery speculation is alive and healthy, with even the mock awards receiving national news coverage (and with the USA Today reporter who interviewed me also confiding that his fifth-grade son was participating in one). Happily, the growing din of the buzz doesn’t seem to affect the pleasure of the surprise at the award press conference. […]