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Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, Carle, Eric Every child has an artist inside them, and this vibrant new picture book from Eric Carle will help let it out. The artist in this book paints the world as he sees it, just like a child. There’s a red crocodile, an orange elephant, a purple fox and a polka-dotted donkey. More than anything, there’s imagination. Filled with some of the most magnificently colorful animals of Eric Carle’s career, this tribute to the creative life celebrates the power of art. Rangers Apprentice #11: Lost Stories, Flanagan, John Inspired by questions and letters his loyal readers have sentRead More →

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Just released today, our new (unnamed) newsletter hit email in-boxes this morning! We are excited to bring book industry news, info on new releases and cool websites, book reviews, opportunities to win free books, author spotlights and much more via a new format to you, our amazing readers! Not signed up for our email mailing list? It’s easy- just find the Join Our Mailing List link on the right sidebar of this blog. (Or, click here) Did we mention you could win free books? Updated 9/2/11: Congratulations to Rebecca L., winner of the August Book Sweepstakes! (August Newsletter sweepstakes is now closed) Thanks to allRead More →

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Debut author Matt Blackstone’s A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie is the second 2011 new release I’ve read dealing with an obsessive compulsive teen.  Released in April, Compuls1on was an unsettling, tension-filled onslaught that made me tired.  A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie approaches this disorder and its effect on sufferers in a more well-rounded, thoughtful, and humane way.  Blackstone’s protagonist, freshman Rene Fowler, is portrayed with a candid, humorous honesty that makes the reader connect with him and his struggles on a deep level, eliciting our compassion at the same time as it brings out the exasperating challenges living with this condition brings. Rene is consumed withRead More →

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From Publisher’s Weekly (8/4/11) : Brian Selznick follows his 2008 Caldecott Medal-winning novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, with Wonderstruck, which clocks in at 640 pages, 100 pages longer than Hugo, and looks like it’s going to be just as big a hit, having already received four starred reviews. Bookshelf spoke with Selznick to talk about where the story itself came from, and if he is being paid by the pound.  Hugo Cabret was a thick book, but you’ve outdone yourself with Wonderstruck. Will we need wheelbarrows for your next work? I guess Wonderstruck does make Hugo look slimmer. There are 100 more drawings. ButRead More →

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Publisher’s Weekly reports (8/2/2011): On Monday, three years after the August 2008 enactment of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, publishers of ink-on-paper books and other printed materials suddenly received news they’d been hoping for from the outset. Both the House and Senate passed an amendment to CPSIA that exempts “ordinary” children’s books, along with a few other classes of products (e.g., all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles), from the law’s testing provisions.   “It’s awesome news,” said Gary Jones, assistant v-p for environmental, health and safety affairs at the Printing Industries of America. “We still have to comply with the lead limits and the tracking labels,Read More →

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Winifred Conkling’s Sylvia & Aki introduces an unlikely pair of friends: Sylvia Mendez is 9 years old and looking forward to starting the third grade. Her parents are leasing a large asparagus farm in Orange County, CA, and she will be able to enroll in the local elementary school, rather than the poor barrio school she attended last year in Santa Ana, CA.  Aki Munemitsu should be starting fourth grade, but her family has been relocated to the Poston Internment Camp, leaving behind their asparagus farm in Orange County and any hope Aki had for a normal life.  Both girls face heartbreaking challenges: Sylvia and her brothers areRead More →

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”; she speaks many languages–not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows outRead More →

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You Have to Stop This, Pseudonymous Bosch I always feared this day would come. A secret is meant to stay secret, after all. And now we’ve come to this: the fifth and final (I swear!) book in my saga of secrets. A class trip to the local natural history museum turns dangerous, or perhaps deadly–and I don’t mean in the bored-to-death way–when Cass accidentally breaks a finger off a priceless mummy. Forced to atone for this “crime” of vandalism, Cass and her friends Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji go to work for the mummy exhibit’s curator, only to be blamed when tragedy strikes. To clear their names–and,Read More →

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Daniel X: Game Over, James Patterson When Daniel X discovers that a duo of evil extraterrestrials is plotting to control kids around the world through videogames, he’s determined to take them both out of commission. This pair of wicked game masters wants to destroy the human race by turning brainwashed videogamers into an unstoppable army of doom! They’re also running an endangered species hunting club on the side, and their next target is none other than Daniel. He’ll have no choice but to turn to the aliens’ rebellious son who needs help to stand up to his malicious parents. But can Daniel trust the progeny ofRead More →