Category Archives: Children’s book reviews

Children's book reviews, Picture book review, Young adult book review

A new resource

I’ve discovered a great resource for locating new and fabulous children’s books.  While on Nantucket, I picked up a copy of the BookSense Autumn newsletter, children’s edition.  BookSense is an affiliation of independent book stores, and the newsletter contains reviews written by booksellers all over the country.  I took some time today and went through the newsletter book by book, looking up published reviews of each book in our library catalog.  Almost all of the books featured in the newsletter had received acclaim from journals such as Booklist, The Horn Book, VOYA, and School Library Journal.  And most of the featured books are so fresh to the market that almost no other libraries yet have them.

After considering all the reviews, gaps in our collection, and what consistently does well in our library, I ended up ordering about half of the books featured in the newsletter.  And I feel really great about what I ordered: some authors who are already favorites, some first-time authors who sound incredible, and, most importantly, I got a jump on these new books by following the advice of independent booksellers.  Definitely a powerful tool to learn about the best recent books.

Children's book reviews, Children's literature, Picture book review

More new books

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Three more new books that I absolutely love:

The True Story of Stellina by Matteo Pericoli

This one has received rave reviews in many different journals, including Horn Book Magazine.  So I was expecting great things from this book, and it more than delivered.  It’s a very sweet, unsentimental tale of a baby finch in New York City that falls out of its nest and is taken in by a young woman, after she watches and waits for many hours for the finch’s mother to claim her baby.  The young woman and the finch live happily together in a NYC apartment, and eventually Matteo Pericoli and the young woman get married and the finch, Stellina, continues to live with the two of them.  Stellina lived to be eight, and Pericoli’s retelling of her life story is beautiful and touching.  His prose is spare and lovely, and his illustrations are absolutely gorgeous.  (I was very misty-eyed — runny mascara — when I finished reading this book at my desk in the library.)

The Art Book for Children by the folks at Phaidon Press

This isn’t a picture book (I’m cataloging it in the section of the library for third grade and up).  Art from many different eras and styles is represented in this book, and the authors do an amazing job discussing the background information on specific pieces of art, pointing out certain aspects of each piece of art, and then posing open-ended questions about that artwork.  I can see parents reading this along with their children, with ensuing lively discussions about art.  Wish I’d had a book like this as a kid…it wasn’t til my junior year of college that I knew how to look at art and feel confident in my own opinions about that art.

Built to Last: Building America’s Amazing Bridges, Dams, Tunnels, and Skyscrapers by George Sullivan

Admittedly, I haven’t spent as much time reading this book as I should, but my excuse is that it’s a fairly dense text and I have a LOT of books to process at the moment.  What I’ve seen and read, though, I like a lot.  This book is definitely intended for an older audience, probably fifth grade and up, and gives details about various construction projects throughout the US.  Being from the Boston area, I read the section devoted to the Central Artery (the infamous Big Dig project), and found the text well-written and the photographs informative.  At the beginning of each section, the main facts about the project are set apart for easy reference and comparison: cost, time to complete, etc.  In addition, there are boxes in each section with related interesting facts; in the Big Dig section, there is a discussion about a privy from the 1600’s that was uncovered in the course of the construction, and what was found in the privy (including an early bowling ball!).

These books, and many other new books, will be the books available for summer reading bookplates.  Any child who read more than 30 hours during the summer will be able to choose from these great new books and have a bookplate put into the chosen book with that child’s name and the total number of hours that child read over the summer.  Some kids have just reached 30 hours, others are aiming high and have already reached 120 hours.  I’m really impressed by their achievements, and I’m glad that I have a stock of such great books from them to choose from for this bookplate adventure!

Children's book reviews, Children's literature

The Owl Service

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My current book is The Owl Service by Alan Garner, the classic 1968 winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award.  Though I’m really enjoying the book now that I’m more than half-way through it, I have to admit that I’ve really struggled with the Welsh colloquialisms and the Welsh names of people and places and the allusions to Welsh myths.  We’ve placed this book in the juvenile section of the library, based upon its content, but I’m wondering now if it really belongs in the young adult section.  It would take a precocious fifth grader to wade through all the Welsh vocabulary and stick with the book long enough in order to get fully involved in the story.

Has anyone else out there read this book recently?  I’d love to hear your thoughts about the book, and about who is its actual reader.

(As a postscript, my summer reading time is currently 24 hours; looks like I’ll meet my goal of 30 hours by the end of summer reading, August 18th!)

Children's book reviews, Children's literature

finally

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After renewing the book more times than I can count (a major benefit of being a librarian!), I FINALLY finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  I wish that I had some incredibly intelligent and informed comments to make about the book, but, alas, I don’t.  Although that is telling in itself, since I usually have more to say about a book that I’ve just read than other people care to hear.

But I’ll squeeze a few comments out of myself…

Though there were exciting plot twists and turns in the book, mostly I found it to be just plain dull, and tortuous to slog through.  It’s almost as though J.K. Rowling has lost her spirit, and doesn’t really care about Harry and the gang anymore.  The first few books in the series aren’t very well-written, but there’s a certain joy and vivacity in them that’s missing from The Half-Blood Prince.  Hopefully Rowling will regain her stride a little in the upcoming final book of the series; maybe the light at the end of the tunnel will inspire her to recapture some of the freshness that’s missing from books five and six.

So now it’s time to move on to OTHER books.  Here’s what’s on the docket:

Spy Force: Mission: In Search of the Time and Space Machine, by Deborah Abela

Can’t say I’m expecting a whole lot from this one.  I’m reading it because books about spies seem to be “hot” right now, and I’m previewing this particular one before I order the series for the library.  It hasn’t gotten the best reviews, so I’d rather read it for myself and make my own judgement before investing the library’s money in it.

The Owl Service, by Alan Garner

We just ordered a new paperback copy of this 1967 work, and I remember really enjoying it when I read it in graduate school.  Time to cleanse my reading palette with something of quality!

The Pilot’s Wife, by Anita Shreve

My good friend Judy gave me a copy of this book a few weeks ago.  I’m looking forward to reading it.  And it’s adult literature, what a concept!

New Boy, by Julian Houston

I heard Houston speak at The Concord Bookshop back in April or May, and I was very impressed by him and by the book passages that he read aloud.  Impressed enough that I bought a copy of the book and had him sign it, despite my complete moratorium on book purchases for myself.  (Our small house just can’t hold another book…)

I’d love to hear what other people are reading right now; drop a comment and let me know what you’re enjoying this summer!  And also check out my brother’s blog (follow the link on the right to “Yet Another Unitarian Universalist”); he has periodic entries about his summer reading.