The Magician's Elephant
VOYA: I intended only lilies. In a small 1890-something European village, an anonymous traveling magician changes lives forever when a simple trick goes tragically wrong. Instead of lovely flowers, a full-grown elephant falls through the ceiling of the theater, landing on a woman and crushing her legs. At almost the same moment, young Peter hears […]
Dimity Dumpty : the Story of Humpty's Little Sister
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. Young readers may think they know all there is to know about Mother Goose's clumsy egg character, but Graham (Oscar's Half Birthday) sets them straight in his hilarious picture-book profile of the whole Dumpty family. As members of a traveling circus, Dorothy and Dominic Dumpty and their children, Humpty and […]
Library Lion
School Library Journal Review: Starred Review. PreS-Gr 2?Miss Merriweather, head librarian and decorum-keeper, first meets Lion when he saunters past his stone counterparts and into the stacks. Scowling circulation assistant Mr. McBee seems intent on having the enormous cat ejected, but his boss declares that as long as he breaks no rules, he is welcome. […]
Silly Billy
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. Browne (Willy the Champ) here offers another satisfyingly wry take on the trials of childhood. At the tale's center is chronic worrier Billy, whose oversize ears, middle part and festive sweater call to mind Browne's popular chimp, Willy. Billy's nighttime worries emerge in monochromatic framed images with humorous surrealistic flair. […]
Lucia and the Light
Publisher Weekly Review: Root (Big Momma Makes the World) draws deftly from Nordic folklore to shape this tidy tale set high in the mountains of the Far North, where Lucia lives in a cozy cabin with her mother, baby brother, "velvet-brown cow" and "milk-white cat." One fierce, windy winter, the sun fails to rise over […]
The Runaway Dinner
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. With a plot timed faster than fast food and illustrations that keep pace, this picture book about a dinner that literally runs away is a comic treat. Like a cowboy spinning a fireside tall tale as if it were true, Ahlberg's (The Jolly Postman) unseen narrator sprinkles the story with […]
The Notebooks of Robert Frost
Publishers Weekly A new book containing unpublished work by America's most famous poet is a literary event. While he was not much of a diarist, Frost avidly kept notebooks throughout his life. He recorded his daily musings in what Frost scholar Faggen calls " `ordinaries,' unassuming dime-store spiral pads and school theme books." This roughly […]
Mercy Watson Fights Crime
The beguiling porcine wonder turns bucking bronco in order to snare a robber in this hilarious new addition to the "New York Times" bestselling series.
Jack and the Beanstalk
School Library Journal Review: Starred Review. K-Gr 3?This witty, elegant retelling of the beloved English fairy tale, originally published in 1908 in The Old Nursery Stories, uses rich language to depict an endearing, if lazy, ne'er-do-well who turns folly into triumph. Into the traditional story Nesbit injects clever details that make the setting vivid and […]
The Dragon's Eye
Publisher Weekly Review: The year is 1882, in this first volume of the Dragonology Chronicles, and Daniel and Beatrice's parents leave the siblings in the care of their friend Dr. Drake while they attend to their mysterious "work." Dr. Ernest Drake, an eccentric "dragonologist" (whose name will be familiar to Dragonology fans), proceeds to teach […]