Half a World Away
School Library Journal Review: K-Gr 2?Best friends Amy and Louie build pretend towers, see magical creatures in the clouds, and regularly climb through a hole in the fence into one another's yards. The special "Coo-ee Am-ee" or "Coo-ee Lou-ee" call is enough to bring one or the other running. But then Amy's family moves "to […]
Rainstorm
Publishers Weekly Like her previous titles (Museum Trip; The Red Book), Lehman's new book follows a lone child on a magical wordless journey. But this one celebrates a slightly more plausible trip, and offers its hero friendship. As the book opens, a boy dressed neatly in short pants and a tie listlessly kicks his ball […]
Specials
School Library Journal Review: Gr 8 Up?This final installment in the series is a warning of the dangers of overconsumption and conformity. Set some time in the future, after a human-made bacteria destroyed the modern world, the trilogy tells of new cities established and tightly controlled through brainwashing and a series of operations leading to […]
The Sword of Cort
Jack Sparrow number four.
Scarlett
Publishers Weekly Rebellious Scarlett still has not gotten over her father's cheating and her parents' divorce. When she gets thrown out of yet another school, her mother sends her from London to the Irish countryside to live with her father, his pregnant wife and her stepmother's nine-year-old daughter. Scarlett begs her mother, "Don't make me […]
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. […]
E.E. Cummings
Kirkus Reviews A cogent biography weaves life and poetry together for an appreciative look at the unconventional and exacting artist. Reef takes readers from the happy childhood that nurtured his flair for theatrics, as well as his ear for language and rhythm, through his career at Harvard, where he encountered the avant-garde, to his rather […]
Half of an Elephant
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. An elephant loses his back half as the result of an unexpected catastrophe ("One night, all of a sudden, the world split in two") in this inventive tale. The fact that the fellow is made of corrugated cardboard, old screws, googly eyes and other assorted found objects makes the premise […]
Who Lives In an Alligator Hole?
Kirkus Reviews Rockwell's latest Let's Read and Find Out introduces readers to alligators and the role they play in their habitat. While she also addresses the positive and negative ways people have had an impact on the alligator population over the years, her focus is on alligator holes-places where alligators have thrashed through the damp […]
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 […]