The Childrens Book Review » Chapter Books

Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, 2012

Bianca Schulze — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:52:16 +0000

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: January 25, 2012

Winner

Honor Book

“The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association. The award is sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association.” ~YALSA

Newbery Medal Winners, 2012

Bianca Schulze — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:46:09 +0000

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: January 23, 2012

Medal Winner

Honor Book

“The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” ~ALSC

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Bianca Schulze — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:56:55 +0000

Reading level: Ages 14 and up

Add this book to your collection: Everneath

Have you read this book? Rate it:
[ratings]

Video courtesy of harperteen: “Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.”

The Flint Heart by Katherine & John Paterson

Bianca Schulze — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:35:17 +0000

Reading level: Ages 7 and up

Add this book to your collection: The Flint Heart

Have you read this book? Rate it:
[ratings]

Video courtesy of CandlewickPress: The Flint Heart by Katherine & John Paterson and illustrated by John Rocco

“An ambitious Stone Age man demands a talisman that will harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. Against his better judgment, the tribe’s magic man creates the Flint Heart, but the cruelty of it causes the destruction of the tribe. Thousands of years later, the talisman reemerges to corrupt a kindly farmer, an innocent fairy creature, and a familial badger. Can Charles and his sister Unity, who have consulted with fairies such as the mysterious Zagabog, wisest creature in the universe, find a way to rescue humans, fairies, and animals alike from the dark influence of the Flint Heart? This humorous, hearty, utterly delightful fairy tale is the sort for an entire family to savor together or an adventurous youngster to devour. http://www.theflintheart.com“

Maria Tatar on the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up

Bianca Schulze — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 07:54:32 +0000

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: January 4, 2012

Maria Tatar

Maria Tatar is Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. Her latest book The Annotated Peter Pan is a glorious celebration of the centenary of the first publication of the novel, originally entitled Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie. It features a splendid array of photographs and illustrations, many reproduced for the first time, including The Boy Castaways of Black Lane Island. The book also includes a compilation of responses from famed artists, including Barrie’s contemporaries such as as Virginia Woolf and Mark Twain, to his work. For more on Tatar’s discoveries and Barrie’s creation of Peter Pan, please read on.

Nicki Richesin: I read The Annotated Peter Pan with such gripping wonder. It’s a marvelous book; congratulations to you. The story of Peter Pan has fascinated readers for generations and even proved a vehicle for a variety of adaptations in film, books, plays, and musicals. After your extensive research on this subject, what do you believe J.M. Barrie would think of its enduring appeal? Why do you believe his story has held such fascination for its audience?

Maria Tatar: Peter Pan started out as a bedtime story and turned into a cultural myth. Barrie knew that he was onto something important, but I think even he would have been surprised that the story has endured as long as it has. There is more to Peter Pan than fairy dust and pirates. It’s a story about what it means to grow up—the gains and the losses that we incur when we become adults. Barrie felt the pain of the process more acutely than most of us do, and he also saw himself as something of a “betwixt and between”—no longer a child yet still not fully adult. It was more than just the “inner child.” He was able to go back in ways that few of us can, capturing the sense of adventure and eagerness for experience that is part of childhood desires.

In your “Introduction to J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan,” you write, “We owe it to our children to give them books that do not put a politically correct dot on every “i” and that offer challenges, provocations, and an occasional sting that keeps us alive and thinking about those who lived before us.” You believe this would lead children to learn to search and explore and has been confirmed in your exhaustive study of fairy tales and in your books such as Enchanted Hunters. Could you further explain what you mean by this notion?

MT: I think it was Philip Pullman who told us that “thou shalt not is soon forgotten” and that “once upon a time” lasts forever. Great writers are above all else storytellers—occasionally even magicians—who give us worlds created by words. Children quickly grow wise to the ways of fiction and know that there are no easy messages, morals, and lessons in the books they read. There is no direct path from what is in the book to “truth,” nor is there a hotline to the meaning of life. When they read fiction, children develop a sense of curiosity about the lives of others (where else can you read minds and learn about what other people really think?), and they use their explorations of fictional worlds, along with their real-life experiences and exchanges, to develop a moral compass.

Peter Pan was my favorite story as a child. I read the edition edited by Josette Frank, beautifully illustrated by Marjorie Torrey, and published by Random House in 1957. We also had an edition illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Which version of this story do you prefer and why?

MT: Arthur Rackham’s illustrations for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens are exquisite, and I can’t imagine any rivals to those images. But I also love Mabel Lucie Attwell’s illustrations, although they are for a younger crowd. I have grown to love F.D. Bedford’s illustrations for the first edition of Peter Pan. At first they seemed fussy and cluttered to me, but now they feel like windows into each of the chapters in which they appear. They have an astonishing depth and texture. I’m reminded of how much I disliked, as a child, John Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now they seem to capture the essence of Carroll’s story, and I can’t imagine reading the book without them.

You draw an interesting comparison between J.M. Barrie’s relationship with Peter Llewelyn Davies (really all five of the boys) and Charles Dodgson’s with Alice Liddell. Both authors were inspired by their young friends to create Neverland and Wonderland, worlds in which civilized society did not exist and to which children might escape. The two authors were revered and yet rumors were spread by those who frowned on adult men befriending children. Why do you believe both authors were enthralled with these particular children and deeply influenced by their little muses?

Credit: Peter Pan, 1912 (bronze) by Sir George James Frampton (1860-1928) Kensington Gardens, London, UK/ The Bridgeman Art Library Nationality / copyright status: English / out of copyright

MT: We live in a culture deeply suspicious of anyone who takes an interest in other people’s children. Both Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barrie had a deep attachment to children, and they understood, in unprecedented ways, that there is beauty, humor, and poetry in the imagination of children. They lived in an era that famously developed a cult of childhood, but it was a cult that valued the beauty of children rather than their playful spirit and imaginative energy. Children were to be seen and not heard. Both Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barrie listened to the voice of the child and produced works that were, in some sense, collaborations. And, perhaps not coincidentally, both photographed children and appreciated the beauty of children at rest and at play. There is not a shred of evidence that there was anything improper in Barrie’s relationship to children, and the five Llewelyn Davies boys he adopted were quite firm about the fact that Barrie was a completely generous, benevolent presence in their lives.

While you were studying Barrie’s letters at Beinecke Library at Yale University, you wrote that you became very emotional. Although your response was in large part due to reading more about the boys’ feelings after the untimely death of their beloved mother and father Arthur and Sylvia Davies, I suspect it was deeper than this and due to finally reading about the boy who wouldn’t grow up and lived a life removed from the world. You discovered that few people truly knew Barrie apart from his adopted sons and housekeeper. What did you think when you read Barrie’s note, “May God blast any one who writes a biography of me” in his notebooks?

MT: Barrie described himself once as a shuttered house. I may have read his letters, notebooks, and diaries, but he remains a mystery to me—in a good sense. There were times when I felt myself to be an intruder in the archives, although there are those who will argue that posthumous papers belong to posterity. Occasionally I came across documents that seemed almost sacred—George’s letters to Barrie, written from the Western Front, just a few days before his death, to cite just one example. There was so much joy in Barrie’s life, and so many triumphs, but there is no getting past the tragic deaths of Arthur and Sylvia Davies, or George’s death in World War I, or Michael’s suicide at Oxford. Barrie was so guarded and private in real life that I felt it doubly important to treat his life with respect.

On your blog Breezes from Wonderland, you track the media and film world’s attempts to reinvent classic and fairy tales in film, music, plays and television. Which recent productions do you believe have been most successful?

MT: I rarely meet a fairy-tale revival or reinvention that I don’t like. I am enthralled by Catherine Breillat’s fairy-tale films, but I also find the new crime series Grimm, as well as the series Once Upon a Time, entertaining. I’m eager to see the three new Snow White films coming out in 2012, and I’m astonished that Hollywood, which has always used fairy-tale narratives as subtexts—is now explicitly reinventing the old tales

A.S. Byatt has written introductions for a few of your books (The Grimm Reader and The Annotated Brothers Grimm) and reviews of your books for The Guardian. How did you first begin working together and do you have future projects planned?

MT: A.S. Byatt has been wonderfully generous in writing the introduction for the Grimm books. Her work is always inspiring, and I am hoping that I will one day have the chance to meet her in person. We correspond from time to time, and I’m hoping to recruit her as a contributor to a handbook on fairy tales that I am editing.

Who do you believe are the most exciting children’s book authors of today and which ones do you think will make the sort of impact that readers will remember and cherish into their adulthood?

MT: I taught the Harry Potter series for the first time this year and was deeply impressed, once again, by the final book in the series—I think I now finally understand horcruxes and hallows, as well as the depth of Rowling’s engagement with the great existential mysteries. The devotion of my students to that series is nothing short of astounding, and the books have an unparalleled bonding power. It took me a while to become an ardent fan, perhaps because the books become more sophisticated and adult-friendly over time. Harry Potter grows up, and so does the generation of children that began reading his story when they were his age. I’m also a fan of Neil Gaiman, Lois Lowry, and Brian Selznick. And The Hunger Games is impossible to put down, even if it’s not a book to “cherish.” Children’s literature seems no longer to be just for children, and, these days, we live in a world of shared electronic media that has knocked down some of the old barriers.

What sort of projects are you currently working on?

MT: I have just finished a Young Adult novel about a boy growing up in Nazi-occupied Greece. It’s my first work of fiction, and it was inspired by a real-life story of an old friend of mine who lived in Athens during the second World War. Then it’s back to fairy tales.

Nicki Richesin is the editor of four anthologies,What I Would Tell Her: 28 Devoted Dads on Bringing Up, Holding On To, and Letting Go of Their Daughters; Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond; Crush: 26 Real-Life Tales of First Love; and The May Queen: Women on Life, Work, and Pulling it all Together in your Thirties. Her anthologies have been excerpted and praised in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Redbook, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Bust, Salon, Daily Candy, and Babble.

School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari

Bianca Schulze — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:54:04 +0000

Add this book to your collection: School of Fear

Have you read this book? Rate it:
[ratings]

Video courtesy of LittleBrownBooks: “What are YOU afraid of?”

Review: Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis

Bianca Schulze — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:16:43 +0000

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: December 30, 2011

Wildwood Chronicles

By Colin Meloy; illustrated by Carson Ellis

Reading level: Ages 9 and up

Hardcover: 560 pages

Publisher: Balzer + Bray; First Edition first Printing edition (August 30, 2011)

Source: Library

What to expect: Fantasy

At first glance, Wildwood Chronicles may seem too massive a tome to read to your children. Although daunting, I’m glad that we undertook the challenge. For the more faint-hearted, you may want to invest in the audiobook narrated by Amanda Plummer (whom you may remember as Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction and the axe-murder in So I Married an Axe Murderer). I’m told she employs a remarkable number of voices for this large cast of characters. The one character she cannot give voice yet seems to pulse with life throughout this book is the forest itself, the various flora and fauna that inhabit this Northwestern clime, and the ivy that lurks just below its surface waiting to engulf its very heart.

The soul of the book for me is the uncommonly bold heroine Prue who risks life and limb for her brother Mac and even puts her own parents to shame with her fearlessness. The story begins, much like Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, when baby Mac is snatched from his radio flyer wagon in the park and whisked into the sky by a murder of crows. Shocked yet undaunted, Prue returns to her house for supplies and leaves to rescue her brother early the following morning. Unbeknownst to her, she is followed by her curious friend Curtis who only wants to help her. Once past the Impassable Wilderness, they encounter an army of coyotes and lead separate adventures for most of the book until they are reunited in a battle to save Wildwood and Mac.

The inventive ragtag cast of characters befriends and tricks Prue and Curtis as they search for Mac and whom to trust along their way. They both encounter beasts and humans trying to survive in a world that has changed since the reign of Alexandra the mad Queen who was banished to the Wastelands. Her devoted legion of various birds and coyotes prove formidable foes for Prue, Curtis, the Mystics, Bandits, and the Irregulars as they mount a campaign to defeat Alexandra and her minions and take back Wildwood. Throughout the novel, Carson Ellis’s delicate illustrations provide a fantastic backdrop for her husband’s imagination. The husband and wife live just across from the Impassable Wilderness and it would seem the perfect inspiration for them to conjure Wildwood into life. I must confess, though enchanting, Meloy’s long descriptions of fern and bracken often proved too taxing for my seven-year-old. I admire the breadth and depth of his imagination and his sheer ability to bring a story to Portland that will leave a mark on this fair city for some time to come. Much like Eloise in New York or Paddington Bear in London, Prue and Curtis will live on in the hearts and minds of the citizens of Portland. I salute the pair for a masterfully good read and look forward to reading their next installment.

Add this book to your collection: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1

Have you read this book? Rate it:
[ratings]

How Young is a Young Adult?

Bianca Schulze — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 07:28:42 +0000

Kids Reading YA Fiction

By Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguié (Authors, Unleashed), for The Children’s Book Review
Published: December 22, 2011

Nancy Holder

As writers who write both young adult and adult fiction (and in the case of Nancy, all the way down to middle grade and early readers as well), we are often asked to give an appropriate age range for potential child and teen readers (as well as Lexile ratings) for our various single titles and series books. It’s well known among young adult fiction authors that a large part of our readership is comprised of adults, and in fact, titles that were originally published as adult novels are being repackaged and marketed as young adult titles. (Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, for example, was originally sold as an adult novel, but that novel and its companion, Ender’s Shadow, prompted the bestowing of the 2008 Margaret A. Edwards by YALSA on Card.)[1]

Debbie Viguié

Taking this conversation in the other direction—how young?—can prove problematic. Some reviewers and teachers have opined that Harry Potter is not a children’s book series, due to subject nature (death) and complexity of language and theme[2]. Within the same community, there has been some concern that younger readers will internalize the notion of unhealthy codependent relationships, such as may be perceived between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, in the Twilight series[3]. Young adult author Ellen Hopkins (Crank and others) was asked to sit out of the Humble ISD Libraries’ Teen Lit Festival after middle school parents, alerted by their school librarian, voiced concern that Hopkins’ work was not appropriate for their children. Other young adult authors pulled out in support, citing the “disinvitation” as a form of censorship.[4]

But the fact remains that for better or worse, there are gatekeepers in young adult literature who ask for benchmarks to guide acquisition and reading recommendations of our books. These issues are on the minds of authors like us, who may write about black magic and human sacrifice in one series (Wicked), and get asked by an editor to delete mentions of underage drinking in another. Andrew Smith, author of The Marberry Lens, warned educators and librarians at the annual Southern California Independent Booksellers Association tea in 2010 that he liberally dropped the F-bomb in the book; while our copyeditor for Unleashed queried our editor regarding the use of “bitch.”

Because authors have websites and Internet presence these days, we employ a number of strategies to steer readers to the work we have intended for them. Some authors use variants of their names to signal if a work in hand is for adults (Lilith Saintcrow) or minors (Lili St. Crow) or create separate websites/portals for their adult and children’s titles (Kelly Armstrong and Neil Gaiman both do this, for example.)

Some educators and authors opine that young readers will select themselves out of reading material that is not suited to them, and therefore no attempt at self-selecting is necessary. At a recent school visit, the librarian thanked one of us for talking about comic books because “I just want them to read something. Anything.” Barnes and Nobel shelved the volumes of the Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series (The Golden Compass and others) in the children’s, young adult, and adult fiction sections, but elementary school children reported that the books were boring and too long. [5] Younger “Twihards” informed us that they stopped reading the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, which things got too “yucky.”

Authors of teen and children’s fiction often face a sort of either/or question when we are approached by potential readers: Kids want to know if our books are “good” (entertaining) and adults want to know if our books are “good” (well-written and treating of substantive themes.)

With Unleashed, our new series, we’re very lucky to be able to point to a large stack of enthusiastic reviews by journals such as Kirkus and readers both young and old, while also pointing out that Unleashed is “King Lear with werewolves”—a fact that prompted one teacher at a book signing to select it from among our three series. In Unleashed, we’ve also made an attempt to explore potentially dangerous friendships and romances without endorsing them. Foremost on our minds is telling a good story, but we are cognizant that readers younger than we have anticipated might pick up our books—these days, there are some pretty young “young adults” in the reading population.

Add this book to your collection: Unleashed

For more information, visit: http://debbieviguie.com/ and http://nancyholder.com/

[1] http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklistsawards/bookawards/margaretaedwards/maeprevious/08edwards

[2] http://booksyourkidswilllove.blogspot.com/2011/03/harry-potter-is-not-childrens-book.html

[3] http://www.tipsbytony.com/2009/11/why-every-school-should-study-twilight/

[4] http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/886402-312/ellen_hopkins_uninvited_to_lit.html.csp

[5] Interview with Maile McKeon, former children’s librarian at Miramar Ranch Elementary School and children’s section lead at Barnes and Noble, Mira Mesa, Ca.

Yona Zeldis McDonough: From Madame Alexander to Marilyn Monroe

Bianca Schulze — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:37:28 +0000

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: December 5, 2011

Yona Zeldis McDonough

Yona Zeldis McDonough is the talented author of many books for readers of all ages: fiction and non-fiction for adults and award-winning children’s books. She has most recently written the highly anticipated second book in her Doll Shop series, The Cats in the Doll Shop. Although a prolific writer, Yona still makes time for school visits and readings. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Nicki Richesin: It’s a great pleasure to interview you. You have proved a prolific writer of both fiction and nonfiction for adults, in addition to your award-winning children’s books. My daughter adored The Doll Shop Downstairs and The Cats in the Doll Shop. Could you explain how you first discovered Beatrice Alexander, or Madame Alexander as she’s known, and how her story inspired you to write about the resourceful Breittlemann family?

Yona Zeldis McDonough: I remember Madame Alexander dolls from my own childhood. I longed for them though I never had one back then. As an adult, I started collecting dolls and bought a few of Mme. Alexander’s creations for my collection. When I was reading about her early life, I found out that her father owned and operated America’s first doll hospital. It was on the Lower East Side and the family lived in an apartment above the shop. Beatrice (she was Bertha in those days) and her sisters were allowed to play in the doll hospital sometimes and when I learned that, I just knew: here was a perfect setting for a children’s story.

Many of your books are set in Brooklyn, where you live with your family. Why has this area of New York proved such a “fertile ground” as you put it in your work?

YZM: I love Brooklyn. It’s so vast and filled with its own history, character and even mysteries. It is both a part of New York, and yet retains a separate identity. I grew up in Brooklyn and so it holds many associations for me.

You’ve written a great many biographies for children, including most recently Louisa: The Life of Louisa May Alcott and The Doll with the Yellow Star. You collaborated on your earlier biographies with your mother the painter Malcah Zeldis. How did you enjoy working on these projects together?

YZM: As one friend said to me, “Your mother is not a person, she’s an event!” I very much enjoy working with her. She’s lively, passionate and has lots of great ideas. We brainstorm to find subjects on which we want to collaborate; we’re a very good team.

I understand you’re putting the finishing touches on a new biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder for Holt. Wilder has such a devoted following and even after all these years, her Little House books have remained in print. You must have felt a bit of a responsibility in honoring her memory for her fans. Did you discover any interesting details about her life?

YZM: The sheer volume of material on Wilder is formidable and I am not sure I found much that was new. However, I do think I offer a new and perhaps feminist interpretation of the material. In the bio I wrote, I tried to stress how her mother’s influence did so much to shape her life. Her mother was an educated woman, and wanted her daughters to be educated as well. She read to them, and did her best to see that they went to school, which was unusual for the time and their circumstances. Even after Laura’s older sister Mary went blind (from an illness), Laura’s mother was insistent that she receive an education, and managed to save enough money to send her to a college for the blind in another state. I was so struck by that. Most people would not have thought educating any girl was so important, yet Laura’s mother made so many sacrifices in order for Mary to have an education and become self-sufficient. And later, Laura communicated her love of learning to her own daughter Rose; Rose became a well-known journalist and author. I tried to stress the continuity there: how the love of books, of reading and writing, was forged and passed on by mothers to daughters.

I read on your blog that you’re putting together a new collection of stories loosely based on the lives of your American parents who lived in Israel during the fifties. You were born in Chadera while they lived there. What have you learned about your parents or yourself while doing your research?

YZM: I can’t say I learned anything factual about my parents or their past; even though my stories are based on real events, I have completely made them over, cannibalized them if you will, in my writing. The stories are more about the search and less about the discovery. I’ve also enlarged the canvas to include some stories about my grandmother as a child and a young woman; one of these stories takes place in Russia, a place I have never been but long to go. And in my fiction, I can.

You edited a highly praised collection of essays about Marilyn Monroe, All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader. Why were you initially drawn to this project and why do you think Marilyn has held such a fascination for her fans? Will you go see the new film My Week with Marilyn?

YZM: She is that forever compelling combination of beautiful and damned. Her Cinderella-like transformation from unwanted orphan/abused foster child to Hollywood star fulfills a very powerful fantasy so many of us seem to have. I have mixed feelings about the new movie; MM’s presence was so incandescent on screen that I see no need to watch someone impersonate her. Yet the film will add to the discussion in some fashion and I suppose I will succumb.

What are you dreaming of writing now?

YZM: I’m working on a new novel set in 1947 in both New York and Connecticut. And I have some children’s projects, both fiction and non-fiction, that I’m hoping to get launched as well.

December, 2011: Best Selling Kids’ Books, New Releases, and More …

Bianca Schulze — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:20:30 +0000

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: December 1, 2011

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases and bestsellers.

THE HOT SPOTS: THE TRENDS

Kids’ Christmas Books: For the Naughty & Nice

Cedella Marley Inspires with “One Love”

Author Interview: Gary Paulsen

Review: Scat by Carl Hiaasen

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

THE NEW RELEASES

The most coveted books that release this month:

Witch & Wizard: The Fire

by James Patterson and Jill Dembowski

(Ages 11-15)

Big Nate and Friends

by Lincoln Peirce

(Ages 8-12)

Artemis the Loyal (Goddess Girls)

by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

(Ages 8-12)

Pretty Little Liars #10: Ruthless

by Sara Shepard

(Ages 14-17)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

Home for Christmas

by Jan Brett

(Ages 0-5)

If You Give a Dog a Donut

by Laura Numeroff (Author), Felicia Bond (Illustrator)

(Ages 3-7)

The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse

by Eric Carle

(Ages 0-5)

The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories

by Dr. Seuss

(Ages 6-9)

Press Here

by Herve Tullet

(Ages 4-8)

CHAPTER BOOKS

Heroes of Olympus, The, Book Two: The Son of Neptune

by Rick Riordan

(Ages 9-11)

The Heroes of Olympus, Book One: The Lost Hero

by Rick Riordan

(Ages 9-12)

Wonderstruck

by Brian Selznick

(Ages 9-12)

Every Thing On It

by Shel Silverstein

(Ages 8-11)

LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia

by DK Publishing

(Ages 12 and up)

PAPERBACK BOOKS

The Red Pyramid

by Rick Riordan

(Ages 10 and up)

Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer

by John Grisham

(Ages 8-12)

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

(Ages 14 and up)

Thirteen Reasons Why

by Jay Asher

(Ages 12 and up)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

(Ages 12 and up)

SERIES BOOKS

Inheritance

by Christopher Paolini

(Young Adult)

The Twilight Saga Collection

by Stephenie Meyer

(Ages 12 and up)

Percy Jackson & the Olympians

by Rick Riordan

(Ages 9 to 12)

Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset

by Suzanne Collins

(Ages 12 and up)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

by Jeff Kinney

(Ages 9 to 12)

This information was gathered from the New York Times Best Sellers list, which reflects the sales of books from books sold nationwide, including independent and chain stores. It is correct at the time of publication and presented in random order. Visit: www.nytimes.com.

Know of any kids’ literacy or author events that are happening during the months of December or January? Leave your suggestion in the comments field below.