Cindy: Our students started school last week, and now, with the Labor Day holiday behind us, most students around the country are back as well. One challenge facing new middle-school students is learning their locker combination. It’s such a big deal to go from a coat room hook to a locker! Accordingly, many book covers depict an […]
Lynn: What does it take to end oppression and injustice? Many of us would suggest the inspiration of an exceptional leader, but I believe in the bravery and determination of ordinary people. Alice Fay Duncan’s moving picture book, Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 (2018), is a prime example. Duncan bases her book […]
Lynn: Married only a year, runners Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes were badly injured in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Both lost limbs and, in the dark days that followed, Jessica endured many surgeries as doctors fought to save her remaining foot and leg. Then a black lab service dog, Rescue, came into their lives. […]
Cindy: We recently discovered two stunning picture books, both from small presses, featuring jungle animals and stories that read like modern folktales. One is Lantana Press’ You’re Safe With Me (2018), by Chitra Soundar & Poonam Mistry. Thank you, Lerner, for distributing this gorgeous picture book in the U. S. and Canada. I was drawn […]
Lynn: Veera Hiranandani puts the well-loved structure of the fictional diary to exquisite use in her latest novel. InThe Night Diary (2018), 12-year-old Nisha receives a diary as a birthday gift from Kazi, the family servant who has raised and cared for Nisha and her twin brother after their mother died giving birth to them. Nisha […]
Lynn: Kids love dinosaurs and they love books about dinosaurs. So all I really have to say is that we have a fun and very different book for your dinosaur-loving readers This inventive adventure story is set in an alternate America. It is 1863, and in this world, while the Civil War rages, dinosaurs not […]
Cindy: I’ve been fascinated by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi ever since I read Susan Vreeland’s novel, The Passion of Artemisia (2002), while serving on the Best Books for Young Adults YALSA committee when it still included adult books in its charge. When I learned about the new debut YA novel Blood Water Paint (2018) […]
Lynn: Shhhhh! I’m whispering this because I KNOW how Cindy hates to be reminded that the S-word is just a month away. Even though I’m retired from my school job, I still hate the idea of summer slipping away, but I want to give you all plenty of time to get these new school-related picture […]
Lynn: The Boggart is back—and Nessie, too! That news brought a lot of happiness to our 8-year-old focus group member who, with his dad, had recently inhaled the previous two books. I was pretty geeked myself to see Susan Cooper gift readers with The Boggart Fights Back (2018). It’s taken me a while to get this […]
Lynn: We count you Bookends readers as friends. Having just read The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge (September) by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, I know that, were I a goblin, I would affectionately address you as follows: You clammy, sweaty pedant! Get your toad-like hands on this book ASAP (as-soon-as-published)! Brilliant and very, very funny, writer […]
Encouraging Middle-Schoolers to Choose Books
There’s been a lot of discussion among the librarians I know about what to do with middle-schoolers: they just don’t seem to read as much as they used to. I know that here in Chicago, we have a unique perspective on this situation, since our schools run K–8. In my former school system in Maryland […]
Getting Started with the Global Read Aloud
The 2017 Global Read Aloud kicked off yesterday, and I’m here to help. Author and educator Pernille Ripp founded the program as a way to connect students and teachers from different locales around the topics of books. (Think One Book One School or One Book One City, but on a global scale.) Each year, Ripp […]
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: Practice Recognizing Fake News
Cindy: There have been a number of YA fiction books with the title “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’ve found a creative, informational book for middle-grade students that reinforces evaluating information for truth. Fake news, anyone? Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive (2017) by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson is the first […]
Encouraging Middle-Schoolers to Choose Books
There’s been a lot of discussion among the librarians I know about what to do with middle-schoolers: they just don’t seem to read as much as they used to. I know that here in Chicago, we have a unique perspective on this situation, since our schools run K–8. In my former school system in Maryland […]
Getting Started with the Global Read Aloud
The 2017 Global Read Aloud kicked off yesterday, and I’m here to help. Author and educator Pernille Ripp founded the program as a way to connect students and teachers from different locales around the topics of books. (Think One Book One School or One Book One City, but on a global scale.) Each year, Ripp […]
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: Practice Recognizing Fake News
Cindy: There have been a number of YA fiction books with the title “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’ve found a creative, informational book for middle-grade students that reinforces evaluating information for truth. Fake news, anyone? Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive (2017) by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson is the first […]
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