This past year was a big year for my family: my oldest son finished kindergarten, and his teacher deserves her place in the pantheon of great kindergarten teachers. (My son will proudly explain that she is The Best.) My own amazing kindergarten teacher, Ms. Goldie, is someone whose name frequently comes up in family conversation. […]
Happy final Friday of Pride Month. Wow . . . that went by quickly! I have 25 (no lie!) more books on, under, next to, and all around my desk that I will not be covering here, which is actually a good thing, because that’s proof that twenty-first-century titles by and about the transgender and […]
This regular feature gives Booklist critics the opportunity to shout about a recently published book they adored. They’ll tell us why we should read it, then provide five read-alikes for the title. ★ The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault In the decades since its 1985 publication, Atwood’s dystopic classic has spawned audio, […]
From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, authors have used “the noun of full name” titling method to effectively pitch their stories to readers, giving them the who and the what right off the bat. Due to the sheer volume of examples I’ve found (literally hundreds), I’ll be breaking up this title […]
Cindy and Lynn: We were fortunate to be in the Seattle audience for the 2019 Youth Media Awards announcements, and as usual, there were surprises. Some of our favorite books won different awards than we predicted, and some were shut out entirely. Other books that hadn’t been on our radar now have us scrambling to place […]
Cindy and Lynn: We had so much fun giving out last year’s 2017 Bookends Awards, this year we’re announcing a new batch for 2018’s publications! We’re not talking about Newbery, Caldecott, or Printz Awards; we’ll leave those to the official committees. We’re off to Seattle this week for the 2019 ALA Midwinter Meeting, and we can’t wait to learn who […]
Cindy: Basketball fans rejoice—have we got a book for you! I know there’s some Super Bowl hype ratcheting up, but I couldn’t care less (especially since the Bears are out). It’s officially Big 10 college basketball season at my house and my crimson-and-cream, candy-stripe Hoosier warm-up pants are at the ready, while Lynn cheers for her […]
Lynn: Choosing our list of annual favorites is SO hard! Cindy is right that I seldom can keep to the limit, but please remember she chose 16! This was an exceptional year and there are so many I wish I could include. Please stay tuned as we will soon post our Bookends Pre-Midwinter Awards which […]
Cindy: Once again, Lynn and I are going to share our favorite books of 2018. I hope some of them end up winning awards, but that is not in our criteria for selecting them—these are the books we most enjoyed reading. I suggested limiting ourselves to 10 but then ended up listing 16. We both have […]
Lynn: Sy Montgomery is a familiar name to nature-loving readers of all ages. The author of more than 20 books, she is a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of many awards including the Sibert Award, the Henry Bergh Award for Nonfiction, and others. Her most recent book, How to Be a Good Creature: A […]