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 […]
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) […]
Cindy: Lynn and I saw the large promo banner for Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All (2018) at ALA Midwinter and were eager to read it. Edited by Candace Fleming (The Family Romanov) and written by many of our favorite YA authors, the killer cover had our attention. The structure the novel employs […]
Lynn: It’s a great season for baseball fans! Not only is our favorite game in full swing, but there’s a full field of new books about baseball to enjoy when the games are over. Bookends reviewed two last week. Here are two more recent titles to join the lineup. The Game Can’t Love You Back, by […]
Our readers are often curious about the process of writing books, and we’re happy to provide access to the experts! In this installment of our Publishing U series, IPPY Award-winner author of historical fiction James Markert (All Things Bright and Strange, The Angel’s Share) discusses the issue of how to write a character with autism. When we consider the term […]
Lynn: Girls don’t play baseball. It’s impossible to know how often girls yearning to play the national sport have heard that phrase. Well, girls do play baseball, and they have played as far back as the 1890s. Here are two wonderful new books, set in the 1950s, that take on this very subject. In the middle-grade […]
Six years after her debut novel, The Song of Achilles, the latest from American author Madeline Miller shows readers a rewrite of classic Greek myths from the perspective of the titular sidelined sorceress, Circe. Truly a woman in a man’s world, Circe is simultaneously too weak (having not inherited the powers of her father, Helios) and too threatening […]
Cindy: A pair of recent Southern historical mysteries raises the issue of racism. I read the first, Bobby Lee Claremont and the Criminal Element (2018) by Jeannie Mobley, on a recent destination wedding trip to New Orleans. I like coordinating book settings with my travel, and I was on deadline for Booklist’s #MysteryMonth, so this novel […]
The April 15 issue of Booklist magazine is now live. Visit Booklist Online, where you’ll find 299 new reviews and 7 new feature articles and lists. The articles will be free to all for the next two weeks—to have unrestricted access, you’ll need to log in. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, or do subscribe but […]
A country the size of Connecticut, Lebanon contains over seven million people with different ethnic backgrounds, 18 religious sects, and a growing number of Syrian refugees fleeing armed conflict. Current demographics aside, Lebanon has been grappling with a civil war that has lasted on and off since 1975. Out of Lebanon’s rich society and complex […]
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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