Thursday, February 28, 2013

Valentine's reading, late edition

Do you like reading about romance? Here's a fun way to choose your next book. Amazon has prepared an interactive map of love stories set throughout the United States. Click here to access the map, and take your pick from a panorama of love. Enjoy!

mhd

Monday, February 11, 2013

The sages of Seattle have spoken...


…..and the best children's books of 2012 have been crowned! 

We are in our usual state of bemusement after the ALA announcement of its annual children's book awards.  Our favorites have been bypassed but we are delighted with the committee choices. (Great minds don't always think alike!)

Jon Klassen won the Caldecott Medal for This is Not My Hat, his subversive take on "sharing" clothing. Parents will laugh when they read this picture book; hopefully, the children who are looking and listening will, too…..

Katherine Applegate received the John Newbery Medal for her affecting novel, The One and Only Ivan. The unusual hero, a gorilla unhappily on display in a shopping mall, manages to win his freedom and that of his elephant companion through his ability to communicate with Julie, a young girl. A fantasy? Inspired by a true story, maybe not!

The recipient of the Michael Printz Award, for the best book for teenagers, was quite a surprise to us, and, for that matter, to the rest of the literary community. Nick Lake's hard-hitting novel about Haiti, In Darkness, combines the modern-day travails of a teenage boy trapped in the rubble of the recent earthquake with the historical struggles of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the 18th-century Haitian freedom fighter. An intense reading experience, it will reward your time and concentration.

If you'd like to see what we liked best in 2012, please take a look at our own list of favorites. Let us know if we've left out any of yours!

Mary Hoskinson-Dean and Allison Murphy