CHENG, Andrea. The Year of the Baby. illus. by Patrice Barton. Houghton Harcourt. 2013. ISBN 9780547910673. JLG Level: A+ : Intermediate Readers (Grades 3–5).

Anna is the only one who can calm her new baby sister when they go to her frequent doctor trips. Kaylee, who was adopted from China, is not gaining weight, and everyone is worried. At school, Anna has trouble deciding on a topic for her science project. When she and her friends discover that Kaylee eats better when she’s distracted by their singing, they wonder if an experiment could win the science fair and help the baby gain weight. Should the songs be in English or Chinese? Does the type of food matter? Cheng follows The Year of the Book (2012) with a charming sequel that asks as many questions as it answers.

ENGLISH, Karen. Substitute Trouble. illus. Laura Freeman. Clarion.2013. ISBN 9780547615653. JLG Level: CE : City Elementary (Grades 2–6).

Nikki and Deja don’t like their new substitute teacher. He doesn’t follow Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s rules. He doesn’t follow the plan. He has no control over the class. Writing an anonymous letter to Mr. Willow with some tips about how to handle the misbehavior in their class seems like a good idea. In a misunderstanding, Deja is blamed for a disrespectful action, and she’s sent to the principal’s office. Her explanation and the letter brings consequences that she never expected. Following the rules gets hard, even for Deja and Nikki. New readers will identify with the class, but hope they never have substitute trouble like the girls do.

GAIMAN, Neil. Fortunately, the Milk. illus. by Skottie Young. HarperCollins. Sept. 2013. ISBN9780062224071. JLG Level:  I : Independent Readers (Grades 2–4).

“Where have you been all this time?” asked my sister. “Ah,” said my father. “Um. Yes. Well, funny you should ask me that…I bought the milk…and then something odd happened,” he said. Father proceeds to tell a marvelously inventive story about pirates, piranhas, dinosaurs, volcanoes, and Floaty-Ball-Person-Carriers. Everyone has told a tale that sounds unbelievable, but Gaiman’s new work is a tribute to the art of storytelling. Even the most cynical reader will relax into a far-fetched account of why it took so long to bring home the milk.

KELLER, Laurie. Bowling Alley Bandit. illus. by author. Holt/Christy Ottaviano. 2013. ISBN 9780805090765. JLG Level: HE : Humor Elementary (grades 2–6).

From his picture book debut in Arnie the Doughnut (2003), Arnie returns in a short novel for independent readers. From breakfast to doughnut-dog, Arnie’s life is never the same. Mr. Bing takes him every week to the bowling alley where he is quite popular. During a tournament, Mr. Bing stops using his regular house ball, Bruiser, for his own personal ball, Betsy. It’s a special night, so Arnie arranges for a bowling karaoke version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” It’s a hit, but something goes wrong with Mr. Bing’s ball. He never throws a gutterball. It’s up to Arnie to investigate the trail of pink sprinkles and get to the bottom of the mystery. Keller’s amusing cartoonlike illustrations keep the action moving and the laughter flowing.

PEET, Mal and Elspeth Graham. Mysterious Traveler. Candlewick. Oct. 2013. illus. by P.J. Lynch. ISBN 9780763662325. JLG Level: I : Independent Readers (Grades 2–4).

Desert guide Issa finds a baby after a terrible sandstorm takes the lives of everyone but the camel that was transporting her. He raises the girl as his grandchild and teaches Mariama everything he knows. She learns to read the desert for signs of weather and danger. When Issa goes blind, she becomes his eyes. A rich young man comes to Issa for help crossing the wide desert. He refuses the aid of a blind man, preferring to use a magic stone as a guide. Issa learns the party goes to the Bitter Mountains alone, he takes Mariama to search for them. Will they find them before they become lost? Can a blind man save them? Lynch’s gorgeous watercolors illustrate the fable of a Timbuktu guide who blindly let travelers across the vast deserts.

For audio/video versions of these booktalks, please visit JLG’s Shelf Life Blog.

Junior Library Guild is a collection development service that helps school and public libraries acquire the best new children’s and young adult books. Season after season, year after year, Junior Library Guild book selections go on to win awards, collect starred or favorable reviews, and earn industry honors. Visit us at www.JuniorLibraryGuild.com.

Photo credit: Andrea Fischman.

New York City’s famed Carnegie Hall has hosted thousands of legendary performers since it opened in 1891, from the New York Philharmonic to jazz greats Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday to modern notables Isaac Stern and Renée Fleming. Joining their ranks this week? John Green—the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005), An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton, 2006), and Paper Towns (Dutton, 2008)—and his brother Hank Green, who took to the stage on Tuesday to entertain over 2,800 fans. “An Evening of Awesome,” featuring numerous special guests, was also lived-streamed to sites around the country through a special partnership with Tumblr.

Photo credit: Andrea Fischman.

The much-anticipated and hyped event was part of a 17-city tour celebrating the first anniversary of Green’s most recent bestselling YA fiction book, The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012); the tour has sold over 11,300 tickets.

For the uninitiated, the Green brothers are also known for their popular YouTube video blog series Vlogbrothers, which has close to a million subscribers. Passionate fans of the series, who call themselves “nerdfighters,” are so numerous and so well organized that they have created their own online social networking group to, as they declare,  “increase awesome and decrease suck.”

“It brought to life the Nerdfighter community,” says Elazar Nudell, 30, of the site. Nudell traveled all the way from Springfield, MA, to attend the sold-out event along with Max Schnaper, 21, and Sasha Zacharia, 21.

However, most of the live audience at Carnegie Hall was comprised of teenage girls.

“John Green understands teen girls,” 17-year-old Samantha from Merrick, NY, tells School Library Journal. She feels that Green’s books helped her during a troubling time in her life. “He made me realize that how I felt was OK.”

Her schoolmate, 16-year-old Johanna, claims that the author encouraged her to be a thoughtful person. While waiting for the show to begin, Johanna read to Sam from a book by her other favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut.

The evening was part rock concert, part author and literary reading, and part talk show.

Shouts of  “We love you!” rang out through the hall as the tuxedo-clad duo took the stage. John entertained the audience with a monologue about his life and work. He told them, “My life is like a very long Emily Dickinson poem.”

Hank sang songs of his own composition on such topics as Helen Hunt, Harry Potter, and Quarks. Grammy-winning musician and former member of The Moldy Peaches, Kimya Dawson, and the folk rock band The Mountain Goats also performed during the evening.

Later, Ashley Clements and Daniel Vincent Gordh, actors in the The Lizzie Bennet Diaries Web series developed by Hank Green, appeared to do a dramatic reading from The Fault in Our Star. The night’s special guests also were on hand to perform a Readers Theater scene from Paper Towns.

The surprise guest of the evening was Neil Gaiman. The award-winning author of The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008), participated in the Q&A portion of the evening, asking John Green such questions and queries as “Where do people go when they die?” (“Narnia,” interjected Hank) and “Describe yourself in three words,” to which John finally agreed on Handsome, Awesome, and Tall—after some prompting from Hank, Neil, and the audience.  Also during the Q&A, Hank Green admitted to having a crush on his high school English teacher.

During the event, Carnegie Hall became a trending topic on Twitter; already by noon on Wednesday there were more than 35,000 additional views of the event and 18,000 comments. Additional meetups around this event are scheduled for upcoming days; a schedule can be found here.

“This Year” singalong. Photo credit: Andrea Fischman.

For additional photos of this event from School Library Journal, check out our Tumblr feed!

Photo: Kimberly Butler

Due out next year, it will be the first new Sandman story in nine years and will coincide with the original series’ 25th anniversary.

The new limited series, called “The Sandman,” is a prequel to the DC series he began in 1988 and ended in 1996 with 75 issues. Sandman is Dream, known also as Morpheus, an immortal member of a group called the Endless.

“I’m excited; this has been an incredibly long time coming,” Gaiman said in the video message. “It was one of the few stories that actually felt, when I finished Sandman, like I had failed because I had not told this story.”

Gaiman fans recently learned that he signed a major book deal with HarperCollins for two picture books and three novels, where we’ll see some favorite familiar characters, as well as some new ones.

Inspired by a recent trip to China, Gaiman‘s book deal with HarperCollins includes two new picture books for small children that center on Chu, the loveable little panda with the great big sneeze. Chu’s Day, illustrated by Adam Rex, will be published January 8, 2013, and another Chu book has already been written.

Fortunately, the Milk, a funny young middle-grade novel that’s already completed, is “an ode to the pleasure and wonders of storytelling itself” and will feature numerous interior illustrations by Skottie Young, says HarperCollins. The deal also includes a sequel to Odd and the Frost Giants,which will follow the Viking boy Odd on further adventures. Gaiman says on his blog that he’s already “started and plotted” the book.

Gaiman will also write a still unnamed middle grade novel, described as a “mysterious book that I think I know what it is (not even started, won’t be for quite a while, and I think I know the setting but not the story).”
“We are thrilled to sign these wonderful and diverse books by the immensely talented Neil Gaiman, who is such a treasure and has so many fans of all ages,” says Rosemary Brosnan, his editor at HarperCollins.

The author wrote on his blog that he’s also hard at work on an adult novel, which has the working title, Lettie Hempstock’s Ocean. Although contacts haven’t been signed yet, Gaiman says it should be out sometime in 2013.

“[The novel is] lurching further toward the end of its second draft every day. (mostly I’m just listening to comments from friends who have read it, and fixing things, or thinking about them and letting them stay the same…),” he writes on his blog.

Gaiman’s Newbery-winning The Graveyard Book was the only book to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie Medals. He’s also the author ofStardust and Coraline, which was made into an Academy Award-nominated animated feature film.