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Following Stiff, Spook, Bonk and Packing for Mars, Mary Roach is back with Gulp, in which she maintains her punning, entertaining writing style, as well as her willingness to go to the gross-out extreme. There were actually moments in this book that made me nauseous, and there is one chapter in particular that I believe [...]

Last time we discussed the many charms of Faith Erin Hicks’s Friends with Boys, recognized this year as one of the Great Graphic Novels for Teens Top Ten for 2013.  Readers who relish Hicks’s story of family, hauntings, and navigating a new school should turn to these recommendations for their next title. Anya’s Ghost by [...]

Well, it happened again – a student discovered my world-record-holding look-alike in one of our library books. This time it was in the pages of Scholastic Book of Records 2011. A 3rd grader came up to me today and showed me this: Hicham El Guerrouj This has happened before. Turns out that Mr. Guerrouj holds the [...]

What better way to engage and inspire a group of fashion-conscious kids than by creating a design competition modeled after the hit reality show Project Runway? Thanks to the efforts of children’s librarian Frances Grossman-Goldberg—and a little help from The Weinstein Company, Mood Fabrics, and L’oreal.Paris—a group of teens and tweens at the Pomonok branch of the Queens Borough Public Library (NY) had the experiences of a lifetime this past winter.

Pat Scales, chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, answers readers’ questions about censorship. This month, Scales addresses what to do when your school has inflexible or strict Internet filters, including strategies for aiding students in completing research assignments and advice on instituting new policies for challenged materials.

In Growing Up in Coal Country, Susan Campbell Bartoletti recounts life in Northeastern Pennsylvania coal country around the turn of the 19th century utilizing oral history and archival documents and focusing primarily on the lives of children. Don’t miss the starred review of this audiobook narrated by Suzanne Toren.

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick. Roaring Brook Press. 2013. Review copy from publisher. The Plot: Always, there is an Eric and a Merle; a hare and a loss; and the island of Blessed. These are the constants. What changes in the seven stories of Midwinterblood is the time, starting in the future, 2073, and going back [...]

Giant Dance Party By Betsy Bird Illustrated By Brandon Dorman Greenwillow (an imprint of Harper Collins) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0061960833 Ages 3-7 On shelves now. Gotcha! I’m just messing with you.  No, I’m not going to actually review my book here.  I’m not going to wax rhapsodic over the hidden meanings lurking behind the mysterious cupcake [...]

Newbery Medalist Elaine Lobl Konigsburg, author of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and 18 other books for children, died Friday in Falls Church, VA. She was 83. The author, better known as E.L. Konigsburg, will be remembered fondly for her creativity, her humor, and her intricate storytelling that celebrated each kid’s uniqueness, her friends, colleagues, and fans say.