Reviews

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. St. Martin’s Griffin. 2013. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. The Plot: August, 1986, and Park Sheridan is sitting on the bus, wanting to be left alone. When Eleanor Douglas gets on the bus, the last thing he wants to do is share his seat with her. Ignore her, leave [...]

Graphic Classics, Volume 24: Native American Classics By Robby McMurtry, Ryan Huna Smith, Randy Keedah, Joseph Erb, Bahe Whitethorne Jr., Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Zitkala-Sa, Timothy Truman, Benjamin Truman, Jim McMunn, Mark A. Nelson, Charles Alexander Eastman, Simon-Pokagon, Murv Jacob, E. Pauline Johnson, Weshoyot Alvitre, Elias Johnson, Andrea Grant, Toby Cypress, James Harris Guy, David Kanietakeron [...]

The Hans Christian Andersen Award shortlist has been revealed; the Christopher Awards names six winners in the Books for Young People category; and Shmoop, a publisher of digital curriculum and test prep, is offering a new SAT math practice tool—Math Shack. All of this and more in this week's News Bites column.

This year’s nominees for the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a varied lineup. Last year’s judges (ahem) increased the number of young reader categories from two to three, and this year’s judges have continued that practice, which opens up the nominations to a wider range of books. Best Publication [...]

Two items to enjoy this morning. Six times each year I have the opportunity to interview a debut author whose first title exemplifies an adult book with teen appeal. My interview with Kimberly McCreight, author of Reconstructing Amelia, is out today. If you subscribe to the SLJ Teen Newsletter you will find it in your [...]

A picture book that focuses on Albert Einstein's intellect hrough the concepts that puzzled and excited him. Check out SLJ's starred review.

Timberlake's performance during the Grammy Awards earlier this year may have been panned, but our reviewer finds his efforts on The 20/20 Experience laudable. If you've never heard of Son Volt, it may be time to give their latest album, Honky Tonk, a listen. Been missing Lara Croft? She's back in Tomb Raider, a prequel to the wildly successful franchise that first launched in 1996.

A flashback to what I was reading in April 2008: The Sleeping Beauty: Create Your Own Ballet by Viola Ann Seddon (illustrator) and Jean Mahoney (author). From my review: “Creating your own ballet for Sleeping Beauty. . . . The book is not just the stage directions to create your own play-it also includes a [...]

Michael Grant wraps up his Gone series superbly with the sixth book, Light. In Openly Straight, Bill Konigsberg depicts a gay teenager who wants to shed his "gay boy" label and just be one of the guys. And, Caprice Crane takes a crack at finding something new to say about mean girls in high school it with her novel Confessions of a Hater.