News & Features

Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin Little, Brown Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz Candlewick Judged by Thanhha Lai

I usually have no problem sitting in judgment.  Years ago I zapped the writer’s guilt of finishing every novel because someone had bled to write it.  Now I give the first 50 pages my absolute attention.  If not enthralled, I advance to the art of flipping.

Still, my quick fingers proved useless while reading Starry River of the Sky and Splendors and Glooms.  I read every page, felt every dramatic pulse and closed the novels with Rendi and Madame Chang, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall embedded into the crevices of my mind.

Starry River drops readers into ancient China, yet its timeless theme of finding one’s self by returning to one’s roots will be understood by any video-game junkie living in, let’s say, Dallas.  This junkie will be introduced to a world where people make lanterns from fireflies and linger at the dinner table to hear stories—for entertainment.

Splendors and Glooms drops readers into 1860 London, where the details of rich lives and poor lives so infused the narrative that buttered toast and strawberry jam enter the nostrils as surely as the sour stiffness of one’s only dress.  Readers then step into the enchanting horror of icy Strachan’s Ghyll, where a puppet, a witch, two kids and a villain come together for a good vs. evil battle that rivals any video game.  In this …

» Continue Reading: Round 2, Match 3: Starry River of the Sky vs Splendors and Glooms

Can you guess the classic children’s book by its scathing one-star review on GoodReads or Amazon? [Author]‘s book is a piece of nationalist propaganda, using oversimplification, emotional appeals, and dualistic morality to shut down her readers’ minds. More troubling is that it is aimed at children, who don’t yet have the critical faculties to defend [...]

There are certain words and phrases that are instantly hilarious.  Kalamazoo is one of them.  Platypus is another.  All the more reason to combine the two.  That’s my logic.  When I heard that Jarrett Krosoczka (he of the Lunch Lady GN series as well as a stunner of a TED talk, amongst other accomplishments), had [...]

Nearly fifty authors gathered last week for the fifth annual NYC Teen Author Festival. The brainchild of author and Scholastic editor David Levithan, the festival includes author appearances and discussion panels at libraries, schools, and bookstores all around the city.

Long Island (NY) school librarian and tireless school library advocate eva efron died March 20 at the Tuttle Center in Port Washington, NY, following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 66. At the time of her death, efron—who spelled her name in lower case—was a candidate for supervisor section representative to the American Association of School Librarians executive board, and was serving as chair of the AASL supervisors section.

Junior Library Guild editors select new and fun wordless picture books that provide an opportunity for children to focus on meaning, characters, and plot without the impediment of vocabulary.

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 6:00 - 7:00 PM ET Hear from school administrators about how to work with them to make the library central to the school’s strategic direction--help shape the school’s future to better serve our kids, make a mark that matters, and get noticed for it. Archive Now Available!

Today we review three novels with famous people as their subjects. The first is Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Teens continue to be fascinated by the Jazz Age and they read the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald, not only in literature classes but also for fun. (So I learned in a recent discussion with [...]

A page-turner of a novel about Emily Dickinson