Reviews+

Looking for fun, creative ways to introduce history to older readers? These picture books for older readers tackle subjects from the American Revolution to immigration.

a quirky love story set against the pop culture of the 1980s

I don’t know about other librarians, but when it comes to book reviews, I find it easy to get bogged down in the world of the library journals and book blogs by fellow librarians.  So today I decided I wanted to take a look at what the rest of the world is saying about some [...]

Anyone who’s read many of Renée French’s highly-detailed black-and-white comics, like her surreal, dark and disturbing meditation on migraines and ants h day, or perhaps her off-kilter family melodrama about deformity and surgery The Ticking, may be a little surprised to hear her name in the same sentence as the words “kids comic.” But then, [...]

Prepare for another winter storm by hunkering down with some of the comics coming out this week. BOOM! Studios and IDW Publishing continue their two smash-hit titles with a new Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Marvel Comics has another Monsters Inc. one-shot, The Perfect Date, and Papercutz [...]

Today we look at two examples of the postmodern novel. Postmodernism has gotten a bad rap–almost from the beginning–for being purposefully obscure, denying the existence of meaning, and encouraging moral relativism.  But, while I concede that many postmodern works of art can be infuriatingly vague, for me at least the best postmodern novels (like the [...]

Cartoonist Joey Weiser’s latest work, Mermin Vol. 1: Out of Water, is about as close to a literal fish-out-of-water story as one would probably want to encounter in a comic book. After the title character, a young mer-boy, rescues a young surface-dweller boy from a shark, he’s invited to stay with the boy’s family and [...]

The leader of our Bookmarked review group, Elizabeth Kahn, is always looking for new ways to keep her students engaged and entertained. Elsewhere in this issue of SLJTeen you can read about a recent visit to her library by Ruta Sepetys, author of the award-winning Between Shades of Gray (Philomel, 2011). She also recently wrangled a stop from Cory Doctorow, who is on the road promoting his latest title, Pirate Cinema (Tor Teen, 2012). Her advice on getting authors to visit your school or library? Just ask—the worse they can so is "No," and odds are, eventually you are going to hear "Yes."

This winsome tale about a porcupine and a balloon would make a perfect choice for toddler storytimes.