It has been hard to post here over the last few weeks, but I am determined to finish listing my favorites of last year (even if, in the end, it is simply a list). These are not necessarily my Caldecott predictions, as the books that I end up loving most are often not the sort [...]

Can we please stop using HARRY POTTER as a reading benchmark?
A week never goes by that I do not have a customer telling me that they are reading the HARRY POTTER books aloud to their 5 or 6 year old child, and the pride in their voice is always evident. Using HARRY POTTER as a [...]

Santa left a signed print of this Chris Van Dusen art (from IF I BUILT A CAR, natch) under the tree for me:

No, I wasn’t excited or anything. It’s just okay, I guess.  I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I feel lukewarm at best about that book.
(Did I mention it’s in the top [...]

Four series I love came to an end this year. Two I’m okay with; one I’m uncertain about, ONE I AM IN COMPLETE DENIAL ABOUT YES JESSICA DAY GEORGE I AM LOOKING AT YOU. Although I am very sad (and in denial, DON’T LOOK AWAY WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU, JESSICA), fortunately for me [...]

I thought about doing a “best of,” but who am I to say that? Also,  the books I loved the most are not necessarily the BEST books of the year in some cases. I tend to rate highly on readability and sell-a-bility, being a bookseller.  Sometimes that coincides with the ones that are likely to [...]

There are some questions that children’s booksellers get asked over and over and over again, and one of them is “Do you have anything else like THE DOLL PEOPLE?”.
Beginning in February, my answer will be to hand them THE SIXTY-EIGHT ROOMS.
In the Art Institute of Chicago, there is a collection of sixty-eight miniature rooms called [...]

Oh, unreliable narrators, how I love you. LIAR’s protagonist, Micah, is the ultimate unreliable narrator, and I have been blown away by her.
I can’t tell you much about this book, because just about anything I say will be a spoiler. I’m not going to tell you much more than the jacket does. Micah tells us [...]

I hope to post an actual review later today, but first I wanted to ask:
HOW IN HECK do those of you who blog, have jobs, and have families actually get all of this done?
I’m just going to talk at random about what’s going on right now, mostly to make myself feel better about being [...]

Clearly I am taking one! It turns out I am too busy
1. selling books
2. setting up author visits
3. selling books at a children’s theatre
4. buying backlist books on special
5. reading books
6. buying spring (!!!) books for the shop
7. planning three store parties
and oh yeah
8. spending time with my family, including my husband who is going [...]

In honor of the early release of Chris’s new book THE CIRCUS SHIP, we are posting this video in which we ramble on like besotted maniacs about his books (for about six minutes). We made the video before the book had come out, thinking it wasn’t going to be released until mid-October, but we were [...]