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 [...]

Sarah was here visiting this weekend, and we decided to make a bunch of video reviews. They all ended up being about picture books, and most of the picture books were older. We decided that we would post these videos (whether we did them together or separately) on Tuesdays and call it OLD RELEASE TUESDAYS, [...]

Grandmothers, mothers, teachers at all girls’ schools, listen up.
(Well, librarians and other teachers listen up too.)
Here’s that sweet little book that comes along once or twice a year and works its way into the hearts of its readers. That book that spreads itself out like the coziest of handknit blankets and wraps itself around you [...]

In addition to my fascination with camp books, I’ve always loved books about twins. Real-life twin sisters DeVillers and Roy have crafted a heap of fun with their novel TRADING FACES. The twin protagonists of this book couldn’t be less alike – we have Payton, the klutzy, overexcited fashionista dreaming of popularity and boys during [...]

(I wish this review was better timed, as this book takes place in the summer and was in fact published in May, but I love camp books year-round and I hope some of you do too.)
Ah, camp books. How I love you!
Sam’s best friend Mal is revolting head over disgusting heels in love for the [...]