I know, I know – NYC trip; summer 2010 buying appointments; book fairs; book talks; event planning; oh yeah and then there’s my actual home life. I have had to jam so many books into my days that I do not actually have time to stop and review them, which completely sucks.
I can tell you [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

note from Melissa: it’s not so obvious who’s writing each review here, because I’m using this crappy template that I can’t adjust and haven’t had a chance to meddle with a better one.  Each post is tagged at the bottom with the author’s name. The majority are by me, but they’re not all by me, [...]

My dad was in the Navy, so when I was younger we moved a few times. Unfortunately for me, the two moves that took place after I began school both occurred in the middle of the school year. Middle of second grade, middle of fifth grade. This? Sucked. Everyone had chosen their desks, their lunch [...]

When I picked up this galley, I wasn’t aware that it was a sequel. Somehow we missed the first one at my former job, and I do mean missed: I think we would have sold THE PUZZLING WORLD OF WINSTON BREEN quite well in hardcover. Well, now they’ll sell it quite well in paperback, and [...]

Because I work in a library, I don’t tend to be as up-to-date as Melissa and others who work in bookstores rather than libraries; I do try to browse through the new books truck whenever I get a chance, but with the volume of new material, it’s sometimes hard to keep up.  So while Melissa [...]

(or not so occasional…I’ll probably have several posts like this in the coming days to get some books out of my head, and then it’ll likely taper off a bit.)
It never fails to surprise me when people have never even heard of a book I love. Even though I know that there are bajillions of [...]