award winners

*The Desperate Adventures of Zeno and Alya, by Jane Kelley. Feiwel & Friends, 2013, 201 pages. Reading Level: Middle Grades, Ages 8-10 Maturity Level: 3 ...

*The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. Harcourt Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. 237 pages. Reading Level: Middle Grade, ages 10-12 Maturity Level: 4 (ages 10-12) and up Bottom ...

Journey, by Aaron Becker.  Candlewick, 2013, 26 pages.  Reading Level: Picture books, 4-8 Recommended for: ages 4-8 and up Bottom Line: Journey uses luminous illustrations--and ...

*A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. Knopf, 2013. 32 pages. Reading Level: ...

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski. Houghton Mifflin, 2009. 32 pages. Reading Level: Picture Books, ages ...

Tops and Bottoms is a clever folktale that illustrates the wisdom of diligence and warning against laziness in the book of Proverbs. *Tops and Bottoms ...

Lydia shares her efforts to bring beauty to the world around her in this epistolary picture book. *The Gardener by Sarah Stewart and David Small. ...

The Theodore Seuss Geisel Medal (featuring a bas-relief of Dr. Seuss himself) is given by the American Library Association every year for outstanding books for ...

My sister, who serves at a docent at a prisoner-of-war museum in Texas, says that her most eager listeners are pre-teen and teenage boys.  When ...

The Glorious Fourth, as they used to call it, celebrates the birth of a nation whose independence was only declared with the signing of a ...

As mentioned last Friday, some professional worriers have noted that children's picture books are displaying a decided preference for cityscapes as opposed to natural landscapes.  ...

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George.  Harper Collins, 1972 (paperback reissue 2003).  208 pages Reading Level: Middle Grades, 10-12 Recommended for: Young adult, ...

Gary Paulsen's classic survival novel Hatchet offers a realistic--as opposed to romantic-- view of nature and what it takes to survive in the wild. Hatchet ...

Countdown (the Sixties Trilogy) by Deborah wiles.  Scholastic, 2010, 377 pages.   Reading Level: Middle grades, ages 10-12 Maturity Level: 4 (ages 10-12) and up Bottom ...

Where Things Come Back, by John Corey Whaley.  Atheneum, 2011, 240 pages.  Age-interest level: 16-up. UPDATE: Where Things Come Back has won a gold medal ...

The death of God has been announced since the beginning of time (see Ps. 14:1), but God doesn't seem to stay dead--not even with Darwinism and nihilism ...

Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel.  HarperCollins, 2004, 355 pp.  Skybreaker (2007); Starclimber (2009). Reading Level: Middle grade, ages 10-12 Recommended for: Ages 10-12 and up One-line ...

Dust Devil, by Anne Isaacs, Illustrated by Paul Zelinsky, Schwartz & Wade, 2011. Reading Level: Picture Books, ages 4-8 Recommended for: Ages 4-8 and up ...

The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001, 288.  Age/interest level 12-up. Reading Level: Teens/Young Adults Recommended for: Ages 15-18 Bottom line: ...

Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool. Delacorte, 2010, 342 pages plus historical notes. Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12 Recommended for: Ages 10-12 Bottom line: ...

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia. HarperCollins, 2010, 215 pages. Reading level: Middle Grades, 10-12 Recommended for: Ages 10-12 Bottom line: One Crazy Summer is ...

The Book Thief, a literary novel for teens and adults, explores Nazi Germany and the Holocaust through the eyes of a child, in prose that ...