Books for Grandparents
By Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 8/20/2007 8:05:00 AM
If there’s one thing more overwhelming than the number of choices for grown-ups, it’s the overs
tacked, overstuffed children’s sections of the bookstore. What’s a grandparent to do when confronted with the thousands of new titles? How to pick a book that’s perfect for your grandchild? Here, then, is the inaugural list of Books for Grandparents, in which PW and AARP join together to help you decide what to buy for the pre-teens in your lives.
Picture Books
Goodnight Moon 123: A Counting Book
Margaret Wise Brown, illus. by Clement Hurd
HarperCollins, $16.99
978-0-06-112593-5
Ages 1-4
Most babies have a copy of Goodnight Moon, but they won’t have this new companion title, which takes readers through the big green room on a counting journey up to 100.
Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?
Bill Martin, Jr., illus. by Eric Carle.
Henry Holt, $16.95
978-0-8050-8336-1
Ages 2-5
Forty years after their first collaboration (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?), Martin and Carlehave created a lovely finale to an enduring series, featuring a sequence of animals in an elegant balance of art, text and emotion.
Puff the Magic Dragon
Peter Yarrow and Lenny Lipton, illus. by Eric Puybaret
Sterling, $16.95
978-1-4027-4782-3
Ages 3-7
The famous song comes to life in dreamlike paintings rendered in a soothing palette highlighted by greens and blues. The song’s potentially sad denouement takes an uplifting turn in this version: Puff eventually finds a new playmate (as a grown Jackie Paper looks on).
Heat Wave
by Eileen Spinelli, illus. by Betsy Lewin
Harcourt, $16.00
978-0-15-216779-0
Ages 3-7
For grandparents who want to show kids how things really were back in their day, here’s a good-natured, nostalgic tribute to the dog days of summer, before the advent of air-conditioning.
The Wizard
Jack Prelutsky, illus. by Brandon Dorman.
Greenwillow, $16.99
978-0-06-124076-8
Ages 5-8
Kids too young for Harry Potter will love this lively verse about a wizard who decides to give his powers a workout on a hapless frog.
Fiction
Soupy Saturdays with the Pain & the Great One
Judy Blume, illus. by James Stevenson
Delacorte, $12.99
978-0-385-73305-2
Ages 5-9
This comical collaboration rounds up seven stories centering on two spunky siblings. Blume fills the duo’s narratives with playful bickering, banter and baiting, while Stevenson’s wispy illustrations feature many amusing flourishes.
One Beastly Beast (Two Aliens, Three Inventors, Four Fantastic Tales)
Garth Nix, illus. by Brian Biggs
HarperCollins/Eos, $15.99
978-0-06-084319-9
Ages 7-11
A quartet of wacky yarns, set in fantasy-laced worlds, stars such characters as a bored princess who seeks adventure, and an orphan boy who finds his parents after escaping adoption by pirates and evading aliens.
Into the Woods
Lyn Gardner, illus. by Mini Grey
Random/Fickling, $16.99
978-0-385-75115-5
Ages 8-12
This novel reinvents the Pied Piper story, to charming effect; it’s a fast-paced, entertaining adventure filled with cheeky humor and wordplay.
Lawn Boy
Gary Paulsen
Random/Lamb, $12.99
978-0-385-74686-1
Ages 10-up
At the start of this witty tale from the Newbery-winning author, a 12-year-old receives an unexpected birthday present from his grandmother: his late grandfather’s riding lawn mower, and he learns the ins and outs of the business world.
T
he Aurora County All-Stars
Deborah Wiles
Harcourt, $16.00
978-0-15-206068-8
Ages 10-up
In a funny and beguiling slice of small-town life, a town’s historical pageant just might dash hopes for the annual baseball game.
