Children’s book buyer Lisa Nehs is weathering the winter in good spirits at Books & Company in Ocononowoc, a small city in southeastern Wisconsin. She spoke with PW about some of the titles she and her colleagues are eagerly selling this season.
One picture book that I’m super excited about, and I hope won’t be overlooked in other stores, is Henry & Leo by Pamela Zagarenski, which came out last fall. It’s about a boy who becomes separated from his best friend, a stuffed toy who is very, very real to him. It is a wonderful story about imagination and what it means to be loved. And the art is absolutely beautiful. I used this for one of my story times and it was very well received.
Another picture book that stands out is If I Had a Little Dream by Nina Laden, which has extraordinary art by Melissa Castrillon. It’s a book about using your imagination, dreaming, and looking at the wonders of the world through the eyes of a child. It’s a really gorgeous and sweet book, and a great gift buy for parents and grandparents.
Another new book we’re selling well is Salina Yoon’s My Kite Is Stuck! and Other Stories, the second book in a series of early readers. We also loved the first book, Duck, Duck, Porcupine!, published last May. In our store, we’re all devastated that Mo Willems’s Elephant & Piggie series is finished, and I feel like these books have that same sort of appeal. They feature three wonderful characters: kind Porcupine, bossy Big Duck, and Little Duck, who doesn’t speak, but has the best facial expressions. These stories are just right for emergent readers, and make great read-alouds.
A fabulous middle-grade book that we sold a lot of over Christmas, and that is still selling well, is Impyrium by Henry H. Neff. It’s the first book in a series, and one I really feel people need to know about. I have an advisory board of middle graders and teens who read ARCs and send me reviews. One girl wrote that this was her second favorite book ever, after the Harry Potter series. The author does a great job of world building and introduces strong male and female characters. It’s a big book but a very fast read, and we recommend it to fantasy readers.
Another favorite middle-grade novel that two advisory board readers absolutely loved, and that we’re handselling, is The Silver Gate by Kristin Bailey, a fantasy set in medieval times. It’s the story of a brother and sister who go into hiding in the woods, since people think she’s a changeling who will bring bad luck, and he wants to protect her. It’s a wonderful story that is very well told.
A middle-grade novel that’s brand new in paperback that we’re enjoying selling, but I’m afraid is a bit under the radar for a lot of people, is Aimée Carter’s Simon Thorn and the Wolf 's Den, which is about a boy who discovers he can talk to animals. The second book in the series, Simon Thorn and the Viper’s Pit, came out in hardcover this month. One of my advisory board members, a boy who’s 14, highly recommended these books, and I handsell them to kids who are Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fans. The series has a very strong boy character, which is always great to find.
One of my favorite new YA books is Caraval by Stephanie Garber, which is a wonderful fantasy about two sisters who live with their abusive father on a tiny island and are drawn into a legendary, mysterious, once-a-year interactive performance. I’ve already sold quite a few copies of this, even though it just came out. The main characters are 18, and I think this will appeal to adult fantasy readers as well as teens.
And one other YA novel that I really enjoyed, and am selling well, is Ashley Elston’s This Is Our Story, a realistic novel about five boys at a prestigious school who go hunting. One of them is shot and killed, but no one will own up to it, and a girl who works for the man investigating the murder becomes very involved. It’s not easy to find a book that truly surprises me, but this one surprised me twice. It’s a great mystery and definitely a page-turner—I tell customers that they won’t be able to stop once they start reading it.
