THE MARY CELESTE: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Jane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. Stemple

Jane Yolen

The team behind last year's The Queen's Own Fool launches the Young Heroes series with a rollicking adventure starring a 13-year-old Odysseus, prince Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Robert J. Harris

PW said that this lengthy first-person narrative that centers on "La Jardinière," one of the court jesters to Mary Queen of Scots, "will Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

This amphibian Emperor's New Clothes is "likely to please," said PW. Ages 5-8. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

This gracefully structured picture book introduces readers to the famous Firebird ballet (choreographed by George Balanchine to Igor Stravinsky's music) and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Those boisterous, larger-than-life stars of How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? are back, but this time they're a little under the weather. "What if a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Among picture books commemorating the centennial of Kitty Hawk, Yolen's is unusual for appropriating Katharine Wright, Orville and Wilbur's younger sister, as its narrator. This Katharine, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In Yolen's spellbinding twist on the Round Table legend, Morgause feels that her 17-year-old son Gawaine belongs on the throne of England. As she attempts to install him there, she tangles Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Robert J. Harris

Yolen teams up with Harris in a continuation of their collaboration on the Young Heroes series, with a second adventure starring an Amazonian princess who undergoes a dangerous journey, to take Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

A troll, his younger brother and his best friend venture into the dreaded New Forest to hear Boots and the Seven Leaguers in concert. There they encounter a number of characters as they search Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

These 43 sonnets by Yolen, a bestselling children's author (How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?), are written in the traditional rhymed form with three quatrains Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Two strong females dominate this Baba Yaga tale from the team behind The Firebird. Faithful to Russian tradition, the Baba Yaga featured here flies about in an Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Morgause feels that her 17-year-old son Gawaine belongs on the throne of England, in what PW 's starred review called "a spellbinding twist on the Round Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

"Once upon a time, a baby was born on a bed that was made from a coffin platform," begins this illuminating picture-book–biography of Denmark's favorite storyteller, which deftly Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Echoing the tone and look of How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? , these collaborators' Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple

The tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin gets a modern makeover at the hands of this mother-son team. Calcephony McCallan (who goes by Callie, shortening the name given to her by her ex-hippie Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

To a tiny bear, it seems like the world is made for the "great big bears"—like his parents—who survey their domain from "great big chairs." The cub's older brother Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Gentle rhythms give Yolen's rainy-day tale the feel of a narrative poem. "It's raining," begins Alison Isabelle. "I watch the drops slide down the window,/ leaving trails for Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple

Dyer (Mama Always Comes Home ), herself the daughter of illustrator Jane Dyer, joins the mother-daughter team of Yolen and Stemple (previously paired for Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Although the title suggests sentimentality, that notion disappears with the first look inside this snappy square-format book. Yolen's jaunty rhymes are short and sweet; debut illustrator Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Pairing lyrical poems and crisp photography to great effect, this collection is a gem. Each poem contains Yolen's response to a series of photographs that portray living things reflected in Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Caldecott Medalist Yolen (Owl Moon ) turns her attention to the poet Emily Dickinson and her young nephew, Thomas Gilbert (“Gib”), expanding on some Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In an autumn cornfield, a threadbare scarecrow leaps high into the sky to dance across the darkening landscape. The pastoral evening images evoke a bygone era, and the descriptions of the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Several series grow with new picture books this fall. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Midori Snyder

World Fantasy Award–winning Yolen (Dragon’s Heart ) teams up with Snyder (The Innamorati ) to weave a magical Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In this board book spinoff of their long-running series, Yolen and Teague’s lovable dinosaurs bully and ignore their pets: “How does a dinosaur play with her cat?/ Does she throw Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

How great does a baseball player have to be for his baseball card to sell for nearly $3 million? With emphatic prose and oil paintings that echo the perspectives and palettes of vintage Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Aliera Carstairs attends a small high school in New York City and feels like an outcast in its crowds of cliques, jocks, goths, nerds, and preps. She's always been a loner and doesn't Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Set to a lilting bedtime beat, this rollicking rumpus of a tale ups the humor ante in a familiar scenario by substituting dinosaurs for children: ""How does a dinosaur say good night when Papa comes Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

While cheerful, this book is also a memorial to Yolen's late husband. Freely drawn by Jorisch in pen and watercolor, an effortlessly confident father guides his mop-headed child through a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple

Yolen, her daughter/occasional collaborator Stemple (The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories), and Lanquetin (Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins) turn noblesse oblige on its head with this tribute to girl power. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Fittingly for the writer who would create "the boy who wouldn't grow up," this biography of J.M. Barrie is just as focused on his childhood as it is on his adult life. Before Barrie began his Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

When her grief-stricken, widowed father decides to leave Boston to be a pioneer farmer on the Nebraska prairie, Elsie wonders if she'll ever feel at home in the world again. Overwhelmed by "the grass Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple

The mother-daughter team behind The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories retells eight folktales featuring traditional dances. A young shepherd finds that animals and humans alike are compelled to Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Whimsy abounds in this tale of a porcine butler who solves crimes in his off hours. Ages 4-8. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

A girl and her father go owling on a moonlit winter night near the farm where they live. Bundled tight in wool clothes, they trudge through snow ""whiter than the milk in a cereal bowl''; here and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

When 12-year-old Hannah is transported back to a 1940's Polish village, she experiences the very horrors that had embarrassed and annoyed her when her elders related their Holocaust experiences. Ages Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

PW's starred review described this ""stirring"" book as a look at the dark underside of Christopher Columbus's adventure. ""The message is blunt but the language in which it is couched is vintage Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Merlin tells young Arthur a tale of a boy who prophesies a dragon duel. Dramatic oil paintings match the story's epic scale. Ages 5-up. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Based on a 1720 incident in which two female pirates escaped a death sentence because they were pregnant, this rollicking ballad is ""offbeat and grimly amusing,"" said PW. Ages 4-12. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen's (Child of Faerie, Child of Earth) rhyming picture book chirps a chipper spring song about young animals off to a visit with Grandma. Little Mouse moves ""tip-toe, tippity-toe,"" Little Mole Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

PreS-Gr 2-What do dinosaurs do when it's time for bed? Do they scream and yell? Lash their tails? Ask for pony rides? The answer to each question in this sweet bedtime romp is a resounding ""No!"" Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen turns her eye towards the Everglades in Welcome to the River of Grass, the fourth installment of her environmentally themed collaboration with illustrator Laura Regan. From the start Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In a companion to her Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls, Jane Yolen collects and retells 14 folktales focused on boys in Mightier than the Sword: World Folktales for Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. Stemple

The third volume in the Unsolved Mystery from History series, Roanoke: The Lost Colony by Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple, illus. by Roger Roth, once again invites readers to use their Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The final volume in the Pit Dragon trilogywhich began with Dragon's Bloodconcludes a riveting saga that intertwines elements of fantasy and science fiction. The planet of Austar, whose climate and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen and Mikolaycak have worked their separate charms and created a songbook so soothing it hums. The selection of lullabies includes the German ""Brahms' Lullaby,'' the Welsh ``All Through the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Award-winning author Yolen offers a beautiful book of poetry that sings old songs in new ways. The challenging language, rich in metaphor and rhythm, is matched perfectly by Wallner's stunning Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The wonderfully paired team of Yolen and Dyer (Piggins) has created another winner with this collection of 15 rhymed poems narrated by the smallest bear of the familiar three bears story. This Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Just as children often wonder about the earth beneath their feet, the littlest mole here sets out to discover the world ``Up Above.'' When Eeny is told by her sisters that there is light as well as Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen's new fable, redolent with myths ageless and archetypal, strikes at the heart. Dove Isabeau, so-called because she always wears dove's colors of gray or white, is bereft at her mother's death. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

``Just one story,'' pleads Baby Bear, and then he'll go to sleep. When Goldie falls for what has to be the oldest line known to youngsters, ``just one'' story soon spins into a whole picture Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In this lyrical tale drawn from Blackfoot legend, an old man recounts the origin of his name, He-who-loves-horses. He describes the coming of horses, ``Sky Dogs,'' from across the plains, and the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

From its arresting cover of a vee of geese stretching across the ``earless / face of the moon'' to the songbirds that sit ``along the wires / like scattered notes / on lines of music'' on the last Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In Yolen's vibrant prose, this retelling of an ancient Scottish ballad leaps from the page in riveting strokes. Here, in all its moonswept mystery, is the story of how Jennet, red-headed daughter of Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The instant Henry casually ``mentions wizardry to his dear ma,'' she packs him off to Wizard's Hall, with little more than a change of clothes and the advice that, whatever he might encounter, ``it Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Droll and decorous illustrations enhance this charmingly bucolic excursion, a sort of Wind in the Willows crossed with Masterpiece Theater. Ages 4-8. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Windling's Fairy Tale series has produced several excellent fantasy novels inspired by classic fairy tales. This is one of the series's most ambitious efforts, and only a writer as good as Yolen ( Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Jane Yolan

These prolific, versatile collaborators ( Dinosaur Dances ; the Commander Toad series) here offer a disarming tale, populated by a cast with all the zest of the best nursery rhyme creations. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Yolen

In the current freshet of rainforest books, Yolen's rises to the surface not as a mere tour guide, but a gracious host to earth's ``dark green, / light green, / emerald green / bright green / copper Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Dragon-lovers and maybe even dinophiles will unite to celebrate Yolen's (the Dragon's Blood trilogy) virtuosic poems and stories about dragons. Some new, others previously published, the entries Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

""Yolen is in top form in this polished, ardent retelling,"" said PW; ""Nolan's sophisticated watercolors... provocatively blend reality and fantasy."" All ages. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen reaches new heights in this flawless tale. Patterned after the story of Job, it concerns one Griselle, a lace maker in Paris of long ago. Reports of her goodness so enrage the gargoyles on a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Beginning with a lethargic anteater and ending with an African zebra, Yolen (Owl Moon) rounds up an ``eXtraordinary'' assembly of poems. She offsets the inclusion of some predictable old Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The bear family introduced in Yolen's and Dyer's Baby Bear's Bedtime Book and The Three Bears Rhyme Book return in rhyming poems celebrating 15 holidays. Written primarily in the voice of Baby Bear, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

This rollicking ballad springs from an actual incident: captured in 1720 aboard the sloop Vanity when their dilatory mates ""below, did drink and sport,"" the ``pirate queens'' Anne Bonney and Mary Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Thoughtful Jerold and the more reckless, appropriately named Gerund are two boys living in similar houses, somehow in parallel universes, in the dead of winter. As he does every year, Herne the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Karen Barbour, Aesop

Yolen and Barbour prove a dynamite pairing in this splashy picture book. Here they jazz up a baker's dozen of Aesop's much-loved fables, most of which are familiar (""The Boy Who Cried Wolf,"" ""The Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

An evil stepmother turns lovely Isabeau into a hideous dragon and a prince saves her. Ages 8-12. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Sixteen traditional stories are retold with a contemporary flair by a master storyteller with wit, humor and panache. Yolen has culled stories from all over the globe (e.g., India, Nigeria, and from Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen and Shannon, previously paired for the rollicking Ballad of the Pirate Queens, turn solemn in this verse-and-picture tour of sacred places around the world. Visiting 12 sites, the book Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Kathryn Brown

A mole sets out to explore the world ""Up Above."" In a starred review, PW praised the ""inventive"" text and ""gracefully droll"" watercolors. Ages 4-8. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

This collection of 15 poems, ranging from the expected (""Porridge"") to the unexpected (""How to Bathe a Bear""--in eight easy steps), is inspired by a friendship between Goldilocks and the three Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In hushed, liquid language, this lullaby-poem whispers of ""the velvet night"" and its soundless stirrings. As ""a big moon balloon/ floats silent over trees,"" moth wings flutter, furry things Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Bruce Coville

On the heels of Paula Danziger and Ann Martin's P.S. Longer Letter Later (Children's Forecasts, Feb. 16) comes another novel (on a very different subject) co-written by a pair of popular YA authors. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

These three books make up the author's Young Merlin trilogy, imagining the childhood and coming-of-age of the famous wizard of Arthurian legend. Ages 9-12. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Greg Couch

Called the ""Hitless Wonder"" and ""Danny the Whiffer"" by his teammates, Danny retreats to bed after another dispiriting round of strikeouts, ""watching the moon round the bases of the sky"" and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen gathers all the ingredients for a compelling middle grade fantasy novel, but the recipe falls short in this first book of her Tartan Magic series. Reluctantly spending his summer vacation with Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Clement Clarke Moore

Spiffy acrylic paintings of a wintry urban landscape dotted with tangy candy-colored buildings give the classic poem some modern zip. The artist's whimsy shines in an ""Identification Chart: How to Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. Stemple

This first book in a new series of unsolved mysteries may well have amateur sleuths lying awake at night. When the crewless ship Mary Celeste was found adrift in 1872, there were no signs of pirates, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi Stemple

With more than 200 books to her name, popular storyteller Yolen (editor of Favorite Folktales Around the World) can be forgiven for one that doesn't quite measure up. The subtitle notwithstanding, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Although Yolen (The One-Armed Queen) has published a great deal of acclaimed SF and fantasy (and children's fiction), this is her first collection of genre stories for adults--and it has been worth Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen's (Wizard's Hall) plodding tale reads more like a farce than a fantasy. Narrator Gog, a young troll, is dismayed not to have a ticket to hear his favorite band, Boots and the Seven Leaguers, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Mother-daughter team Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple use an inventive (and humorous) format in Dear Mother, Dear Daughter: Poems for Young People, illus. by Gil Ashby. Daughter addresses mother in Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

A bunny with fuzzy pink ears and satiny pajamas graces the cover of Bedtime for Bunny: A Book to Touch and Feel by Jane Yolen, illus. by Lynn Norton Parker. Inside, lilting rhyme will help readers Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. Stemple

Another addition to the Unsolved Mystery from History series, The Wolf Girls by Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple, illus. by Roger Roth, urges readers to act as detectives. The volume Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

""Tip-toe, tippity-toe Over the leaves and down below Off to Grandma's house we go Sings Little Mouse,"" in Off We Go! by Jane Yolen, illus. by Laurel Molk. Little Frog, Little Mole and others Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen offers 14 odes to birds in Wild Wings: Poems for Young People, photographed by her son, Jason Stemple, the team behind Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People. In a pattern Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In Jane Yolen's The Bagpiper's Ghost, book three in the Tartan Magic series, a trip to a Scottish cemetery entangles American twins Jennifer and Peter in the afterlife feud of former lovers. ( Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen teams up with Robert J. Harris in a continuation of their collaboration on the Young Heroes series with a second adventure starring an Amazonian princess, Hippolyta and the Curse of the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The animals aboard Jane Yolen's Animal Train, illus. by Doug Cushman, teach colors, shapes, numbers and opposites. Die-cut like a locomotive, the board book's playful verse encourages youngsters Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Just right for a square-format board book, Jane Yolen's original text filled with cozy rhymes combines with Hiroe Nakata's comforting watercolors in A Time for Naps, as a toddler tucks stuffed Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Robert J. Harris

PW called this debut title in the launch of the Young Heroes series ""a rollicking adventure""; it stars the 13-year-old prince of Ithaca, who meets his match (and future wife) in a Spartan Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The Holocaust was so monstrous a crime that the mind resists belief and the story must be made new for each individual. Yolen's book is about remembering. During a Passover Seder, 12-year-old Hannah Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The rhythmic voice in this collection of nine stories and six poems is unmistakably that of a master storyteller and poet. ``Once upon a time. . . ,'' says the narrator of the first poem, and the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

This sequel to Sister Light, Sister Dark follows Jenna into adulthood as she reluctantly fulfills the prophesy naming her the Anna, the warrior queen who will lead her people out of oppression. In Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen, one of the most prolific writers for children these days (see preceding review), is back again--this time with an alphabet book. Library and bookstore shelves may groan under the weight of Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The terpsichorean dinosaurs in this collection of whimsical poems allemande left and pirouette in high style. Although Yolen's ( Owl Moon ; The Three Bears Rhyme Book ) verses often scan raggedly and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

As with Owl Moon , Yolen will dazzle readers with these 19 poems about the moon. Councell, ( Handel and the Famous Sword Swallower of Halle ), meanwhile, contributing a palette of muted blues, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The highly prolific Yolen ( Owl Moon ; Elfabet ) here relates a bittersweet memory from an important period in her childhood: the two years during which her father was away at war. She recalls the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Based on Scottish stories about the selchies--seals who take on human form--Yolen's tale is as lilting and deep as the sea itself. A fisherman and his wife are overjoyed when the stray seal pup that Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen is in top form here in this polished, ardent retelling of the tragic Greek legend of Daedalus and his son Icarus. Banished from his beloved Athens for killing his nephew, the proud craftsman Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Like Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House and the Provensens' Shaker Lane , this felicitous marriage of text and art portrays the impact of modernization on one community. Yolen's gently poetic Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

As this sentimental tale of the heart's ``own compass'' begins, Betsy is packed off to Nana and Grandy's farm one spring while her mother battles a difficult pregnancy and her father remains hard at Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Verse (often verging on doggerel) conveys this forced narrative about a boy who asks members of his family, ``What did you do on the day Grandad died?'' Mama, for example, responds, ``I looked in the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Jane Dyer

This elegant book may well leave a lasting impression on readers of all ages. With vivid imagery, Yolen's (Grandad Bill's Song) flowing narrative easily establishes the dreamy mood of an Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Laurel Molk

With a nod to ``The Night Before Christmas,'' Yolen introduces a group of sleeping mice that dream not of sugarplums, but of a Halloween ``fancy-dress ball.'' The rodents never get the chance to Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

``It was a hot summer day,/ the air crackling with heat''-Strider the dog lies in the sun, Jordie sits motionless on the swing, and Pete and Sara read and color. When Jordie brings out the hose Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen is pitch-perfect in her delivery of this tender tale of the friendship that blossoms between an elderly white woman and an African American girl. Miz Berlin is well known in her neighborhood Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Bernie Fuchs

Work of the hands, faith and community spirit are constants that eight-year-old Matthew has always known growing up on a Pennsylvania Amish farm. These things make all the difference when lightning Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Following the format of the two earlier books in the White Jenna oeuvre (Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna), the third shows how myth, legend, song, history and story interweave to create a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Jane Dyer

Like an old Scottish ballad, Yolen's poem about the friendship between a faerie boy and human girl is told with a stately tone and compelling melody. ""He was a child of faerie folk,/ A child of sky Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen and Ming (previously paired for Merlin and the Dragons) mine Greek myth to retell the story of Bellerophon, the boy who tames a flying horse. Yolen recounts the tale through the voice of a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

In a starred review of this original fairy tale about an orphaned child, PW said, ""Yolen gracefully brings her tale full circle, revealing the surprise identity of Aurea's mother and, refreshingly, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen (Child of Faerie, Child of Earth) heralds the seductive charms of fairyland in this volume of stories and poems, masterfully illustrated with Mackey's (Cat Up a Tree) mystical oil paintings. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Robert Harris

""La Jardini re,"" one of the court jesters to Mary Queen of Scots, is the subject of this collaborative offering from veteran Yolen (Off We Go! and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, reviewed above) Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Robert Harris

The second in a planned quartet of historical novels set in Scotland (which began with Queen's Own Fool: A Novel of Mary Queen of Scots), Girl in a Cage by Jane Yolen and Richard J. Harris finds Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris present Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast, the third title in their Young Heroes series, which began with Odysseus and the Serpent Maze. Twelve-year old Atalanta Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen and her son, Jason Stemple, team up for their third collaboration in poetry and photos, Least Things: Poems About Small Natures. Tiny creatures such as tree frogs and grasshoppers come Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Favorite characters and titles are now available in board book editions. Dinos delight in acting like toddlers in original board books starring the prehistoric heroes first introduced in How Do Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Favorite characters and titles are now available in board book editions. Dinos delight in acting like toddlers in original board books starring the prehistoric heroes first introduced in How Do Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. Stemple

Readers can dance through the pages of The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories by Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple, illus. by Rebecca Guay. The compendium contains seven stories from across the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The team behind A Mirror to Nature again pairs striking, full-color photographs of birds with spirited poems in a full range of styles and forms. A haiku for a kingfisher speaks tenderly to the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple

Fancy Nancy in her attitude, Charles Schulz's Pigpen in her execution, this mother-daughter team's heroine has a charm all her own. Princess Pig hustles to get her home ready for her "big tea party," Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

There isn't a dull moment in Yolen's rousing retelling of this Norwegian folktale, in which a girl tames a polar bear cub, defeats a band of tattooed trolls, and arrives at the court of the King of Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

As in their previous books, Yolen and Teague delicately nudge readers toward appropriate behavior using rhetorical questions and loveably indecorous dinosaurs. At a birthday party, does a dinosaur Continue reading »

Jane Yolen (et al.)

Short stories that revolve around wishes form this volume created to raise money for Book Wish Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to build libraries for Darfur refugees living in Chad. Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Swinging a few branches across the evolutionary tree, Yolen turns her attention from the misbehaving dinosaurs of the How Do Dinosaurs... series to garden-variety monsters that leave school en masse Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, J. Patrick Lewis

Lewis and Yolen pair 14 poems about Marc Chagall (1887–1985) with reproductions of more than a dozen of his paintings (as well as vintage photographs) in this moving account of the artist’s Jewish Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, J. Patrick Lewis

This playful collection of twin-themed poems, a welcome addition to the bookshelf on the subject of twins, is as much for parents as for kids. Early poems focus on the time before birth: “Wrestling Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

The team behind A Mirror to Nature and Wild Wings offers another striking pairing of poems and photographs about the natural world, in this case the mysterious lives of insects. Each poem (and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, J. Patrick Lewis

Lewis and Yolen team up for a darkly funny homage to the dearly departed—those with feathers, hooves, tails, and fins. An axe leans against a blood-stained stump while three feathers drift nearby Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Dragons are just not morning people. They “bumble” and “tumble” out of bed, and the doughty little knight who is their master risks life and limb just getting them to “Put their jammies in the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Continuing to follow the successful blueprint of the long-running How Do Dinosaurs books, Yolen and Teague pose the possibility of dinosaurs wreaking merry havoc on Christmas Eve. Uproarious Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen and Teague score a winner with this playful Chanukah story brought to life with bright and engaging illustrations. Each page poses a question of how a dinosaur would behave during the eight Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen follows her Snow White retelling, Snow in Summer (2011), with a similarly inventive spin on Sleeping Beauty (like that book, this novel also derives from one of the author’s short stories). Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen’s smart, introspective, foil-wielding Aliera Carstairs returns, this time to thwart the Dark Lord’s plot to kidnap her beloved cousin. The Dark Lord wants the Defender’s weapon—that’s Aliera’s Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

These 16 sonnets grew out of Yolen's lifelong love for Dickinson, who is a neighbor of sorts%E2%80%94her ancestral home is near Yolen's. Written in the voices of Dickinson, her sister, and others, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Yolen and Dotlich refashion 15 classic fairy tales into incisive poems told from dual perspectives. Cinderella laments wearing glass shoes when other choices were more sensible (“I could have put on/ Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Mother-daughter collaborators Yolen and Stemple, who previously partnered with Guay on The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories, revisit the lives and legendary misdeeds of 26 notorious women in this Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

“We both believe that literature begins in the cradle,” write Yolen and Dyer at the beginning of this collection of 75 brief but vivid poems. Most are originals from Yolen (10 poems are credited to Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple

Yolen and Stemple%E2%80%94the mother-son team behind Troll Bridge, Pay the Piper, and B.U.G.%E2%80%94deliver a fast-paced adventure, first in a trilogy, which draws on fairy myth and lore. Aspen is a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yes, even dinosaurs have bad days, and a few of them are at their worst in this addition to Yolen and Teague’s popular series. It’s always a delight to watch Teague’s dinosaurs misbehave, and that’s Continue reading »

Jane Yolen (et al.)

Despite the subtitle, Guran (The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons) has actually filled this anthology with adaptations of familiar tales. The stories include urban fantasy (“Warrior Dreams” by Cinda Continue reading »

Jane Yolen (et al.)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction—aka F&SF—has been one of the flagships of speculative fiction since its founding in 1949. While similarly lauded magazines, like Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen and her children present 19 true stories about unusual animals. While anchored in reality, the vibrant storytelling and Ishida’s bold, posterlike acrylics occasionally invoke the feeling of Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen (Owl Moon) weaves a magical yet believable tale of myth and magic in this charming middle-grade fantasy. In the mythical kingdom of Callanshire, James, son of the Duke of Callander, is sent Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

An unnamed Jewish girl living in Paris fervently believes in angels—she need only look at the Gothic buildings around her to know they exist. Those angels seem “farther and farther away” after the Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Throughout the How Do Dinosaurs series, prehistoric carnivores and herbivores have showed off some less-than-perfect behavior in modern settings. Now Yolen and Teague take the idea a bit farther: Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Heidi Stemple

Frequent mother-daughter collaborators Yolen and Stemple, whose previous books include Not All Princesses Dress in Pink, offer a gentle rhyming bedtime story that spotlights 14 birds’ Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

When an inquisitive red squirrel named Nutley summons the nerve to offer the "Paw of Friendship" to a group of nearby gray squirrels, they respond by tossing him off a cliff. Fearing for his life Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Lisa Jane Ashlock

In succinct, evocative poems, Yolen describes the seasons as they unfold in a forest habitat. In one winter scene, children play in the distance while foxes frolic in the foreground, and an owl and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

It is 1971, and a girl named Sally and her brothers are walking home across the sand dunes of their Maine town when she sees "this big gray thing, humped on the drying sand." It's a beached gray Continue reading »

Jane Yolen (et al.)

Two dozen stories of women warriors form this epic anthology of stories about those forced to fight, those who chose to fight regardless of odds, those who ran from their destiny as warriors, and Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, C S Maccath, Swapna Kishore

The brilliant and the bland run side-by-side in the Allens' second collection of strange tales. Vivid prose and creepy concepts appear in Jessy Randall's "Maybe a Witch Lives There," in which two Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

First in a planned series (a portion of proceeds will benefit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), this dreamy story follows a child and his dog on a stroll by the sea. Writing in characteristically Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Vivid autumn foliage is generally considered to be a thing of beauty, but those unfamiliar colors spell danger to a young frog. “To Little Frog, red and gold were scary,” writes Yolen (On Bird Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

Yolen and Teague return to a subject they covered in their 2000 picture book, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, as an unusual group of dinosaurs—concavenator, majungasaurus, and sauropelta, Continue reading »

Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple

Craig McGowan has little to believe in as a street urchin in 1930s Edinburgh, but just when he’s ready to give up and throw himself from the top of a church, he meets Silex, a demon trapped in a Continue reading »

Jane Yolen

This slight collection contains several very strong stories but is weakened by its overarching theme: all of the pieces are riffs on famous fairy tales, or on the lives of writers or famous Continue reading »

Dick King-Smith

On her 10th birthday, a lonely girl on vacation in Scotland has a chance meeting with a merman, and their friendship leaves a lasting impression. Ages 8-12. Continue reading »

Jill Esbaum

Esbaum's breezy first children's book introduces a pair of siblings who, spending a week at Granny's, are given two very different missions. Likeable narrator Annabelle is charged with Continue reading »

Darlene Friedman

Cassidy Li is going to be Star of the Week in her kindergarten class, and that means she gets to bring a snack (the titular brownies) and chronicle her life story on a poster. But as she reviews Continue reading »

Dick King-Smith

King-Smith produces another winner with this latest animal yarn starring a lovable little girl with a jumbo-size dream. Rupert, the family dog, has long been in his grave when Janie discovers his Continue reading »

Dick King-Smith

King-Smith (Babe: The Gallant Pig; The Terrible Trins) again chooses his beloved English countryside as the setting for this amiable tale of a magical hare. Examining a mysterious circle of flattened Continue reading »

Roger Roth

In Roth's (The Sign Painter's Dream) tall fish tale set in the north country, the prize goes not for the mythical creature's capture, but for the truce it brings about between two bickering buddies. Continue reading »

Dick King-Smith

Of this story about an iconoclast who finds a new life, PW said, ""Youngsters will take an immediate shine to this affably offbeat leading man."" Ages 9-12. (Sept.) Continue reading »

Nancy Milton

What is the perfect gift for the king who has everything? In this fact-based picture book, the unusual present is a giraffe. In 1826 the pasha of Egypt offers to ship a giraffe to France as a gesture Continue reading »

Mary Ann Rodman

“When the time is right, you’ll face your fear,” Zach’s grandmother tells him as they ride the Ferris wheel after he refuses to ride the Whipper roller coaster with Grandpa. Rodman’s (Camp K-9) Continue reading »

THE MARY CELESTE: An Unsolved Mystery from History

Jane Yolen, Heidi Elisabet y. Stemple, , illus. by Roger Roth. . S&S/Aladdin, $6.99 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-689-85122-3

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