Anke Kranendonk, Author, Handprint, Author, Jung-Hee Spetter, Illustrator Front Street $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-29-4
In this frisky story, an industrious mother pig is too occupied with household chores to play with her child, so the porcine protagonist cheerfully paints murals on the walls and otherwise destroys the house. By the time the mother is through, the...
READ FULL REVIEW
Felicia Bond, Author, Handprint, Author Front Street $14.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-886910-15-7
One by one, 10 friendly characters--from a pig to a toad to a mouse--fall in step with one another in this lively sequential rhyme. The introductions start with ""a tiny bug"" (an ant, actually) who ""went for a walk./ He met a cat and stopped to...
READ FULL REVIEW
Susan Paradis, Author, Handprint, Author Front Street $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-30-0
In this cleverly conceived picture book, everyday events in a father's routine take on a larger-than-life significance, thanks to a son's fertile imagination. As the boy proudly recounts his father's many feats (e.g., mowing the grass, going for a...
READ FULL REVIEW
Jung-Lee Spetter, Author, Handprint, Author Lemniscaat USA $8.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-36-2
A girl and her dog on a picnic have several run-ins with barnyard animals. A cow pulls away the picnic cloth; a pig objects when Lily wants to hold a piglet. The accommodating dog climbs a tree on command, rides a sheep and sits on the girl's lap as
READ FULL REVIEW
Maureen Stack Sappey, Author, Mareen Stack Sappey, Author, Handprint, Author Front Street $16.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-886910-31-7
Sappey's (the Young American series) epistolary novel stars a little-known heroine of the Civil War, Vinnie Ream. Based on the artist who sculpted a famous statue of President Lincoln, the story opens as 13-year-old Vinnie writes to her fictive...
READ FULL REVIEW
Bart Moeyaert, Author, Handprint, Author, David Colmer, Translator Front Street $15.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-886910-48-5
Opening with a scene of the narrator, Susanna Dantine, being born (she narrates from the womb), Moeyaert's (Bare Hands) novel reads like a convoluted fairy tale, complete with a character named Wolf and a dark wood. Fourteen-year-old Susanna's own...
READ FULL REVIEW
Mildred Barger Herschler, Author, Handprint, Author Front Street $17.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-886910-54-6
The Civil Rights movement makes its way to small-town Mississippi in this well-researched but ultimately disappointing novel, Herschler's first for young adults. Teddy, the narrator, is nine when she stumbles upon the lynching of her best friend's...
READ FULL REVIEW
Judith Clarke, Author, Handprint, Author . Front Street $16.95 (176p) ISBN 978-1-886910-79-9
In six concisely wrought chapters, Clarke (Night Train) spans four generations of an Australian family, elegantly encapsulating the emotions of children and youths as they are initiated into the adult world. The book opens in 1935, when 14-year-old...
READ FULL REVIEW
Eugenie Doyle, Author, Handprint, Author . Front Street $16.95 (136p) ISBN 978-1-886910-86-7
Like the central image of her novel, Doyle's debut is quietly electrifying. An accumulation of telling details and subtle scenes trace the maturation of sixth grader Ian Daley, the second-born son in a family of Vermont dairy farmers, whose...
READ FULL REVIEW
Adam Rapp, Author, Handprint, Author . Front Street $16.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-886910-72-0
Rapp (The Copper Elephant; The Buffalo Tree) turns in his bleakest work yet with this abandon-all-hope story of an 11-year-old victim of sexual abuse and neglect. Blacky Brown, the narrator, is first met as he flees, naked, from the home of his...
READ FULL REVIEW
Julie Larios, Author, Handprint, Author, Anne Hunter, Illustrator , illus. by Anne Hunter. Front Street $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-49-2
"Have you ever slept outside on a hot summer night?/ Everything looks different/ in the moon's strange light" begins Larios's (On the Stairs) lyrical ode to the wonders of nature. The title acts as the volume's gently probing...
READ FULL REVIEW
It is hard to say which is more poetic—Nina Payne's (All the Day Long) exceptionally well-crafted text or her son's immaculately executed and thoughtfully conceived cut-paper collages. The text, a tightly edited, rhyming sequence of...
READ FULL REVIEW
Ingrid Schubert, Author, Handprint, Author, Dieter Schubert, Joint Author Lemniscaat USA $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-77-5
Mole is the first to accept when Beaver invites his friends for a ride on his newly fashioned watercraft. Then, the rest of the gang from Bear's Eggs and Beaver's Lodge Hedgehog and Hare, Badger and Bear climb aboard. It's Butterfly's soft touch...
READ FULL REVIEW
Bart Moeyaert, Author, Handprint, Author, Wanda Boeke, Translator , trans. by Wanda Boeke. Front Street $15.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-886910-71-3
Belgian author Moeyaert (Bare Hands) evokes a variety of moods in three chronologically arranged scenes, narrated by the third of four children, known only as "Sis." These slices of life reveal her feelings about her mother, brother, two...
READ FULL REVIEW
Douglas Evans, Author, Handprint, Author , illus. by John Shelley. Front Street $16.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-932425-13-0
The title of Evans's (Math Rashes
) picaresque novel refers to the Magellan Voyage Project, one of 24 groups sponsoring a 12-year-old participant in the Great Global Game. The most valuable player—and winner of a $4 million prize—will
READ FULL REVIEW
Elle van Lieshout, Author, Elle Van Lieshout, Author, Handprint, Author , illus. by Paula Gerritsen. Front Street/Lemniscaat $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-932425-14-7
This Dutch team tells a fable about a runaway king, who is happiest in humbler surroundings, with warmth and economy. The front endpapers show the big brown ursine monarch in an ermine robe, facing a pile of documents in despair. On the title page,...
READ FULL REVIEW
Brock Cole, Author, Handprint, Author . Front Street $16.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-932425-07-9
Brock (Buttons
) creatively fuses the real and the fanciful, past and present in this affecting story that opens as three sisters arrive at their grandmother's apartment in a rundown city neighborhood. " 'Can we take a walk?' asked...
READ FULL REVIEW
Adam Osterweil, Author, Handprint, Author, Peter Thorpe, Illustrator , illus. by Peter Thorpe. Front Street $15.95 (184p) ISBN 978-1-886910-81-2
Middle-school friends Joe and Katie are avid players of DragonSteel, a fantasy card game that strongly resembles Yu-Gi-Oh! They purchase a computer version of the game at a mysterious store (the store conveniently vanishes once they step outside),...
READ FULL REVIEW
Per Nilsson, Author, Handprint, Author, Tara Chace, Translator , trans. by Tara Chace. Front Street $16.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-886910-92-8
The nameless hero of this Swedish import, Nilsson's U.S. debut, could almost be any teen who has recently been spurned, so universal are his feelings. Taking on the persona of an objective, distanced narrator, Nilsson describes his protagonist...
READ FULL REVIEW
Brock Cole, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $16.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-886910-14-0
Readers are given a lot to digest in the first chapter of this stream-of-consciousness narrative told from the point of view of 13-year-old Linda. The novel opens when Linda, who has just witnessed the murder of her middle-aged lover, enters a...
READ FULL REVIEW
Jeanne Lee, Author, Handprint, Author, Jenny Lee, Author Front Street $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-886910-00-3
Reflecting a combination of delicacy and strength, this translation of an ancient Chinese poem tells of a girl named Mu Lan, who, disguised as a man, goes to war in her father's place, and fights for 12 hard years before returning home. The song-like
READ FULL REVIEW
Malcolm Bosse, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-886910-01-0
Move the location half the world away and 1200 years in the future, substitute the elephants with horses and half of the characters with cowboys, and this sprawling saga set in seventh-century India could be a classic western. Here are knaves and...
READ FULL REVIEW
Anke de Vries, Author, Anke De Vries, Author, Handprint, Author Lemniscaat USA $14.95 (1p) ISBN 978-1-886910-06-5
A child regales readers with examples of his elephant's remarkable talents in this good-natured Dutch import. A star of ""Stupid Pet Tricks"" if ever there was one, this pachyderm can hang from the ceiling, see with X-ray vision and change the color
READ FULL REVIEW
Anke de Vries, Author, Anke De Vries, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-886910-03-4
They're unlikely friends-cheerful Michael, who lives with his aunt and uncle in Holland, and withdrawn Judith, who has a horrifying secret life of abuse at the hands of her unmarried mother. The winner of two awards from the Dutch Children's Jury,...
READ FULL REVIEW
Charlotte Dematon, Author, Handprint, Author, Charlotte Dematon, Illustrator Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-886910-13-3
In her U.S. debut, Dutch illustrator Dematons tickles her readers' imaginations by plunking a modern girl into a fairy tale world. Hilda looks out of her bedroom window to see signs of life at the deserted old windmill outside of town. When she goes
READ FULL REVIEW
Barbara Snow Gilbert, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (169p) ISBN 978-1-886910-11-9
After suffering a massive stroke, Grandpa Hughes, lying unconscious in a nursing home bed, cannot communicate his wishes to his family, but Grant, who understands the bull-headed rancher better than anyone, is sure that his grandfather is ready to...
READ FULL REVIEW
Anke de Vries, Author, Anke De Vries, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-21-8
A group of animal pals band together to surprise a super-shy friend on her birthday in this gentle, somewhat slight story from the Netherlands. Piggy is so shy that she runs away when other animals come to play and blushes when she sees herself in...
READ FULL REVIEW
Douglas Evans, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $14.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-886910-20-1
Considerably more down-to-earth than Evans's whimsical The Classroom at the End of the Hall, this often poignant, if a bit contrived, story tells of two middle-schoolers who discover a former teacher living in a cardboard hut in a park. Once deeply...
READ FULL REVIEW
Ingrid Schubert, Author, Handprint, Author, Dieter Schubert, Joint Author Lemniscaat USA $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-28-7
This winsome if slight adaptation of a German folk song opens as Bear discovers that the flowers in front of his cave are wilting fast. He sets out to water them but his bucket has a hole, and when Hedgehog offers to help him fix it, the results are
READ FULL REVIEW
Lila Linzer, Author, Handprint, Author, Joan Luby, Illustrator Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (76p) ISBN 978-1-886910-10-2
Readers can almost smell the mango and feel a warm Caribbean breeze blowing through this collection of fables gathered from the West Indies. Linzer recalls four snappy animal tales oft-told by her relatives and friends on the island of St. Croix and
READ FULL REVIEW
Rebecca O'Connell, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-886910-52-2
Often witty and even more often provocative, this first novel is arresting despite its flaws. About to enter her sophomore year of college, narrator Myrtle is seriously overweight. As she tries to achieve some form of self-acceptance, she ruminates...
READ FULL REVIEW
Julie Larios, Author, Handprint, Author, Mary Hofstrand, Illustrator Boyds Mills Press $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-34-8
There's not a misstep in this polished concept book, set on a mouse family's staircase. A collaboration by two sisters and a first book for Larios, the work uses rhyming text and amiable watercolors to teach numbers and to bring out the warmth in...
READ FULL REVIEW
Barbara Snow Gilbert, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $16.95 (168p) ISBN 978-1-886910-44-7
Gilbert (Stone Water; Broken Chords) stresses the destructive forces of paramilitary groups in this chilling survival tale of a boy playing a game of cat and mouse within an antigovernment camp. In the heart-stopping opening scene, the 15-year-old...
READ FULL REVIEW
Carolyn Coman, Author, Handprint, Author Front Street $16.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-886910-55-3
Coman (What Jamie Saw) adopts some conventions of the problem novel in this ambitious work about forgiveness. Berry's sister, Laura, has been murdered in South Africa, where she was volunteering at a school, and Berry, still smarting from her...
READ FULL REVIEW
Lindsay Lee Johnson, Author, Handprint, Author . Front Street $15.95 (136p) ISBN 978-1-886910-87-4
In this volume of connected poems, Johnson (Hurricane Henrietta) crystallizes the emotions of a homeless girl, who describes herself as "fading fast" as she loses sight of hope. In the opening poems, Phoebe Rose longs for her past life, when
READ FULL REVIEW
Kimberly Burton Heuston, Author, Handprint, Author Boyds Mills Press $16.95 (176p) ISBN 978-1-886910-56-0
Despite its fascinating views of Shakers and other religious movements in the 1820s and '30s, this often intriguing first novel about a young woman's spiritual journey never quite kindles an emotional response. As the novel opens, 13-year-old ...
READ FULL REVIEW
Nada Roep, Author, Nanda Roep, Author, Handprint, Author , illus. by Marijke ten Cate. Front Street/Lemniscaat $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-85-0
A raccoon child's request for a goodnight kiss sparks her father's imagination in this sweet and silly bedtime story from a Dutch duo. In Cate's opening spread, Lisa lies tucked under a checked blanket; grainy brushstrokes warm the room...
READ FULL REVIEW
In this peaceable folktale, first published in the Netherlands, South African author Grobler depicts a friendly African savanna where a lion and leopard frolic with a hare, antelope and zebra. A greedy Frog drinks all the water with long "Sluuurr
READ FULL REVIEW
Carolyn Coman, Author, Handprint, Author Front Street $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-1-886910-02-7
What third-grader Jamie saw-his baby sister being hurled across the room by his stepfather, Van-is the first image in this heart-wrenching book. What follows are the effects of the incident on the boy: his relief when baby Nin is caught,...
READ FULL REVIEW
Douglas Evans, Author, Handprint, Author, Larry Di Fiori, Illustrator Front Street $16.95 (132p) ISBN 978-1-886910-07-2
Peculiar happenings are the norm in the classroom that serves as the setting for this droll collection. Occasionally reminiscent of Louis Sachar's Wayside School stories, these cleverly crafted episodes likewise make the impossible highly...
READ FULL REVIEW
Anke de Vries, Author, Handprint, Author, Willemien Min, Illustrator , illus. by Willemien Min. Front Street/Lemniscaat $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-886910-76-8
Chipper graphics soup up a familiar premise about being yourself in this picture book from a Dutch team. Grey Mouse, feeling "blue," tries to cheer herself up by painting herself different colors. When she tries green, Frog laughs at her;...
READ FULL REVIEW
Wilmoth Foreman, Author, Handprint, Author . Front Street $15.95 (156p) ISBN 978-1-886910-80-5
Set in the rural South, Foreman's debut novel unfolds in an unspecified but nostalgically evoked past as the narrator, Jill, describes caper after caper. While their young brother and their hardworking parents are otherwise engaged, Jill and her
READ FULL REVIEW
