On Tour with Dave and Ridley

Science Fair, the seventh collaboration between Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, pubbed with a 250,000-copy first printing. The pair then embarked on an eight-city tour over 10 days, including a visit to Good Morning America.

Q & A with Ellen Klages

TheGreen Glass Sea, winner of the 2007 Scott O’Dell Award, tells the story of the creation of the first atomic bomb through the eyes of Suze and Dewey, two children of scientists working on the project. Bookshelf spoke with Ellen Klages about her sequel, White Sands, Red Menace (Viking), set in Alamogordo, N.M, after the war.

Peachy Performance for a YA Series

Three very different teens forge a friendship one summer while working in a Georgia peach orchard in Jodi Lynn Anderson’s Peaches, published in 2005 by HarperTeen. The girls were reunited in 2006’s Secret of Peaches and meet once again in Love and Peaches, which was released this week with an initial print run of 100,000 copies.

An Encore for Aidan Chambers

Aidan Chambers’s Dance Sequence, six novels with shared themes (though not characters) debuted 30 years ago with the publication of Breaktime. This month, Amulet Books is releasing paperback reissues of this young adult novel, as well as the second installment, Dance on My Grave. The publisher will reissue the third and fourth books, Now I Know and The Toll Bridge, in spring 2009.

Comics Go to the Ivy League

Academic Librarian Karen Green has successfully made the case for the literary legitimacy of comics at one of the most elite schools in the nation, and transformed Columbia’s collection of graphic novels from a paltry few to over 800 books and climbing.

Bill Willingham Recreates the Fables

Besides the ongoing Jack of Fables spin-off title, written by BBill Willingham's frequent collaborator Matthew Sturges, and an upcoming book collecting artist James Jean's covers for Fables itself, there are three more Fables-related projects coming in 2009.

Bat-Manga: Go Go Go!

Thie Chip Kidd-edited and designed anthology of an obscure Janapanese Batman manga is a vivid, primal take on the character

This American Elf

James Kochalka celebrates the 10th anniversary of his daily diary strip, American Elf

Comics Briefly 10/28

Panelmania: World of Quest

World of Quest, Jason Kruse's kid-oriented sword and sorcery Web comic, which recently made the leap to both print and television animation, hits stands with its second volume this December. In our exclusive 6-page preview, Quest faces the wrath of The Hive.

Nonfiction Reviews

Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America Julia Angwin . Random , $27 (336p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6694-0 Angwin, an award-winning journalist for the Wall Street Journal, recounts the history of MySpace.com in this well-written, entertaining and drama-filled chronicle. From its founding by Chris DeWolfe to its surprising purchase for nearly $600 million by Rupert ...

Children's Book Reviews

Picture Books I Got Two Dogs John Lithgow , illus. by Robert Neubecker. Simon & Schuster , $17.99 (32p with CD) ISBN 978-1-4169-5881-9 Lithgow’s (I’m a Manatee) singing tribute to a couple of canine ne’er-do-wells named Fanny and Blue strives for the kind of goofy, bouncy simplicity of Burl Ives’s classic Little White Duck album.

A Look at the Real Alaskans

Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People William L. Iggiagruk Hensley . Farrar, Straus & Giroux , $24 (288p) ISBN 978-0-374-15484-4 Although this fascinating memoir is set hundreds of |miles from where most Americans have ever dared to travel, Hensley brings to life this “little-known part of America” through myriad tales of toil, triumph and the Inu...

In Profile

Barbara Dianne Savage Diversity Reigns in the Black Church In the clash between Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barbara Dianne Savage sees the conflict between the African-American political experience and the so-called “black church” writ large. “One of the problems is that both Obama and Wright spoke as if there was such a thing as the black ch...

Fat Is a Laughing Matter

Meeting author-artist Carol Lay in the flesh is wonderfully disconcerting. So closely does she resemble the cartoon version of herself in her whimsical cartoon memoir about dieting, The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude (Villard)—tall, brunette, with black horn-rimmed glasses and, yes, a slender figure—that shaking Lay's hand becomes an almost metaphysical experience.

Fiction Reviews

A Fortunate Age Joanna Smith Rakoff . Scribner , $26 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9077-4 Rakoff’s debut novel is a ponderous, meandering and nostalgic portrait of a postcollegiate group of Gen-Xers awkwardly navigating weddings, pregnancies, betrayals and funerals in pre- and post-9/11 New York City.

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 10/27/2008

This week: the invisible engine of the green market, memoirs of pre-Civil Rights struggle and American immigration, the true story of the fake Cardiff Giant, a plan for Barack Obama and a biography for his wife, and two photo collections of giants in rock. Plus: Lincoln, two mathematicians and one reality TV villain (makes good).

Poetry Book Has Readers Feeling the Beat

Hip Hop Speaks to Children (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, Oct.), a collection of 51 songs and poems edited by Nikki Giovanni, isn’t only turning children on to poetry; the book and its companion audio CD is resonating with adults, too.

'Nerd' Night in NYC

Author John Green kicked off his national tour for Paper Towns (Dutton) last Thursday evening at the Barnes & Noble in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood.

Art Spiegelman Breaks It All Down For You

With Breakdowns, Maus, and In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman taught his fellow artists about what he calls the "grammar" of comics, and he taught the larger book world about a new kind of literature that could grab national attention, illustrate painful and personal subjects, and win a Pulitzer Prize.