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Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/23/2009
Picture Books The Secret Circus Johanna Wright . Roaring Brook/Porter , $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59643-403-5 A charismatic group of French mice enjoy a night out in Wright’s dreamy, muted debut. “Somewhere, deep in the city of Paris, there is a circus that is so small, and so secret... only the mice know how to find it.
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Facts and Figures 2008: Meyer’s Deep Run
This time last year, booksellers were bemoaning the end of Harry Potter. That series, which ended in 2007, sold 19 million copies that year, and it didn’t seem as though anything would be replacing it anytime soon. How quickly things change. Last year, as the final volume in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series pubbed (six million copies sold) and the Twilight movie was released (dom...
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Print Run Set for New DiCamillo Novel
Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo’s eagerly awaited new novel, The Magician’s Elephant (Candlewick, Sept.), illustrated by Yoko Tanaka, continues to move forward. This week Candlewick revealed the cover art and announced a hefty first printing of 500,000 copies for the 208-page fable.
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Harlequin Targets Teens
Harlequin is set to broaden its presence in the young adult market. Harlequin Teen, a fiction line, debuts in August with Rachel Vincent’s My Soul to Take, the first installment of the Soul Screamers series. Another paranormal tale, Intertwined by Gena Showalter, is rolling off press in September. The imprint will initially consist of trade paperbacks, hardcovers and digital publications.
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‘Mother Goose’ Comes Home to Roost at Heyday
“Jack Be Nimble” as Mark Twain’s famous jumping frog? “Mary, Mary, quite contrary?” as a red fox tending a mission’s garden? These are just two of 26 Californian interpretations of Mother Goose rhymes that appear in Mother Goose in California (Apr.) by FresnoBee staff artist Doug Hansen, new from Berkeley, Calif.-based Heyday Books.
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Queens of the Castle: 10 YA Authors in Ireland
The week before St. Patrick’s Day, 10 YA writers descended on a castle in Ireland, never to be heard from again. Well, that might have been the result had the trip taken place in one of their novels, but in reality, the authors worked on their novels, took day trips in the surrounding area and made “huge tureens of soup,” according to Irish author Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon’s Lexicon), who helped organize the writing retreat—which did indeed take place in a castle.
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Chronicle Trots Out New Horse Series
Two horse-loving best friends from an Australian bush town star in Chronicle’s Horse Crazy series by Alison Lester, launched this month with The Silver Horse Switch and The Circus Horse. Originally published by Allen & Unwin in Lester’s native Australia under the title of Bonnie and Sam, the series marks a double departure for the author: these are her debut early chapter books and the first books she wrote that she did not also illustrate.
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Straight-Talk Parenting
What's the best resource for parents trying to raise healthy, secure kids in the midst of global and perhaps personal uncertainty? The round-the-clock advice available online is, at best, a mix of reputable and questionable; in a marketplace swollen with about as many opinions as there are baby names, those in the book business must work to bring the most compelling and trustworthy voices to pr...
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Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/16/2009
Picture Books OK Go Carin Berger . Greenwillow , $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-06-157666-9 Not to be confused with the rock band of the same name, Berger's (The Little Yellow Leaf) latest is visually and verbally raucous even as its environmental message is (comparatively) subtle. “GO!” shouts the opening text, as peapod-shaped vehicles sputter and race across the page.
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From Pink Slip to Blue Slip
Two children’s book publicity veterans are the latest to set up shop on their own after being laid off from a major trade house. Sarah Shealy and Barbara Fisch, formerly joint publicity directors at Harcourt Children’s Books, are launching Blue Slip Media, which will specialize in publicity and marketing services for publishers and authors.
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Q & A with Melissa Marr
Bookshelf spoke with Melissa Marr about her new novel, Fragile Eternity (HarperCollins, Apr.).
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Where’s Bono? And What’s His Favorite Book Charity?
Almost exactly a year ago, when Candlewick Press moved its offices to Davis Square in Somerville, Mass., the building’s proximity to the Somerville Theatre, a 90-year old movie theatre/concert hall, wasn’t even a consideration. But it became one after it was picked for U2’s Boston concert to promote its 12th CD, No Line on the Horizon.
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Talk of the ‘Times’: A ‘New York Times’ Reviewers Panel
“Serendipity!” That was the succinct answer given by Julie Just, children’s books editor of the New York Times Book Review last Saturday, when asked how she determines just which books will be reviewed in the prestigious paper. “It could be a certain cover that you fall in love with, or recommendations from colleagues,” she said. “It could just be reading, reading, reading. But it often comes down to serendipity.”
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Hungry? The Latest on ‘The Hunger Games’
One of the most heavily buzzed-about titles of 2008 was Suzanne Collins’s dystopian novel The Hunger Games, and there’s already plenty of anticipation—and news—ahead of the second book, Catching Fire, due this fall from Scholastic Press. Here’s a roundup of the latest, including an earlier release date for Catching Fire, as well as a new contest, which is being announced for the first time here in Children’s Bookshelf.
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Something Old, Something New
In Chicken Little, a March picture book from Roaring Brook’s Neal Porter imprint, Rebecca Emberley’s text puts a new spin on an old tale. The book’s art, which she created with her father Ed Emberley, likewise represent a mingling of old and new.
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Bestselling British Series Arrives in U.S.
His name says it all. Horrid Henry schemes to trick the tooth fairy into leaving him money when hasn’t lost a tooth and causes his cousin’s groom to fly head-first into the wedding cake. American kids will finally have a chance to meet this merry mischief maker—whose books have sold more than 12 million copies in the U.K. alone —when Sourcebooks’ Jabberwocky imprint releases four Horrid Henry paperbacks next month.
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Haller Moves to Penguin Young Readers
Jennifer Haller, v-p and associate publisher of the children’s book group at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is moving to Penguin Young Readers Group as v-p and associate publisher, effective March 26.
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Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/9/2009
Picture Books Just Like a Baby Juanita Havill , illus. by Christine Davenier. Chronicle , $15.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8118-5026-1 The collaborators behind I Heard It from Alice Zucchini offer a warmhearted story about a family with big plans for a little newborn. Davenier's luminous watercolors and vivid characterizations are the main draw; she portrays a large, loving and highly expressive fami...
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Can You Bully a Wimpy Kid?
These days in children's books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the It series. Abrams has more than 15 million copies in print of the four existing titles. Fox is holding open casting for a movie version, which has been fast-tracked for a fall release. And last week two Wimpy Kid books were nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award.
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Bluebird Works Takes Off
Editor Kara LaReau has struck out on her own, and has announced the formation of Bluebird Works, offering creative services that include freelance writing and editing, manuscript reviewing and talent scouting to publishers, authors and agents.
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