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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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Death and 'Dirty Dancing'
Former PW editor Emily Chenoweth interweaves the story of a daughter's sexual awakening with her mother's terminal illness, culminating in a bittersweet anniversary party, in her debut, Hello Goodbye.
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Fiction Book Reviews
The Embers Hyatt Bass . Holt , $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-8050-8994-3 Director, producer and screenwriter Bass creates a riveting narrative that digs into the notion that “there is nothing that happens to a child that does not implicate the parent in some way.” Emily Ascher is planning her wedding at the site of her Berkshires childhood family vacation home, on the very hillside where...
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Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/09/2009
On the Web this week: the father of molecular gastronomy looks at the classics, a thorough review of Gone With the Wind, getting the most "whuffie" from online social networks, and what we're paying for with our attention. Plus: Wall Street bombed! By terrorists! In 1920!
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Nonfiction Book Reviews
It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower Michela Wrong . HarperCollins , $25.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-134658-3 Kenya's dysfunctional state is the subject of this gripping profile of an anti-corruption crusader. Journalist Wrong (In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz) tells the story of John Githongo, a journalist and activist (and Wrong's personal friend) who joined newly elected Ke...
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Orson Scott Card Signs with Simon Pulse
Simon Pulse senior editor Anica Rissi has acquired world English rights to the first three books in a new fantasy series by Orson Scott Card written specifically for a YA audience.
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Janetta Otter-Barry to Start Own List
Janetta Otter-Barry, editorial director of Frances Lincoln Children’s Books in the U.K., will set up her own list beginning next month, under the Frances Lincoln umbrella.
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Poisoned Pen Partners with NFL and NEA for Book Giveaway
As part of the National Education Association’s Read Across America program, mystery publisher Poisoned Pen Press recently partnered with the NFL Players Association to launch what it calls the Great Mystery Book Giveaway.
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A Lion of a Tale from Delacorte
In a video clip that has been viewed on YouTube (in several versions) by more than 10 million people, a lion emerges from the African wilderness to embrace—literally—two men standing in a clearing. Those men, Anthony “Ace” Bourke and John Rendall, chronicle the events leading up to that encounter in Christian the Lion, a Delacorte release with a March 10 laydown.
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WonderCon Capitalizes on the ‘Fantasy Economy’
This year's WonderCon, held February 27-March 1 at San Francisco's Moscone Center, was an acid test for what a mid-size convention could be like in the new and gloomy economy.
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French Publisher Soleil Finds Success at Marvel
Since the 2008 launch of Soleil Productions’ partnership with Marvel Comics, the French publisher has introduced American audiences to bestselling European sci-fi and fantasy comics like Sky Doll, an adult-oriented title about a female android by W.I.T.C.H. creator Barbara Canepa which was recently released as a trade paperback.
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Life in Comics: Another Comics Convention Where Reality Need Not Apply
The author finds the down economy didn't affect the enjoyment of comics at last weekend's WonderCon in San Francisco.
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James Jean Covers Art
Racking up five consecutive “Best Cover Artist” Eisner Awards and three consecutive Harveys, among a host of other awards, James Jean is striking out on his own in 2009 and heading into the art world with a collection of his Fables covers (DC Comics, $39.99) and a book of postcards from Chronicle books on the consumer market.
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Comics Briefly
Swallow Me Whole Gets Nom for LA Times Book Prize; Marvel Ends Open Submissions; Bookstore Debuts Graphic Novel Book Club; Rocketeer Back In Print; Brubaker Goes Live Action; First Second’s Siegel on Book Lust; Watchmen In Baltimore Sun and Manga, Anime, Video Game Show at Japan Society
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Comics Briefly
MoCCA Watchmen Benefit Screening; DeMatteis Comic Free To Schools; Eagle One Brings IDW Backlist Online; Middleman Finale Released As Comic; Spike: After The Fall Collected; Free Donna Barr Downloads and Hudson, Walton Blog Cerebus
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Fiction Reviews
Exiles in the Garden Ward Just . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , $25 (288p) ISBN 978-0-547-19558-2 Few if any novelists have captured Washington politics with the astute insights of Just, who here casts his dispassionate eye on a man who comes to question whether one can achieve a well-lived life on the outskirts of political action.
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Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 03/02/2009
On the Web this week we address a number of mysteries: the life and work of esoteric architect Le Corbusier; the science of finding extraterrestrials; what's left for the Templars to conspire over; and the secret of NYC's favorite gluten-free vegan cupcakes. Plus: a Korn bassist named Fieldy, yet more "on moving," and the first book on villain-of-the-moment Bernie Madoff.
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Children's Book Reviews: Week of 3/2/2009
Picture Books Bad Frogs Thacher Hurd . Candlewick , $15.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-7636-3253-3 Hurd’s artwork is as exuberant as ever—his portraits of mischief-making amphibians have a ripped-from-the-easel sense of fun, with colors that look like they dried only minutes before readers opened the book.
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Nonfiction Reviews
Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History Margaret MacMillan . Modern Library , $22 (208p) ISBN 978-0-679-64358-6 MacMillan, author of the acclaimed Paris 1919, reminds readers that history matters: “It is particularly unfortunate that just as history is becoming more important in our public discussions, professional historians have largely been abandoning the field to amateurs.
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Q & A with Susan Patron
Children's Bookshelf spoke with Susan Patron about her new novel, Lucky Breaks (Atheneum, Mar.).
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