(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. Bartleby Huddle has never uttered a word, a source of concern to his boisterous family. The clamor to get Bartleby to speak reaches a fever pitch at his third birthday--where Grampy Huddle, attuned to life's quieter pleasures, comes in. Hawkes's riotous illustrations extend Cruise's lively text, portraying the high-decibel Huddles as being similarly loud in appearance as they are in volume.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2009

(2) 4-6 In 1989, Blessing and her brother are placed in the custody of their aaka (grandmother). The siblings discover their past through Inupiaq family stories. Readers are primed for these by the novel's first section, where Aaka's mother recounts the events of 1917 in which the Spanish influenza wiped out virtually the entire village. Authentic imagery, details, and language pervade this memorable story. Glos.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2009

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Elivia Savadier. A diminutive bear is searching the city for his mother. Hest's no-nonsense, direct-address text ("When you meet a bear on Broadway, this is what to do") clues readers that everything will turn out okay. Savadier's thin pencil lines and soft watercolor washes in warm golden hues provide both action and comfort, capturing the feel of New York in autumn.

Reviewer: Hannah Rodgers Barnaby

(1) 4-6 In 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, fifteen-year-old Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus. Hoose fashions a compelling narrative that balances the momentous events of the civil rights movement with the personal crises of a courageous young woman. This vivid and dramatic account, complemented with photographs, sidebars, and liberal excerpts from interviews with Colvin, reasserts her place in history. Bib., ind.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2009

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. "Report of a math attack, Second and Main. / They say there's a kid with a scrambled-up brain." The "kid" is a girl stumped by a math problem: "what's seven times ten?" Numbers everywhere (on a clock tower, in the grocery store) go haywire until she remembers the answer. Mixed-media illustrations capture the mayhem and grab attention with unexpected perspectives and jaunty angles.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Ora Eitan. Following Georgia O'Keeffe's daily routine, Lasky's precisely observed narrative describes details of the artist's life and work during her later years in New Mexico. Eitan's spare, well-balanced art uses a restrained color palette and a technique resembling linocut or torn-paper collage; the simplicity of the illustrations matches O'Keeffe's own personal sensibility. Appended text tells more about the artist. Bib.

Reviewer: Lolly Robinson

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf. Loizeaux stands Kafka on his head, as young cockroach Clarence awakens as a roach-sized human. Shocked, the other cockroaches quarantine him. When they're spotted in the kitchen and an exterminator is called, it's up to Clarence to work out a truce between the cockroach colony members and their human hosts. Amusing black-and-white illustrations enhance this quirky and amiable adventure.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(2) 4-6 Three children--a girl from a prominent Vicksburg family, the son of a minister, and Ulysses S. Grant's son--share, through edited first-person accounts, their experiences over the eighteen-month Battle of Vicksburg. That Fred Grant would be permitted (even encouraged) to accompany his father on such a dangerous campaign shows modern readers a reality much different from their own. Reading list, websites. Bib., ind.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2009

(3) YA Sixteen-year-old Victor lugs a typewriter up to his uncle's secluded cabin, strips down naked, and begins to write. After he catches Rose Anna, a precocious homeschooled girl, spying on him, their friendship blossoms into romance as they share their thoughts, feelings, and writing with each other. A quirky, humorous debut novel about connecting with kindred spirits and the environment.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt

(3) YA In tempered and graceful prose, Li recounts her life in Mao's China, from the era of the Great Leap Forward through the Cultural Revolution, ending with her departure in her mid-twenties in 1980 to study in the United States. Sustaining her throughout is her passion for books, instilled by her father and seeing her through the worst excesses of the Red Guards. Timeline. Glos.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen. "We're going to see the Elephant...That's what people say when they head west." As her family travels to California, Lily Rose keeps alert for a pachyderm and helps her grandmother sew quilt squares. The joke goes on too long and the down-home dialogue can be grating, but the folk-style illustrations incorporating stitches and traditional quilt motifs nicely reflect the family's experiences. Reading list. Bib.

Reviewer: Gail Hedges

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Cat Bowman Smith. Lazy, wired-in Parker is less than thrilled to be spending summer vacation with Great-uncle Philbert and Great-aunt Mattie on their farm with no electronics in sight. But, predictably, he eventually finds himself warmed and refreshed by their down-home lifestyle, with its Scrabble-playing, wood-splitting, and fishing. Though the story's message is too apparent, readers, like Parker, may be won over.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(3) PS Illustrated by David Walker. "Seal and his calf would blow big bubbled kisses / that rise to the surface / in splashity splishes." Sprightly rhymes describe how various animal babies--from sloths to snakes to walruses--might kiss their parents good night. Walker makes the most of the theme by creating soft, pleasing compositions centered on the parent-child pairs.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Terry Widener. In a nostalgic paean to community and family, the imminent arrival of a new baby threatens a young girl's idyllic life in her Manhattan apartment building--a virtual United Nations. The residents' preparations for the annual roof party and the girl's grudging acceptance of change are shown in richly colored, WPA-inflected paintings and described in a poetic text.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Rosanne Litzinger. In Silverman's sprightly new take on an old rhyme, the "wee woman who lived in a shoe" bundles up her many children and pets to search for a more spacious abode. After a perilous journey, they meet a young girl who asks them to live in her dollhouse. Litzinger's eye-catching compositions invite inspection but also encourage readers to turn the pages.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(3) 4-6 George Schaller's mentor taught him that scientists have a moral obligation to protect the wilderness they study: "wild places feed the heart as well as the mind." Schaller's own photographs and sketches combine with a winning text to provide an engaging account of both the man and his over fifty years of research and wildlife conservation efforts. Websites. Bib., ind.

Reviewer: Tamara DePasquale

(1) 4-6 For Rex (Rex Zero and the End of the World), mysteries abound. Who's the woman calling his father "Liebchen" in a letter? Why is the "Nate" he finds in a mislaid address book really Natasha? What's with those pictures of black-underwear-clad women in his friend's magazines? Wynne-Jones brilliantly plays Rex's childhood world against the adult one he's just beginning to discern.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2008

(1) YA In this Manitoba-set story, secrets stalk three generations of women: teenage Odella, her mother Sally, and Odella's great-aunt, Gloria. Brooks separates her novel into three parts: bleak "Winter," thawing "Spring," and smoldering "Summer." The book expands its exceedingly well-told tale of teenage romance with equally absorbing stories of adults who've played the tricky game of love.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2007

(3) YA Barakat tells about her girlhood in Palestine. Most of the book takes place during 1967's Six-Day War and its aftermath, when her family members, having fled Ramallah for Jordan, find themselves living as refugees. Reading and writing help sustain Barakat through the uncertainty of everyday life. The author relates her idiosyncratic collection of memories in vivid, poetic prose. Reading list.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Rosemary doesn't like being an only child: she's lonely, her home is too quiet and organized, etc. This story begins insightfully but cops out in the end: its message seems to be that making peace with being an only child requires getting a pet. The art is witty, ably reflecting Rosemary's shifting moods.

Reviewer: Nell Beram