Zebra Forest by Adina Rishe Gewirtz Eleven-year-old Annie and her younger brother, Rew, live with their grandma in a run-down house at the edge of the forest. Gran tells them that their mother didn’t want them, and their father died in a fight with an angry man. Annie and Rew get the most joy reading [...]
In the three years that we’ve had this blog, we have never had a post explicitly about siblings. Which is surprising given that siblings are such a dominant part of childhood and an enormous part of almost all children’s books. So here are five siblings books from J Fiction that, with their mixed-up and conflicting [...]
Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World by Laurie Lawlor This beautiful new picture book tells the story of Rachel Carson’s life, from her nature-loving childhood through her 1962 publication of Silent Spring, the book that launched modern environmentalism. Carson was a biologist by training at a time when few women entered scientific [...]
The Bird King: An Artist’s Notebook by Shaun Tan Looking through this gorgeous (and beautifully reproduced) book is like peeking into the sketchbook and portfolio of Shaun Tan (The Arrival). His working method is to “just start drawing” and the book goes on to show everything from highly detailed doodles to painted storyboards. Most of [...]
Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli Hokey Pokey is a land where kids spend their days “running, leaping, playing, chasing, shrieking, hopscotching, footballing, hide-and-seeking, razzing, dazzing, run-amucking and chuckleducking.” Taking place over the course of the day when Jack, a Big Kid, wakes up to find his precious bike has been stolen, Hokey Pokey is a [...]
Hello Fellow Space Adventurers, How’s the ride? Chapter 2 addresses how astronauts cope with the confinement of spacecraft, particularly when they’re stuck with several other people from whom they can never escape. What sounds like an introvert’s worst nightmare is a reality for the chosen few who participate in space programs. You’ve got three [...]
Greetings lovely readers. On Wednesday evening at 1900, Marin county in conjunction with Dominican University and Book Passage kicked off the launch of this year’s One Book One Marin Program. Mary Roach was present for the launch party, and judging from the number of guffaws from the audience, she was quite a hit. She also [...]
The Book of Blood: From Legends and Leeches to Vampires and Veins by H. P. Newquist “There is more to blood than that it’s red and kind of gross” and this books sets out to prove it, though keeping at least some of the gross factor too! Looking at the biological, cultural and historical significance [...]
Follow Us