Featured Reviews

Berne, Jennifer CALVIN CAN'T FLY September 1, 2010 - The irresistible story of a proud bookworm will put smiles on the faces of readers of all ages. Calvin is a young starling with a huge family. While his brothers, sisters and 67,432 cousins are off discovering nature and learning ... Full Review

Pratchett, Terry I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT September 1, 2010 - Ask Tiffany Aching, and she’ll tell you: It’s not easy being a witch, especially when you’re only almost 16 years old. It can’t be easy being Terry Pratchett, either, an author known foremost, perhaps, for his screamingly funny Discworld novels, ... Full Review

Renier, Aaron THE UNSINKABLE WALKER BEAN September 1, 2010 - Anyone who has said that pirates are an overused motif in youth literature has not yet met Walker Bean. Legends of Atlantis, merwitches and pirates abound in this stunningly swashbuckling graphic novel. Young Walker Bean, overlooked by his father, adores ... Full Review

Vivian, Siobhan NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL September 1, 2010 - Another powerful, involving exploration of teen girls' identities and relationships from the ever-improving Vivian (A Little Friendly Advice, 2008, Same Difference, 2009). Type-A super-achieving high-school senior Natalie Sterling has a foolproof plan: Win the Student Council presidency, ace the SATs, ... Full Review

Current Issue: Fiction

Cannell, Stephen J. THE PROSTITUTES' BALL September 1, 2010 - In Shane Scully’s tenth (The Pallbearers, 2010, etc.), the savvy LAPD cop encounters Hollywood glitz, a homicide blitz and almost nothing that is what it seems to be. Can Scully actually stomach as his new partner Sumner “Hitch” Hitchens, a ... Full Review

Cleeves, Ann BLUE LIGHTNING September 1, 2010 - Nobody, not even the murderer, can leave the island until the storm clears. Jimmy Perez, a thoughtful, taciturn inspector in the Highland and Islands Police, takes his fiancée Fran, an artist steeped in London gossip, mores and sociability, home to ... Full Review

Franco, James PALO ALTO September 1, 2010 - Bleak tales of growing up in the eponymous city. Actor Franco’s stories are impressive: crisp, spare, depressing. Numerous characters recur from story to story, sometimes appearing as narrators, other times as characters within someone else’s narrative frame. Almost all are ... Full Review

Glass, Julia THE WIDOWER'S TALE September 1, 2010 - Another heartwarming winner from the NBA-anointed Massachusetts author. Glass (I See You Everywhere, 2008, etc.) observes and gently mocks her charmingly self-absorbed characters in an unmannered manner reminiscent of her popular contemporary Allegra Goodman and their accomplished forerunner Anne Tyler. ... Full Review

Kent, Kathleen THE WOLVES OF ANDOVER September 1, 2010 - In this prequel to The Heretic’s Daughter (2008), Kent tells the fictionalized story of her ancestor Martha Carrier’s courtship with her future husband years before she became a victim of the Salem Witch Trials. In 1673, Martha’s father sends her ... Full Review

Leung, Brian TAKE ME HOME September 1, 2010 - The “home” of the title is the minuscule (and aptly named) settlement of Dire, Wyo., where Addie Maine revisits a locus of love and loss 40 years after the tragic events that had transpired there. In the 1880s, Addie travels ... Full Review

McGlynn, Stacey KEEPING TIME September 1, 2010 - A perfectly charming debut in which a septuagenarian from Liverpool travels to Long Island in search of her long-lost fiancé. Daisy Phillips is feeling the pressure to move from her quaint English home to a state-of-the-art retirement community. She loves ... Full Review

Winer, Andrew THE MARRIAGE ARTIST September 1, 2010 - In this resolutely ambitious novel from Winer (The Color Midnight Made, 2002), a present-day art critic’s attempt to understand his dead wife and her brilliant Native-American artist-lover intertwines with the fate of an equally brilliant Jewish artist in 1930s Vienna. ... Full Review

Current Issue: Nonfiction

Briggs, Bill THE THIRD MIRACLE September 1, 2010 - Intriguing glimpse into the Vatican saint-making process. In 1840, Mother Théodore Guérin left France for the unknowns of rural Indiana. In 2006, she was officially canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Veteran journalist Briggs chronicles the surrounding ... Full Review

Lanois, Daniel SOUL MINING September 1, 2010 - The master musician and producer offers a typically idiosyncratic take on his life and art. In a memorable chapter of his 2004 memoir Chronicles Volume One, Bob Dylan recounts his work on the 1989 album Oh Mercy—the collection that began ... Full Review

Lepore, Jill THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES September 1, 2010 - Lepore (American History/Harvard Univ.; New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan, 2005, etc.) explores the nexus of the American Revolution, the understanding and telling of history and today’s Tea Party. For a number of years, the author ... Full Review

Norris, Michele THE GRACE OF SILENCE September 1, 2010 - In her debut memoir, veteran journalist and All Things Considered co-host Norris deftly explores the “unprecedented, hidden and robust conversation about race” now taking place throughout the United States. In the wake of Barack Obama’s election, the author found that ... Full Review

Roberts, Randy JOE LOUIS September 1, 2010 - A sympathetic, moving life of the Brown Bomber by veteran cultural historian and biographer Roberts (History/Purdue Univ.; The Rock, the Curse, and the Hub: A Random History of Boston Sports, 2005, etc.). As the author tells it, the story of ... Full Review

Silverman, Kenneth BEGIN AGAIN September 1, 2010 - A Bancroft and Pulitzer Prize winner takes on one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. John Cage (1912–1992) redefined what music could be by expanding nearly every element of the art. Silverman (Lightning Man: The Accursed Life ... Full Review

Wu, Tim THE MASTER SWITCH September 1, 2010 - Powerful forces are afoot to take control of the Internet—for profit, of course. It’s happened before, writes Slate contributor Wu (Copyright and Communications/Columbia Univ.; co-author: Who Controls the Internet?, 2006), and the corporations have won just about every time. Take ... Full Review

Current Issue: Children's

Anderson, Laurie Halse FORGE September 1, 2010 - At the end of Chains (2008), Isabel rescues her friend Curzon from Bridewell Prison and rows away from Manhattan in their escape from slavery. Now, in the second of the planned trilogy, Isabel goes her own way, and 15-year-old Curzon ... Full Review

Aronson, Marc SUGAR CHANGED THE WORLD September 1, 2010 - From 1600 to the 1800s, sugar drove the economies of Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa and did more “to reshape the world than any ruler, empire, or war had ever done.” Millions of people were taken from Africa and ... Full Review

Berne, Jennifer CALVIN CAN'T FLY September 1, 2010 - The irresistible story of a proud bookworm will put smiles on the faces of readers of all ages. Calvin is a young starling with a huge family. While his brothers, sisters and 67,432 cousins are off discovering nature and learning ... Full Review

Carson, Mary Kay INSIDE TORNADOES September 1, 2010 - Extreme storms never cease to appeal. This visually tempting title defines and explains the storms people call twisters, gives examples of four particularly devastating ones in this country, describes tornado watchers at work, offers a hands-on activity and suggests precautions ... Full Review

Castillo, Lauren CHRISTMAS IS HERE September 1, 2010 - This touching interpretation of the Christmas story wordlessly follows a modern-day family as they journey through a snowy town in the evening to view a live Nativity scene. The family includes a baby in a white snowsuit, who provides a ... Full Review

Egielski, Richard CAPTAIN SKY BLUE September 1, 2010 - In a robust tale for Traction Man fans, the diminutive pilot that Jack finds beneath the Christmas tree roars off in his newly assembled airplane for a series of wild adventures. His commentary laced with “pilot talk” that will have ... Full Review

Grant, Michael THE CALL September 1, 2010 - The first book in Grant’s new series, The Magnificent 12, introduces unlikely hero Mack, who has “a serious case of mediumness” and a vast array of phobias. Enter Grimluk, a 3,000-year-old man who informs Mack that he is to be ... Full Review

Groom, Juliet SILENT NIGHT September 1, 2010 - This new interpretation of the beloved Christmas carol focuses on an enchanting pair of bears, a parent and cub. The text retains the familiar beginning and then moves on to new words celebrating the beauty of the mountain setting at ... Full Review

Holt, Kimberly Willis THE ADVENTURES OF GRANNY CLEARWATER AND LITTLE CRITTER September 1, 2010 - Granny and her pajama-clad grandson’s adventures begin in true tall-tale fashion when the two bounce out of a covered wagon and into a prickly pear cactus on the family’s journey west. The wagon goes on without them, and Granny, with ... Full Review

Hughes, Shirley THE CHRISTMAS EVE GHOST September 1, 2010 - Hughes draws on her childhood memories in this longer-than-usual story about a fatherless Welsh family’s struggles in Depression-era Liverpool. Two children, Bronwen and Dylan, live in a row house with their widowed mother, who takes in laundry to make her ... Full Review

Isaacs, Anne DUST DEVIL September 1, 2010 - Isaacs and Zelinsky tell an even taller tale about Angelica Longrider, the outsized heroine of their hilarious, Caldecott Honor–winning Swamp Angel. Having outgrown Tennessee, Angel moves to roomy Montana, where she faces a wild dust-devil horse and a bandit named ... Full Review

Isadora, Rachel 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS September 1, 2010 - Isadora continues her series of traditional tales (and now, a song) reset in Africa and illustrated with her visually arresting collages that incorporate African fabrics. The words of the song are familiar, but in this interpretation, the maids milk goats ... Full Review

Iwai, Melissa SOUP DAY September 1, 2010 - Iwai’s writing debut beautifully depicts the loving relationship between a mother and daughter as they go about a winter ritual--making soup. The two brave the snow to buy vegetables at the market, then it’s back home to chop them all ... Full Review

Katz, Alan STALLING September 1, 2010 - It’s time for bed, so what does Dan do? Well, stall, of course! “Dominoes! Climb Mount Clothes! Cross the room on tippy-toes,” then “Writing! Knighting!” and some “Kung fu fighting!” So continues the spirited youth, nimbly jumping from antic to ... Full Review

Knapp, Ruthie WHO STOLE <i>MONA LISA</i>? September 1, 2010 - This inventive book’s $20,000 Pyramid category would be “What Mona Lisa Might Say.” Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa closely observes the people who come to see her in the Louvre: “People with up hair. People with down hair.” She hears ... Full Review

Nelson, Marilyn SNOOK ALONE September 1, 2010 - “Abba Jacob was a monk who lived in a hermitage on the island in a faraway sea,” reads the opening line of Nelson and Ering’s remarkable collaboration, but readers soon discover that the monk does not lead an entirely solitary ... Full Review

Potter, Ellen THE KNEEBONE BOY September 1, 2010 - The Hardscrabbles of the English town of Little Tunks--silent Otto, the adventure-seeking Lucia and whip-smart Max--have become accustomed to their shy, rumpled father’s absences since their mother’s suspicious disappearance. (“ ‘She’s dead,’ Lucia said. ‘She’s gone missing,’ said Max.”) On ... Full Review

Pratchett, Terry I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT September 1, 2010 - Ask Tiffany Aching, and she’ll tell you: It’s not easy being a witch, especially when you’re only almost 16 years old. It can’t be easy being Terry Pratchett, either, an author known foremost, perhaps, for his screamingly funny Discworld novels, ... Full Review

Rawlinson, Julia FLETCHER AND THE SNOWFLAKE CHRISTMAS September 1, 2010 - Fletcher the fretful fox returns for the third entry in this seasonally themed series with beautifully distinctive illustrations skillfully integrated with the text. This time Fletcher worries that Santa won’t find his rabbit neighbors, who have recently moved to a ... Full Review

Renier, Aaron THE UNSINKABLE WALKER BEAN September 1, 2010 - Anyone who has said that pirates are an overused motif in youth literature has not yet met Walker Bean. Legends of Atlantis, merwitches and pirates abound in this stunningly swashbuckling graphic novel. Young Walker Bean, overlooked by his father, adores ... Full Review

Saxton, Jo SNAIL TRAIL September 1, 2010 - An affable snail tours fine-art masterpieces, inviting readers to discern which painting‘s based on him. He’s dark blue (googly eyes atop antennae), with a shell of multihued, multisized cut-felt blocks. Those colored blocks subtly change shape and position as pages ... Full Review

Stampler, Ann Redisch THE ROOSTER PRINCE OF BRESLOV September 1, 2010 - This exuberantly rendered Yiddish folktale is bright in hue and spirit. In Breslov lives a prince who has “more than he wanted. When he was hungry for a scrap of bread, he got a slice of cake dripping with honey.” ... Full Review

Vivian, Siobhan NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL September 1, 2010 - Another powerful, involving exploration of teen girls' identities and relationships from the ever-improving Vivian (A Little Friendly Advice, 2008, Same Difference, 2009). Type-A super-achieving high-school senior Natalie Sterling has a foolproof plan: Win the Student Council presidency, ace the SATs, ... Full Review

Walsh, Pat THE CROWFIELD CURSE September 1, 2010 - In 1347 at a country monastery, a wondrous mystery unfolds. Collecting firewood in a frozen forest, William finds an unfamiliar cat-sized creature wounded in an animal trap. It moans but also talks, so despite his neck hairs hackling at this ... Full Review

Wells, Dan MR. MONSTER September 1, 2010 - Three months ago, 16-year-old John Wayne Cleaver killed a demon masquerading as his neighbor, Mr. Crowley (I Am Not a Serial Killer, 2010). It had been harvesting body parts from the local citizenry to keep itself alive. John, who carefully ... Full Review

Willems, Mo WE ARE IN A BOOK! September 1, 2010 - Stalwart friends Piggie and Gerald the elephant push the metafictive envelope in a big way when they realize that "someone is looking at us." Is it a monster? worries Gerald. "No," replies the squinting Piggie. "It is... / a reader! ... Full Review