Eric Greitens: Plumbing a 'Warrior's Heart'

Eric Greitens has made it his mission to take on challenges, and his life’s work is amazing and impressive—an action-adventurer/philanthropist/scholar’s dream.

He taught English in China while still in college, learned to box in a nails-tough African-American gym in St. Louis, and worked as a volunteer with orphans in Bosnia and survivors of genocide in Rwanda. If all that isn’t enough, Greitens immersed himself in a Rhodes Scholarship before nearly drowning during a Navy SEAL training course.

Greitens’ latest challenge was to adapt his bestselling memoir, The Heart and the Fist, for a teen ...

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Avi: Bringing 1893 New York City to Life

Avi’s City of Orphans is a stellar transport back to the New York City of 1893, where an immigrant family, and in particular young Maks, a “newsie,” suffers the slings and arrows of misfortune. It is a story chockablock with “heroic deeds, narrow escapes, dastardly villains, amazing coincidences and a family rich in love and hope...all part of an intricate and endlessly entertaining adventure,” we wrote in a starred review.

Avi has shaped characters of terrific sympathy and utter despicableness and provided the rare, homey opportunity to explore the city’s most notorious prison—the Tombs—at its ...

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Welcome Back, Pig Pig

After a decade’s hiatus, Pig Pig Returns to the picture-book stage with a cross-country trip in the company of his aunt and uncle, tackling separation anxiety in the process, then just having a fine old time with the boulder that looks like an elephant and the hole-that-goes-to-China. “He's having so much fun that there's nothing to be anxious about…As in previous Pig Pig stories, McPhail accurately and humanely addresses a universal concern,” we said in our review. Here, author David McPhail talks about bringing Pig Pig back, pigs as muses and road tripping.

Take a road ...

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15 Graphic Books for Kids and Teens

The year in graphic novels is just half over, but already there's an embarrassment of riches. From a wordless fable for toddlers and a couple of graphic tales for beginning readers, through some rockin’ fantasy and comedy for middle graders, to poignant coming-of-age tales and glimpses into history for teens, we have picked 15 of the best.

Want to get more graphic? Read our list of graphic novels for adults.

Lewis & Clark

Nick Bertozzi

Nick Bertozzi’s graphic reenactment of the Lewis & Clark expedition is a serious corrective for anyone under the misapprehension that the journey of discovery was ...

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'Can Hens Give Milk?': Fresh Foolishness in Chelm

Shlomo has a bunch of hens that give him eggs. But Shlomo is in the mood for milk and cheese. Now, Shlomo lives in Chelm, “that nexus of foolishness” as Kirkus reminds readers in its review of Can Hens Give Milk?, so he applies Chelmian logic: Feed the chickens grass and, like cows, they’ll produce milk.

When no milk is forthcoming, Shlomo’s daughter and the village rabbi get involved, discovering that since the hens have no udders, they are not milk hens. The rabbi offers a swap—one goat for six chickens, which gets Shlomo thinking that chances ...

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A Wish List for iPad App Developers

The concept of “book” has changed enormously in just the past few years. Where once it meant a series of printed paper pages sewn or glued together and held in a binding, it has expanded to include interactive experiences that may or may not involve paper at all. Given the rapidly changing nature of books, we asked some of the cutting-edge app developers who are busily reinventing the term to imagine what might be coming next. A book that can change diapers? Maybe not right away, but there’s lots on the horizon. Here it is …

We'd love to ...

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2010 Best Books: Chasing the Sun, by Richard Cohen

Supercolossal yellow dwarf, terrible and sublime, cosmology unto itself—the sun. What’s not to love? Richard Cohen is certainly smitten, and Chasing the Sun is a brilliant labor of love, a heady synthesis of the star’s influence on science, art, religion, literature, mythology and politics. “I had no idea of the enormity of the undertaking, nor did my wife, agent or publisher, and took almost eight years to complete it,” says Cohen. There is boggling range to his fascination and wonder with our solar system’s central star. Here, Cohen covers the art of navigation and the art ...

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2010 Children's Best: Big Red Lollipop, by Rukhsana Khan

When Rubina is invited to a birthday party, her mother is nonplussed: “What’s a birthday party? Why do they do that?” Different cultures, different traditions. Then Mother steps in it by requiring Rubina to bring her little sister, Sana, who makes a hash of the party and eats Rubina’s red lollipop party favor. “I don’t get any invitations for a really long time,” laments Rubina. Then Sana gets an invite, and the same demand is made. Rubina, though, serving as a cultural bridge, gently suggests that it’s not appropriate, and Mother relents. The payback? Sana gives ...

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2010 Children's Best: A Sick Day for Amos McGee, by Philip C. Stead

Amos McGee may be a geezer, but he’s a content one—serene, if a bit pensive. Amos is a zookeeper and a friend to his charges. He plays chess with the elephant, sits quietly with the shy penguin and ministers to the nasal products of the rhinoceros’ allergies. When he must stay home one day with the sniffles, his chums take the bus to his residence and do unto him, in sweet reciprocation, what he has done unto them. The story is pared down to Zen simplicity, as friendship ought to be. In counterpoint, the artwork wows. The woodblock ...

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2010 Best for Teens: Smile, by Raina Telgemeier

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2010 Best for Teens: Yummy, by G. Neri & Randy DuBurke

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2010 Best for Teens: The Odyssey, by Gareth Hinds

Graphic adaptor Gareth Hinds applies to Homer's hexameter his own poetic compression in prose form, staying true to the pace and tension of the heroic journey. Accompanying his retelling is his graphic translation of the imagery, utterly true to itself while evoking the enthralling detail of Mitsumasa Anno and the clarity of David Macaulay. "The Odyssey is a book I've always wanted to adapt," he says, "in part because there is so much to work with visually-fantastic monsters, gods, battles, shipwrecks-but also because its tells a remarkable story that continues to resonate after 2,000 years." Odysseus comes ...

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2010 Children's Best: Hamster and Cheese, by Colleen AF Venable

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2010 Children's Best: Ghostopolis, by Doug TenNapel

A mortally ill boy is prematurely transported to the afterworld through the inept agency of Frank Gallows, a ghost wrangler on the skids. It is a creepy land, populated by specters, mummies, will-o’-the-wisps, zombies and ghostly skeletons, all under the thumb of a dark master. But it is also just the kind of place where Darwin meets God on the road to Oz. Doug TenNapel draws the copious panels in a spidery hand, with sponge-soaking colors. “Being a writer/artist isn’t like wearing two hats,” he says. “It’s like wearing two halves of a hat. I have ...

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2010 Children's Best: Birmingham Sunday, by Larry Dane Brimner

Sept. 15, 1963—Birmingham Sunday—was a terrible day in American history, when six young African-Americans died, four in the bombing of their church and two in its aftermath. Larry Dane Brimner sharply re-creates the city’s dry-as-tinder atmosphere leading up to the murderous event, in which segregationists had become such a violently irreconcilable force that the city had been redubbed “Bombingham.” From Jim Crow laws to the bigotry of police commissioner Bull Connor, the author carefully delineates the important elements of the picture, throwing particular light on Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, “who believed a minister’s job didn’t end ...

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