Wednesday, October 24, 2007

New books!

Here are some brand new children's books that I'm excited about (but haven't gotten a chance to read yet). Reviews will follow in the next few weeks (or months) but I wanted to highlight a few books on my reading list.

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

This is the third book in the Peter and the Starcatchers trilogy (the second one was Peter and the Shadow Thieves) and I've found it to be a terrific series. Dave Barry is a humor writer and Ridley Pearson is a mystery writer and together they've produced funny mysteries. All three books are prequels to Peter Pan... so it helps to have a basic knowledge of the plot of Peter Pan. Peter and the Secret of Rundoon just came out yesterday... and I'm about 20 pages into it. I can't wait to finish it and find out the answers to some of the mysteries in the second book.

Blue Moo by Sandra Boynton and Michael Ford

This is the fourth Boyton/Ford co-production and my son is an enormous fan of their other three albums: Rhinoceros Tap, Philadelphia Chickens and Dog Train. My personal favorite (thus far) is Dog Train... it's rock and roll and hits me just right. Blue Moo is full of 1950's types songs- and I'm really looking forward to it. As with the previous albums, Sandra Boynton has created a delightful companion book and has gotten some really cool people to record the songs: Patti Lupone, B.B. King, Brian Wilson, etc. There's a great video about the making of this album on YouTube called "Behind the Moosic" which is a lot of fun to watch.

Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf by Jennfer L. Holm, illustrated by Elicia Castaldi

This is an incredibly creative book by the author of Our Only May Amelia, Penny From Heaven and Baby Mouse. The story of Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf is told completely thorough stuff: calendars, post-it notes, bank deposit slips, shopping lists, etc. While there's text on the page, it's not done in a standard way at all and is a highly visual book. This book came out a few months ago and I've heard great things about it. I just picked up my copy at the library today and I can't wait to read it.

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