Kids New Tite Radar; Week of Feb 4
This week is all about series; all but one of the titles we’re featuring below are either continuations or the beginning of series. Please note that Maurice Sendak’s final completed book, My Brother’s Book, featured on NPR’s Morning Edition today, was covered in New Title Radar, as were the children’s tie-ins to the forthcoming Disney movie Oz the Great and the Powerful.
You can download an Excel spreadsheet here, listing the following titles and even more arriving this week.
Young Adult
The Kiss (Witch and Wizard series), James Patterson and Jill Dembowski, (Hachette/Little, Brown Young Readers; Hachette Audio), ages 12 and up
Patterson’s books are catnip to kids who need a high-interest read. The cover of this, the fourth title in the series, features a new look for the series (which began with the paperback edition of The Fire in November).
Scarlet, Marissa Meyer, (Feiwel & Friends; Macmillan Young Listeners), ages 12 to 17
The first title in the Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder, was on my list of top ten YA novels last year. As Cinder was a futuristic take on Cinderella, it is not much of a stretch to see Red Riding Hood in this one with a very scary wolf.
Hysteria, Megan Miranda, (Walker Childrens), Ages 14 to 19
When the galley came out of the box our hip, cool, fabulous cataloger Abbey Chapel snatched it from my hands. I need not say more, but I will quote YA GalleyChatters who say this is a great suspense story about a girl who has apparently killed her boyfriend but is not sure what happened.
Etiquette & Espionage, Gail Carriger, (Hachette/Little, Brown BYR), ages 7 to 17
Carriger already has a strong following for her Parasol Protectorate steampunk novels. With this, the first in the Finishing School series, she steps into YA,. The school is housed in a massive airship and is not what the mothers who send their daughters there expect; in this case “finishing” means “finishing people off” (those scissors on the cover are not for cutting silk). It was the title that came up most when I asked people at MidWinter what I should be reading. Don’t miss it.
Middle Grade
Big Nate Flips Out , Lincoln Peirce, HarperCollins, Ages 8 to 12
Big Nate….seriously, any children’s librarian who doesn’t automatically buy this series should be put out to pasture . This is for the Wimpy Kid crowd, as underscored in the blurb from Jeff Kinney on the cover; “Big Nate is funny, big time.” Here, Nate tries to become a neat freak.
Seven Wonders Book 1: The Colossus Rises, Peter Lerangis and Torstein Norstrand, (HarperCollins), ages 8 to 12
Lerangis wrote two of the books in the 39 Nine Clues series, and here begins a new series, with a different publisher, which features an unexplored theme in children’s books, with four kids on a life-or-death mission to find seven orbs, hidden in the ruins of antiquity’s seven wonders of the world.
T
he Fourth Stall Part III, Chris Rylander, (HarperCollins/Walden Pond Press), ages 8 to 12
Funny and a little wacked. Rylander is a unique voice in series fiction.
Better Nate Than Ever, Tim Federle, (S & S Books for Young Readers), Ages 9 to 13
There’s another Nate in Town, as I found out when someone handed this to me as I roamed the aisles of ALA, and I am so glad they did. Smart and funny, first time author, Federle takes us behind the scenes into the world of working child actors in Broadway musicals.
Treasure on Superstition Mountain, Elise Broach, Antonio Javier Caparo, (Macmillan/Holt BYR), ages 8 to 12
Elise Broach knows how to tell a story. She especially knows how to keep those middle grade readers on the edge of their seats. This is the continuation of the Superstition Mountain series. If you didn’t read the first title, Missing on Superstition Mountain, pick it up now and count your lucky stars that you don’t have to wait for the second.
Picture Books
Follow Follow, Marilyn Singer, illus. by Josee Masse, (Dial), ages 6 & up
Singer stunned the picture book world with Mirror, Mirror, her first book of clever reworkings of fairytales in reverso poetry format (the poem is presented forward and then backward using the same text in reverse order). If you own the first (as you should), you won’t want to be without the second one.
Froggy’s Worst Playdate, Jonathan London, illus. by Frank Remkiewicz, (Penguin/Viking Juvenile), ages 3 to 5
London kills me. No kidding. From the first Froggy Gets Dressed, he reflects back the everyday lives of young children and finds humor in seemingly disastrous circumstances. This series is read-aloud gold.