Kids New Title Radar — Week of Oct. 14
Among the many series titles that arrive next week, one offers an unusual opportunity. We rarely get to see how life ultimately works out for teen series characters. Next week, Phyllis Naylor lets fans in on what happens to Alice, from entering college through her 60’s. Appropriately, it’s titled, Now I’ll Tell You Everything,
The titles highlighted here are listed on our downloadable spreadesheet, Kids New Title Radar, Week of Oct. 14.
Picture Books
I’m a Frog! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)
Number 20 in the series, another pitch-perfect title from Mo Willems. This time the two very different best friends, Elephant and Piggie, tackle the complicated topic of “let’s pretend.”
Please Bring Balloons, Lindsay Ward, (Penguin/Dial)
The many who were charmed by Ward’s bluebird (When Blue Met Egg, 2012) will be equally enchanted by this dreamy fantasy featuring carousel bears. The author presents a preview of the book’s lovely art on her blog.
Cinderella: A Fashionable Tale , Steven Guarnaccia, (Abrams BYR)
Hip parents with stylish progeny will enjoy this retelling and playing spot the designer,
Middle Grade
The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit , (S&S BYR; S&S Audio)
Kirkus gives this one the right hook, “Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan meet Nancy Drew. In this first novel by Oscar-winning actress Spencer, Randi Rhodes thrives on solving the mysteries that unfold in her busy Brooklyn neighborhood.”
Sweet Feet: Samantha Gordon’s Winning Season, Samantha Gordon with Ari Bruening, (Walker Children’s; simultaneous paperback)
The biography of a ten-year- old girl who is a football phenom and internet sensation.
Young Adult
Now I’ll Tell You Everything, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, (S&S/Atheneum)
Booklist says it best, “Naylor has given fans a gift: the chance to see how life unfolds for a beloved character. This 500-page farewell is the twenty-eighth title of a series that began in 1985, and it opens when Alice is 18 and headed off to the University of Maryland … we follow her from college to marriage and babies, all the way up until the eve of her sixtieth birthday. For the diehard Alice fan.”
More Y.A. Series
Revealed, P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Macmillan Audio)
The House of Night series has been on The New York Times Children’s Series bestseller list for nearly 150 weeks and counting. It’s also reach #1 on German, and UK bestseller lists. This is the eleventh and next-to-last in the series.
The Darkest Minds Never Fade, Alexandra Bracken, (Hachette?Disney-Hyperion)
Second in action packed dystopian fantasy series, following The Darkest Minds (2012). Kids will be screaming for number 3.
UnSouled, Neal Shusterman, (S&S BYR)
Unwind the first of this trilogy was a tour de force of near future dystopic fantasy. Imagine a world where birth control is illegal, parents have the right to “unwind” oppositional or ordinary or just “spare “adolescents for their body parts. Anyone who has read number one will not want to miss this next one..