Beast: Face-to-Face with the Florida Bigfoot is a chilling, gripping tale of survival in the unknown. Beast: Face-to-Face with the Florida Bigfoot by Watt Key. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2020, 215 pages. Reading Level: Middle Grade, ages 10-12 Recommended for: ages 12-16 Adam Parks was found by the side of the road. When he came to in the hospital with a police sergeant looking down at him, he couldn’t remember what happened. Or not entirely: he and his parents were on their way back from Disney World on Highway 98, late at night, when something loomed up in the middle of the road. Dad swerved and their car plunged into the…

The Winter King by Christine Cohen. Cannonball Books, 2019. 360 pages. Reading Level: Young adult/teen, ages 12 and up Recommend For: Ages 12 and up The annual feast for the Winter King is looming. Cora Nikolson and her mother (head cook in High Aldorman Fyodor’s kitchen) are working themselves to the bone to prepare. Their family is reputedly under a curse; if Cora’s mother loses this job, the family will starve. As it is, they’re barely surviving. Desperate to help her family, Cora hatches a bold plan: she’ll insinuate herself into Nils’s good graces in order to gain more work hours. Nils, though, is no friend of her family’s. Desperate…

Running Wild gives readers ages 6-10 new appreciation for the immense variety and careful design evidenced in animal motion. Running Wild: Awesome Animals in Motion by Galadriel Watson, illustrated by Samantha Dixon. Annick Press, 2020, 59 pages. Reading Level: Picture Book, ages 6-8 Recommended for: ages 7-12 Basically, all motion is a physics problem. In organic creatures, the proper term is “biomechanics.” That’s a new word for me, but this picture book packs lots of information I hadn’t considered. Rather than marching through various phyla highlighting their unique manners of motion, the text considers types of motion (such as hopping, swinging, crawling) and chooses examples from across the animal kingdom…

Cubs in the Tub is a warm-hearted true story that will be irresistible to baby animal lovers. Cubs in the Tub: the True Story of the Bronx Zoo’s First Woman Zookeeper by Candace Fleming, illustrations by Julie Downing. Holiday House (Neal Porter Books), 2020, 47 pages including notes. Reading Level: Picture book, ages 4-8 Recommended for: ages 4-7 Helen Martini was a contented homemaker in the Bronx with only one wish: that she and her husband Fred could start a family. In spite of her hopes, no baby arrived. Until Fred came home from his job at the zoo with a lion cub. “Just do for him what you would…