The One and Only Bob stars the cynical, lovable mutt from Katherine Applegate’s 2012 Newbery-award-winning novel. The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate.  Harper, 2020, 334 pages Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12 Recommended for: ages 8-14 Readers of The One and Only Ivan will remember Bob, the stray pooch who met Ivan by waking up on the 400-lb silverback gorilla’s stomach. Life has improved for Bob, as it has for his friends frm the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. Ivan and Ruby the baby elephant now live in a spacious animal preserve where they can congregate with others of their species and roam at will—within…

Two series starters that fizzled and two new authors to enjoy. *Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer. Page Street Kids, 2020. 400 pages. The first hint (besides the lovely cover) that the book was going to be good: Rosamund Hodge liked it. The second hint: mentioning “spinners of stories” Diana Wynne Jones and Robin McKinley in its dedication. The third hint? I was too busy reading to notice . . . An absolutely lovely fairytale retelling, Echo North places Joanna Ruth Meyer soundly in story spinner tradition. (Kirkus and Publishers Weekly both gave it a starred review.) Echos of different fairytales are woven together in a vaguely Russian landscape. Beautiful…

Gyo Fujikawa When you grow up with an author/illustrator’s books, they become part of your definition of “home” or “reading” or “friend.” Gyo Fujikawa is one of those authors for me. I remember Oh, What a Busy Day in particular. Gyo Fujikawa’s Books What makes Fujikawa’s books memorable? For starters, she was one of the very first to include children of many different races in her books. Not only does she illustrate many different races, she depicts them all doing ordinary things. Fujikawa wasn’t writing history books for toddlers or trying to show one people group as a distinct culture. Instead, she focused on activities and interests that most American…

Yumi Chung faces the classic teen dilemma: honor your parents or follow your dream? Stand Up, Yumi Chung! By Jessica Kim. Penguin Random House, 2020, 306 pages Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12 Recommended for: ages 10-14 Take my parents—please! Yumi Chung’s parents are typical Korean overachievers who brag about her older sister’s medical-school grades incessantly. Mom has also signed Yumi up for the SSAT so she can earn another year’s scholarship at Winston Preparatory Academy, and the ‘rents can garner bragging rights for their second-born, too. Shy, awkward Yumi doesn’t fit at WPA, where they call her Yu-Meat after catching a whiff of the family Korean-barbecue restaurant. She feels…

Dragon Hoops turns a high-school basketball championship season into a close-up look at life’s changes and choices. Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang. First Second, 2020, 445 pages. Reading Level: Teen, ages 12-15 Recommended for: ages 12-up “I’ve hated sports ever since I was a kid. Especially basketball.” Young Gene Yang was interested in comics and superheroes. An adult, he even fulfilled his dream of publishing an award-winning graphic novel (American-Born Chinese), while teaching computer science at Bishop O’Dowd Catholic High School in Oakland. Now, with more highly- praised books to his credit, can he keep up with two careers and a growing family? And if so, what’s the next…

A fascinating historical look at globalization that covers botany, anthropology, politics, exploration, the slave trade, and more! 1493 for Young People: From Columbus’s Voyage to Globalization by Charles C. Mann and adapted by Rebecca Stefoff. Triangle Square, 2016. 416 pages. Reading Level: Ages 12-15Recommended For: Ages 10 and up (note considerations below) When Columbus reached the shores of the Americas, he unwittingly launched a new era in the history of Earth. Everything changed. Mann’s focus isn’t on Columbus “discovering” America. Rather, he looks at how Columbus’s voyage jumpstarted globalization, focusing in turn on trans-Atlantic trade and trans-Pacific trade. People’s craze for new products, or cheaper products (such as tobacco), fueled…

For Spacious Skies, Most Wanted, and Thomas Paine and the Dangerous Word feature the promise of the American experiment. For Spacious Skies: Katharine Lee Bates and the Inspiration for “America the Beautiful” by Nancy Churnin, illustrated by Olga Baumert. Albert Whitman, 2020, 32 pages, including timeline and bibliography. Reading level: Picture Book, ages 4-8 Recommended for: ages 6-10 Katherine Lee Bates spent her early girlhood in the shadow of the Civil War, while “the country’s heart was ripped in two.” After the war ended, her small seacoast town in Massachusetts didn’t seem to offer much for a bookish girl who loved to write. But her widowed mother worked long hours…