Hands

Hands

Trev is a talented artist. He’s kind, thoughtful … and he doesn’t want to learn how to fight. But … he needs to protect his family.
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Thank You, Moon

Thank You, Moon

Night is my favorite time of day, so I was entranced by this book about the many ways in which moonlight affects animal behavior ... including humans.
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Walking Grandma Home

Two Books about Grief

Take these books to heart: two books that will help adults and children find paths into discussions about this part of life, Sitting Shiva and Walking Grandma Home. 
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Library Girl

Library Girl

I eagerly waited for this book. I wasn’t prepared to fall in love, which I most definitely have.
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Maizy Chen's Last Chance

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance

This book has everything going for it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wind up caring about the characters, and you'll want to eat at the Golden Palace in Last Chance, Minnesota.
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One Winter Up North

One Winter Up North

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, stretching for 150 miles along the Canadian border, is the setting for John Owens’ newest wordless picture book.
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The Voice of My Heart

The Voice of My Heart

It works well to read poems here and there from The Voice of My Heart ... but I often find myself caught up in the expressions of love and longing, moving from one poem to the next, contemplating, learning, feeling.
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Garvey in the Dark

Garvey in the Dark

With her usual positive and hopeful storytelling, Nikki Grimes reminds us that lives changed during the Covid pandemic, affecting many people in many different ways. Garvey's story will resonate deeply with readers of all ages.
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We Belong

We Belong

I've seen many questions on social media, asking which books teachers will read aloud to their classroom during the first week of school. I don't teach in a classroom but I've thought about this question anyway.
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The Genius Under the Table

The Genius Under the Table

Eugene Yelchin grew up in Stalinist Russia, the Cold War Soviet Union. We grow to love his parents, his grandmother, his brother Victor, but most especially Eugene. His memories are at once sad and humorous.
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Samira Surfs

Samira Surfs

 I don't think I've ever read a novel about surfing before Samira Surfs. I was fascinated by the setting, the sport, and the culture, different than my own.
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Finding Junie Kim

Finding Junie Kim

The author unfolds the story in a way that young readers will find mesmerizing, imagining her characters in real life, turning the page again and again to learn what will happen next, both in mid-century Korea and in the United States today.
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Good Luck Gold & More

Good Luck Gold & more

This book will make you feel, many different feelings. It is filled with poetry and a short essay about the poem on the facing page. There are two or three questions at the bottom of each essay that encourage digging deeper ... into your own experience.
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Girls Solve Everything

Girls Solve Everything

Reading this book, I jumped up and down with excitement. I kept turning the pages until I had read every one of the true stories. My brain revved into high speed as I learned about girls and women, problem solving and innovating.
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Loyalty

Loyalty

Leave it to Avi to find a way to help me look at the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War from a new per­spec­tive. Make that two. Young Noah is the son of a Loy­al­ist and min­is­ter, pledged to the King. When local rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies tar and feath­er his father, the fam­i­ly flees to Boston. Need­ing work, Noah finds a job as a British spy and a serv­er in a tav­ern, where he can eas­i­ly over­hear plans and report on them.
more
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Ten Ways to Hear Snow

Ten Ways to Hear Snow

When you grow up in Min­neso­ta, snow is a part of your world. From play­ing in it until your feet are so cold and wet that your grand­moth­er will scold while you drink hot cocoa to lift­ing your feet high as you trudge through knee-deep snow to a bus stop that’s far­ther away than it has ever been, snow is a fix­ture in your thoughts. 
more
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Love is Powerful

Love is Powerful

This book will lift you up in its arms and make you believe that “Love is Powerful”! It’s the right choice to help us under­stand what a group of peo­ple can accom­plish if they are unit­ed in their pur­pose and mov­ing toward treat­ing all peo­ple with love and kindness. Writ­ten by Heather Dean Brew­er from Michi­gan and illus­trat­ed by LeUyen Pham from Cal­i­for­nia, both of whom marched in the 2017 Women’s March­es, this book is inspired by Mari, a real lit­tle girl who trav­eled with her moth­er from Harlem to Mid­town New York to march with large crowds of peo­ple who were protest­ing inhu­mane actions and poli­cies of a pres­i­dent who reviled many people.
more
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Planetarium

Planetarium

My fas­ci­na­tion with out­er space is well-doc­u­ment­ed. I had star charts on my child­hood bed­room walls. But this book would have enthralled me … in fact, it still does. The illus­tra­tions by engraver and print­mak­er Chris Wormell are detailed in a way that aids under­stand­ing. Scale is a tough con­cept for our com­pre­hen­sion but this book tack­les that with info­graph­ics that give a sense of how enor­mous our uni­verse is.
more
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The Range Eternal

The Range Eternal

I am delight­ed by the re-issue of The Range Eter­nal, a pic­ture book that reach­es back into his­to­ry and con­nects with our sens­es, our fam­i­lies, our fears, and our reas­sur­ances. I have read all of Louise Erdrich’s books for adults and chil­dren. She nev­er fails to bring me new ways of look­ing at the world. So it is with this book.
more
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You Are (Not) Small

You Should (Not) Read These Books

I remem­ber my neigh­bor­hood friends stand­ing on oppo­site sides of a dri­ve­way, angry, yelling loud­ly at each oth­er. I don’t recall why, but I can still feel those emo­tions. That’s how strong feel­ings are. Our chil­dren deal with a mul­ti­tude of emo­tions every day. You were prob­a­bly remem­ber­ing sim­i­lar instances from your child­hood. And what hap­pened after­ward? Most like­ly you were all friends again, because you need­ed to be.
more
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Wild Girl

Wild Girl

WOW!*!&! I want to car­ry a back­pack with me wher­ev­er I go, hand­ing out a copy of this book to every per­son I see. I loved every dare­dev­il, detailed, aston­ish­ing minute of read­ing this book. I believe you will, too. Mind, I grew up at a time where I heard two phras­es con­stant­ly: “Sit still” and “Ladies don’t rough­house.” Rough­house meant any kind of run­ning, climb­ing, jump­ing, or play­ing in the dirt.… more
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The Book Rescuer

The Book Rescuer

I have had The Book Res­cuer on my desk for sev­er­al months. I imme­di­ate­ly knew I want­ed to write about it because I feel such a strong attrac­tion to this sto­ry (a true sto­ry) but I had a hard time putting into words how deeply I am moved by the actions of this book hero. The sto­ry begins this way: Kum aher. Sit down.… more
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Yasmin the Zookeeper

Yasmin

Once I finished reading Yasmin the Zookeeper, I was charmed. I wanted to find out more about this young Pakistani American girl who is curious about everything.
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The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs

The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs

Our col­lec­tion of cook­books is vast. Some of them are in use more than oth­ers, and some of them are in rough shape from too much use. I’m always on the look­out for good cook­books that will encour­age young peo­ple to cook and to read about cook­ing, just as I did with the gift of my first, Bet­ty Crock­er’s Cook­book for Boys and Girls.… more
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The Next President

The Next President

Who the next U.S.A. pres­i­dent will be is pre-occu­py­ing many minds around the world right now. This book takes a stance by telling us about the dis­tinc­tive pres­i­dents of the past, a cou­ple of sen­tences about every one of them, #1 through #45, and asks us to real­ize that the next ten pres­i­dents are prob­a­bly alive right now.… more
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Girls Garage

Girls Garage

Don't miss adding Girls Garage by Emily Pilloton to your bookshelves. It's a terrific book specifically written to help young women gain the confidence they need to build anything they want to build. Highly recommended.
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Bedtime for Sweet Creatures

Bedtime for Sweet Creatures

Such a charm­ing book! From Nik­ki Grimes, we hear the sto­ry of a young boy stalling his bed­time, all the while col­lect­ing a menagerie of imag­i­nary crea­tures. This is a child who has well-prac­ticed ploys for avoid­ing bed­time. His par­ents respond with play­ful­ness and good humor. Mom and dad are patient but, final­ly, the child is too sleepy to stay awake.… more
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Equality's Call

Equality’s Call

Writ­ten by Deb­o­rah Diesen in read­able-out-loud verse with a refrain that reflects the cumu­la­tive action in the pre­ced­ing pages, this pic­ture book traces the dili­gent efforts of those who worked for decades to make Amer­i­ca’s vot­ing rights more inclu­sive. There is his­to­ry here for every­one to know. The illus­tra­tions add pas­sion and under­stand­ing to the text, help­ing us with more infor­ma­tion.… more
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Under Threat

Under Threat

This oversized book is unforgettable. Both the art and the text are strong testaments about animals that are "threatened with extinction: critically endangered (the most threatened), endangered, and vulnerable (the least threatened)."
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A to Zåäö

A to Zåäö is an alphabet book, a museum exhibit catalog, an introduction to the Swedish language, and a picture book illustrated  by a mother's watercolors and her son's pen-and-ink drawings.
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Humanimal

This book is a page-turner in all of the right ways. It's an immensely readable nonfiction book that delivers memorable information. Best of all, I believe it will change hearts and minds about our relationship to animals, a necessary step in our evolution if we're engaged in saving our planet.
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I’m Gonna Push Through!

Have you felt like you couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t attempt some­thing you real­ly want to do? Maybe you’ve done a good job of con­vinc­ing your­self you’re not up to mak­ing your goal. This is the book for you, your class­room, your book club, your dance troupe, your fam­i­ly … lit­er­al­ly every­one who needs pos­i­tive encouragement. As the author and edu­ca­tor Jas­myn Wright shares, “I’ve taught in low-income and under­priv­i­leged com­mu­ni­ties, so I knew that my stu­dents need­ed more than the bare min­i­mum to excel.”… more
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Big Book Adventure

The Big Book Adventure

You’ll nev­er guess
Where I have been
Or who I met
Or what I’ve seen.
Shall I tell you? A pig and a striped-tail fox each begin with that refrain, lead­ing the oth­er one through an excit­ing rev­e­la­tion of the books they’ve just read. They become a part of the sto­ry they’re telling, just as one does when one falls in love with a book.… more
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McDuff Moves In

When I was young, my moth­er and I lived in a suc­ces­sion of apart­ments, none of which allowed pets. I had a fer­vent hope for a dog or a cat, an ani­mal friend to love. Every year for Christ­mas, I received a new stuffed ani­mal, usu­al­ly a dog because my moth­er didn’t care for cats. I still have those stuffed ani­mals, but I’ve nev­er had a pet. Even when we final­ly moved into a house 20 years ago, we were trav­el­ing so much that we wouldn’t have made a good home for an ani­mal.… more
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A Cat's Guide to the Night Sky

A Cat’s Guide to the Night Sky

A dear­ly drawn cat named Felic­i­ty — hon­or­ing Félicette, a stray cat in Paris who became the first cat in space on Octo­ber 18, 1963 — takes us on an explo­ration of stargaz­ing. As a book on obser­va­tion­al astron­o­my, it’s an  excit­ing book for kids and adults alike. Short para­graphs cov­er what to wear when stargaz­ing, where to go for max­i­mum view­ing, the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of stars, con­stel­la­tions, plan­ets, galax­ies, and short-short sto­ries behind the con­stel­la­tions of each sea­son.… more
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Riding a Donkey Backwards

Riding a Donkey Backwards

The wise fool or the foolish wise man? As the authors explain, "Nasruddin is the wisest man in the village and also the biggest fool. ... If he doesn't make you laugh, he will certainly make you think—and perhaps think sideways instead of straight ahead." Mulla Nasruddin is an ancient Persian folk character, discussed in Sufi studies, familiar throughout India, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and the Middle East.
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The Night the Forest Came to Town

The Night the Forest Came to Town

A city can be all hard surfaces, concrete, brick, pavement, and glass. Adults can be preoccupied with their devices. Billboards, street lights, every kind of distraction. There's a distinct separation from nature, a disconnect.
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My Grandma and Me

My Grandma and Me

My Grand­ma and Me
Mina Java­herbin
illus­trat­ed by Lind­sey Yankey
Can­dlewick Press, 2019
ISBN 978−1−4263−3304−0 If you were for­tu­nate to have one or two or three lov­ing grand­moth­ers, this book will touch your heart. Grand­mas can be the most lov­ing peo­ple in our long lives, teach­ing us about life, pass­ing along tra­di­tions, shar­ing sto­ries, help­ing us become whole­some adults.… more
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Trudi Trueit

Explorer Academy: The Falcon’s Feather

Explor­er Acad­e­my: The Fal­con’s Feather
Tru­di Trueit
illus­trat­ed by Scott Plumbe (with a blend of photos)
Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Part­ners, 2019
ISBN 978−1−4263−3304−0 I’ve writ­ten a pri­or Read­ing Ahead essay about my love for The Neb­u­la Secret, the first book in the Explor­er Acad­e­my series. Now book two, The Fal­con’s Feath­er, con­tin­ues the sto­ry and I think it’s even more excit­ing.… more
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Make This!

Make This!

Make This! Build­ing, Think­ing, and Tin­ker­ing Projects for the Amaz­ing Mak­er in You 
Ella Schwartz, pho­tographs by Matthew Rakola
Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Kids, 2019 When pre­sent­ed with this book, wheels start turn­ing, ideas begin pop­ping, and your tem­per­a­ture ris­es! This is going to be fun. And a care­ful­ly thought-through learn­ing expe­ri­ence … but who needs to know that? By the book’s def­i­n­i­tion, “A mak­er is some­one who tin­kers, fix­es, breaks, rebuilds, and con­structs projects for the world around them.”… more
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Books Books Books

Books Books Books

Books Books Books 
Mick Man­ning and Bri­ta Granström
Can­dlewick Press, 2017 Book lovers appre­ci­ate the beau­ty, rar­i­ty, inven­tive design, and con­tent of all types of books. Those in the vast col­lec­tion of the British Library (more than 150 mil­lion lit­er­ary arti­facts on 15 floors and 400 miles of shelv­ing) will help to make book lovers of the chil­dren in your life.… more
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LOVE

Love
writ­ten by Sta­cy McAnulty
illus­trat­ed by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff
Run­ning Press Kids, Decem­ber 2018 Here is a book to give to those peo­ple who imme­di­ate­ly jump to your mind when you think of love. Love isn’t about objects or com­mer­cial hol­i­days or competition. It’s about time spent togeth­er, mak­ing mem­o­ries, being thought­ful, notic­ing the details (I saw that “bag of cheeze-it” on the refrig­er­a­tor gro­cery list.),… more
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The Poetry of US

The Poetry of US

If you’re still look­ing for hol­i­day gifts or start-the-year-with-a-treat gifts for your home, class­room, a host present, some­thing last­ing … con­sid­er this book.  The Poet­ry of US 
edit­ed by J. Patrick Lewis
Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Part­ners, 2018, 192 pages Not every­one can trav­el to all the dots on our country’s map, but this book trans­ports us through­out Amer­i­ca with the pow­er of poet­ry, engag­ing all our sens­es.… more
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Fly With Me

This book is pure gold. Your entire fam­i­ly will want this on your book­shelves so you can dip into it fre­quent­ly. Your library patrons will be grate­ful when you hand them this gem. And in a class­room, this is a gor­geous, STEAM-empow­er­ing, wide­ly-encom­pass­ing book. Read the poet­ry out loud, read the non­fic­tion nar­ra­tives out loud because they’re so inter­est­ing and well-writ­ten,  and share the short sto­ries, pho­tographs, and infographics. … more
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Girls Think of Everything

Outstanding Short Biography Collections

You know the young read­ers, and striv­ing read­ers, who will love all three of these books. They’re a col­lec­tion of biogra­phies, two of the books focused on women, and one of the books choos­ing among chil­dren across the cen­turies and around the world. Whether you’re look­ing for your home book­shelves or your library’s these three books are high­ly recommended.… more
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If Da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur

If Da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur

At once ridicu­lous and sub­lime, If da Vin­ci Paint­ed a Dinosaur is mag­net­ic. Which dinosaur will be fea­tured in whose paint­ing? Quick, turn the page! Amy New­bold, author, and Greg New­bold, illus­tra­tor, fol­low up If Picas­so Paint­ed a Snow­man with this vol­ume com­bin­ing a herd of his­toric and imag­i­nary dinosaurs includ­ed in 19 famous artists’ famil­iar paint­ings: Degas’ bal­leri­nas as dinosaurs en pointe in pink tutus, the immense claw of a Gigan­tosaurus for Edvard Munch’s Scream, and sev­en types of dinosaurs play­ing jazz in an Aaron Dou­glas paint­ing (so appeal­ing).… more
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