March New and Notable
With spring… new thoughts and intents fill our corners of free time. So, instead of our usual list of “just published” for the current month (to return in April), we would like to direct you to some favorite children’s books from 2007 as well as spring fiction debuts.
The 2007 Cuffies
(Publisher’s Weekly Magazine’s list of bookseller’s favorites.)
Favorite Picture Book of the Year
Toy Boat, by Randall de Seve, illustrated by Loren Long.
When the wind blows a little boy’s beloved toy boat out into the wide lake, the little boat, missing his friend, must brave fierce waves, a surly ferry, a sassy schooner, and a growling speed boat in order to find his way home. “A beautiful and timeless new classic.”
Favorite Middle Grade Novel
The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker’s classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns muchof value about the world he lives in.During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker’s classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in. “It will make you laugh, make you cry, and begs to be read outloud.”
Favorite YA Novel
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Leaving the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school, Junior struggles to find his place in his new surroundings in order to escape his destiny back on the reservation. 75,000 first printing.
Most Unusual Picture Book of the Year
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
Although saddened at having to leave the family he loves, the immigrant is certain that moving to the new land is the right thing to do and so ventures off to a strange land to begin a life that will hopefully reap the rewards he seeks through his sacrifice, hard work, and determination. “A wordless, graphic novel that is very sophisticated, by almost entirely visual.”
Best Book Title (3 Winners!)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney
Greg records his sixth-grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.
I’d Really Like to Eat a Child, by Slyvianne Donnio
One morning Achilles, a young crocodile, insists that he will eat a child that day and refuses all other food, but when he actually finds a little girl, she puts him in his place.
Do Unto Otters, by Laurie Keller
Unsure of how to treat the family of otters that moved in next door, Mr. Rabbit turns to Mr. Owl and gets just the advice he needs to make his new neighbors feel right at home. 75,000 first printing.
Most Memorable Characters in a Lead Role
Kek in…Home of the Brave, by Katherine Applegate.
Kek, an African refugee, is confronted by many strange things at the Minneapolis home of his aunt and cousin, as well as in his fifth grade classroom, and longs for his missing mother, but finds comfort in the company of a cow and her owner. “He has such an unusual voice, and its cadence stays with you.”
Best Sequel
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling (No Contest!!)
Burdened with the dark, dangerous, and seemingly impossible task of locating and destroying Voldemort’s remaining Horcruxes, Harry, feeling alone and uncertain about his future, struggles to find the inner strength he needs to follow the path set out before him.At a time when the forces of evil seem to be gaining the upper hand, Harry comes of age in the wizarding world, and must take on and defeat Voldemort–or be killed himself.
The seventh and final book of the blockbuster Harry Potter series follows the wizard’s last year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 12,000,000 first printing.
…honorable mentions:
Knuffle Bunny Too, by Mo Willems
When she arrives at school, excited to show off her one-of-a-kind Knuffle Bunny, Trixie is quite upset when someone else has the exact same bunny, resulting in hilarious chaos. 175,000 first printing.
Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy, by Jane O’Connor, Illus. by Robin Preiss Glasser
Nancy wants to adopt a special puppy so that she is no longer the only fancy member of her family, but after a day of puppysitting a papillon, she realizes that being fancy is not always the most important thing. 200,000 first printing.
The Titan’s Curse, by Rick Riordan
When the goddess Artemis disappears while hunting a rare, ancient monster, a group of her followers joins Percy and his friends in an attempt to find and rescue her before the winter solstice, when her influence is needed to sway the Olympian Council regarding the war with the Titans.When the goddess Artemis disappears while hunting a rare, ancient monster, a group of her followers joins Percy and his friends in an attempt to find and rescue her before the winter solstice, when her influence is needed to sway the Olympian Council regarding the war with the Titans.
Favorite Book Jacket
How To Paint the Portrait of a Bird, by Jacques Prevert, illus. by Mordicai Gerstein
Setting up his easel, prepping his palette, and picking up his brush, a young boy captures the beauty of the day as he paints the majesty of a tree, the warmth of the sun, and wonderment of a visiting bird.
Funniest Book (tie)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney
“A good slice of middle school humor.”
The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex
Twelve-year-old Gratuity Tucci has a hard time writing an essay on “The True Meaning of Smekday” due to her complex life after Earth was overtaken by aliens and her mother was kidnapped and taken to Happy Mouse Kingdom in Florida. 50,000 first printing.
Most Promising New Author
Jeff Kinney and Linda Urban
Favorite Series
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, and The Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer; and of course…Harry Potter.
Best Nonfiction Treatment of a Subject
The Wall, by Peter Sis
I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side - the Communist side - of the Iron Curtain. Through annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes, Peter Sis shows what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe. But adolescence brought questions. Cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain, and news from the West slowly filtered into the country. Si;s learned about beat poetry, rock ‘n’ roll, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola. He let his hair grow long, secretly read banned books, and joined a rock band. Then came the Prague Spring of 1968, and for a teenager who wanted to see the world and meet the Beatles, this was a magical time. It was short-lived, however, brought to a sudden and brutal end by the Soviet-led invasion. But this brief flowering had provided a glimpse of new possibilities - creativity could be discouraged but not easily killed.Annotated illustrations, maps, and dreamscapes explore how the artist-author’s life was shaped while growing up in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, in a powerful graphic memoir. 75,000 first printing.
Most Innovative/Unique Book (Tie)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
Living in the walls of a busy Paris train station in 1931, clock keeper and orphan Hugo Cabret must constantly work to keep his secrets safe, but when an inquisitive girl and an old man who owns a toy store begin probing, he must do all he can to keep them at a safe distance. 150,000 first printing.
Gallop, by Rufus Butler Seder
Rhyming text asks if the reader can move like a variety of animals, in a book where striped acetate overlays on board pages give illustrations the illusion of movement.
Favorite Book to Handsell (it’s so great to convince both adults and kids to read them!)
Gallop (see above), and…
A Crooked Kind of Perfect, by Linda Urban
Upset when her dreams of becoming a grand pianist are squashed when her father returns from the store with an old organ, ten-year-old Zoe Elias tries to make the best of it and so practices hard in order to get her moment in the spotlight at the annual Perform-O-Rama organ contest. Jr Lib Guild. 20,000 first printing
Best Novel for Young Readers That Adults Would Love If They Knew About It (tie)
The Wednesday Wars (see above) and…
Spud, by John van de Ruit
In 1990, thirteen-year-old John “Spud” Milton, a prepubescent choirboy, keeps a diary of his first year at an elite, boys-only boarding school in South Africa, as he deals with bizarre housemates, wild crushes, embarrasingly dysfunctional parents, and much more.In 1990, thirteen-year-old John “Spud” Milton, a prepubescent choirboy, keeps a diary of his first year at an elite, boys-only boarding school in South Africa, as he deals with bizarre housemates, wild crushes, and embarrasing parents.
Spring ’08 Fiction Debuts
Blood Kin, by Ceridwen Dovey
Arrested and forced to serve their country under a new regime when their president is overthrown by a military coup, a barber, a chef, a portraitist, and the women they love find their intimacies exposed by the government’s new order. 20,000 first printing.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes, by Mohammed Hanif
Junior Officer Ali Shigri of the Pakistan Air Force, the son of Colonel Quli Shigri, who had been one of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq’s right-hand men prior to his suicide, struggles to unravel the secrets and motives that led to his father’s death and plots his revenge on the Pakistani dictator whom he blames for his father’s death. A first novel. 40,000 first printing.
Chld 44, by Tom Rob Smith
Rising Soviet state security force officer Leo Demidov encounters the test of his career when a serial killer challenges his beliefs about the paradise of the working world, resulting in his demotion and threats against the lives of his family members. A first novel.
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, by Sasa Stanistic
Stanisic’s debut novel is the moving story of a young Bosnian refugee named Aleksandar Krsmanovic. Aleksandar is the apple of his family’s eye, but his sheltered childhood ends when ethnic wars brewing in the surrounding republics make their way to his hometown in the spring of 1992. As Serbian troops storm the village, Aleksandar’s family hides, but nowhere is safe. The violence forces the family to Germany, where they struggle to adjust to their new lives as refugees. In the depths of their despair, Aleksandar’s grandmother makes him promise to “remember when everything was all right and the time when nothing’s all right.” Aleksandar keeps his word, and the memories pour out of him like a river. The author organizes Aleksandar’s recollections as a stream of consciousness, operating on no distinct linear time line and often stopping one story and starting another in the same breath. It is difficult to keep up with this frantic pace, but it pays to be patient because a remarkable life’s journey unfolds. (June)
A Richer Dust, by Amy Boaz
An attempt to establish a new world Utopia in the American Southwest succumbs to a clash of genders and cultures in this subtly compelling historical novel, the author’s debut.Boaz takes inspiration from the life of D.H. Lawrence and the painter who accompanied him and his German wife to forge a new life free from the cultural contaminations of supposedly civilized England. Narrated by Doll (short for Dorothy, a character inspired by painter Dorothy Brett, who came to New Mexico with the Lawrences), the novel shifts its chronology among three different periods. Most of the story concerns the years immediately following the emigration of the artistic-minded trio in 1924, as Abe Bronstone (the Lawrence figure) expounds his theories on raising the human consciousness within a community of Indians mixed with a motley assortment of Caucasians. Doll also flashes back to her formative years in England, as a neglected daughter and a sexually abused child who finds refuge in the arts, and she flashes forward to 1963, when she spends her later years with a much younger Indian man, as naive to the ways of the world as she had been. The switching among these three different time periods initially feels a little arbitrary, but Boaz pulls the various strands together in the novel’s second half, which builds to a riveting climax, as the influence of Bronstone’s strong-willed wife on the other women sparks tension between the Anglo and Indian cultures. Throughout the novel, Boaz turns the landscape itself into a protagonist, richer in detail than many of the characters. Physically unattractive and hard of hearing, Doll takes a leap of faith in following Bronstone, whom she alternately seems to consider a mentor, friend, lover and father figure (though they are roughly the same age). The stormy marriage of the Bronstones provides much of the narrative momentum, as the more submissive Doll decides where she fits between such strong-willed people. Readers need know nothing about Lawrence and his circle to become engrossed in this evocative tale.
Sun Going Down, by Jack Todd
Three generations of the Paint family struggle through 70 years of hardship and heartache on the Western plains in Todd’s ambitious fiction debut. En route from Mississippi to the Dakota Territory at the height of the Civil War, Ebenezar Paint meets and marries twice-widowed Cora, a union that produces two strapping twin boys, Eli and Ezra. Ebenezer vainly chases riches; by 15, the boys are orphans and cowboys—and involved in a risky but profitable bit of horse stealing. Ezra remains a wanderer, while Eli settles down to become a wealthy rancher. The narrative eventually follows Eli’s favorite daughter of his six children: Velma, who is brutalized by two of her three husbands, but whose estrangement from Eli causes her the most pain, and takes the story into the Depression era. Vivid and colorful in its depiction of the West’s transformation from the frontier to the modern age, this is a hardscrabble tale of proud folks who refuse to forgive mistakes or forget faults.
Three Girls and Their Brother, by Theresa Rebeck
Transformed into the fashion world’s latest “It” girls, the three Heller sisters, the granddaughters of a late, famous literary critic, fall prey to the venal forces and temptations of show business, unleashing a bitter rivalry and competition that threatens the three girls and their quiet, neglected brother with a self-destructive disaster. A first novel. 60,000 first printing.
The Well and the Mine, by Gin Phillips
A tight-knit miner’s family struggles against poverty and racism in Phillips’s evocative first novel, set in Depression-era Alabama. Throughout, she moves skillfully between the points of view of miner father Albert, hard-working mother Leta, young daughter Tess and teenage daughter Virgie, and small son Jack. They see men who are frequently incapacitated or killed by accidents in the local mines; neighbors live off what they can grow on their patch of land; and blacks like Albert’s fellow miner and friend Jonah are segregated in another part of Carbon Hill—and often hauled off to jail arbitrarily. When Tess witnesses a woman throwing a baby into their well, no one believes her until the dead child is found, and few are shocked. Tess, hounded by nightmares, and Virgie, on the cusp of womanhood and resistant to the thought of an early marriage to the local boys who court her, begin making inquiries of their own, visiting wives who’ve recently had babies and learning way more than they imagined. With a wisp of suspense, Phillips fully enters the lives of her honorable characters and brings them vibrantly to the page. (Mar.)
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