Weekend Reviews

Greetings from stormy Smalltown!

We've had thunderstorms and tornado watches every day for the past 8 days. Rain has poured from the sky in sheets not drops. You do all your driving in the hour or two between storms. If you're into investing, corn futures seem like a good bet right about now.

Okay, on to the reviews...

First things first: Amanda Craig says Frank Cottrell Boyce's Cosmic is his "best yet." As a HUGE Boyce fan and a Craig fan, I am thrilled by this pronouncement. (I already have the audio and can't wait to listen to it.) Craig talks to Boyce for the Times this weekend.

Cosmic is also the Times Children's Book of the Week, reviewed by Nicolette Jones.

Publishers Weekly offer up their children's book reviews again this week.

Deirdre Baker reviews many children's books for summertime reading in this weekend's Kansas City Star.

Nicholas A. Basbanes recommends children's adventure stories for the Orlando Sentinel.

On Children's Books review: Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature, by Leonard S. Marcus, reviewed by Wendy Smith at the Los Angeles Times.

Also in the Los Angeles Times: Sonja Bolle talks to Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Lockhart about How to Be Bad.

Bernie Goedhart recommends a number of new children's books in the Montreal Gazette.

Karen MacPherson recommends books with great dads for the Rocky Mountain News.

Mary Harris Russell reviews five new books for the Chicago Tribune, including Wave by Suzy Lee.

Sue Bradford Edwards recommends books for summer reading in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Brandon Robshaw reviews Before I Die, by Jenny Downham, for the Independent.

Michael Berry considers Life Sucks, a graphic novel by Jessica Abel and Gabe Soria, illustrated by Warren Pleece, for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Janet Christie reviews three new children's books for the Scotsman, including Lost Riders, by Elizabeth Laird.

Elizabeth Ward is back with her Young Reader's column in the Washington Post. This week she recommends "cool reads for hot days," including Peeled, by Joan Bauer.

Rain and twisters, go away,
I'm dreaming of a sunny day...