Weekend Reviews (I)

Before I get going on rounding up this weekend's reviews, let me just say that I hope all you Texans are safe and sound. Go away, Ike!

It's a busy week in children's book reviews, so I thought I'd get started relatively early. First and foremost, it's the children's book weekend in the New York Times Book Review. Here's what's on tap this month:

• James McMullan reviews New York stories for the six-to nine-year-old reader.
• Simon Rodberg reviews two new picture books about Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai
• Austin Grossman considers Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.
• This week's Bookshelf is devoted to children's books--a mix of YA fiction and picture books.

Everyone has one reviewer they trust implicitly. For me, that reviewer is Amanda Craig. She likes adventure, good writing and a touch of humor in her books. When she recommends a title, I know I'll like it. This week she reviews three books for children which fictionalize the lives of young Bond and the Scarlet Pimpernel in the Times.

Also in the Times, writer Michael Morpurgo discusses reworking Hansel and Gretel.

Susan Perren reviews Would You?, by Martha Jocelyn, for the Globe and Mail. Also in the Globe and Mail, Ms. Perren recommends several new children's books for Fall.

Profile Alert (and more): Toby Clements talks to Cornelia Funke about her work and the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" for the Telegraph.

(My favorite) Frank Cottrell Boyce reviews Nation, by Terry Pratchett, for the Guardian. He opens his review with, "It's 25 years since Terry Pratchett invented Discworld. If there's any justice, the Post Office will issue a set of silver jubilee stamps, the government will declare a national holiday, and giant turtles will parade through our municipal parks." Amen.

Adèle Geras reviews The Dragonfly Pool, by Eva Ibbotson, also in the Guardian.

Yay! Mary Harris Russell is back in the Chicago Tribune this week reviewing five new books, all of them picture books.

More tomorrow...