DesMoinesRegister has an article that lists new books for teens. I enjoy the fact that they have included books that will actually interest teens, ones with lots of that racy appeal we have been hearing so much about in the news.

Fascinating Life of Beatrix Potter Revealed in Mystery Series tells about the new mystery series by Susan Wittig Albert. Based on Beatrix Potter’s life, Potter serves as an intriguing amateur sleuth. The second in the series has just been released and the first will be available in paperback next month.

Lemony Snicket and the title of his next book are missing! Head to The N A M E L E S S Novel website to help solve the mystery before it’s too late! Just enter your birthdate and information to register and then you will be able to start the search. Wonderful fun!
The Nameless Novel is due out in October.

‘Click, Clack, Moo’ author inspired by her father is an article with the touching story of Doreen Cronin’s relationship with her father and how even after his death, he continues to inspire her work. Fans of Cronin, can look forward to her new Diary of a Spider and Click, Clack, Quackity, Quack. If you haven’t read Cronin’s Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type and her other books, you are missing some great kid humor. They are wonderful read-alouds for early elementary kids.

Journal Gazette: Rad Reads offers a brief review of the newest version of the Hardy Boys books, the Undercover Brothers series. It looks like the language the boys use is updated and that this time the boys are working undercover as detectives. The books are also written from both boys’ points of view in alternating chapters.

For Young Readers is a Washington Post article that captures the type of picture books that kids will want to read as summer wanes. Books that will prep little ones for the first day of Kindergarten, fun math books and other school subjects and finally books that are just plain fun.

Independent Online Edition: The facts about teen fiction takes a look at some of the more powerful British books for teens and children. Featured authors include Marjorie Blackman, whose first book in her Naughts and Crosses series was released in the U.S. earlier this year, and Melvin Burgess, whose books usually get some eyebrows raised. The great part of the article is that it acknowledges that there are darker parts to these new novels, and finishes with this take on children’s literature:
“More remarkable than the upfront passions and terrors is its ability to win and keep readers with an amazingly wide range of forms and genres – from the grittiest kinds of “dirty realism” through every possible brand of fable and fantasy. Alongside its exploits and experiments, much of mainstream adult writing looks stuck in a drearily naturalistic backwater. So read Blackman, or Pullman, or Burgess, and be shocked: not by their ambitions, but by their adult counterparts’ timidity.”

TimesDispatch.com | Fries with that? Baldacci takes a child-oriented detour
David Baldacci joins a growing list of authors of books for adults who are writing children’s books. I enjoy the fact that this started as a bedtime story for his children.

Library Journal – Half-Blood Prince Sets Sales Records, Bests Order of the Phoenix by 20 percent
I suppose we could have guessed it! After all, so many people have purchased their own copy in our community that the hold list for the library copies is very small. A record 6.9 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours in the U.S. alone!