Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus offers full-text access to the starred reviews of the month. Scroll down to the bottom to see the reviews of children’s books.

With a new 2-part adventure coming out next week, I thought I would share Scholastic’s wonderful Captain Underpants site. Just filled with exactly what you would expect, lots and lots of fun.

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly (0-15-216705-6)
This book for teens offers a vividly depicted setting and a story that is a mix of romance and mystery all packaged in historical fiction. I was immediately caught up in Mattie’s story as it switches from past to present tense until the two come together in a satisfying conclusion.
Mattie is a girl in the Adirondacks in 1906. Her life is hard after her mother dies, partly because Mattie who loves books and language promised her mother on her death bed that she would stay and care for her three younger sisters. Will Mattie stay and marry Royal, the handsome boy next door? Or will she go to New York City and college?
This is definitely a book for teens with some sexuality as part of the storyline. I will be recommending it to girls who enjoyed Anne of Green Gables. Luckily it is a good match for readers of both mysteries and romance too.

Alphathoughts: alphabet poems by Lee Bennett Hopkins (1-56397-979-9)
I shared this books with my poem-loving 6-year-old son and we both enjoyed the short but illuminating poems. The poem for the letter L is a definite winner: “Library: A pleasure place to ponder lifelong dreams.”

SciFan
A site for the science fiction fan filled with links and books, including current and future releases, books sorted by theme, and information on authors and series. Themes include books for YA and young readers.

All Reviewed Children’s Books
A great site for librarians, parents and teachers, Carol Hurst offers books with reviews and well as teaching ideas, authors, curriculum areas, and much more. I know that this will help me when I head out each year to do a book discussion at the local school. How great to have discussion points for a book along with the specific grade level!

My email is down and will be down until at least Wednesday. Luckily the parts are ordered and on their way, but it will take at least that long to get them installed. Comments posted will not be noticed until then. And of course I will have to wade through all my email once it is fixed. I am subscribed to a bunch of great children’s books mailing lists. I will have to post about them once my email is up again.

Via About Children’s Books, comes the International Reading Association Choices Lists. There are three lists: Children’s Choices, Teacher’s Choices and Young Adults’ Choices. The short lists of titles under consideration are available on the site, and the annotated lists will be available this fall.

Pasadena Citizen has an article on their public library offering new services for teens. When I was working as a children’s/YA librarian, I created a program like this. I still miss those kids. They were funny, warm, goofy and best of all, they let me into their lives. I only hope that the new teen librarian at Pasadena gets to feel that magic too.
I see teen programs as really vital, though I must admit that I have yet to start one here. The ideas are floating in my brain, but we have yet to really start targeting teens. I don’t think that any of the larger libraries in our library system have teen librarians and some lack even an area for teens. And we wonder why these kids aren’t using libraries??