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School for Bandits
By Hannah Shaw
Mr. and Mrs. Raccoon aren’t happy with their son, Ralph, who is “disturbingly well behaved.” There’s only one thing to do: send him to bandit school! Once there, Ralph doesn’t fit in. He is sure that he has no chance of winning the Best Bandit in School contest—whoever fills his sack with the most loot wins.
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Story behind the Story: Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch
By Gillian Engberg
The Changing Faces of Fantasy
Speculative fiction allows for infinitely diverse world building, but there is often a puzzling sameness about its human characters, an overwhelmingly Caucasian bunch. Nnedi Okorafor’s award-winning youth novels offer a refreshing contrast: wildly imagined adventures rooted deeply in Africa and parallel worlds.
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Quick Tips: Groundbreaking Books of the Last 20 Years
By Gillian Engberg
In celebration of Book Links magazine’s twentieth anniversary, we’ve asked our regular contributors to name the most groundbreaking books published in the last two decades. Their choices have appeared throughout the past year in Book Links, and we’ve collected all of them here in one celebratory list. Taken together, they represent some of the most exciting directions in books for children and young adults over the past 20 years. —Ed.
The Adventures of Captain Underpants, by Dav Pilkey
Action! Thrills! Underpants! The wildly popular saga begins with The Adventures of Captain Underpants (1997) and features George Beard and Harold Hutchins, two young smart alecks who pull pranks and create their very own hilarious superhero: Captain Underpants. Full of Flip-O-Rama comics and toilet humor, Pilkey’s series has mesmerized elementary-school students, including even the most-reluctant readers, around the world.—Ernie J. Cox
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Hot Topics: Batter Up!
By Anastasia Suen
On sandlots across the nation, teams of all ages are playing baseball during these warm months. For young fans searching for summer-reading suggestions, offer the following recent baseball biographies, which reflect the diverse backgrounds of players throughout history. Batter up!
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Book Trailer Thursday: A NYC Daily Double
Posted by: Annie Bostrom
This week’s MM BTT celebrates the city so nice they named it twice by featuring TWO New York City mystery book trailers, one taking place in Manhattan and the other in Brooklyn. That’s right–two out of five boroughs represented! While a 40% might not be a passing grade anywhere else, when you consider that this [...] |
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Chomp by Carl Hiaasen
Posted by: Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan
Lynn: I confess that since coming home from the Newbery deliberations I have been indulging myself shamelessly and have been reading for pure fun! I haven’t taken a single note, searched for deeper meaning or examined the use of literary elements. Glorious! One of the fun books I’ve read is Hiassen’s newest romp for middle grade [...] |
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News You Can Use
Posted by: Mary Burkey
Articles & links of interest to audiobook enthusiasts. Here’s a round-up of industry and insider happenings – from the current big batch of news, it looks like everyone’s gearing up for June is Audiobook Month! Social media has been abuzz over the last week about fantastic articles on the awesomeness of all things audio. Each [...] |
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You Can Go Home Again to Scandinavia
Posted by: Gary Niebuhr
The statement I am about to make may be as reliable as Wikipedia to most librarians but I believe there is some confusion in the world of crime fiction as to what constitutes a work of Scandinavian fiction. What is the definition of Scandinavia? I believe it is the peninsula that includes the present countries [...] |
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Dusty Books: Audition for Murder and Cruising for Murder
Posted by: Rebecca
Two mysteries that might likely be languishing on the shelf, probably because what started off as a funny, cozy series stopped after two novels. Which is really too bad, because they are wonderfully written light mysteries , with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and an endearing heroine that will appeal to readers who enjoy the sassiness [...] |
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Web Site of the Week: Khanacademy.org
Posted by: Christine Bulson
Khan Academy is the brainchild of Salman Khan who began tutoring his cousin in 2004 using Doodle notepad. There are now a over 3,200 videos on Khanacademy.org covering math, biology, chemistry, physics, humanities, finance and history. Each video is about 10 minutes in length. They range from a tutorial for telling time (not on a [...] |
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