• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2010
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Release Date: April 13, 2010
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-0-385-73814-9
• ISBN (paperback): TBD                         

Maxwell Unger has always loved the night.  He used to do brave things like go tramping through the forest with his gran after dark. He loved the stories she told him about the world before the Destruction -- about nature, and books, and the silver owls. His favorite story, though, was about the Owl Keeper. According to Max's gran, in times of darkness the Owl Keeper would appear to unite owls and sages against the powers of the dark. Gran is gone now, and so are her… Continue reading

This week, we’re celebrating Beth Ann Bauman’s debut! Beth Ann Bauman is the author of a short story collection for adults, Beautiful Girls, and a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Beth teaches fiction writing at NYU, The West Side YMCA’s Writer’s Voice, and online at UCLA. Growing up, she spent summers on the Jersey shore, and she now lives in New York City. Here’s a little bit about ROSIE AND SKATE (Wendy Lamb Books, Random House). It's off-season at the Jersey shore, when the boardwalk belongs to the locals. Rosie is 15 and her sister Skate is… Continue reading

It's not easy to write about 'issues' in a way that's not didactic or preachy, but there are those authors whose passion and prose create a story that does more than just introduce us to people and places -- we develop new ideas, make new meaning in our lives, and are inspired in unexpected and lasting ways. Below, readers and writers share their experiences with children's literature that 'has issues':

"Of course, in SHINE, I was focused on the issue of post-9/11 discrimination against anyone who was perceived to be Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern, but that was an issue I… Continue reading

• Publication Season/Year: Fall 2009
• Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books, Random House
• Release Date: August 11,  2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-0-385-73735-7
• ISBN (paperback): TBD                         

ROSIE AND SKATE is about two sisters, ages 15 and 16, in a New Jersey shore town.  When their dad, a “nice drunk,” lands himself in jail, they cope in different ways.  Skate and her boyfriend Perry are inseparable, until he goes off to Rutgers leaving her behind.  Rosie is drawn to a boy in her support group.  Within the embrace of their warmhearted community, the girls find hope for the future… Continue reading

• Publication Season/Year: Fall, 2010
• Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers
• Release Date: August 1, 2010
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-0-8109-8971-9

It's a beautiful, cloudless summer day--perfect for the annual neighborhood celebration. Everything is running smoothly...until Momma burns the food! AROUND OUR WAY ON NEIGHBORS' DAY is a lyrical, rhyming picture book; a contemporary story about a young girl's love for her close-knit, diverse community… Continue reading

• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2009
• Publisher: Westside Books
• Release Date: April 23, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-934813-05-8
• ISBN (paperback): TBD

Overweight Wrenn Scott desperately wants to be popular and snag a hot boyfriend. Living with her single mom and younger sister, Karly, she lands a lead role in the high school musical, her voice for once overshadowing her weight. Pushing to get thinner by opening night, Wrenn's waistline shrinks as she learns all the wrong ways to lose weight from a new "it-girl" friend in the show. Meanwhile, her mom is falling for Phil, "a balding Channel 8 News-nerd"; her sister is wrapped up in her… Continue reading

• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2009
• Publisher: Harcourt
• Release Date: April 1, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): TBD
• ISBN (paperback): 978-0152066437

It's the end of junior year, and summer is about to begin. The Summer of Passion, to be exact, when Jory Michaels plans to explore all the possibilities of the future--and, with any luck, score a boyfriend in the process. But Jory has a problem. A big problem. A curvy, honking, bumpy, problem in the form of her Super Schnozz, the one thing standing between Jory and happiness. And now, with the Summer of Passion stretched before her like an open road, she's determined for Super Schnozz to… Continue reading

• Publication Season/Year: Summer 2009
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Release Date: June 11, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-0399250439
• ISBN (paperback): TBD

Twelve-year-old Paris Pan’s life is a mess. She’s just moved to a tiny town in Nowheresville, Oklahoma; her family life is a comical disaster; her new friends are more like frenemies; and the boy she has a crush on is a dork. Things couldn’t possibly get worse, until she discovers that a girl mysteriously died years ago while taking a seventh-grade rite of passage–the Dare– right near Paris’s new house. So when Paris starts hearing strange noises coming from the creepy run-down shed in her backyard… Continue reading

• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2010
• Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
• Release Date: January 1, 2010
• ISBN: 0-545-09676-6

Reginald Garvey McKnight created a superhero character in kindergarten; now he dreams of being a real-life leading man: The Guy who's got game and gets The Girl. Instead, he threw up on the first day of school. In front of everyone. Eighth grade has gone downhill ever since. In EIGHTH GRADE SUPERZERO, Reggie wonders why things are so bad if God is so good; his faith at all levels is challenged by his friendships, his work at a homeless shelter, and a pair of "Dora The Explorer" shoes. Reggie's… Continue reading