It’s a happy and familiar story: Boy meets bot, boy befriends bot…they become best pals, rescue each other from peril, and live happily, chasing adventure ever after.
Simple though it may sound, this theme has been spun into some great books for boys at all reading levels. Read more…Boys and their bots
Title: Pax
Author: Sarah Pennypacker (author of acclaimed Clementine series)
Illustrator: Jon Klaassen (award-winning picture book author/illustrator of I Want My Hat Back)
Format: Single book
Age group: 9+
A mesmerizing book about the profound bond between a fox and a boy.
Peter is 7 years old when he finds an abandoned and starving fox kit in the woods nears home. Peter adopts the fox and names him Pax. The two form a deep connection, “two, but not two”. But the disease of war encroaches, and Peter’s angry and restless father has caught the bug. When he decides to enlist in the army, Pax and Peter are forcibly separated after more than 5 years at each other’s side. Read more…Book review: Pax
These are troubled times. Turn on the news and our children are just as likely as we are to be barraged and confused by the turmoil around the world. The word refugee comes up often in this context, and raises many questions for kids: Who are refugees? How do they come to be in such a desperate state – displaced, on the run, seeking respite anywhere they can find it?
By telling the true story of Salva Dut, A Long Walk to Water presents parents and kids a chance to understand some of the forces and faces behind one particular refugee crisis. Read more…Meet Salva Dut, refugee, reformer
It’s Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and with that comes the onset of the holiday season. Maybe you’re driving to your parents’ right now for a Thanksgiving feast… maybe you will only be heading home in a few weeks for Christmas, Hannukah or the New Year. Perhaps you will travel by air or by sea, by road or by rail, or perhaps only by way of your dreams.
No matter what the mode, know that the journey home is a universal experience. It remains a powerful and persistent motif in all of literature, with children’s literature being no exception. Read more…Headed toward family, hearth and home
Title: The Star of Kazan
Author: Eva Ibbotson
Narrator: Patricia Connolly
Length: 10h 15m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 9+
When Sigrid and Ellie, maids for a family of Austrian musicians, find a baby abandoned at a small church among the Alps, they are utterly bewildered. They bring the foundling home to Vienna and eventually raise her as their own. All is well until Annika, now a young girl, unexpectedly inherits a box of costume jewelry, and a mysterious German aristocrat emerges claiming to be Annika’s long-lost mother. Read more…Audiobook review: The Star of Kazan
Title: Matilda
Author: Roald Dahl
Narrator: Kate Winslet
Length: 4h 30m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 9+
If you aren’t enamored of Kate Winslet already, you are bound to be after listening to her reading of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. We were captivated by her telling of this dark but fascinating tale, in which – as many of you know – little Matilda Wormwood uses her genius and talents to escape mistreatment at the hands of many adults including a headmistress and her own parents. Winslet animates all from the shyest tyke to the stentorian Trunchbull with a superb range of voices and accents. Read more…Audiobook review: Matilda
Title: Heart of a Samurai
Author: Margi Preus
Narrator: James Yaegashi
Length: 6h 15m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 10+
When 14-year old Manjiro, the son of a poor Japanese fisherman, finds himself shipwrecked on a deserted island with a rag-tag bunch of mates, he fears the worst. But rescue arrives in the form of an American whaling ship, and soon Manjiro finds himself amidst an international, possibly barbaric crew, sailing towards America. Curious, brave, adventurous, and aspiring above his lowly station to live by Samurai principles, Manjiro embraces this chance to learn about the wider world. Read more…Audiobook review: Heart of a Samurai
Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Narrator: Full cast recording (Derek Jacobi, Neil Gaiman, Julian Rhind-Tutt et al)
Length: 7h 47m
Format: Full length story
Age Group: 10+
This is a superb, full-cast reading that brings to life a luminous book by Neil Gaiman. It is not for the faint-of-heart though. The book starts with a murder. While the murder scene is swift and more implied than described, it is quite scary. The lone survivor, a toddler, wanders into a nearby graveyard, where he is adopted by its otherworldly inhabitants and given the name Nobody Owens, or Bod for short. And from there the tale turns into a spooky, but absolutely enthralling, coming-of-age tale. Read more…Audiobook review: The Graveyard Book
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