Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library, featuring books and DVDs for children! (For reviews of books for all ages, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews are also published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates. The book reviews on this website represent the personal opinions of the individuals who created them and do not represent any official views of the Marathon County Public Library.
Gracie Lockwood lives in Cliffden, Maine, an ordinary enough sounding city, but it is anything but ordinary. Her world is populated with flying dragons, sasquatches, giants, mermaids, witches and angels. Gracie loves her home, but when the dreaded Dark Cloud begins hanging around, apparently in search of her sickly brother Sam, her family flees in a...
If you love Mariah Carey's hit Christmas song "All I Want for Christmas Is You," this picture book is for you! The words in the picture book are from Carey's song, so you can sing the lyrics or simply read them. The illustrations tell the story of a little Mariah wishing and hoping for a puppy from Santa Claus. Follow Mariah on a snowy, Christmas journey to...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, read-alouds
Skipping school while out fishing with his father near the island of St. Helen's, Alfie and his father discover a half-starved, injured young girl who is barely alive on the small uninhabited island. Where she came from is a mystery since she is not speaking. His family cares for her, names her Lucy, and as their relationship grows and she becomes a part of...
Audience: children, tweens | Genre: fiction, historical fiction
An orphan, Christopher Rowe feels lucky to be chosen as an apprentice to Master Benedict Blackthorn, a great and kind apothecary. In order to keep recipes for his medicines and potions secret, his master uses complex codes and puzzles which Christopher is being taught to decipher. But when his master is brutally killed and a strange cult appears to be...
It doesn’t make sense. How could it happen? She’s sick of hearing people say “some things just happen.” It isn’t really a reason. For a scientific thinker like seventh-grader Suzy Swanson, there has to be an explanation. Franny Jackson, her twelve year-old best friend, was an excellent swimmer, so how could she have just drowned? Bit by bit, through many...
This is one of the best picture books that I have read in a long time! Just as the title suggests, the book follows one recipe for Blackberry Fool through different centuries and families. The recipe is generally made the same in each family, however, the technology used and family preparing the recipe are vastly different. Historically this book shows...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, picture book, historical fiction
Pram Bellamy lives with her two aunts in a home for the elderly which they manage. Her mother died under strange circumstances in childbirth, and all she was told about her father is that he was a sailor. She’s been homeschooled and has no friends except for a ghost named Felix near the pond. As far as she knows she has always been able to see and talk to...
"Ice Dogs" is a very well written adventure book for tweens. The story is told from 14 year-old Victoria Secord's point of view, and follows her adventure of being lost in the Alaskan Wilderness. Victoria has grown up in Alaska and has been around dogsled racers most of her life. Following the death of her dad she takes to the races. While out on a run she...
Audience: children, tweens | Genre: fiction, action adventure
It’s a fun, upside-down world in this new picture book that's full of nonsense by Eric Carle. A boy is pulled from a hat by a rabbit magician, a bird is living in an aquarium and a fish in a cage, a human baby is in a kangaroo's pouch, mice are catching cats, a man is living in a dog house and more. It’s all of course in good fun. With classic, colorful,...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, read-alouds, picture book
“Libertalia. You!” Lewis can’t stop thinking about the two words that his dying Great-Granddad, whispered urgently into his ear. What do they mean? What’s even stranger is that his parents don’t even know. He guesses it may be connected somehow to Shornoway, his Great-Grandad’s sea-side, historic home. To honor the requirements of his Great-Grandad’s will,...
Thirteen-year-old Chess lives with his fellow crewmates and friends in the lower mountain slums above the deadly gray fog that has surrounded earth for hundreds of years. He is a tether boy on a raft used for diving into the fog and scavenging in the ruins below for items they can sell or eat. Chess is one of the few people who appears to suffer no ill...
For the record, I do not like spiders. However, I am trying to pass on a better view of them to my daughter. This book is very helpful for any young reader who would like to unmask the mystery of these sometimes creepy insects. The writing is simple so that anyone can learn about spiders in a fun way. Not only that, but the illustrations do a great job to...
Audience: children | Genre: nonfiction
In this sleepy-time picture book, Maggie and her rabbit, Clement are getting ready for bed when Jean and his friend Alan arrive in pajamas. And of course it’s time for a wonderful, surprise pajama party complete with bed jumping, chicken dancing, funny-face contest, hide-and-seek, yoga, food and finally sleep. Maggie reads everyone bed-time stories for...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, picture book
Crenshaw is a humongous, black and white cat who surfs, does tricks, takes bubble baths, speaks words of wisdom and appears when Jackson needs him most. Crenshaw is also imaginary. Jackson, who is almost in fifth grade, is beginning to see all the signs, even though his parents don’t really talk about it. Often there is no food, his parents aren’t able to...
Lily and her busy stepfather are mourning the recent death of Lily’s mother, leaving Lily with most of the responsibility for caring for her severely autistic 4-year-old stepbrother Adam. Through a visit to Dolphin Inlet, they discover Adam’s affinity and seeming ability to communicate with dolphins and hear about a dolphin therapy program for disabled...
Audience: children, tweens | Genre: fiction, differing abilities
Walking to and from school together for fifth-grader Tamaya and seventh-grader Marshall is a normal occurrence; walking through the woods is not. No one is supposed to walk through the woods, so when Marshall claims it’s a shortcut and the school bully, Chad shows up, hits Marshall and threatens Tamaya, she throws some of the unnatural, weird-looking fuzzy...
This new children's biography of perhaps Wisconsin’s most well known and loved author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, is a great addition for all her fans. Written in a plain, simple style it includes most of the facts we know about her and her family. The illustrations by Yona Zeldis McDonough are simple, warm and homey, reminiscent of the illustrations by Garth...
Audience: children, tweens | Genre: nonfiction, biography
Attending her fifth new school in yet another new town, after yet another of her mother’s failed relationships, Raine, an eighth-grader, desperately hopes that this school will be her last. Raine possesses a unique gift--she feels and sees sparkles around people that allow her to see their memories. When she discovers that a fellow student named Emily Huvar...
In this newly discovered book by Dr. Seuss, a brother and sister are at the pet store trying to decide what pet to get. Of course they can only have one, but all the pets look like so much fun it’s hard to choose just one. The other problem they face is they have a deadline; Mother and Dad said to be home by noon. This may be a “new” Dr. Seuss book, but...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, picture book, read-alouds
This book for tween boys is full of adventure and mystery. It is based in the Whippet Hotel, an exotic hotel geared for the rich. The main character, Leo, works for the hotel alongside his Dad. When Leo finds the first box, it starts him on an adventure throughout the hotel and the floors between the floors. For parents, there is none of the violence that...
Audience: children, tweens | Genre: fiction, action adventure
Duncan McKay lives with his mother on the island of Arvidia and knows how to speak and understand the language of cats. His fearful mother is full of secrets, including information about his deceased father and mysteriously does not want him to excel at anything. In addition to Duncan’s questions about his identity, kittens on the island are disappearing,...
Audience: children, tweens | Genre: fiction, action adventure
After their parents’ deaths from an explosion at their ranch, Connor, Cordelia and Kip, their pet capybara, are sent to live with their aunt Marigold in the town of Woundabout. They discover that it is an odd city where routine and conformity rule and nothing ever changes. To maintain the status quo the mayor allows very few children to live there since...
A.F. Harrold's book "The Imaginary" opens with Christina Rossetti's poem, "Remember," an eloquent plea for the speaker's beloved to remember her after she has died. While readers might be baffled by the author's choice of this poem, those readers who chose to return to the poem after the book ends, will understand exactly what Rosetti and Harrold meant...
Augie’s life is like a strange, really bad fairy tale—literally. His parents own an amusement park he works at called Fairy Tale Place which they are struggling to keep going. He is bullied at school, has failed Creative Arts and needs to redo his final project, and the girl he likes barely knows he’s alive. On top of all this, his best friend Britt dies...
Lily’s dog, Lucky is blind, so when he slips out of his collar and runs across the blueberry barrens in Maine she’s desperately afraid he might get hurt or lost. That’s how she meets Salma Santiago, daughter of a seasonal migrant worker helping harvest blueberries, who entices Lucky with a peanut butter sandwich and some chips. They become real...
