Much more content to follow over the weekend, but I just got the Harcourt catalog and thought I would point out some promising titles:
Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars by Douglas Florian - Space poetry!!! How awesome is this? Florian has done several other books that I've been intrigued by (Insectlopedia and Zoo's Who for starters) but by going into space he definitely has my attention. There just aren't nearly enough fun readable books on the universe for little kids and I'm looking forward to this one.
Old Hopper Opera: A Bug's Garden of Verses by Kurt Cyrus (now out in pb) - This is pretty much a no-brainer around here. "Put your ear to the ground for the clicking, popping snapping music of this garden grown wild." My boy loves bugs (it's such a boy cliche, I know, but there's no denying it.) Cyrus's artwork is also stunning - I'm sure this will be great.
Iris, Messenger by Sarah Demming - Iris Greenwold is bored by pretty much everything including "a middle school that is hell". (Aren't they all?) On her 12th birthday she mysteriously receives a copy of Bulfinch's Mythology and learns the gods are in the greater Philadelphia area. "Poseidon's running a clam shack, Aphrodite's doing makeovers, Apollo's playing tenor sax...." Iris is off to the races with all the Greeks and I'm sure all sorts of fun hijinks ensue. I like the idea of including Bulfinch's (loved this when I was young, must get another copy) and I think this would be a very cool way to get YA's interested in the gods and goddesses.
A Portrait of Pia by Marisabina Russo - First, whever designed the cover deserves a medal. It's not only eye-catching and exotic looking but Pia actually seems like a normal looking girl (i.e. not blonde, blue-eyed and 60 pounds.) "Thirteen-year-old Pia doesn't know her father, but she desperately wants to meet him. So she sends a letter to his home in far-off Italy. After she mails that one little letter, Pia's world turns upside down. But as she explores art, poetry and NYC - even makes her way to Italy to meet her mysterious papa - her world starts to right itself." Sounds like a lovely coming of age story and as I firmly believe we can't get enough of those, I'm looking forward to what Pia discovers.
Beauty Shop for Rent by Laura Bowers - This sounds great for a "girls just want to have fun" column I'm tentatively planning for this summer. Abbey wants to earn a million dollars by the time she's 35 and break the cycle of unhappiness with women in her family. "Determined to fulfill her dream, Abbey works at Granny Po's struggling beauty shop, where the feisty Gray Widows go to primp, polish, perm......and, of course, gossip." Sounds like it will be sweet and funny and very Southern and I'm okay with that. (Even though the girl is blonde on the cover!)
Crusader by Edward Bloor - This is a reissue in a new paperback edition. Roberta works at her family's sad little arcade in a sad little shopping mall in Florida. Her mother was murdered several years before (unsolved) and Roberta notices that many bad things are going on around her - "racisim, dirty politics, and drugs are all part of the scene." At 15, she thinks there is little she can do, but she begins to involve herself by investigating hate crimes at the mall. In the process she uncovers details surrounding her mother's death and becoems a crusader. In the new Buffy/Veronica Mars world I think that readers will love rediscovering this Bloor title.
Finally, an adult title with "crossover appeal". Sugarcane Academy by Michael Tisserand (former editor of Gambit Weekly) - following Katrina, Tisserand and his family ended up in New Iberia where one of his children's teachers, Paul Reynaud was living also. Tisserand and other parents persuaded Reynaud to start a school among the sugarcane fields. The children named it "Sugarcane Academy". "This inspiring book shows how a dedicated teacher made the best out of the worst situation, and how the children of New Orleans, of all backgrounds and races, were affected by Katrina but learned to live with its consequences."
I mean really, how do you resist that?
