Category: Books

These are books that kids will want to read-or should read, but will enjoy doing so. Board book, picture books, kid lit, elementary school books, middle school books, high school books, all age comic books and more will be talked about here.

Welcome to Camp Snoopy is Peanuts lit for the Apple TV+ and more

We don’t have Apple TV+. It’s nothing personal against the streaming giant; it’s just that we can’t have every platform because that would nullify any savings that we earned from cord-cutting. However, if I were in early elementary school, and had control over the streaming options in our house, Apple TV+ would certainly be in the first two because of Camp Snoopy. Welcome to Camp Snoopy is a graphic novel compilation from Camp Snoopy, the aforementioned show. It’s a collection of short stories, lessons, and vignettes that the campers encounter during their stay at summer camp.

Welcome to Camp Snoopy is the print, graphic novel-esque compilation of some of the story lines from the Apple TV + show.
We’d buy snippets of Snoopy’s backpack lint

Dead Girls Walking is YA horror that fails to kill

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, good marketing and not judging a book by its cover walk into a bar. Marketing assures the book that the issues impacting its wider enjoyment will be mitigated by the niche appeal and box-checking demographics. After all, an mglit book whose main character is going to a queer, horror-obsessed overnight camp for girls is ripe for crossover appeal.  Toss in the fact that the author is a Black queer horror writer who is inspired by the culture’s relation to the supernatural. Alas, this is where I need to stop all but the most devout readers who read books by their sense of obligation, as opposed to their overall enjoyment, and put forth that this is not the horror book that the masses are looking for.

Dead Girls Walking has sick seeds of YA horror, but it’s too dramatic up front and too manic and directionless in the second half.

Keep running, from this book

Little Mouse’s Encyclopedia, intersects entertainment and learning

There’s something about the cover to Little Mouse’s Encyclopedia: A Picture Book About The Wonders of Nature that perfectly translates how easily the book can cross over to different ages and cultures. It’s from the perspective of a little mouse, albeit a very intelligent one, who is exploring the things around her burrow. All the while a narrator is providing some expository comments as to why she’s doing things, in addition to offering smarter-than-expected facts about the flora and fauna that the mouse encounters on daily basis.

Little Mouse’s Encyclopedia is a STEM-based story picture book for elementary ages about the wonders that exist in the dirt around us.
Fun and edcuation exists herein

The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand, sublime fun for pre-k and up

https://amzn.to/4ajrPuqThat book is too thick for me, I can’t possibly read it all. That book is very thick, I think that it will be a great reading challenge. The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand has a fuzzy, tactile cover that makes it stand out. It’s a coming-of-age story that parallels something that every child aged five and up can understand. The book’s cover is bright, very curious, and seems like a fun, engaging read that is effortless to engage with. Any child that that picks up The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand will think of one of the five sentences as mentioned above at some point.

The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand is a very smart, funny book for pre-k readers and older. It’s also sublime, simple, odd and unlike any book they’ve seen.

Fear not the thick green book

Courtesy of Cupid, mglit that asks what if the God of Love was your daddy?

Courtesy of Cupid disappeared from my book queue. It’s nothing fancy, just a series of books stacked up on top of one another, but I knew that something was missing. After a couple of days, my wife said, “This book is really good.” After a couple more days she let me know that Courtesy of Cupid would be leaving the house. It was going to someone else’s house so that they could read it. The finest form of book flattery is when it travels from house to house before eventually landing on my desk once more.

As much as it pains the stereotypical me, my wife was right on the money, and Courtesy of Cupid is a very entertaining book. Cupid is real, has a daughter and once she turns 13 will inherit the power to make people fall in love. It’s like Groundhog Day, but with love and in real-time. This is Bewitched, except Samantha can only make people fall in or out of love. Both of those aren’t what happens, but it’s where my mind, and possibly yours, immediately went.

Courtesy of Cupid, effortless-to-read mglit about a teen girl who’s the daughter of the God of Love and has inherited some of his abilities.
Just nod and say “Yes, dear”, but for real

Bugs, a creepy, crawly, illustrated, STEM book that demands attention

https://amzn.to/3WgR1y3Size does not matter. Size does not matter. I’m talking about the size of certain books, and size does not matter. The content in books with a bigger presentation could be just as impactful if it were printed on standard paper, it doesn’t matter. Now, let us come back from fantasy land and lay witness to Bugs: A Skittery, Jittery History by Miriam Forster with illustrations by Gordy Wright. Bugs is a massively oversized statement of a book that lives somewhere between an illustrated book, a reference book, a STEM book, and a great, goodnight book. This book is impossible to ignore and presents biology to young audiences in a way that’s irresistible, curious, and motivational.

Bugs: A Skittery, Jittery History is an oversized illustrated book with gorgeous art that demands attention from ages eight through middle school.
big, smart, large and in charge of the bug books

The Mango Tree (La Mata De Mango) is a wordless joy of a book

How can a wordless book be bilingual? The beauty of a great wordless book is that it belongs to everyone anywhere. Sure, the story might be one that readers from another area have no chance of actively doing themselves, but it’s an entertaining one that offers something that they can take away. The Mango Tree or La Mata De Mango is a wordless book whose only language difference is evident by its two titles and the fact that the author’s note is in Spanish and English. The story in The Mango Tree is a simple one of friendship, childhood discovery, change, adventure, and adaptation.

The Mango Tree uses big colors, strong lines and the timeless theme of adventure and friendship to fuel imagination in this wordless book.
A bilingual wordless book? Polyglots unite.

Flying Fillies coming-of-age with a historical fiction, female, WWII twist

There’s an advertisement on the radio that so sweet and schmaltzy that your initial reaction is to quickly change the station like some Pavlovian dog. But you’re too late and four seconds into the ad you’re disarmed by its quaint music and down-home copy. By the end of the ad its name is stuck in your head and you’re pining for a pint of that stupid ice cream that you know you shouldn’t eat. It shamelessly reminds you of a different era, a time when things were different, slower, and more patient. Flying Fillies: The Sky’s the Limit is upper-elementary and middle school mglit that harkens back to that feeling. It’s mglit that dances between a coming-of-age story, the non-fiction world of WASPs, and the backdrop of early 1940s WWII paranoia and pride with ease in a way that gives those younger readers an age-appropriate view into trailblazers that you never knew about.

Flying Fillies: The Sky’s the Limit is historical fiction about a real group of women pilots in WWII who bridged the cap and broke a barrier or two.

Historical fiction that resonates if you give it a chance
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