Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

Little Monsters, a fun twist on Little Women that engages girls aged 8-12

I never read Little Women. I saw the shout-out that the classic book received in Ride or Die, felt momentarily guilty for it, but it’s not enough to make me read it. Little Monsters alludes to that classic title by having “Little” in the same regal font as “Women”, but having the latter word physically scratched out via a series of horizontal claw marks. Underneath that is “Monsters”, hastily scrawled as if someone’s leaving the scene of a cattle mutilation. You don’t need to have read the timeless book it references to be attracted to Little Monsters. This is a retelling of that story, and updated in ways that will engage young readers.

Little Monsters twists the time and setting of Little Women, and adds some monster paranoia, that will entertain girls in upper-elementary through middle.

Girls, gossip, monster, paranoia the destroyer

Winnie-the-Pooh: 100th Anniversary Edition, a bit aged, still as awesome

I thought it was a velvet cover. But no, the cover to Winnie-the-Pooh: 100^th Anniversary (Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner) (The Winnie-the-Pooh Collection) is a flocked cover. Flocking is a process where short fibers are glued to a surface and feels like velvet, but it is much cheaper. If the question was, how do make reading Winnie-the-Pooh more adorable, the answer would certainly be to provide it with a flocked cover.

Winnie-the-Pooh: 100th Anniversary Edition brims with life, energy, fun and doesn’t look a day over 100.

Pooh sticks at dawn!

Theodora Hendrix: A Fun Chapter Book for Young Readers

It’s a great feeling for parents, educators and most of all, children, when they can comfortably carry around a chapter book. Those first and second graders might carry around Dog Man, but it probably belongs to their older sibling. It’s in late second grade, third grade and hopefully by fourth grade when kids start carrying books like Theodora Hendrix and the Curious Case of the Cursed Beetle. That’s an alliteration in case you’re reviewing that term for seventh-grade ELA. This is second entry in a ridiculously fun chapter-book series that run with silly characters, age-appropriate monsters, and just enough evil to thrill ages 7-10.

Theodora Hendrix and the Curious Case of the Cursed Beetle is the second book in this series that melds monsters, family and friends in an early reader chapter book.

Don’t fear the reaper, embrace the book