Is Seventh Grade the right age to enter politics? For 12 year old baseball loving, clarinet playing Aiden Schroeckenbauer, the decision seems to be out of his hands – after a chance encounter with the new Fresh Ideas Party Presidential Candidate, Minnesota Governor Bettina Brandon, in which he not only shares his perspective on the manufacturing industry’s decline in his small hometown in Ohio, but also saves her from a falling metal sign – Aiden is recruited by the Governor and her campaign staff on their bus tour of the Midwest.  It seems Aiden’s youthful face, honest perspective, heroism, and small town values have struck a chordRead More →

In a land far away where Kings and Queens still rule over their people, civil war is looming. Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince is about an orphan named Sage. Sage is recruited along with three other boys by a nobleman named Conner. Conner is trying to unite the fractured kingdom by finding an impersonator of the King’s lost son and putting him on the throne. The four orphans, chosen because of their close resemblance to the lost prince, are forced to compete for the role of prince. Conner constantly reminds the orphans that the losers will not live once the competition is over, andRead More →

Digital Book World (1/9/12) reports: Given the choice between reading e-books or print books, children prefer e-books, a new, exploratory field study shows. Children who read e-books also retain and comprehend just as much as when they read print books, the study also suggests. A new “QuickStudy” – so named for its short duration and the small size of its sample group – from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center observed 24 families with children ranging in age from three-to-six reading both print and e-books in the Summer and Fall of 2011. Most of the children in the study preferred reading an e-book to a printRead More →

The January issue of our newsletter is out now! Bringing book industry news, info on new releases and cool websites, book reviews, opportunities to win free books, tech news and much more straight to your inbox! Not signed up for our email mailing list? It’s easy- just find the Join Our Mailing List link on the right sidebar of this blog. (Or, click here) In the meantime, just in case you didn’t get one, check out the newsletter here. The January giveaway is now closed. Thanks for entering!Read More →

Set in the 1870’s on the sparsely settled western Kansas prairie and taking inspiration from The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Caroline Starr Rose‘s May B. A Novel is a captivating tale of a young girl’s courage and struggle to survive. To help her homesteading family, May’s parents send her to work on the nearby homestead of a newly wed couple. May doesn’t want to go the 15 miles across the prairie, staying to help the bride, newly arrived from a city in the East, until Christmas, even if it will give her parents some money. She’d rather stay home, help on herRead More →

What would have happened if Jonathan Swift’s Cpt. Lemuel Gulliver had gone back to Lilliput once more and brought back with him to England a colony of Lilliputians? Imagining the fate of such a colony and the care and secrecy with which their survival would depend is the seed of Carter Crocker’s The Last of the Gullivers. Michael Pine is a 12 year old orphan, bored with life and school, and headed towards juvenile detention.  When he’s caught stealing his fate seems sealed; until a local magistrate gives him a chance at rehabilitation. Michael takes an after school job at the village market and thereRead More →

Hardback Fiction Blowout Sale begins! February 1-29th, 2012 We’re Open Monday-Friday 10a-6p Hundreds of titles available – all for only $5 · Purchase orders accepted · In store shopping only · Only books in specially marked sections of the warehouse are eligible for $5.00 sale price · Not included in sale:  special orders, front list titles, new publisher releases, paperbacks, and any books displayed in sections outside specially marked shelving units · Books are available first come, first served. No backorders (available at promotional prices) if/when titles sell outRead More →