What’s Hot @ Random House Children's Books

Wendy Lamb Books/Random House Children's Books

Has been voted the Indie Choice Book of the Year Award Winner for Middle Reader!

Random House / On sale May 11, 2010s

“Sweet, funny and superb”

SECOND starred review in the April 15, 2010 issue of Kirkus Reviews (circ: 1,718):

Eleven-year-old Turtle falls in with the Diaper Gang—her boy cousins Beans, Kermit and Buddy and their friends Ira and Pork Chop—when she is packed off to stay in her mother’s hometown of Key West because her housekeeper mother has a new job with a woman who doesn’t like kids. It’s 1935, and the enterprising boys offer baby care to exhausted mothers in exchange for candy because no one has any money to spare. Glimpses of Southern decay and charm add to the sense of otherness that Turtle finds in the heat, the occasional scorpion, the windfall fruit and the hint of Bahamian and Cuban roots. Her encounters with the cantankerous invalid grandmother she never knew and with Slow Poke, a sponge fisherman whose gray eyes match her own, hint at the importance of this homecoming. Turtle’s discovery of the charms of family is as valuable as the pirate treasure the children weather a hurricane to find. Holm’s voice for Turtle is winning and authentic—that of a practical, clear-eyed observer—and her nimble way with dialogue creates laugh-out-loud moments. Sweet, funny and superb. (Historical fiction. 9-13)

Alfred A. Knopf /On sale May 11, 2010

“Fluid repetition and snappy rhythm make this a natural for reading aloud”

Delacorte Press /On sale May 11, 2010

“This funny and thoughtful novel is as much about building bridges—between generations and maybe even between life and death—as it is about playing cards”

Donna Gephart’s previous title, As If Being 12 ¾ Isn’t Bad Enough, My Mother is Running for President!, won a Florida Book Award-Silver Medal in the Children’s Literature in 2008.  Her latest middle grade novel, How to Survive Middle School, goes on sale on 4/13.

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YUjbtKdmXs

Be sure to take a look at this novel that Booklist calls “an engaging, feel-good transition into adolescence that’s well stocked with tears and laughter.”

Already Nominated:

Raven Summer by David Almond / GLB: 978-0-385-90715-6
Split by Swati Avasthi
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen

Tricycle Press

Best Children’s Illustrated

Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Best Teen Lit

Random House

100 Cupboards is the TODAY Show’s next pick for Al’s Book Club for Kids!

This segment will air Friday, April 16th

Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

THE SIXTY-EIGHT ROOMS