Series are favorite reading choices at any age. After they get to know characters, readers love to follow them through new adventures. This selection includes the latest books in episodic series as well as inaugural editions of new series with interesting characters and adventuresome plots leaving readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.
Ages 4–8
Click, Clack, Surprise! Doreen Cronin. Ill. Betsy Lewin. 2016. Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.
The farm animals are having a birthday party for Little Duck. Wanting to look their best, Duck “rub-a-dubs” in a bubble bath, the sheep “snippity-clip” their fleece, the cat “slurp-a-lurps” her fur, the chickens take a dust bath and then “shimmy-shake” their feathers clean, and the pigs have a “squish and squash” mud bath. Little Duck watches each of these preparations and does the same. And the cows think they look just fine the way they are and head directly to the party. “No rub-a-dubbing. No snippity-clipping. No slurp-a-lurping. No shimmy-shaking. No squish and squashing.” The animals gather under the maple tree, Farmer Brown brings the cake, and everyone sings Happy Birthday to the very messy honored guest. Little Duck has not gotten the grooming details quite right. With Cronin’s patterned text full of fun-to-repeat phrases and Lewin’s humorous and expressive illustrations, rendered in pen, ink, and watercolor, this latest book about the animals on Farmer Brown’s barnyard is a giggle-inducing read aloud.
—CA
Night of the Ninth Dragon (Magic Tree House #55). Mary Pope Osborne. Ill. Sal Murdoca. 2016. Random House.
Jack and Annie are summoned by worried Queen Guinevere to Camelot where King Arthur has been injured defending the kingdom. They must get him to the Isle of Avalon to be healed soon or he will die, but invaders have stolen the golden dragon that unlocks its portal. Disguised as a simple peasant family, Jack, Annie, Queen Guinevere, and King Arthur leave the castle in a hay cart to seek advice from Cafelle, who gives them a riddle with a prophecy. In an exciting race against time to locate the golden dragon, they must quickly solve the riddle, line by line, as King Arthur grows weaker by the minute. Readers will learn more about dragons, unicorns, mermaids, and other magical creatures in Dragons and Mythical Creatures Fact Tracker (2016), the companion book to this latest book in Pope’s popular long running series of magical adventures.
—NB
On Bird Hill. Jane Yolen. Ill. Bob Marstall. 2016. Cornell Lab.
Rhyming couplets patterned after the cumulative nursery song “The Green Grass Grew All Around” and beautifully composed, brightly colored double-spread illustrations tell the story of a young boy who takes a walk with his dog up Bird Hill where he sees a tree, its trunk, a limb, a twig, and a white bird sitting on a nest and watches the hatching of a chick. The perspective then switches from the boy to the chick. “He saw the twig, limb, trunk, and tree, / And then he saw the moon . . . / … and me, / As I walked down Bird Hill.” This first book in a series that Jane Yolen is creating for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is an invitation to take a nature walk and do some birding.
—CA
Pigsticks and Harold and the Pirate Treasure (Pigsticks and Harold #3). Alex Milway. 2016. Candlewick.
Sir Percival Stout has arrived with a deed, allegedly from Queen Pigtoria, making him heir to Tuptown. His intent is to knock down the entire town to build a “gold-plated mansion in the shape of his head” (p. 6). It is up to Pigsticks and his hamster sidekick, Harold, to come up with three million to buy the town. Fortunately, they have a map to great-great-great-grandpig Pirate Pigbeard the Awesomes’ treasure, which he buried before being killed one dark and stormy night by a herd of stampeding sea horses. Unfortunately, to locate the treasure they must solve the riddle on the map. In three short chapters, filled with clever wordplay and humorous, digitally-created cartoon illustrations, Pigsticks and Harold must think like pirates, talk like pirates, walk like pirates, and be pirates as they team up to save Tuptown in their third adventure.
—CA
Ages 9–11
Full of Beans. Jennifer L. Holm. 2016. Random House.
In this prequel to her Newbery Honor book Turtle in Paradise (2010), Jennifer L. Holms offers readers another story set in Key West during the Great Depression. Ten-year-old Beans Curry’s life centers around being a member of the best (no-girls-allowed) marble-playing gang, the Keepsies; going to the movies (his favorite kid actors are Baby LeRoy and Shirley Temple); and using his entrepreneurial savvy to come up with money-making schemes (such as The Diaper Gang’s baby-tending wagon) to help out his family. When a venture into a life of crime, setting off false fire alarms around town as a diversion for Johnny Cakes, a Cuban rum runner, leads to a disaster, guilt-ridden Beans makes amends by organizing the island’s kids to help the New Dealers clean up their poverty-ridden town to make it a tourist destination. Backmatter includes notes and photographs about Key West in the 1930s and resources of interest to readers wanting to delve further in the period details in Full of Beans.
—CA
Wishing Day (Wishing Day #1). Lauren Myracle. 2016. HarperCollins.
On her Wishing Day, the third night of the third month after her 13th birthday, Natasha follows a local tradition by making three secret wishes at the willow tree: one wish that is impossible, one she can make come true herself, and one from the deepest desire of her heart. After winter break, she returns to school and waits for her wishes to come true, but the one wish she is sure won’t come true is for her mother to return home even though the town’s strange Bird Lady speaks in riddles to her about her mother. It has been over eight years since she left, and Natasha’s father has been depressed ever since. In the meantime, Natasha struggles to identify at least one unique characteristic about herself. More than anything, she yearns to be noticed; for instance, she fancies herself a writer, but never finishes her stories. Natasha’s life is filled with hope, sisterhood, friendship, and unanswered questions in this first book in a trilogy about three sisters and their wishes.
—NB
Ages 12–14
Ghost (Track #1). Jason Reynolds. 2016. Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.
Seventh-grader Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw is always running—either away from trouble as when he and his mother had to run when his drunk father threatened them with a gun or toward trouble or “altercations” at school. When he is recruited as a sprinter by the Olympic medalist track coach of an elite youth track team, the Defenders, Ghost has the opportunity to develop his natural talent if he can control his anger and move beyond his troubled past. Ghost, who loves The Guinness Book of World Records, begins to believe attaining his goal of being “the greatest” at something important just might be possible when Coach shares with him that they have common backgrounds and that running can do for Ghost what it did for him. “. . . you can’t run away from who you are, but what you can do is run toward who you want to be.” Subsequent books in the Track series will focus on the other “newbies” on the team.
—CA
Julia Vanishes (The Witch’s Child #1). Catherine Egan. 2016. Alfred A. Knopf/Random House.
Spira City already banishes magic and hangs witches, but another form of evil is loose now, a killer leaving dead bodies scattered across the frozen city. No one is safe, not even Julia, a thief and spy—and daughter of a witch—whose unique talent is to “vanish,” or simply melt from people’s consciousness. One minute she’s there and in the next, she’s not. Being able to vanish is especially valuable in her current assignment posing as a housemaid in eccentric Mrs. Och’s old mansion. Julia uses her talent to snoop, eavesdrop, and search without being detected by the odd residents: a disgraced professor, a reclusive houseguest, and a frightened young woman and her child. Julia suspects a connection between activities of the residents and the killings. When she sails directly into a new danger from which escape might not be possible, the stakes are higher than she can imagine. Readers will be primed to read the next book in this action-filled fantasy series.
—NB
Ages 15+
And I Darken. Kiersten White. 2016. Delacorte/Random House.
Ladislav Dragwlya, with her fierce and vicious personality, and her gentle and winsome younger brother, Radu, who were born to a lineage of rulers in Wallachia, are traded to the Ottoman Empire by their powerless father, Vlad Dracul, as part of a treaty. While Lada hates her new home, vows steadfast allegiance to Wallachia, and dreams of returning to her homeland someday as a powerful ruler, Radu embraces everything about the Ottoman culture including its religion. As their lives intertwine in unexpected ways with their new friend, Mehmed, heir to the Ottoman Empire, currents of politics, religion, and sexuality arise in the complex plot. Readers will eagerly await the sequel to this rich and compelling alternate historical account of Vlad the Impaler.
—NB
Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1). Zoraida Cordova. 2016. Sourcebook Fire/Sourcebook.
Alex, a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx, is a bruja who hates magic so much that she performs a spell to get rid of her “gifts” at the Deathday celebration for her 16th birthday. As an unexpected consequence of her hasty actions, her mother and sisters disappear into another realm, and it is up to Alex to get them back. With the help of Nova, a brujo boy whom she doesn’t trust or even like, and her best friend, Rishi, Alex embarks on a journey to Los Lagos, where she must complete seemingly impossible quests in order to save her family. Through increasingly dangerous trials, Alex learns that she shouldn’t fear her magic and that love comes in all forms. The novel ends on a cliffhanger about her father’s disappearance that will launch readers into the next book in the series. An author’s note includes descriptions of Latin American religions and cultures from which Cordova took inspiration.
—NB
Nancy Brashear is Professor Emeritus of English from Azusa Pacific University, in Azusa, California. Carolyn Angus is former director of the George G. Stone Center for Children's Books, Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, CA.
These reviews are submitted by members of the International Literacy Association's Children's Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG) and are published weekly on Literacy Daily.