On a road trip with her grandparents, 13-year-old Salamanaca Tree Hiddle is retracing her lost mother’s steps on a journey from Ohio to Idaho. To pass the time, she tells a tale of her friend Phoebe Winterbottom’s missing mother, seeing parallels that help her cope with her own loss. Hope Davis brings this 1995 Newbery winner to life with an insightful performance. Phoebe’s voice is especially poignant and believable. Davis manages to communicate Phoebe’s excitement, fears, and curiosity in the voice of an adolescent rushing to adulthood. The loving relationship between Sal and her grandparents is also brought to life vividly through their banter and a generous sprinkling of idioms that reflect Sal’s Native American heritage. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
Reading when you’re a kid is the best, because everything is fascinating and new, and your heart is still fresh and unsullied by the wear and tear of commuting and filling out tax returns and waiting in line for coffee two hours each morning. Who wouldn’t want to go back to the days when the whole world felt magic, […]
Summer is coming, and nothing says summer like cold drinks, long playlists, and a good, tension-ridden road trip. So buckle up, book nerds, and grab your basket full of snacks: it’s time to hit the road…to the library. To check out these books. Because reading your way through an excellent road trip is the next best […]
The B&N Kids blog sat down with Vashti Harrison, the author and illustrator of this book of trailblazers. An artist and storyteller, Harrison talks about how the book began as a personal project and turned into this elegant collection. She also lets us peek in on her design process and shares the amazing connections she […]
We all have that image of the stereotypical granny with a gray-haired bun propped on her head and knitting needles in hand. But literary (and actual) grannies are always more than meets the eye. In celebration of Alison Cherry’s The Classy Crooks Club, in which a group of unsuspecting grandmas have actually formed their own heist […]
Who’s up for a road trip? There’s something reflective and personal about riding along that yellow line. You watch the world from a window; listen to the steady hum of the radio until you reach static and a new station croaks in. You dream about where you’re going and where you’ve been, then stretch your legs […]