The Bookshop Girl - a review

The Bookshop Girl

by Syliva Bishop

Illustrated by Poly Bernatene

Peachtree, 2018

The Bookshop Girl is a little English mystery that features books, bookshops and a young girl named Property Jones with a very unlikely secret—despite growing up in the family’s book store, Property can't read, although she does manage to keep herself busy,

Property served tea and cake to anyone who wanted to sit in an armchair and read awhile, and she kept the shop smart and tidy.  Or she tried to. It didn’t help that everything in the shop was falling apart.

Netty was at the counter, Michael was hovering by the dictionaries, and Property had put the kettle on.  The White Hart opened at nine o’clock sharp.  (If you are thinking, But the White Hart is the wrong sort of name for a bookshop, then you are quite right, but also quite impatient.  I was going to explain.  The bookshop used to be the White Hart pub, and it had a very beautiful picture of a white stag hanging outside.  When Netty bought the pub and filled it with books, she couldn’t see any good reason to change the name when there such a nice sign already there.)

When the Jones family enters a contest and wins the magnificent Montgomery Book Emporium in London, mystery begins when a silent man arrives at the bookshop,

He was mostly made of a long, gray coat, with a long, gray face perched on top and shabby shoes underneath.

The bookshop crowd

poured around him live a river around a stone.

Who was this strange man and what did he want with their new bookshop?  It will take Property’s unique powers of observation to figure it out!

The Bookshop Girl is an illustrated novel for ages 8-12, and features just the sort of humor and asides that I recall appreciating at an early age. The premise of the mystery is unique and instructive, and the peculiar workings of the fanciful Montgomery Book Emporium will read like a dream-come-true.

Extras for The Bookshop Girl:

• Read an excerpt from The Bookshop Girl here.
• A Discussion Guide for The Bookshop Girl.

Look for The Bookshop Girl on a shelf near you in October.

My copy was provided by the publisher at my request.

My Brigadista Year - an audiobook review

My Brigadista Year
by Katherine Paterson
Read by Frankie Corzo
Brilliance Audio, 2017

In 1961, following the Cuban Revolution, Cuba was largely populated by illiterate, rural farmers. Whatever may be your thoughts on Fidel Castro and the often brutal results of the revolution, it is difficult to be unimpressed by Castro's Literacy Campaign, one of his first initiatives. Using hundreds of thousands of young volunteers, he embarked on a one-year plan to bring literacy to the entire country.  Most of the volunteers were young, teenage girls from Havana and other large cities, who traveled to rural areas to live and work with farming families by day, and educate them by night. Amazingly, he succeeded. My Brigadista Year is a fictionalized, epistolary account of one volunteer.

• My review of My Brigadista Year, appeared in AudioFile Magazine and can be read here.on their site.

• Listen to a sample of My Brigadista Year. 

Note: The current literacy rate in Cuba is 99.8%, according to the CIA World Factbook, and Cuba continues to have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Reliable, current statistics on the US literacy rates are not readily available.



Below, author Katherine Paterson discusses her book.

My copy of My Brigadista Year was provided by AudioFile Magazine. *Edited to add video(oops).

The Snatchabook blog tour

Thanks to the interns at Sourcebooks, I'm excited to be a part of The Snatchabook blog tour. The Snatchabook is a skillfully rhymed bedtime story featuring the cutest little villain, a Snatchabook. The illustrations are cheerful but nuanced, and will offer many details to discover as the book is shared again and again.  It's sure to be a bedtime favorite.

The Snatchabook's author, Helen Docherty, has graciously accepted an offer to answer a few questions.

Lisa: The Snatchabook has put me in a lighthearted mood, so here are a few lighthearted questions!
 Snatchabook is such a cute name.  Was it the seed that started the story, or did it grow from the story?

Helen: The idea of a book thief came to me first, and it was while I was trying to find the right name for him that the character and the story started to form in my mind. At first I wasn’t sure what he would be like, or what to call him, so I played around with names; the book cruncher? The book snatcher? These seemed to suggest quite a menacing character, which wasn’t at all what I wanted, so I tried inverting the words - and that’s when the Snatchabook was born. As soon as I had named him, an image started to form in my mind of a pitiful, lonely little creature who just needs someone to read to him – hence his desire to steal books, which symbolize to him the joy and warmth of sharing a story at bedtime. So I guess you could say that the name and the story came together.

Lisa: Helen, did you leave Thomas (Docherty) alone to illustrate the story as he imagined it, or could you not resist giving suggestions? (I know that I would have a hard time resisting!)

Helen: To be honest, it would have been impossible to resist, given that we see each other all the time (or at least that’s my excuse)!  Actually Tom was more than happy to discuss the development of the characters and the setting with me – it was a very collaborative process, and we had lots of fun discussing how the Snatchabook and Eliza would look. Of course, he added many visual details that I could never have dreamed up, all of which greatly enhance the story. He always asks me for feedback at every stage of the illustration process, just as I read him my stories and seek his advice. It’s great to have a critical eye / ear available around the clock!

Lisa: What were your favorite bedtime stories when you were young?

Helen: There are too many to choose from! Some of my best early memories are of being read the Winnie the Pooh stories and being convulsed with laughter. I also loved a series about a panda pajama case called Ponder, the My Naughty Little Sister stories and a Norwegian series by Anne-Cath Vestly about a little girl called Aurora and her family. Favorite picture books included The Bear’s Winter House (by John Yeoman and Quentin Blake), The Giant Jam Sandwich (by John Vernon Lord and Janet Burroway) and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I was a huge fan of Russell Hoban’s Frances books, too. Luckily, I managed to hang on to most of my favorite books from childhood, and it now gives me enormous pleasure to read them to my own kids. I hope I can keep doing that for as long as possible.

(The Snatchabook has apparently snatched all of Helen's favorites!)

Lisa: How wonderful will it be when your children can read The Snatchabook to their children?  You don't have to answer that one.  I think I can imagine!

Helen: Our five year old daughter Lucia read it to us the other day – or rather, to the gorgeous Snatchabook puppet that Pippa Curnick at Alison Green Books (our UK publishers) made for us. Lucia is just learning to read, but she knows the words almost off by heart. So that was a very special experience indeed!

Lisa: Such a fun story.  I can't wait to try it out in story time at the library! Thanks so much for the opportunity to chat with you,


Visit The Snatchabook's website to snatch up an Educator's Guide and Activity Kit.


My copies of the Snatchabook were provided at my request by NetGalley and Sourcebooks.

Picture Book Roundup: Books about books edition

Emily Gravett and Suzy Lee - You can't go wrong with these two illustrators' books about books! Both are "novelty books." One features a "burned" hole in the back cover. (Is that the smell of dragon breath?). The other features books within books.

• Gravett, Emily. 2013. Again! New York: Simon and Schuster.

Cedric, a baby dragon, pesters his mother to read his favorite bedtime story again, and again, and again! Cedric's favorite book (about Cedric the Dragon) is included in the fun, and the words change every time his mother reads it.  When mom finally falls asleep, exhausted, baby dragon gets a little too hot-tempered!   Emily Gravett has a unique sense of humor. Expect funny with a surprise ending!

• Klausmeier, Jesse. 2013. Open this Little Book. San Francisco: Chronicle. (Illustrated by Suzy Lee)

Here's a book about a little red book about a little green book about a little orange book, well ... you get the idea. Kids will love this one!

Picture Book Roundup

In no particular order, these were some of the wonderful picture books

 that I found in my book bag this week! I loved them all.

Spinelli, Jerry. 2010.I Can be Anything! Illustrated by Jimmy Liao. New York: Little, Brown.

A rhyming romp through all of the possibilities of the future - "cross-legged sitter, make-believe critter, deep-hole digger, lemonade swigger." Who knows? Bright and joyful illustrations!

Fuge, Charles. 2010. Yip! Snap! Yap! New York: Sterling.

Another lively, rhyming romp! This one featuring delightfully goofy dogs!

Thomson, Bill. 2010. Chalk. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish.

The illustrator of the exquisitely illustrated, Baseball Hour, Bill Thompson outdoes himself with Chalk - a wordless book that tells the story of a magical, rainy day at the playground for three children and a mysterious bag of chalk.  Let your imagination run wild and enjoy Bill Thomson's hand-crafted brilliance!

Geringer, Laura. 2010. Boom Boom Go Away! Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. New York: Atheneum.

Music lovers, noise makers, and children who don't want to go to bed will love Boom Boom Go Away! Its cumulative rhyme is full of playfulness and imagination.  The warm illustrations evoke picture books of an earlier era.

Jeffers, Oliver. 2010. The Heart and the Bottle. New York: Philomel.

This is not a book for storytime.  It's a serious book for a special child - perhaps a grieving child, a child with a profound loss, a child who may have placed her heart in a bottle, a child who needs to know that there is a way to retrieve her own heart.  Gently and tastefully done.

Bottner, Barbara. 2010. Miss Brooks Loves Books (And I Don't). Illustrated by Michael Emberly. New York: Knopf.

The tagline for the book is "a librarian and a contrarian face off in this tale of a very reluctant reader." I predict that this will become a librarian favorite! When Miss Brooks assigns a book report (in costume!) for Children's Book Week, it prompts the best line in the book -

When I get home, I ask my mother if we can move to a new town. My mother says there's a librarian in every town.

 Too funny!

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