News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Life
Culture & Art
Hobbies
News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Culture & Art
Hobbies
Incoming: ABSOLUTE JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE WORLD'S GREATEST SUPERHEROES by Paul Dini and Alex Ross, New Printing - Todd's Blog
I think this originally came out in 2017, just arrived is a new printing. Tabloid size (or close to it), boxed hardcover containing wonderful stories by Dini and painted art on every page by Alex Ross, collects the series that focused on individual characters Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel, as well as one […]
And Then I Read: ENOLA HOLMES AND THE MARK OF THE MONGOOSE by Nancy Springer - Todd's Blog
It’s 1890, and Enola Holmes is no longer hiding from her famous brothers Sherlock and Mycroft. She’s living at a club for working women in London, and taking clients as a finder of lost or missing persons. Her latest case is that of American publishing representative Wolcott Balestier, who has vanished on the late night […]
Rereading: THE PRIVATE WORLDS OF JULIA REDFERN by Eleanor Cameron - Todd's Blog
The fifth and final book of Cameron’s Julia Redfern series, both chronologically and as written, published in 1988 and her last novel for young readers, though she continued to write reviews and essays for a few more years. Julia is now about fifteen, in high school, and her life is full of drama, both as […]
Rereading: TICKTOCK AND JIM, DEPUTY SHERIFFS by Keith Robertson - Todd's Blog
A sequel to Ticktock and Jim, about a boy and his western horse in middle America in the late 1940s. Jim and Ticktock have a delivery business and a strong friendship. In this book, Jim has a new neighbor, Larry, who moved from the city to the small country town of Springdale. Larry has been […]
Rereading: TICKTOCK AND JIM by Keith Robertson - Todd's Blog
Keith Robertson’s first novel for young readers, published in 1948, shows writing skill and appeal that would carry through his long career. He was particularly lucky in being paired with illustrator Wesley Dennis, best known for illustrating the books of Marguerite Henry like “Misty of Chincoteague,” out the year before this, as Dennis’s horses and […]
Rereading: THE SPELLCOATS by Diana Wynne Jones - Todd's Blog
The third book of the Dalemark quartet focuses on a family living in the riverside town of Shelling, and it’s narrated or “woven” by the younger daughter Tanaqui. The family’s mother has passed, and their father works hard to support his children, the eldest son Gull, older daughter Robin, second son Hern, and youngest son […]
Incoming: FABLES DELUXE EDITION BOOK 16 - Todd's Blog
I think my favorite long series that I worked on after SANDMAN is FABLES, and over the last few years, the band got back together to produce a new 12-issue storyline that I thought was as good as anything that came before it. That story is now out in a deluxe hardcover, which looks great. […]
Rereading: A ROOM MADE OF WINDOWS by Eleanor Cameron - Todd's Blog
This is the fourth Julia Redfern book chronologically, but the first published, in 1971. Julia’s childhood is somewhat autobiographical, the author also grew up in Berkeley, CA in the 1910s-1920s, and many characters and incidents are probably based on her own memories. Julia, her mother, and her brother Greg are living in an upstairs apartment […]
Rereading: FREDDY RIDES AGAIN by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
Perhaps feeling he had more to say on the subject, Brooks continues with the themes of the previous book, Freddy the Cowboy. Freddy’s new friend, Cy the cow pony, who taught him to ride, now gives lessons to other animals on the Bean Farm in this eighteenth book in the series. This time trouble comes […]
Rereading: THE SHY STEGOSAURUS OF INDIAN SPRINGS by Elelyn Sibley Lampman - Todd's Blog
While this is a sequel to “The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek,” it has a different feel because the main viewpoint character is a Native American boy. Huck lives with his grandfather Opalo, a former medicine man of his tribe, in a lonely, run-down shack on their southwest desert reservation. Opalo prefers to live alone […]
Rereading: JULIA AND THE HAND OF GOD by Eleanor Cameron - Todd's Blog
I first became a fan of Cameron’s books with her Mushroom Planet series. This later series is more mature and beautifully written, as well as somewhat autobiographical. It follows the childhood of Julia Redfern and her family in Berkeley, California. Here she’s eleven, and the year is about 1920. Julia’s imagination is always working overtime, […]
Rereading: THE PHANTOM RIDER by Keith Robertson - Todd's Blog
This engaging novel of a boy and his horse, and a ghostly female rider, has some similarities to his earlier book The Lonesome Sorrel, but enough differences to make it equally interesting. Tim Cottrell has a rangy hunter named Whiskbroom, and they love to ride cross country, but keeping a horse in feed, shoes, and […]
Rereading: DROWNED AMMET by Diana Wynne Jones - Todd's Blog
The second book of the Dalemark Quartet takes place on the coast of southern Dalemark in the area known as Holand, which is very flat and somewhat like Holland. Mitt and his parents are farmers in the lowlands, and Mitt’s early life is happy, until events cause the tax collector to raise their taxes so […]
Rereading: THAT JULIA REDFERN by Eleanor Cameron - Todd's Blog
This is the second book about Julia and her family chronologically, I’m rereading them in that order, though they were published in a different order. Julia Redfern always manages to get into trouble, though she never means to. The cover illustrates the first example of that from the book’s beginning, when she decides to try […]
Rereading: FREDDY THE COWBOY by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
In the 1980s, Knopf tried a limited line of Freddy trade paperbacks, allowing me to fill in some gaps in the series like this one, the seventeenth. The cover art was awful, but at least the interior illustrations by Kurt Wiese were retained. His Freddy is much more appealing. Several of the Bean farm animals […]
Rereading: THE BLESSING OF PAN by Lord Dunsany - Todd's Blog
Something strange is going on in the remote English village of Wolding nestled among the downs, and only the vicar, Elderick Anwrel, seems to realize how it threatens the souls of every resident. Teenager Tommy Duffin has become obsessed with the standing stones on the hill above the village, the mysterious shadows of dawn and […]
Rereading: CART & CWIDDER by Diana Wynne Jones - Todd's Blog
This early work by Jones is the first of four books in the Dalemark Quartet, published in 1975. Clennen and his family earn their living as traveling entertainers, taking their horse-drawn caravan from town to town in both the north and south parts of Dalemark, one of the few allowed free travel between those warring […]
Rereading: THE LONESOME SORREL by Keith Robertson - Todd's Blog
Cliff Barry’s family is moving from Philadelphia to a small town in New Jersey near Trenton, and he’s not happy about it. He’s just reached the age where he can travel around the city on his own and enjoy sporting events, movies, and time with his friends. His desire is to buy a motorcycle, when […]
Rereading: JULIA'S MAGIC by Eleanor Cameron - Todd's Blog
Eleanor Cameron wrote many books I love, including five about Julia Redfern. I bought and read them as they were published in the 1970-80s, but oddly, they were written mostly in reverse chronological order, telling stories about Julia at younger and younger ages. I’ve decided to reread them in chronological order, and this is the […]
Rereading: FREDDY PLAYS FOOTBALL by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
The sixteenth book in the Freddy series has football as one of the main subjects, a sport I have no interest in, but I knew the author would make it funny and entertaining all the same, and he did. A new problem as arrived at the Bean Farm, in the person of Aaron Doty, the […]
Rereading: DUNE by Frank Herbert - Todd's Blog
Paul Atreides is the son of Duke Leto, daughter of his consort Jessica, and their family must move from their home planet to a harsh desert one at the command of the Emperor. Leto suspects a trap, and has prepared for it, but is unaware of the treachery of one of his household, who brings […]
Rereading: THE DOG NEXT DOOR by Keith Robertson - Todd's Blog
While my favorite Keith Robertson books are those about the Carson Street Detectives and Henry Reed, he wrote many fine stories, often about kids and animals, as here. Hal lives with his parents in a small town on the New Jersey side of Raritan Bay, and the two things he most wants are ones his […]
Rereading: THE SHY STEGOSAURUS OF CRICKET CREEK by Evelyn Sibley Lampman - Todd's Blog
If you can suspend your disbelief enough to accept a living stegosaurus dinosaur who has somehow survived for millions of years in dry eastern Oregon, and can also speak fluent English, this is a fun story that I enjoyed as a child, and enjoyed reading again. Twins Joan and Joey Brown live with their mother […]
Rereading: THE PRETTIEST GARGOYLE by William Corbin - Todd's Blog
This is my favorite of the William Corbin books I’ve read. Something of a departure from his other books for young readers in that it includes romance of a sort appropriate for the thirteen-year-old protagonist. Michael Horner is in Paris with his sister and parents, and has been there for months. The others love it, […]
Rereading: FREDDY GOES CAMPING by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
By the fifteenth book in this series, Brooks had settled into a regular pattern and had a large cast of characters from which to choose. Here he has Freddy revisit Mr. Camphor, the rich man living on a lake north of the Bean Farm, and the two of them go camping on the far lake […]
Rereading: DREAM GOLD by David Severn - Todd's Blog
David Severn was the pen name of David Unwin, son of publisher Stanley Unwin. Even though his many books for young readers were published by The Bodley Head, not his father’s firm Allen & Unwin, he probably thought it best not to use his real name. David kind of had two careers as a children’s’ […]
Rereading: THE MISSING BROTHER by Keith Robertson - Todd's Blog
Keith Robertson has been a favorite author since my own childhood. This is an early book, his third or fourth, and it’s subtitled “A Mystery Story for Older Boys,” perhaps because the hero Ted Fowler faces some life-threatening events in this taut, suspenseful tale. Ted and his family live in Bradyville, Iowa, a small town […]
Rereading: DON RODRIGUEZ, CHRONICLES OF SHADOW VALLEY by Lord Dunsany - Todd's Blog
This 1922 novel shows Dunsany trying new things, and exploring new territory, in this case Spain in what he calls the “Golden Age,” which I’m guessing is probably the 1500s. There’s just this one illustration by Sime, but it’s a fine one, though the protagonist looks rather more sinister than he seems in the book. […]
Rereading: FREDDY THE MAGICIAN by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
In the fourteenth book of the Freddy the Pig series about the talking animals of the Bean Farm, Freddy meets perhaps his most difficult enemy so far. Freddy attends a show by stage magician Senior Zingo, a new hire of the Boomschmidt Circus, and is inspired to learn magic himself. He gets help from Zingo’s […]
Rereading: BIG JOHN'S SECRET by Eleanore M. Jewett - Todd's Blog
Thirteenth century England is torn by strife under the rule of King John, and one teenage boy, also named John and large for his age, knows he is somehow connected to that strife, though his guardian, a healer named Old Marm, won’t tell him who his father was. Young John works as a serf on […]
Rereading: FREDDY THE PIED PIPER by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
The thirteenth book in the Freddy the Pig series of humorous novels about the talking animals of the Bean Farm in upper New York State has a wintery theme. Jerry the rhinoceros from the Boomschmidt Circus has turned up at the Bean farm in winter with a story of hard times for their friend Mr. […]
Rereading: I WILL ADVENTURE by Elizabeth Janet Gray - Todd's Blog
Like Gray’s better known book “Adam of the Road,” this is a story of medieval England, taking place in the year 1596. The illustrations are nicely done, but not as good as those by Robert Lawson in “Adam.” Andrew Talbot is the youngest son in a large family living in the county of Kent in […]
Rereading: TREASURE OF THE ISLE OF MIST by W.W. Tarn - Todd's Blog
This book is something of an oddity, as it’s the only fiction by a man known otherwise for scholarly works mainly on ancient Greece. It’s a fairy tale written for his daughter, and beautifully illustrated by Robert Lawson for this 1934 edition, the book was originally published in 1920. Fiona and her father, known as […]
Rereading: FREDDY AND THE POPINJAY by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
The twelfth book in the Freddy the Pig series is full of fun ideas, great characters, and amusing adventures, though by this time the series was becoming fairly predictable. Freddy, his friend Jinx the black cat, and other talking animals on the Bean Farm in New York State create their own fun, like the jousting […]
Rereading: RUSTY'S SPACE SHIP by Evelyn Sibley Lampman - Todd's Blog
This is a silly fantasy disguised as science fiction that I loved as a child. Published in 1957, Rusty is building his own space ship in the family garage out of wood, when his neighbor Susan comes by to find out what he’s up to. Rusty’s dog Cookie is happy to see Susan, while Rusty […]
Rereading: THE RIDDLE OF THE RED WHALE by Edward Fenton - Todd's Blog
This is the second of two mystery novels for young readers by Fenton, a sequel to “The Phantom of Walkaway Hill.” James is back visiting his cousins Amanda and Obie at their isolated farmhouse in the country on Walkaway Hill, and they soon meet the new owner of another house at the bottom of their […]
Rereading: THE SUMMER BOOK by Tove Jansson - Todd's Blog
I love the Moomin novels and comic strip by Jansson, so when I found this novel by her at a book sale, I snatched it up. This is closer to memoir than novel, a series of episodes and events in the lives of three people who live on a remote island in the Gulf of […]
Rereading: SMOKE by William Corbin - Todd's Blog
Chris lives on a ranch in Oregon with his mother, sister, and stepfather Cal. His father passed some years ago, but Chris still misses him, and resents the new man his mother brought into their home. When a ragged, starving nearly all-black German Shepherd shows up in the woods near Chris’s treehouse, his heart goes […]
Rereading: FREDDY AND MR. CAMPHOR by Walter R. Brooks - Todd's Blog
The eleventh book in the Freddy the Pig series takes the adventurous animal in a new direction for a while, but he’s soon troubled by old enemies. As always, the illustrations by Kurt Wiese are excellent. Freddy wants to get away and have a bit of a vacation. An opportunity arises for him to act […]