Category: Etc.

Star Wars! Wonder Woman! Cookies! Dr Who! Dog Man! Just in time for the upcoming long holiday weekend, we have TONS of new books coming out this week! Let’s take a look:

Books for Kids

Dr. Ninth – I love the look of this adorable series for young – and older – Doctor Who fans.
Bad Seed – This seed has been bad for as long as he can remember – bad attitude, bad temper, and bad manners. I can’t wait to read this one and find out about this bad seed.
BB-8 on the Run – BB-8’s journey across Jakku after he is separated from Poe. You can tell that the Star Wars folks are really amping up for the fall with all the releases this week!
Little Elliot, Fall Friends – Two friends vacation in the countryside for fall.
Mary McScarey – Mary loves to scare everyone, but the one person she can’t scare – her cousin Harry – is the one she wants to scare the most.
The Girl Who Thought in Pictures – A picture book biography of Dr. Temple Grandin, an amazing scientist diagnosed with autism as a child.
God’s Very Good Idea – A book about diversity and how all people are valuable to God.
What if You Had Animal Eyes? – The latest in a fantastic series of nonfiction books about animals!
A Leader Named Leia – An Early Reader about Princess Leia
Adventures of Caveboy/Caveboy is Bored – The first two books in a new series about a Caveboy. Part of the Read and Bloom line of early chapter books.
The Bad Guys in the Attack of the Zittens – Book 4 in the Bad Guys series. I haven’t been able to read one of these yet, but they look fantastic!
Tales of Two Kitties – Book 3 in the Dog Man series by the author of Captain Underpants. I haven’t read one of these yet, but they are wildly popular.
King and Kayla and the Case of the Mysterious Mouse – Book 2 in this series about a girl and her dog who solve mysteries.
Long Way Home – Book 2 of the Adventures of Henry Whiskers early chapter book series about a mouse family that lives in Queen Mary’s dollhouse at Windsor Castle. This sounds – and looks – so fun!
Stone Cold Age – Book 2 in the Lucy and Andy Neanderthal series about cave kids – from the author of the original Jedi Academy series. Great graphic novel series.
Science Comics: Plagues: The Microscopic Battlefield – I love this nonfiction graphic novel series that explores science for kids.
Art of Coloring Journey to Star Wars  The Last Jedi – I really enjoy this style of art for Star Wars. This looks like a darling coloring book for kids and adults alike.
Star Wars Made Easy – A friend of ours recently confessed that he has never seen a Star Wars movie. This would be the perfect book for him to get an introduction to the series. Everything a novice might want to know about Star Wars can be found here.

Books for Older Kids/Teens/Young Adults

Angel – Book 46 in the Puppy Place series.
Auma’s Long Run – A girl in a Kenyan village is an amazing runner. Her skills could get her out of her village, but her father comes down with a new illness that is sweeping the village – AIDS – and Auma is torn between responsibility to her family and home and her hopes to find answers about this disease. This sounds like a heavy story, but an important one, too.
Ban this Book – A quiet fourth grader fights back when her favorite book is banned at school. This is at the top of my list!
Big Nate Good Old-Fashioned Wedgie – The latest Big Nate comics collection. My students adored these!
Boy Seeking Band (Sept 1) – When 8th grade bass player, Terence, moves from a performing arts school to a regular public school, he tries to put together a rock band as a way to make friends.
Emma Moves In – Book 1 in the American Girls Like Sisters series. Emma’s family is moving into an old family home with their relatives to start a bed and breakfast. While Emma is excited to be with her cousins, she’s not sure she is ready for all the changes coming with the move.
Guardians of Gryphon’s Claw – I’ll be reviewing this fun adventure about mythological creatures here on the blog tomorrow. Come check it out!
I Survived the American Revolution – Book 15 in this hugely popular historical fiction series for kids. Every one of these I have read was a winner!
Laugh out Loud – A kid starts a book company for kids run BY kids. This sounds fantastic and I love Chris Grabenstein’s work. I have this on my list.
Patina – Book 2 in Jason Reynolds’ middle grade Track series about four kids chosen for an elite track team. I enjoyed the first book in the series. Great addition for homes and classrooms looking to add stories with diverse characters.
The Secret Sheriff of 6th Grade – A boy carries a toy sheriff’s badge from his father as a reminder to try to make school a better place for everyone. This has been getting a lot of positive response on Twitter this summer. I can’t wait to read this!
Super Max and the Mystery of Thornwood’s Revenge – An electronics whiz in a souped-up wheelchair takes on a haunted house and an online campaign against her grandfather. I want to read this one because of the cool protagonist. She sounds awesome and spunky!
Star Wars The Force Awakens Graphic Novel – Back in April I posted about a graphic novel that covered all three of the Star Wars prequels. Now we have a stand alone for The Force Awakens. I absolutely adore the art style in these. If you have Star Wars fans in your home or your classroom or library, I think these would be great fun for them. Terrific birthday or holiday gifts, too.
Tumble and Blue – A magic gator, rumored to bring good luck to anyone who finds him, meets two people at once and the luck is split. Some descendants enjoy great luck while others are devastated by bad luck. Two kids in those families are determined to change their luck by finding the gator again. This isn’t my usual style of book, but there’s something about this that reminds me of Holes, and I am curious to see how the story turns out.
The Van Gogh Deception – A boy is found in the National Gallery, and no one has any idea who he is or where he came from. I can’t wait to tell you about this awesome mystery that includes some cool information and features about art. I’l be reviewing it next week.
Writing Radar: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories – A book on writing for the middle grade crowd. If I was still teaching, I would have put a copy of this in the library. It looks like a great resource for kids who love to write.
All Rights Reserved – New dystopian about a society that charges people for every word spoken or gesture made and a girl who chooses to remain silent. This sounds fascinating and maybe a little on the dark side. I’ll be putting this one on my library list to check out.
The Big F – When Danielle fails senior English, she loses her one college acceptance, too. Now she’s off to reclaim her trajectory by heading to community college. This sounds so fun, I’ve already requested it from the library!
Dazzling Heights – Book 2 in the Thousandth Floor series about 22nd century New York and a thousand-story super tower and five teenagers who call it home. I have had book one on my library wish list for awhile now. At least now when I get around to reading it, I can jump right two book two when I finish.
Wonder Woman Warbringer – Did you see the Wonder Woman movie this summer? I loved the character! This new YA novel is first in the DC Icons series (Don’t even get me started on the Batman book, Nightwalker! I am so excited! I don’t usually even like Batman.) starring Diana as a young woman who breaks Amazon law to rescue someone (not Steve Trevor yet) and the fall out from her choices. This one is getting a lot of positive buzz already. It’s on my list for certain.
You Don’t Know Me But I Know You – A girl who knows she is adopted, but who doesn’t feel ready to read a letter from her birth mother finds herself pregnant. This sounds fantastic.

Books for Adults

Assaulted Caramel – First book in the new Amish Candy Shop Mystery series. Yeah! Another mystery that will make me hungry! I love Amanda Flower’s work, and I am excited to be reviewing this book here on the blog later this week.
A Catered Costume Party – It seems fitting that #13 in the Mystery with Recipes series be a Halloween themed book! In this book, the catering sisters are hired by the deceased to find out what happened to him. What a great twist right from the start! This makes me want to check out the whole series. I’ve requested this one from the library just on that fun, twisty, premise.
A Knit Before Dying – Book 2 in the Tangled Web Mystery series. This seems to be the week for crafty cozy mysteries! This series stars the owner of a yarn shop, and in this book she discovers another shop owner murdered. I’d like to check out the first book in this series, Yarned and Dangerous.
Macrame Murder – Book 3 of the Cora Crafts Mystery series. This book has the crew at a craft retreat at the beach. If I need a vacation this fall, I might just settle for this book and imagine I am at this crafting retreat myself – minus the murder, of course.
Murder Wears Mittens – First book in the new Seaside Knitters Society series. I’m so looking forward to this fall story about a group of crafters who band together to help two seemingly-abandoned kids as well as solve a crime. I am sad that many publishers have started to shift their new series to hardcover instead of mass market paperback. I know it is a good business decision for them in many ways, but I can get more bang for my buck when I get paperbacks. This one is on my library list for now.
Oh, Fudge – Book 5 in the Candy-Coated Mystery series. This is the sort of series that makes me crave our local candy shop. I’ve read the first couple books in the series and really enjoyed them.
Rubies in the Roses (kindle) – This kindle mystery is the second in the Cornish Castle Mystery series. I have book 1, Death Plays a Part, on my Kindle and I’m eager to read it. It looks terrific.
The Silver Gun – First in the Art Deco Mystery series, this sounds great for fans of historical fiction and mysteries. This series centers on an assistant to Mayor LaGuardia in New York City, 1936, and a past that is catching up to her.
Star Wars: Journey to Star Wars The Last Jedi: Phasma (September 1) – Captain Phasma of the First Order was a key character in the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Now we get to find out more of her story! I met Delilah Dawson at Phoenix ComicCon several years ago. I loved her personality, but I had a hard time finding a book of hers to try that would fit my style as a reader. This is the book I have been waiting for! There’s lots of buzz and excitement around this one.  Our whole family is planning to read this!
Mom Set Free: Find Relief from the Pressure to Get it All Right – Wow, what a timely book. I don’t know about other moms out there, but my friend group struggles with this pressure all the time. We second guess our choices – or spend months trying to make a choice – because we feel the weight of this pressure to get things right for our children. This one is on my list, too.
The Perfect Cookie – Yum. What more needs to be said – a cookbook about cookies!
Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed -In a world that posts the smallest minutiae of life on the internet for all to see, so much of the nitty gritty – the real things of life – are left unseen. But maybe that is the way God meant it to be – so He would be the one to see and know us in all those real life details. I have this one on my list. It seems timely for some of the work God seems to be pointing me to lately.