Welcome to Through the Looking Glass

Welcome to the July and August 2010 issue of Through the Looking Glass Children’s Book Reviews. I have put together a wonderful collection of reviews for you for this issue, and I hope you enjoy reading the reviews as much as I enjoyed writing them.

As always, the books reviewed on TTLG are carefully chosen by the editor. We only review books that suit the scope of TTLG, and that we feel have something to offer readers. Therefore, all our reviews are positive ones. We hope this will help you to find excellent books for the young people in your lives. If you are looking for books for yourself, we hope you will find books that you will enjoy reading. Please consider buying books through this website. Your purchases help to support our work, and give us the means to improve this online resource.

For this issue I have chosen to focus on books about Zoos. Most children love visiting the zoo, and these days zoos are not just places where one can look at animals from around the world. They are also places where we can learn about animals and their habitats. In addition,  many zoos have programs to help visitors better understand why so many animals around the world are in danger of disappearing, and what we can do to try to reverse this trend. This feature has a delightful collection of books of various kinds for zoo lovers of all ages.

In July and August most schools are closed for the summer vacation, and children all over the world get ready to enjoy family holidays, days at camp, and many other summer activities. When I was growing up, we would escape the heat of town by going into the mountains for a few weeks, or we would camp at the seaside. These camping trips were wonderful, and I still remember the hours I spent snorkeling, looking for pretty stones on the beach, and watching the fishing boats chug past. You will find a large collection of books about going to the beach on the Days at the beach page.

For this month’s Editor’s Choice title, I selected Keeping the Moon written by Sarah Dessen. This young adult novel beautifully captures a young woman’s uncertainty about who she is.

Don’t forget to look at the Bookish Calendar page for reviews about Henry David Thoreau, volcanoes, the moon landing, Amelia Earhart, and much more. This calendar is a great tool to use at home and in the classroom to help children incorporate books more fully into their lives.

For those of you don’t know already, I also publish a blog about children’s books and the children’s book world. On the blog I post reviews, interviews with great authors and illustrators, I offer book giveaways, and I tell you about interesting contests and bookish events. Do visit the blog and sign up for the feed. In July I will be looking at classic children’s books.

At the beginning of this year, I launched the new website, and all the new content for every issue is on this new website. However, a large part of the old content is still on the old site. You can still get to this content, but it is not integrated into the new site. Moving the 4,000 reviews over is going to take some time, and I appreciate your patience while I work on this.

I hope you enjoy this new issue, and I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,