category: Children's Books

TAKE ME OUT TO THE YAKYU

This debut picture book from Aaron Meshon is a home run—don’t be surprised if the vivid illustrations and energetic text leave you shouting, “LET’S PLAY YAKYU!”

TOOLS RULE

Calling all tools to the workbench! Aaron Meshon’s follow-up to Take Me Out to the Yakyu, which The New York Times Book Review calls “a definite home run,” hits the nail on the head.

In a messy yard, a busy day begins for a team of tools. With a click, click and a bang! bang!, everyone from Wrench, Hammer, and Screwdriver right down to Nuts and Bolts is pitching in to make a shed. Okay, crew! Who’s ready to build?

From “hammer” and “wrench” to “awl” and “vise,” readers will construct a vocabulary of terrific tool terms as they learn the importance of teamwork.

READY FOR SCHOOL, MURPHY?

Murphy doesn’t want to go to school. He has butterflies in his tummy and ants in his pants! But no amount of made-up excuses convince his dad to let him stay home. Just when Murphy has all but given up, his father brings him up-to-date-it’s Saturday!

GHOSTING

On a hot summer night in a midwestern town, a high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry. Alcohol, guns, and a dare. Within minutes, as events collide, innocents becomes victims—with tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors, and as we come to know each character through his/her own distinctive voice and their interactions with one another, we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.

Told through multiple points of view in naturalistic free verse and stream of consciousness, this is an unforgettable, haunting tale.