I just want to point you to Wonderbrary, a very nice site that lists many of the self-identified horror fiction series for children, for those who have powered through the 90+ Goosebumps books. I’m sometimes asked for this information, and this site has done several posts with the express purposed of identifying these series. Unfortunately it does not appear to have been updated recently, but if you’re looking for information on scary series books published prior to 2011, this provides a nice list, including cover art.
Katherine Applegate Wins the Newbery Award!
If you grew up in the 1990s, chances are that you’ve read something by Katherine Applegate, known then as K.A. Applegate, author of the incredibly popularAnimorphs series for middle grade readers. Those books are still around, so if you work as a children’s librarian or have a kid of the right age, you might still be familiar with them.
That series isn’t what won her the Newbery, but you might get a kid who liked (or likes) the Animorphs books curious enough to take a look at the book that won her the Newbery, The One and Only Ivan, which is based on the true story of a gorilla that lived in a glass box for many years as an attraction at a circus themed mall. It’s written from the gorilla’s point of view, and just as with the Animorphs books, explores what it’s like to feel like an animal (here’s a link to a Q&A she did with Publisher’s Weekly around the time of its publication).
It’s difficult to break out of your comfort zone, and make the jump from one kind of writing to another, but aren’t you glad she did? Congratulations, Katherine!
Poison Apple Books Alert! Check Your Kids’ Scholastic Book Club Flyer
In a recent post, I mentioned the Poison Apple Books as a series for the beginning reader who is looking for something spooky. Lo and behold, the books showed up on parent/teacher radar in the November book order from Scholastic. If you are the parent of a child who brings home Scholastic book orders from school, and would like to acquire these for your newly independent reader, they are available as a set in a slipcase in the” Holiday Gift Books” flyer for November 2012 at 55% off (the flyer is a little odd, in my opinion, as it contains both Goodnight Moon and The Hunger Games, but nobody hired me to market to kids and their parents and teachers, either). A six-pack of the Goosebumps Hall of Horrors books(which I know nothing about, except that it’s written at a 2nd-3rd grade reading level) is also available at 50% off. Parents are encouraged to order online, where the entire family of flyers for all the book order books at all grade levels are available, but unfortunately these are time sensitive. So if your child did not bring home a book order, you might want to contact the teacher, find out the classroom code, and see what’s available there.
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