With photographs of real kids, The New Kid by Susan Hood presents real experience by kids at school.  When a kid is new in a new environment, he can "act bad", because "he is sad".  Then eventually, when his friends make him feel at home, he is not sad anymore, therefore he "does not act bad".  The book rhymes from first page to last.  For Preschool to Grade 1.

Well, it was another great year of excellent books for teen readers (and adults like me that enjoy reading teen books!). The Young Adult publishing industry is still going strong with an amazing array of high-quality literature, and this year did not disappoint. It can be hard to keep up, but us librarians have got your back. The Young Adult Library Services Association selects 100 books every year for their annual Best Books for Young Adults list. From these books, they create a Top Ten list with their picks for the best Young Adult books of the year. Make some time to catch up with the best of the best for 2010:

• Sarah Rees Brennan. Demon's Lexicon
• Paul Griffin. The Orange House
• M.H Herlong. The Great Wide Sea
• Catherine Jinks. The Reformed Vampire Support Group
• Donna Jo Napoli. Alligator Bayou
• David Small. Stitches: A Memoir
• Rebecca Stead. When You Reach Me
• Francisco X Stork. Marcelo in the Real World
• Laini Taylor. Lips Touch: Three Times
• Sally M Walker. Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland

It's another interesting batch of fiction and nonfiction, with themes ranging from magic to immigration to survival at sea to vampire comedy to Asperger's Syndrome to colonial Jamestown and much more. (Whoa, imagine if these were all in the same book?) Happy reading and Happy New Year!