Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls
By Meg Cabot
Scholastic, $15.99
Ages 8-11 years
Offering a new series for preteens, Meg Cabot brings her signature ear for dialogue to a younger group, and she gets 4th grade right. Allie likes to keep a book of rules, beginning with, “Don’t stick a spatula down your best friend’s throat,” though they don’t always simplify her moving to a new neighborhood or across the minefields of best-friend land. Ends with a great food fight.
Timothy and the Strong Pajamas
By Viviane Schwarz
Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, $16.99
Ages 4-7 years
Timothy Smallbeast “wasn’t big. And he wasn’t strong. (But he really, really wished he was.)” Timothy’s mother understands the power of special pj’s, with “patches of power” and “buttons of braveness.” A tribute to friends, family and magic clothing.
Kaline Klattermaster’s Tree House
By Haven Kimmel
Atheneum, $15.99
Ages 8-10 years
Kaline is small for 7, but his parents started him in school early because he was “a WHIZ KID in day care.” Now 3rd grade is starting, with three big bullies he calls “Giant Whoppy-Jawed Hoodlums.” Kaline’s father, who insisted on orderliness, has left. Because of Kaline’s unusual narrative voice and vocabulary, this isn’t just a predictable life-will-go-on story.
The Cow That Laid an Egg
By Andy Cutbill, illustrated by Russell Ayto
HarperCollins, $16.99
Ages 4-8 years
Can’t, you say? Then you’re just like the other cows, who can only ride bicycles or do handstands. The chickens need to teach them a lesson: Marjorie, an insecure cow, is special. Watch the egg.
Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud
By Susan Goldman Rubin
Chronicle, $15.95
Ages 10-14 years
Behind all the pastel cupcakes and pies, contemporary artist Wayne Thiebaud, as Susan Goldman Rubin explains it, is trying to stretch the limits of a form, as a continuing challenge.
