Catalogging Candlewick Fall 2014

The Fall 2014 catalog from Candlewick has a lot to celebrate (no surprise). Here are few that caught my eye:

Animalium - Curated by Katie Scott & Jenny Broom. First in the "Welcome to the Museum" series, each title will be "organized into galleries that display more than 200 full-color specimens accompanied by lively informative text." This one is aimed at 8-12 years olds but the illustrations are fantastic - looks like an all ages title/coffee table book to me.

The Name of the Blade by Zoe Marriott. "When Mio sneaks the family katana—a priceless ancestral sword—from her parents' attic, she just wants to spice up a costume. but the katana is more than a dusty antique. Awakening the power of the sword unleashes a terrible, ancient evil onto the streets of unsuspecting London. But it also releases Shinobu, a fearless warrior boy, from the depths of time...."

Sounds like some good adventure, a bit of romance and certainly something with unusual history and setting.

Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman. The author has done a great job in the past pulling disparate images and text together to form a fierce whole and I'm interested to see what he does with the commanding topic of our time. "...Fleischman arms teens with basic tools to uncover vested interests and falsehoods by vetting sources, following the money and checking references so they they can make informed decisions about what actions to take in the worldwide battle against climate change, overconsumption and dwindling resources."
Into the Grey by Celine Kiernan. After an accidental fire, twin brothers Dom & Pat move with their family to a seaside cottage in the winter. "It's there the ghost appears—a strange boy who cries black tears and fears a bad man, a soldier, who is chasing him. Soon Dom hs become not-Dom and Pat can sense that his brother is going to die—while their overwhelmed parents can't even see what's happening."

Pat has to protect his brother, draw clues from his own dreams, plow his grandmother's memory and "confront a mystery that lies between this world and the next—within the Grey." Sounds creepy and cool which very nearly book perfection as far as I'm concerned.

Photos Framed: A Fresh Look at the World's Most Memorable Photographs by Ruth Thomson & various photographers. This NF title looks at 27 important photos back to the mid-1800s to engage readers to "zoom in on photograph elements, blow up details of the subject matter, think about the big picture, and pan out on the photographer." Should be very interesting as it will invite us to look something differently and also to appreciate how photography can tell a story all on its own.