Ask a Bookseller

Did you ever read the “Baby-Sitter's Club” books? Who was your favorite character?

That series by Ann M. Martin is now 40 years old, and it keeps on ticking, having spun off into graphic novels, a Netflix series and even a musical in development, with music by the composer of “KPop Demon Hunters.”

To mark the milestone anniversary, Scholastic is releasing 15 expanded "Super Special" books, which are longer and feature the voices of the whole club.

The first, released Sept. 15, is "Baby-Sitters on Board," a graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier and Gale Galligan. Today’s young “Baby-Sitters Club” readers may recognize Telgemeier for her own bestselling graphic novels, including "Smile," "Guts" and “Sisters,” among others.

Emily Regnier of Cherry Street Books in Alexandria, Minn., expects the new "Super Specials" to be a big draw for readers. She says the new book feels updated for today while still leaning on the characters and situations readers love.

In this book, the whole club flies to Florida, takes a cruise to the Bahamas and returns for adventures at an amusement park. Each character has a predicament to work through, ranging from awkward run-ins with fellow passengers to new crushes and babysitting triplets on board.

With school back in session, we’re continuing to bring you recommendations for great reads for kids. Pallas Erdrich of Birchbark Books in Minneapolis says her favorite picture book of late is “The Inquisitive Raven,” written by Richard Wagamese and illustrated by Bridget George.

The Ojibwe Canadian writer was known for his novels and memoirs for adult readers, but Erdrich says this picture book, published years after his death in 2017, is pure delight, with illustrations by Bridget George that are “just so soothing.”

“The blessing of the book is about connecting with your ancestors and your grandparents and your parents and just being able to learn from the culture that you come from. Kids have a lot of questions about things, and this opens the door to say it's okay to ask questions about your family history [and] about the things around you; and that when you learn those answers, it can all become part of one larger story,” Erdrich said.

Click here

The book follows Rueben, a curious raven, who asks questions and tries to imitate the other forest animals he meets. On the way, Erdrich says, readers learn Ojibwe words, legends, and lore.

“It’s a dense enough picture book that I think it would be good for reading a kid to sleep, but also one that they could read when they're between five to 10. It’s one that I would keep coming back to myself as a kid, especially because it just has such a beautiful story at the end.”

Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

K-12 school is back in session across the state, and as usual on Ask a Bookseller, we’re marking the occasion by focusing on books for kids and teen. Char Palmer of Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis recommends the YA graphic novel “Angelica and the Bear Prince,” written by Minneapolis writer and cartoonist Trung Le Nguyen.

High school drama? Sure. Transformative power of theater? Check. This graphic novel follows a burned-out teen, Angelica, who is buoyed by supportive messages on social from ... a bear? Determined to meet the person inside the bear costume who serves as the local theater’s mascot, she gets an internship at the theater.

“It's an adorable story. The art is great, full of whimsy,” says Palmer. “It kind of reads almost like a modern-day fairy tale. So it's realism playing off of the magical kind of whimsy of the theater and the show. It's almost like two different worlds colliding.”

Palmer also appreciates that the storm has good trans representation via one of the main characters.

Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Are you looking for a novel to generate a good discussion for your book club? Pamela Klinger-Horn of Valley Bookseller in Stillwater recommends “Coyoteland” by Vanessa Hua. With the novel’s multiple viewpoints and complex issues, “Coyoteland” will appeal to fans of Celeste Ng’s “Little Fires Everywhere.”

After years of scraping, Jin Chang has finally managed to move his family into a prestigious suburb east of Berkeley, Calif.

Secretly, Jin has high hopes of making a big real estate deal that will cement his family’s future. Next door, Blaire Belle, who is white, makes a show of welcoming her new Chinese American neighbors. That is, until Jin’s hopes threaten her own plans to develop a high-end neighborhood.

“This taught me a new [phrase] called ‘performative progressivism,’” laughs Klinger-Horn.

“This is a very insightful look at suburbia, where privilege, racism, and class consciousness are set to a low boil and will be soon threatening to boil over because all these people also have teenagers, and you know how teenagers like to push the envelope. They are not happy with the hypocrisy that they see in the town, and they plan to expose this. And the fallout will intensify everything and have a cataclysmic end that will change the course of everyone's life.”

The name “Coyoteland” references the fact that humans are not the only ones who view the land as their own. The suburb is in coyote territory.

And while the human residents view the coyote who enters the scene as a threatening, dangerous predator, Klinger-Horn says, “he is the least of their worries when they have neighbors like this.”

If you’re in a book club, you know that not everyone is going to like every book every time. So, it was a delight for Gina Grinde of Four Pines Bookstore in Bemidji when everyone liked Bailey Seybolt’s mystery/thriller “Coram House.”

"They said, ‘This was a page-turner; I forgot to go to bed on time; I didn't do any chores,’ stuff like that. There's over a dozen of us, and we all agreed upon it. It’s my best-selling book so far this year."

Here's the story: Alex Kelley, a true crime writer recovering from a flopped book, gets an exciting offer from an attorney to tell the story of their recent case. It’s an old one: 50 years ago, a boy disappeared from a Catholic orphanage in Vermont. Alex moves to the small town and starts sifting through the case file, but she quickly runs into more questions than answers.

Why did the investigation go this direction? Why didn’t they speak to that person? And could the body of the woman who has just been found in a lake be related?

Alex sets out on her own investigation, interviewing past residents of the now-closed orphanage. The secrets she unearths in the small town — and the danger that arises — keeps readers turning pages.