Cindy's Picks:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone    
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets    
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
    Yes, I'm wild about Harry, too! The books that have kids begging to read are also adult favorites. If you haven't read Harry yet, you are in for a lot of magic and mystery. Positively addictive.

Haunted Louisiana by Christy Viviano
    A nice little glimpse into our state's heritage with lots of shivers for kids. Scared me.

Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections Castle    
    See inside a 14th century castle! Who was a "gong farmer"? Why was the long bow such a fearsome weapon? What was strewn on castle floors?

Good Griselle by Jane Yolen    
    On Christmas Eve, the stone angels and gargoyles (who live on a cathedral wall) place a wager. And the fate of Griselle is decided by the "ugliest child she's ever seen." Beautifully illustrated by David Christiana.

Christmas in the Big House and Christmas in the Quarters by Patricia McKissack and Frederick L. McKissack   
    The authors compare and contrast how Christmas was celebrated by master and slave on a Virginia plantation in 1859. The illustrator, John Thompson, brings the holiday to life with his luminous art. A Caldecott contender.

Kashtanka by Anton Chekhov; illustrated by Gennady Spirin
    On a busy street, a little dog is separated from his cabinetmaker owner. She is soon rescued by a kindly circus clown and joins his trained menagerie. Will she be reunited with her owner, or will she lead a circus performer's life? Wonderfully illustrated with a Russian winter as the setting. Beautiful.

The King's Equal by Katherine Paterson    
    This is an original fairy tale. Prince Raphal can become king only if he finds a wife who is equal to him in all ways.

Patty's Pick:
Cynthia Voight is an outstanding young-adult fiction writer (Dicey's Song, The Runner, A Solitary Blue, and others) and a Newberry Award-winner. Her stories resonate with the plausible, the tragic, the comic, and the real. Her narrative style is an entertaining as it is the soul of the character. Each character has some hardship to overcome. In Dicey's Song, the children are abandoned by their mother at a grocery store to fend for themselves, and through later books, Dicey helps share her outlook and what she's learned with the other characters. The Wings of a Falcon centers on a historical time with two young and homeless male protagonists who seek their way in the world.