Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Marisela Santiago, of Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, suggests her top picks for what to read while you are relaxing on the beach or sitting in the park.
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Tuesday, April 30
The following column was written by your local bookseller Marisela Santiago, of Watchung Booksellers, at 54 Fairfield St. So the weather outside is getting warmer and we are all settling into that light mood that drives us into lazy summer days. This is also when we begin to get the usual guilty requests for "a fun, light and funny book" that I can read by the beach, or by the pool, or in the park. We all know that sometimes those fun guilty reads are heavy on the guilt and light on good writing. However, what we know is that there are plenty of books that are both thoroughly entertaining and tightly written and those are the ones we love best. In this spirit I offer some of my absolute favorite fun and fabulous reads from the past few …
Friday, March 8, 2013
Carolyn Anbar, a bookseller at Watchung Bookseller, gives her suggestions for children's nonfiction reads.
The following column was written by your local children's bookseller Carolyn Anbar, of Watchung Booksellers, at 54 Fairfield St. Have you ever heard your kid say these things? "Nah, who needs a book on birds for my fourth-grade report. I'll just look it up on the Internet." "Who was Amelia Earhardt? I'll just look it up on Wikipedia." Well guess what, it turns out that looking up everything on a screen isn't always the best way to learn. With the Common Core Curriculum Standards now in motion, teachers and parents are going to be looking for quality non-fiction books to excite and challenge students. And they will not be disappointed. In the 11 years that I've been working at Wachung booksellers, the "true" books, as the kids sometimes …
Monday, February 18, 2013
Bookseller Liane Freed of Watchung Booksellers says kid literature is not only for kids.
The following column was written by your local bookseller Liane Freed of Watchung Booksellers, at 54 Fairfield St. The Newbery Medal for children's literature was recently announced with the winner being "The One and Only Ivan" by Katherine Applegate. I found it to be a touching story and am thrilled I own it. But the Newbery announcement got me thinking, again, about how kid literature is not just for kids. I have met many adults who are too shy or hesitant to read books from this category, particularly if they do not have children, work with children, study children's literature, or — like me — work with children's books. Reading kid lit as an adult adds a whole new and even thrilling perspective on these stories. Pick up a copy of, …
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Marisela Santiago, of Watchung Booksellers, offers a few nonfiction book suggestions for the perennial fiction reader.
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Tuesday, February 12
The following column was written by your local bookseller Marisela Santiago, of Watchung Booksellers, at 54 Fairfield St. I noticed recently that when folks ask for recommendations for books, one of the first questions I ask is whether they are “fiction” or “nonfiction” types. Usually people feel pretty strongly about this, and whether they admit to crossing over once in a while, they are generally pretty comfortable categorizing themselves (or the person they are buying for) as one type or the other. I am generally in the fiction camp. Great family sagas, grizzly mysteries, steamy historical romances – I’ll read anything. But once in a while comes that nonfiction book that reads, well, like fiction. As in, "Nope, you can’t make that …
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Check out the upcoming events at local bookstore.
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Thursday, January 10
The following is a list of upcoming author visits and events at Watchung Booksellers, located in Watchung Plaza on Fairfield Street • Saturday, Jan. 12, 10:30 a.m.: Author/illustrator story time with Brian Biggs, author of "Everything Goes: In the Air (Balzer + Bray)." • Wednesday, Jan. 16, 7 p.m.: Writing Matters Series: From Creation to Publication: The Birth of a Novel, and the book launch of Jenny Milchman's "The Cover of Snow." • Saturday, Jan. 19, 5 to 7 p.m.: Sean Pidgeon, "Finding Camlann." • Saturday, Jan. 26, 10:30 a.m.: Author/illustrator story time with Peter Brown, author of "Children Make Terrible Pets." • Wednesday, Jan. 30, 4 p.m.: Christopher Healy, "A Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom." For more information, call (973…
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Here is your roundup of local happenings during the previous week.
Montclair is bracing to pay out more than $400,000 for overtime and cleanup costs associated with Hurricane Sandy, according to early estimates. The Montclair School District is expecting to get a bill for more than $100,000 to repair damage done by Super Storm Sandy, according to early estimates. Interim Business Administrator Nick Puleio said on Monday that the district is still evaluating the cost for repairs of the storm that knocked out power to several schools and canceled classes for more than a week, but he believed the final number will be at least six figures. A Montclair ambulance attendant is dead following a multi-vehicle crash Monday in Newark that left three others injured, authorities said. The number of incidents of …
Friday, October 19, 2012
Check out ReadKiddoRead's list of the best Halloween books for kids.
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Friday, October 19, 2012
All of us — adults, teens and children — enjoy a scary chill. What better time of year than Halloween to indulge in stories that make our spines tingle? It's the perfect time for your family to share some spooky stories each evening. To get you started, here are some Halloween books filled with ghosts and ghouls, wizards and witches, haunted houses and black magic that everyone can enjoy together. PICTURE BOOKS for ages 2-6 The youngest children love the fun of Halloween: costumes, trick-or-treating and gentle tales of ghosts and goblins. Here are some books for this age group: GHOSTS IN THE HOUSE By Kazuno Kohara For ages 1-6 There are fuzzy pumpkin costumes in sizes as small as 6 months, so why not a Halloween board book for toddlers…
Friday, April 13, 2012
The Montclair resident's debut novel Remarkable has just been published
Author Lizzie Foley, who just moved to Montclair last fall, will be at Watchung Booksellers on Saturday, April 14 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. to sign copies of her debut novel Remarkable just published by Penguin. The event is a wonderful opportunity for readers aged 9 to 11 to meet a new author. Fans describe the book as a wonderfully whimsical debut that proves ordinary people can do extraordinary things. "In the mountain town of Remarkable, everyone is extraordinarily talented, extraordinarily gifted, or just plain extraordinary. Everyone, that is, except Jane Doe, the most average ten-year-old who ever lived. But everything changes when the mischievous, downright criminal Grimlet twins enroll in Jane's school and a strange pirate captain …
Friday, March 23, 2012
Laser's new young adult novel is called "The Watermelon"
Looking for a good book? Then save the date—Sunday, March 25 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.—to celebrate the publication of Mike Laser's new young adult novel "The Watermelon" at Watchung Booksellers. Come buy your copy, meet the author, get your copy signed, and mingle with friends. So what's the book about? In his new novel, "The Watermelon," Laser’s idealistic teenage protagonist, Jenny, heads to a fictional South American country with a group of American high school volunteers to build a school in a small town. Soon after arriving, Jenny learns that the town shares a border with a long-standing enemy country. When she falls in love with one of the locals, she is quickly schooled in the prejudices that have developed from years of political …
Jim Corcoran
11:23 pm on Sunday, November 25, 2012
A high school in Appleton, Wisconsin tried an experiment under the enlightened guidance of their principal, LuAnn Coenen. She wanted to see if she could positively affect the fighting, weapons-carrying and general lack of focus and discipline in the school by changing the food the kids ate. Vending machines were replaced with water coolers; hamburgers and French fries were taken off the menu and … more ›