Calling All Kid Reviewers

A big part of my job at Stone Arch Books is to get reviews and awards for our books. We get excited about reviews that are in magazines, but we REALLY like hearing directly from kids. That’s why we need your help.

Have your students read any books from Stone Arch Books? We would love it if they would write about the books they’ve read. What was their favorite part of the story? Did they like the illustrations? Would they recommend this book to a friend? Why?

After they have written the reviews, they can either email them to me at k.monyhan@stonearchbooks.com or they can mail them to:

Krista Monyhan
Stone Arch Books
7825 Telegraph Rd.
Bloomington, MN 55438.

Once I get the reviews, I will post them on our website. (We won’t use the students’ names, but will identify their grade and city with their review.)

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I hope this will be a good way to get your students writing after they read books!


--Krista Monyhan
Sales and Marketing Coordinator, Stone Arch Books

Another great kid review

Tennessee librarian (and SLJ blogger) Diane Chen has been working with her library classes to create reviews of books, and since she knows that we love to get reviews from kids, she sent this along. It’s a great review that a fourth-grade girl wrote about our book Yikes, It’s a Yeti!

I read a book called Yikes, it’s a Yeti! by Karen Wallace with pictures by Mick Reid. It was a book about a boy named Norman who had a normal, boring life. One day his mom says he gets to go “camping” with his grandma. Norman’s mom says it so loud that all his friends hear and start making fun of him. Then his grandma takes him to the Himalayas in search of a Yeti. They find one and Norman brings home a Yeti tooth. All his friends think he’s crazy until he pulls out the Yeti tooth. Just at the moment he pulls it out, he sees his life isn’t so boring after all! I think you should read this book if you like comedy.

Diane’s kids are also reviewing other books, including our sister company Capstone Press’s Ballroom Dancing. We hope she’ll send us more! Do your students write reviews? If so, please send them to us! We love to hear what kids think.

When a reviewer "gets" us

As we've said before, we love to hear what readers think of our books. But we also like to hear what grownups think. That’s why a good review in SLJ or Booklist means so much to us. Every time the reviews come in, we send them to everybody at Stone Arch Books. We all talk about what we think of the reviews, what we can learn from them, how they can better our future books, and whether we agree with the review. It’s rewarding when we see that a reviewer really gets what we’re doing.

This review was in the January School Library Journal.

GALLAGHER, Diana G. Guilty!: The Complicated Life of Claudia Cristina Cortez. ISBN 978-1-59889-838-5; ISBN 978-1-59889-881-1. LC 2007005955.
GALLAGHER, Diana G.. Whatever!: The Complicated Life of Claudia Cristina Cortez. ISBN 978-1-59889-839-2; ISBN 978-1-59889-880-4. LC 2007005954. ea vol: illus. by Brann Garvey. 81p. (Claudia Cristina Cortez Series). photos. glossary. Web sites. CIP. Stone Arch. Jan. 2008. PLB $23.93; pap. $5.95.

Gr 4–7—In Guilty!, seventh-grader Claudia and her friend Monica are accused of stealing from popular clique leader Anna. Learning the principle "innocent until proven guilty," Claudia tracks down the real thief, exposing other wrongdoings and earning a few extra bucks in the process. Whatever! describes the never-ending drama faced by many 13-year-olds. When longtime friend Adam wants to join Claudia and her friends' "Whatever Club," the trio must decide if letting a boy in will alter the way their club is run and, ultimately, affect their friendships. With their TV-sitcom-like tone, these books are lively and engaging. Their short sentences, changing and playful fonts, and cartoons will entice reluctant readers. Each title includes background information about the different characters and their relationship to the protagonist. Fans of Marissa Moss's "Amelia's Notebook" series (S & S) and Carol Weston's The Diary of Melanie Martin (Knopf, 2000) will enjoy Claudia and her dilemmas. Discussion questions and writing prompts are included.—Jennifer Cogan, Bucks County Free Library, Doylestown, PA (School Library Journal, 1/2008)



We loved that the reviewer could tell the Claudia books were meant for reluctant readers, since we designed the Claudia books specifically to appeal to the growing population of reluctant girl readers. We use cool fonts to emphasize key words and phrases. We are careful with sentence structure, in order to make reading easy and fun. The pages are lined with small illustrations to help identify characters and enliven the story. And the Cast of Characters in the beginning of the book helps readers predict the story and recognize characters immediately, thus removing one of the very first obstacles to reading.


We’ll have more Claudia in our Fall ’08 catalog. In fact, we’re having the photo shoot for the new Claudia covers in February!