Amy's Staff Picks

In the title story, a baby born in 1860 begins life as an old man and proceeds to age backward. F. Scott Fizgerald hinted at this kind of inversion when he called his era “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” Perhaps nowhere in American fiction has this “Lost Generation” been more vividly preserved than in Fitzgerald’s short fiction. Spanning the early twentieth-century American landscape, this original collection captures, with Fitzgerald’s signature blend of enchantment and disillusionment, America during the Jazz Age.

Originally published in 1870, Verne’s amazing undersea adventure is one of the earliest science fiction novels ever written. Since that time, generations of readers have plunged below the ocean’s waves with Captain Nemo and his first-ever submarine, The Nautilus. It’s a voyage of exploration and the imagination.

I am often drawn to books with strong female heroines and Katniss Everdeen of "Hunger Games" is no exception. I immediately liked her and rooted for her throughout the trials she faced before and during the Hunger Games. Besides Katniss, there are lots of other fascinating characters in this wonderful, exciting, moving book which will appeal to teens and adults alike.

Grandfather Panda has a treat for his little grandson: a once upon a time story about another little panda and the tiger that flew. That's silly, says the grandson, but, as promised, the fictional tiger, who had a panda dinner on his mind, really does fly, thanks to some quick panda thinking and the laws of physics. In her authorial debut, Liwska (illustrator of Nikolai, the Only Bear) delivers a prime example of unadulterated storytelling—her tale unspools not with any Big Life Lesson in mind, but just for the old-fashioned pleasure of one generation connecting to another. In every word, readers can hear the wise, wry voice of a narrator who knows how to hold a child's attention. The illustrations, a combination of pencil and soft digital color, evoke the simplicity of traditional Chinese art and underscore the intimacy of the book's small format. Ages 3–6.