Trish Brown, co-owner of Hooray for Books in Alexandria, Va., gives word of a trio of titles that are current favorites with her customers.

We’ve been doing very well with Miss Lina’s Ballerinas by Grace Maccarone, illustrated by Christine Davenier, which came out last fall. One thing it has going for it is its pink cover, which is always a draw. And the story itself is very sweet. It is kind of an Angelina Ballerina meets Madeline story. The words and pictures both pay homage to Madeline: there are eight little ballerinas who do everything together—they even dance while they read and do math or are at the beach. When a new ballerina joins the class, they’re thrown off by no longer being able to have two lines of four ballerinas.

There’s a short period of adjustment, and then the teacher figures out that they can dance in three lines of three. This is very well done, and has been quite popular with our young ballerinas.

Another picture book we’ve had good luck with is How to Teach a Slug to Read by Susan Pearson, illustrated by David Slonim. It is literally about how to teach someone to read—in this case a young slug. It suggests putting labels on the slug’s favorite things, finding books about slugs and bugs, and having the slug underline his favorite words in slug slime. It is very cute. We are definitely handselling this to parents, but have also had good results selling it to kids themselves.

For the older crowd, our current favorite is The Trouble with Chickens: A J.J. Tully Mystery by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Kevin Cornell. It’s a middle-grade book about a retired search-and-rescue dog who is kind of a canine Sam Spade—the way the book is written, it has that sensibility to it. A mother chicken asks him to find her missing chicks, and he takes on the job even though he really doesn’t want to. He’s promised a cheeseburger, which seals the deal for him. And the story turns out to be about more than just missing chicks. We’ve been handselling this, and I’m probably more optimistic about selling it to boys than girls, but I think any kid would enjoy it—it’s not necessarily gender-related. One of our staffers said she took it home to read one night, and her husband kept asking her, “What are you laughing at? What’s so funny?” That says something!

These are all strong sellers for us. We’re coming up on our store’s third birthday in June, and I am optimistic about the spring season.