Hot off the Poke-press, favorite Pokemon children's author Tracey West teams up with Katherine Noll to dish up some Top 10 Poke-picks in the new Scholastic release, _Pokemon Top 10 Handbook_ (ISBN 0-439-89047-0, $6.99), celebrating "10 awesome years of Pokemon" with their top picks of "all-time greatest trainers, villains, battles, and more!"

Top 10 of Everything Pokemon Handbook

Tracey and Katherine have painstakingly assembled lists of all our favorite Pokemon by type, along with a short profile supporting the selections, followed by chapters on favorite human characters by category such as trainer, villain, etc. If that isn't enough, there's a chapter on favorite moments and much, much more! In the center of the book you'll find a fold-out poster. What if you don't agree with the picks? No problem, there's a page in the back for you to make your own Top 10 list! How fair is that?! Eighty pages packed with Poke perusing fun! The book is just a little smaller than a standard size American comic, so, if you have a comic bag, it will slip inside nicely for safekeeping with all your Viz Pokemon back issues. There are plenty of full color illustrations to complement the text inside this glossy tome featuring most everyone's fave Pikachu on the front cover. Well worth the minimal cost and sure to be fun for Pokemon fans of all ages.

Note: the verso of the book said the first printing was September
2006 and that I had a 5th edition, copyright on the back cover, 2007; I assume the item I found is the reprint(?) shown on the Amazon page I note above, as the ISBN matches. The official releases date for this edition says March 1, 2007 on Amazon--and while you're waiting near the bookstore shelves, don't forget to hit the newsstand, as the next issue of Nintendo Power has an article on Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Oh, happy me, plus over the weekend I found the 3 D&P starter figures and the funny face Pikachu (to entertain my Togepi! :) I mentioned in the Bandai candy-toy article recently. Pi-ka!

Loretta