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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy
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Friends, family, babysitting, and playing the French horn comprise the interests of twelve-year-old Gabby Duran.  To Gabby, every child is a puzzle-locked box that can be solved: “If you [are] interested in them enough to figure out the puzzle, you [can] open that box and completely connect with the person inside” (44).  That philosophy, and her aversion to the words strange or disgusting as descriptors for children and their behavior, make her a superior associate for the Association Linking Intergalactic and Earthlings as Neighbors (A.L.I.E.N). Working for A.L.I.E.N. as a Sitter to the Unsittables, Gabby encounters a troll family and their son Trymmy, who—just likeRead More →

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Preening, posing, and shallow small talk aren’t really Josie Browning’s scene, but when her editor Liani gives this junior writer for the online magazine, indi 18 days to plan a revolutionary launch for the magazine, Josie gets a crash course in schmoozing. As she works to make this an epic launch, Josie rubs elbows with plenty of mag hags—polished, glamorous, and arrogant women with vicious reputations for pedestal grubbing.  Along the way, Josie—who claims to be missing the charm gene—makes plenty of mistakes until she feels as if she’s only one embarrassing email or magazine event encounter away from losing everything—including the love of herRead More →

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In: Mystery & Suspense (YA), Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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In the spirit of good science fiction, Bluescreen by Dan Wells explores not only where over-extended technology might lead but also how easily technology can slips its leash and turn dangerous or destructive.  Not since reading Feed by M.T. Anderson have I experienced such a thought-provoking and chilling indictment that may encourage other readers to examine how technology—in careless or greedy hands—facilitates insidious manipulation, exploitation, and control of the individual. Set in 2050 in Mirador, a suburb of Los Angeles, Bluescreen features Anja Litz, Sahara Cowan, and Marisa Carneseca.  These three seventeen-year-olds—along with Fang and Jaya—are members of the Cherry Dogs, players in an online virtualRead More →

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Fueled by fury and fixated on revenge against the recklessness of humanity, the Queen of Blood and Rage—the Unseelie ruler of the fae courts—desires redemption for her lost daughter and for the toxic environment humans have created.  Hoping to destroy humanity from within, she creates a Sleeper cell of half fae, half human beings, and with intense pressure, converts them into weapons.  She calls these jewels in her arsenal the Seven Black Diamonds.  Several of the seven willingly and loyally serve her, but a few resist. Lily Abernathy, the daughter of Iana and Nicolas Abernathy, is one of the resistant ones.   Born into aRead More →

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Staying determined, disciplined, and driven, Harper Scott and her best friend, Kate Grey have been working since before preschool on their goal—to dance with the San Francisco Ballet Company. Thinking that motivation, sacrifices, dedication, passion, and effort will ensure success, Harper doesn’t believe in luck.  Full of love and hard work, she is chasing fulfillment. Because Harper is also a descendant of Robert Falcon Scott, the Englishman who is best known for his legendary and fatal attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, she has adopted a motto: “Succeed, or die in the attempt” (13).  With Scott in her blood, Roald AmundsenRead More →

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I recall growing up and jumping rope to the rhyme:  “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks.  When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”  I never questioned the veracity of the rhyme, and after reading the narrative nonfiction account, The Borden Murders by Sarah Miller, I am intrigued anew by the susceptibility of public opinion to be shaped by sensationalized media messages and swayed by rumors. While Miller’s book serves mostly to recount a series of suppositions and scandal-mongering newspaper accounts of the unsolved mystery of Abby Borden and Andrew Jackson Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts, onRead More →

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Written by daughter of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, The Hero Two Doors Down by Sharon Robinson, recounts the historical fiction tale of tumultuous times of global, racial, cultural, and religious unrest in the late 1940s.  Because of its inspirational message about the need to depend on faith, family, and friends during the worst of times, contemporary readers will find this story of friendship and unity especially relevant as Martin Luther King, Junior’s 87th birthday approaches. In 1948, Steven Satlow is eight years old, and a train ride to Ebbets Field costs five cents each way.  Because Steve is the shortest kid in his class andRead More →

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In: Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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We humans are all broken, broken by life’s trials and tribulations, undone by love, fragmented by bullies who shoot holes in our confidence, or traumatized by loss—whether a consequence of death, divorce, or some other life-altering trauma.  These truths unfold  from the beginning line—“Life is bullshit”—of We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson, a novel that explores both the absurdity of and the grand scheme of the cosmos and of human existence. Ever since he was 13 years old, Henry Jerome Denton has been abducted by aliens, whom he calls sluggers.  The abductions always begin with shadows and end with his being deposited—often naked—far fromRead More →

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Not only unaware of the meaning of the word decorum but also oblivious as to how to show it, Angelo Fabrizzi detests the formal education his mother, Julietta, wishes upon him in Paris.  Uninspired in the classroom, Angelo feels most alive when he’s working in his father’s workshop where he doodles car designs and fires up the welding torch to work and rework metal scraps into fantastical creations.  Like his Italian father, Luca Fabrizzi, Angelo is a passionate and creative car-lover with a sweet tooth, who believes that magical ideas take shape under the influence of sugar. After the front wheel drive sensation of 1934,Read More →