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1957 is the year that Frisbees soared, postage stamps cost three cents, and the Russians launched Sputnik.  It was also a time when women were typically kitchen-bound and wore skirts and aprons.  However, Kathleen Curie Gordon’s mom is not a Betty Crocker mom; she’s a professor of nuclear chemistry.  With a woman who resists convention as a mom and two older sisters playing from that same playbook, ten-year-old Katy, the protagonist in Out of Left Field by Ellen Klages, has learned to keep asking questions and to never settle for being ordinary. And Katy, who is more comfortable in cleats and a ball cap, isRead More →

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The child of first-generation Chinese immigrants to the United States, Kelly Yang writes a work of fiction, Front Desk, based on her own life so that her son could know her story and take inspiration, not fear, from the life of shame and pain and poverty and joy she experienced as a child.  Yang tells her story through Mia Tang and Jason Tao to open the eyes and fill the hearts of readers, giving them empathy for people from all backgrounds and walks of life and arousing in them the courage needed to stand up to injustice when they see it. Jason’s dad, Mr. YaoRead More →

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Just as Rick Riordan in his Percy Jackson series employs allusions to Greek mythology, Roshani Chokshi takes her readers on a journey with twelve-year-old Aru Shah, who grew up to her mother’s story-telling with characters from Hindu mythology. Dr. Krithika Shah is an archaeologist and museum curator for the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture.  She and her daughter have living quarters on site, and Aru’s favorite exhibit is the Hall of the Gods, filled with a hundred statues of various Hindu deities. In the first of a Pandava Novel series, Aru Shah and the End of Time, readers meet Aru, who wishes to vanquishRead More →

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Sci-Fi Junior High: Crash Landing by John Martin and Scott Seegert is the second book in a series presented by James Patterson’s new children’s imprint.  This illustrated space adventure, told by blending the graphic novel genre with a narrative format, features eight days in the life of Kelvin Klosmo, an average human with a tendency to find trouble.  Kelvin and his family have come from Earth, where his parents were the top two scientists, to conduct research 329 quadrillion miles away.   Because Kelvin doesn’t share Klyde and Klara Klosmo’s brain power and because he is tired of being known at the space station as the guy whoRead More →

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After their mother’s death, fifth grader Piper Meyer is focused on taking care of her father and monitoring his diet for healthy choices, while her sister, seventh grader Megan Meyer, is simply trying to survive junior high school in a new location.  Since their recent move from Colorado to Scottsdale, Arizona, Megan, whose passion is math equations and science, is hoping to transform from meek to chic. With this clean slate opportunity, Megan would rather be known as Miss Impressive or the Fun Meister than Miss Science Fair or the girl with minimal boobage who snorts when she laughs. However, being popular comes more easily forRead More →

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Mix adventure, jokes, and a little mystery, and you have a recipe to keep most readers engaged.  Dave Eggers applies this formula to the writing of his recent middle-grade novel, The Lifters, which is actually an extended metaphor for combatting despair. The protagonist of The Lifters, twelve-year-old Granite Flowerpetal wishes for a name that is both easily understood and easily spelled, so he shortens his name to Gran, not realizing at the time how readily that version might be confused with the term some individuals use to refer to their grandmothers. Gran, who shares a bedroom with his five-year-old sister Maisie, hears his parents talkRead More →

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Readers of Grandpa’s Great Escape will likely enjoy David Walliams’  recent release, The Midnight Gang, also illustrated by Tony Ross.  Presented with opening credits, a set illustration, a cast of characters, and a teaser, the book begins like a feature film with twelve-year-old Tom Charper taking the spotlight as the story’s protagonist.  Walliams welcomes readers to the children’s ward on the 44th floor of Lord Funt’s Hospital, where the children’s parents don’t visit because they are either too poor, too ill, or live too far away to travel.  Essentially abandoned and living under the control of a cruel hospital matron, the children make their own adventuresRead More →

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Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Caldecott medalist Eric Rohmann is based on the true story of Etzel, the German shepherd from the Bavarian Alps region who made it from a sun-washed barnyard to the Berlin Police Force and finally to silent-movie stardom in the 1920s. Through a technique called anthropomorphism—attributing human characteristics or behavior to an animal—Fleming invites readers to imagine a dog with movie star abilities and with a talent for reading people and making human connections. Etzel’s transformation from a carefree life as a puppy to “a cold, uncaring police dog, who slashed at otherRead More →

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Just as teen readers of Lauren Myracle’s books, such as ttyl, were inspired to reflect on the bad decisions they might otherwise have made without thinking of the consequences, now tween readers will get the same opportunity by reading Lisa Greenwald’s January release, TBH, This Is SO Awkward. While this novel’s content is not as provocative as that in the Myracle series, Greenwald uses a multi-genre approach, writing her novel with memos, diary entries, texts, emails, postcards, and notes passed in class to recreate sixth grade drama. In addition to navigating math midterms, reading logs, and social groups, Victoria Melford has to endure the tortureRead More →