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Readers of historical, regional fiction—like Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Child of the Mountains by Marilyn Sue Shank, and A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck—are liable to enjoy True Colors by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock. Rich with childhood pleasures like popsicles, swimming holes, and cotton candy but also replete with childhood fears like divorce, abandonment, and acceptance, Kinsey-Warnock’s book features Blue Sky, a ten year old girl living on a dairy farm near Shadow Lake, Vermont in 1952.  Blue, who at two days old was “found stuffed into the copper kettle Hannah Spooner grew her marigolds in” (1), longs to learn herRead More →

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Young readers who wonder whether a pet is “just a dog” will discover Michael Gerard Bauer’s impression in Just a Dog, a chapter book featuring nine year old Corey Ingram and his mostly white Dalmatian cross, Mister Mosely. Mr. Mosely’s black markings—“a spot under his right eye that looked like a black tear coming out, and a few big black spots on his chest that all joined together an made a wonky heart shape” (20)—contribute to his almost human characteristics.  Mr. Mosely has a heart “too big for all of it to fit on the inside” (20), a truth readers will discover in Moe’s patience,Read More →

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Middle school readers with a penchant for super heroes and super villains will likely appreciate the conflict presented by Jeramey Kraatz in The Cloak Society.  Set in Sterling City,Texas, the story opens with a description of supervillainy as a passion and a way of life, not something one joins like an after-school club: “It’s not all doomsday devices and dramatic entrances.  All of your days are spent plotting, strategizing, inventing, training” (1) so as to emerge victorious when facing a nemesis. Early on, readers identify with Alex, a villain with a moral conscience who values life and is terrified of the Gloom, a wretched place createdRead More →

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My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, by Annabel Pitcher, is a touching story about a young boy named Jaime Matthews whose sister, Rose, died in a terrorist bombing. Jaime was five years old and Rose was ten when she passed away in London. After the terrorist bombing, Jaime’s mother became very distant and left the family. With Jamie’s world crashing in around him, his father decided to move him and Jasmine, Rose’s twin sister, to the quiet countryside. Jaime is constantly reminded of his sister’s death; Rose is sitting on the fireplace mantelpiece and Jaime’s father constantly puts down Muslims and refuses to acknowledge themRead More →

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A lazy, last-day-of summer holiday was the perfect day to read Jane Smiley’s latest, Pie in the Sky.  An exquisitely crafted character-focused story, gently told, meditatively plotted and rich with detail, I couldn’t put this book down.  Its first fans will be young women in love with horses and all things equine, but readers who devour richly textured character-driven stories (my favorite!) will be hooked within the first few pages as well. As the summer of 1966 bleeds into Autumn, fourteen year old Abby Levitt, whose life revolves around the meditatively hard work of training and caring for her family’s horses, finds herself and her beloved geldingRead More →

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How would you feel if all of your friends had super powers and you had none? Jealous? Insecure? Left out? What if you suddenly manifested the power to steal the powers from those around you, your friends; a power shared by a recently defeated super villain who had stolen the powers and memories from a hundred generations of “supers”? This is especially disconcerting to Daniel Corrigan, as he was the one who helped vanquish this villain, Herman Plunkett aka The Shroud. This new power appears as Plunkett’s grandson, Theo, returns to Noble’s Green and things begin to go awry in a disturbingly familiar way. Shadows,Read More →

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Life is about to change in the sleepy little town of Blackbird Tree for two 12 year old best friends, Naomi and Lizzie.  When a charming, but unusual boy, Finn, drops out of a tree, the girls don’t quite know how to react to his questions about their town and the people who live there.  Finn’s unexplained arrival isn’t the only mystery in town, either;  a dapper Dingle Dangle man has also recently arrived, snooping around asking the adults lots of questions.  And Naomi wonders about other mysteries and secrets too: 3 dusty, sealed trunks, a pair of crows, a crooked bridge, and some long-supressedRead More →

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17 year old Jack’s summer job, as a “nanny” for an 8 and 12 year old brother and sister, seems like it would be a cake walk.  He’ll be making really good money and all he has to do is hang out with a couple of kids for a couple months.  The major downside is that the kids live on an isolated island off the mainland that’s devoid of any modern connectivity; sure, they have generator-powered electricity, but there’s no phone, no wi-fi or internet, and the only connection to the outside world is the twice weekly ferry that passes by the island.  Willing toRead More →

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Kids who love James Patterson and Chris Tebbett’s Middle School series, as well as those who love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, will go nuts for Patterson’s latest, I Funny: A Middle School Story, which this time has him partnered with Chris Grabenstein.  Middle School series illustrator, Laura Park is also back filling the pages of I Funny with a minimum of three energetic, detailed cartoons per chapter.  It’s a combination, along with Patterson’s trademark short chapters and snappy pacing, that will rocket this book to the top of plenty of reluctant readers’ favorite lists. Middle schooler Jamie Grimm has a mission –Read More →