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In Liar & Spy, Newbery Winner Rebecca Stead has crafted another near perfect representation of a child’s struggle with the changes that come with growing up.  Like she did in When You Reach Me, Stead has created a lyrical, poignant, and deeply human story that resonates on multiple levels.  Liar & Spy is full to the brim with realistic emotions, beautifully drawn characters, and a story with which any kid, boy or girl, can connect. Seventh grader Georges doesn’t really have any friends at school, so when he moves into an apartment in Brooklyn and meets 12 year old coffee drinking, self appointed loner andRead More →

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What would you sacrifice for power? For love?  Would you give of yourself – your blood, your energy, your soul – for someone else if you loved them enough? To harness the power of the land, a sacrifice is required. A drop of blood onto the earth brings abundance and growth. A drop of blood into wine or food brings vitality and wellness. A drop of blood is the trade-off to release the magic, tying the giver to the gift, making the circle whole and the magic powerful.  To harness the trust and love of another, a sacrifice is required.  Sharing hopes and dreams bringsRead More →

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After the accident that takes his girlfriend Viv’s life, all that seventeen-year-old Camden Pike sees in life are the holes.  He struggles so much with the emptiness of Viv’s absence that he doesn’t remember how to get out of bed, live his life, or breathe—all of this emotional angst is exacerbated by his workaholic attorney mother and his absent father.  And appointments with his psychologist Dr. Summers aren’t making much progress since Cam is convinced that he has nothing left to live for.  After all, Cam and Viv were living under the philosophy: Who needs football or cheerleading, who needs friends, and who needs popularity whenRead More →

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In The Wondrous Journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins Lesley M. M. Blume and illustrator David Foote bring together exploration, action, fantastic creatures and some wry reflections on the human race. Lost for more than 100 years, the detailed journals from one of England’s most famous paleozoologists, Dr. Wendell Wiggins, have finally surfaced for all the world to see.  In 1850, an adventure-hungry young man embarks on an around-the-world journey to: “seek the remains of [the world’s] most ancient creatures, to learn their ways and their fates. In doing so, I hope to learn more about ourselves – and what our own future might look like.Read More →

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Messy is the second novel in the series, Spoiled! written by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. Maxine McCormack is the young, female protagonist who lives in Los Angeles but has dreams of attending NYU to study in their creative writing apprenticeship program. There is only one itty, bitty problem. Maxine ( also known as Max) does not have enough money to pay for tuition. Her family cannot help her financially and Max’s current job at FU’D is anything but glamorous. Surrounded by teens who are wannabe actors and actresses, Max relies on her only friend Molly to help her find a better paying job. WhileRead More →

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Just when you thought there was nothing else to imagine when it comes to dragons, out of nowhere comes Rachel Hartman‘s Seraphina.  This is a richly imagined, multifaceted, well-written tale bursting with unique ideas, intriguing characters (dragons and humans both), and a complex, riveting plot. At its heart, Seraphina is a book about belonging: “he did not know the truth of me, yet he perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed.  And in spite of that – or perhaps because of it – he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertigious moment, madeRead More →

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   What  would it be like to lose both of your parents and then to live under the guardianship of a greedy, conniving, and cold-hearted aunt and uncle who threaten to uproot you from the familiarity of place?   Barbara Mariconda answers those questions in The Voyage of Lucy P. Simmons, the first installment in a trilogy of middle grade fantasy novels.  Set in 1906 New England, Voyage is not only a fantasy, adventure story featuring lore and legends of the sea but also the tale of Lucille Prudence Simmons and her family’s house—her father’s “ship on shore” that turns out to be both menacing andRead More →

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Because Sarah Lean’s first novel features an Irish wolfhound, who looks like he would go to the ends of the earth to save his master, A Dog Called Homeless is a dog story, but it is also a ghost story, a coming-of-age story, and a story somewhat reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, which also features a female protagonist whose selective mutism follows personal tragedy.  Because Lean’s tale embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences, the book also deserves a look by the Schneider Family Book Awards committee.  With all of its identities, this author’s first novel has multi-audienceRead More →

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Chris Westwood’s Graveyard Shift combines the best elements from stories like Men in Black, GhostBusters, Harry Potter, and more into an action-packed fantasy adventure that will get your blood pumping.  It’s a quick, delightfully scary read full of magic and a couple of likeable middle school students embarking on an adventure of a lifetime. One sunny afternoon in the graveyard near his London apartment, Ben Harvester helps out an old man who appears to stumble from exhaustion over a nearby grave.  A few days later in a far-away town at his own aunt’s funeral, Ben again sees that same old man on the outskirts ofRead More →