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Jake and Lily are twins.  Sure, they are a little different – Lily’s got a temper, Jake’s always calm – but in many ways, they feel like two halves of the same person.  When one of them is in trouble or in pain, the other one just knows it; they can communicate without words; it’s a secret “power” they call the goombla and sharing it means everything. But the summer they turn 11, things change.  Their parents decide it’s time for them to have separate rooms.  Jake starts hanging out with a group of guys from down the street, and Lily, well, Lily feels lostRead More →

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Everyone has secrets. Some are small and innocuous “I am going to surprise my friend with a special lunch”  but others carry much more weight “I am betraying my best friend in a terrible way.”  We carry these secrets, large and small, light and heavy, around with us every day. But when the burden of these secrets, hopes, and fears becomes to much, we have to find ways to lighten the load.  In the woods behind 10 year old Minty Mortimer’s house, there’s a big old oak tree with a gaping hole in the center, and as she discovers one summer afternoon, it’s the tree where peopleRead More →

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The notion of a “bleached” culture or absence of culture among white people looms large, and young adult authors are working to dispel that belief as they explore the diversity of what it means to be white. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s book Faith, Hope, and Ivy June (Delacorte, 2009) and now Child of the Mountains by Marilyn Sue Shank are appropriate for performing some myth-busting as well as providing a door for cultural discussions with a focus on diverse lifestyles, especially those conditions imposed by class differences and geographical circumstances. Set in 1954 in the mountains of West Virginia, Shank’s book features eleven-year-old Lydia Hawkins whoRead More →

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By 2050, global warming has turned the climate into mankind’s enemy: once “normal” weather systems like hurricanes and tornadoes are now monster storms that ravage the world with their intensity and frequency.  Life has become a dual existence of living indoors: above ground anxiously waiting for the next storm system and then spending a good deal of time in underground storm shelters wondering if your home has been annihilated.  Playgrounds are built in cavernous underground shelters, no one rides bikes, goes on picnics or travels far.  The food supply is all grown in special DNA-ture farms secure from the uncontrollable weather.  Amid this dire climate,Read More →

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Sinister, blood-thirsty ghosts in fog-filled cemeteries, a Medieval cathedral and castle-turned boarding school, and an angry 11 year old boy sent away from home when his widowed mother becomes engaged to a new man.    A story spun with all the cinematic detail, coming-of-age life lessons, and supernatural qualities of her other works, Cornelia Funke‘s newest book, Ghost Knight, is a tale full of danger, bravery, and friendship. Jon Whitcroft tells us the story of his first year at an English boarding school, where he was sent after some very terrible behavior towards his mother’s fiance.  Jon had expected to be miserable in Salisbury and forRead More →

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*Welcome to the Town of Remarkable Where Every Day in this Remarkable Place filled with Remarkable People is Positively Remarkable for Absolutely Everyone Except Jane I don’t think I’d like to live in a town like Remarkable, where everyone is expertly talented in something, everyone is positively happy, and every sentence uttered ends in an exclamation point!  I think 10 year old Jane Doe, unnoticed, untalented, and completely unremarkable, would be only person worth knowing.  For Jane, the middle child in a remarkable family – her mother is a world renowned architect, her father a prize winning novelist, her gorgeous brother an ultra talented painter and herRead More →

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There’s a lot going on in debut author Lissa Price’s dystopian sci-fi action romance Starters.  Within the first 3 pages I wrote “Dollhouse?” at the top of the page, realizing the multiple plot, setting, and character similarities to Joss Whedon’s short-lived TV Series, Dollhouse.  Then there’s the subtle inspiration and re-envisioning of the Cinderella fairytale, with a sci-fi element added in, reminding me of Melissa Marr’s fantastic Cinder.  And of course the post-apocalyptic world, ravaged by the Spore Wars and the smart determined young heroine willing to risk herself to save her younger sibling will be a great “what do I read next?” after TheRead More →

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Twice in as many weeks I’ve found myself embroiled in intriguing detective mysteries inspired by Allen Pinkerton, the first Private Eye.  The Case of the Deadly Desperadosis set in the lawless mining town of Virginia City, Nevada Territory, where the presumed nephew of the famous detective, P.K. Pinkerton, uses his wits, cunning, and pokerface to outwit some ruthless villains and set up a detective agency of his own.  P.K.’s hope was to get to Chicago to meet, and perhaps work for, the legendary detective and his famous agency, but when the first book in The Wild West Mysteries series ends, P.K. decides to try his luck and honeRead More →

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In the hardscrabble desert of the Nevada Frontier, 12 year old P.K. Pinkerton has trouble understanding people.  But that’s not what’s causing P.K.’s troubles today:  desperados have killed P.K.’s foster ma and pa, searching for a priceless letter: the deed to the Motherlode of silver being mined in the untamed town of Virginia City. How P.K. came to have the letter and how the desperados found out about it are just two of the mysteries in Book One of The Western Mysteries, The Case of the Deadly Desperados, by Caroline Lawrence. Fleeing from Whittlin’ Walt and his cruel gang, P.K. finds there’s really nowhere to hide in Virginia City, a lawless town full ofRead More →