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In Jillian Cantor’s first novel, The September Sisters, we watch a family fall apart.  One summer night, 11 year old Becky goes missing from her suburban home.  Left behind are her parents and 13 year old sister, Abby, the narrator of this aching story.  The mother retreats into depression, the father focuses on finding Becky and maintaining normalcy, and Abby is left adrift in her confusion and loss.  The majority of the story focuses on the year following the kidnapping as the family unravels as each person tries to deal with (or escape from ) the horrible pain and anguish caused by Becky’s disappearance.  Abby’s emotionsRead More →

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Sunny Hathaway is just the kind of girl I would have loved to have had as a best friend going into 6th grade: she’s smart, creative, a bit of a day-dreamer, and funny.  She freely admits that change is not her strong suit, she often goes off on tangents, and she’s an entrepreneur.  Well written, sassy, and thoughtfully drawn characters abound in Marion Roberts’ debut novel, Sunny Side Up. The start of 6th grade and a lot of things are happening: her best friend Claud(ia) is now frustratingly boy-crazy, her mom’s boyfriend and his annoying kids are moving in, and her dad & his newRead More →

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Told in the alternating perspectives of two eigth grade narrators, Wendelin Van Draanen’s Flipped is a charming entrance to the battle of the sexes.  Bryce is cute, with stunning blue eyes, and the center of Juli’s universe.  Juli is a dreamer, an artist and, according to Bryce completely weird.  She’s been in love with him ever since he moved in across from her in 2nd grade, but all Bryce has wanted to do is avoid Juli.  Things start changing in 8th grade, however, when Bryce realizes there’s something special and compelling about Juli, and Juli begins to realize there’s not much character behind Bryce’s amazingRead More →

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In Timothy Mason’s first novel, The Last Synapsid, we visit Faith, Colorado. It’s a quiet town, but this spring, a mysterious creature is lurking on the mountain.  What is it, and what does it want? Only Rob and his best friend, Phoebe, are brave enough to investigate.  What they find is the Last Synapsid—a squat, drooly creature that looks like a dinosaur crossed with a wienerdog—that claims to need Rob and Phoebe’s help. Having wandered into a time snag from his own era, 30 million years before the dinosaurs, “Sid” is chasing a violent carnivore called a gorgonopsid. The Gorgon refuses to return to his properRead More →

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Woodson’s story is set in 1994, when the anonymous narrator is 11, and Tupac has been shot. Everyone in her Queens neighborhood is listening to his music and talking about him. Meanwhile D, a foster child, meets the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, while roaming around the city by herself. They become close and Tupac’s music becomes a soundtrack for the their friendship as they search together for their “Big Purpose.”  The story ends in 1996 with Tupac’s untimely death and the reappearance of D’s mother, who takes D with her, and out of the narrator’s and Neeka’s lives forever. After Tupac & D Foster delicately unfolds issues about race and socialRead More →

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In the first of a new sci-fi action series by prolific author James Patterson we meet Daniel X.  His secret abilities — like being able to manipulate objects and animals with his mind or to recreate himself in any shape he chooses — have helped him survive. But Daniel doesn’t have a normal life. He is the protector of the earth, the Alien Hunter, with a mission beyond what anyone could imagine.  From the day that his parents were brutally murdered in front of his very eyes, Daniel has used his unique gifts to assume their quest to hunt down the worst aliens hiding out onRead More →

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In the first of 6 projected books, The Comet’s Curse, opens with a quirky narrator telling the story of a “message in a bottle.”  The tail of the comet Bhaktul flew through the Earth’s atmosphere, leaving deadly particles in its wake. Suddenly, mankind is confronted with a virus that devastates the adult population. Only those under the age of eighteen seem to be immune. Desperate to save humanity, a renowned scientist proposes a bold plan: to create a ship that will carry a crew of 251 teenagers to a home in a distant solar system. Two years later, the Galahad and its crew—none over the age of sixteen—isRead More →

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In: Author Appearances, Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy, What's Happening at PBC
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Phoenix Book Company will place author N D Wilson in local schools on February 24, 2009. Wilson’s new book is Dandelion Fire, the sequel to 100 Cupboards.  In this dense and worthy sequel to 100 Cupboards (Random, 2007), Henry York, having discovered that he, like his uncle Frank, actually comes from a world beyond the magic cupboards in his attic room, decides to enter it again. This is a last-ditch attempt to learn more about his origins and about the strange dandelion magic that has recently seared its way into his body. Henry, his cousin Henrietta, and the rest of his Kansas family end upRead More →

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The best stories, and the best authors, in my opinion, show you the true human experience underlying an issue, situation, or place & time.  Julia Alvarez’s latest novel for young people, Return to Sender, is just such a story by just such an author. After Tyler’s father is injured in a tractor accident, his family is forced to hire migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont dairy farm.  Tyler isn’t sure what to make of this situation and of these workers and their daughters.  The Mexican family lives in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to the poverty theyRead More →