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In A Riddle in Ruby: The Changers Key by Kent Davis, the brave Ruby Teach is back, and has found herself a voluntary captive of the man she was running from. While Ruby is training to be a soldier for an upcoming war, her father and friends are searching for her by means of a special coded journal.  As Ruby is fights to prove her worth, and train to be as good a soldier as the other Reeves, she is experimented on by the scientist in hopes of finding out her secret. She makes new friends along the way, and is confronted with her darkRead More →

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In The Littlest Bigfoot, New York Times Best Seller Jennifer Weiner delivers the first of what I hope to be many books for young adults.  This is a story about two girls from two different worlds who have always felt like outsiders but somehow form an unlikely friendship.  There is twelve-year-old Alice, who is ashamed of her unruly hair, and larger-than-average body, and has difficulty fitting in at school. She is being shipped off to her either boarding school at The Experimental Center for Love and Learning, where “everyone has a thing,” and lentil loaf is a dinner staple.  There she meets her bunkmates RiyaRead More →

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Inspired by ancient Chinese folklore and woven with both adventure and villainy, When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin is a lyrical, well-told tale, complete with full-color illustrations.  It is the tale of Pinmei, a shy girl whose words freeze in her throat at the sight of anyone unfamiliar, and of Yishan, a boy who often forgets he is young and speaks with a confidence and vehemence that belie his youth. Both Pinmei and Yishan live on a remote mountain, a place of solitude.  But the tranquility of their lives is shattered when soldiers come and capture Amah, Pinmei’s grandmother, who is the famous storyteller.  People areRead More →

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The Crown’s Game is a story about a woman named Vika, who has to decide between honor or love. She has a duty to her country to win the Crown’s Game, but she also wants to experience love and life. Vika encounters Pasha and Nikolai, who will have a great impact on the decision that will affect the rest of her life. Vika will soon know the meaning of love through the encounters that she has with Nikolai and Pasha as the games continues. The Crown’s Game reveals that magic can be found in all forms of the characters whether is performed or felt. AsRead More →

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Charlie’s father has always told Charlie that he’s a very special and fragile boy.  Protective of his son, Rajesh Pondicherry is a creative inventor and designer of various mechanisms in 1887 London.  Because Charlie has special needs and no mother, his bap doesn’t allow him to wander and doesn’t like him to spend too much time outdoors.  These limitations make Charlie an avid reader of adventure stories and the Almanack of the Elder Folk and Arcana of Britain and Northern Ireland by Reginald St. John Smythson.  Charlie’s vocabulary and imagination grow under the influence of this reading, which further teaches him about kobolds, trolls, dwarfs,Read More →

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The adventures of the Legend Hunters continue in Book 2, Darkmouth: Worlds Explode by Irish author Shane Hegarty.  Not unlike the world of Artemis Fowl, predicaments and otherworldly creatures populate Darkmouth, where Finn the Defiant resides.  As a swarm of Legends was descending, Finn’s father pushed his twelve year old son to safety, and the gateway to the Infested Side closed, trapping the last Legend Hunter, Hugo the Great.  Now, Finn has fewer than 48 hours to find his dad who has been declared dead by the Council of 12. Although Finn is determined to rescue his father, the prophesy predicts his peril.  As theRead More →

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In The Secrets of Solace, Jaliegh Johnson brings the fantasy World of Solace to life with maps, vivid descriptions, relatable conflicts, and characters to whom the reader can form a connection.  Although the target audience for Johnson’s book is tween readers, anyone who finds fascination in archives and museums will likely consider this tale intriguing. Because the Winterbocks died from a pestilence when their daughter Lina was nine years old, she has been entrusted to the care of Zara, a senior archivist in the mountain stronghold of Ortana—an underground community of rocks and caves.  Besides humans, Lina’s world is populated by shape-shifting chamelins, a sarnun speciesRead More →

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Friends, family, babysitting, and playing the French horn comprise the interests of twelve-year-old Gabby Duran.  To Gabby, every child is a puzzle-locked box that can be solved: “If you [are] interested in them enough to figure out the puzzle, you [can] open that box and completely connect with the person inside” (44).  That philosophy, and her aversion to the words strange or disgusting as descriptors for children and their behavior, make her a superior associate for the Association Linking Intergalactic and Earthlings as Neighbors (A.L.I.E.N). Working for A.L.I.E.N. as a Sitter to the Unsittables, Gabby encounters a troll family and their son Trymmy, who—just likeRead More →

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The Brothers of the Ikkuma Pit have fended for themselves since birth. They have no Mothers; only themselves and each other. When they arrive outside the Pit as babies, they must spend a whole night alone before they are welcomed inside to be cared for and guided by the Brothers that came before them. Every time a new Little Brother enters the Pit, a Big Brother must leave to make room for him. No Big Brother has ever returned after leaving to tell of what the outside world holds. Urgle is a Big Brother and he’s not very good at it. His Little Brother CubbyRead More →