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Diane Stanley’s 2006 novel Bella at Midnight is a magical fairy tale.  Bella is a peasant girl, raised in a small Medieval village by a blacksmith, his wet-nurse wife, and their 2 other children.  She’s kind, imaginative, and happy. Her best friend is her mother’s former charge, Julian, a prince of the realm.  Alice is a thoughtful, somewhat overdramatic merchant’s daughter, who dreams of adventures at sea and visiting exotic lands with her father.  But soon both girls’ lives are irrevocably changed:  Bella learns that she’s really the daughter of a knight who sent her away when her mother died in childbirth and now she must return toRead More →

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Perfectly capturing the enterprising spirit of the turn of the 20th century, Gary Blackwood’s Around the World in 100 Days is an enjoyable update on the classic Around the World in 80 Days.  This time around it’s Phileas Fogg’s only son, Harry, whose vision, guts, and bravado will be tested. Caught with the same fire and courage of his father, Harry embarks rashly on his adventure, but this time it’s to prove to the skeptical world that the motor vehicle, his Flash, is the way of the future. Boldly, and sometimes heedlessly testing the limits of technology, Harry and his mechanical-genius Johnny, along with theRead More →

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Debut author Erin Bow’s Plain Kateis a joy. Kate is a likeable, charming girl whose plight pulls at your heartstrings and whose courage inspires you.  Even though she’s faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, she remains resolute and steadfast in her determination to keep moving forward in hopes of finding a place to belong. Plain Kate is the only child of her town’s master carver; she’s held a blade since before she could walk and her skill with carving sometimes earns the suspicion of her town.  They say she’s got a “witch’s blade” and her charms and carvings are magic.  That’s a dangerous rumor in Kate’s world,Read More →

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Check out this review of Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld from briangriggs.com: “I realized today that there is no main antagonist in the Leviathan/Behemoth series. It’s straight character vs. self and character vs. society. I wonder if that’s why students don’t quite get into the action. The only complaint I’ve received is that there’s so much focus on the history and not on excitement. The “focus on history” comment is an interesting one, considering the book is about giant flying whales and steam-powered mechs. Behemoth is a great sequel to Leviathan. It continues documenting the travels of the airship crew as they delve into the Ottoman Empire.Read More →

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Mike Lupica’s Hero, due from Philomel/Penguin Books in November 2010, is a variation on familiar territory for both Lupica and the teen-hero genre.  When 14 year old Billy Harriman’s dad, the globetrotting special advisor to the President, is mysteriously killed in a small aircraft crash, Billy’s world is turned upside down.  Billy had always looked up to his famous hero-of-a-dad, but also secretly wished he’d been around more, instead of always putting others, and America, before Billy and his mom.  But now that his dad is gone and never coming home, he is forced to confront the anger, resentment, and longings he’d suppressed for years. But that’sRead More →

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On a dark night when he was 12 years old, Jacob Reckless laid his hand on the gilded mirror in his missing father’s study as was instantly, magically transported into a strange world where fairy tales have come to life.  And from that first visit, Jacob becomes addicted to the escape, the freedom, and the forgetting that the Mirrorworld provides him.  Until the day, 12 years later, when his younger brother Will follows him through the mirror and is attacked by the stone-warriors and infected with their poison.  Now it becomes a race against time as Jacob and Will must search throughout Mirrorworld to findRead More →

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I love fairy tales! Who hasn’t thought about what they’d wish for if they had 3 magic wishes or dreamed of finding Prince Charming? Alex Flinn, once again, weaves real life and fairy tale magic together to take us on a fun and sometimes funny romp. Johnny and his mom own a shoe repair store in an expensive hotel. Business is not so good and teenage Johnny has to spend 12-18 hours a day there. When a guest at the hotel, an exotic princess, notices him and his work ethic she asks him to help find her brother. The twist? The prince has been cursed by a witch and turned intoRead More →

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In a kingdom of merciless tyrants and swift, brutal justice, Jebel Rum’s family is honored as royalty because his father is The Executioner. But Rashed Rum is near retirement. And when he goes, there will be a contest to determine his successor. It is a contest that thin, puny Jebel has no chance of winning.  Humiliated and ashamed, Jebel sets out on a quest to the faraway home of a legendary fire god to petition for super-human powers so that he can become the most lethal of men and take over his father’s post.  He must take someone with him to be sacrificed to the god, and soRead More →

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In a city a lot like early-20th century New York, 3 teens lives are about to intersect and be changed forever:  sold into slavery by his uncle in Italy, street musician Guiseppe finds a green violin that both leads him to imagine his freedom and towards a life-or-death struggle with his cruel padrone; orphaned clock-maker’s apprentice Frederick yearns to create a magnificent mechanical man that will allow him to make journeyman and hopefully forget the mother who abandoned him; and smart, strong-willed hotel maid Hannah is struggling to bring in enough money to support her family and find a cure for her father’s crippling illness.  Soon each of them discoverRead More →