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Summertime, St. Kilda, Australia.  The long, languid days of  Christmas holiday break stretch before 15 year old Sky Martin.  She and her family, she says, are “like inverse superheroes, marked by our defects.  Dad was addicted to beer and bootlegs. Gully [her younger brother] had ‘social difficulties’ … I was surface clean, but underneath a weird hormonal stew was simmering. My defects weren’t the kind you see just from looking.” (2)  Into lives of the Martin family that summer come 19 year old enigmatic Nancy, who challenges, thrills, taunts, and awakes something in Sky she didn’t know was there and tragic, broken, and oh-so-hot Luke, who isRead More →

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Some adolescents attempt to break out of the traps they perceive in their current life conditions by acting out; others use creative outlets like music to escape.  Breakout by Kevin Emerson follows the story of fourteen-year-old Anthony Castillo and his best friend Keenan on a twelve day journey to Fall Arts Night in Seattle, Washington. Prone to hyperbole, Anthony plays lead guitar in a band called the Rusty Soles, and Keenan plays bass.  Both boys attend Catharine Daly, a K-8 school in which the eighth graders are expected to lead by example.  Anthony takes exception to that nearly impossible expectation by suggesting that eighth gradersRead More →

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It’s been awhile since the last time I fell head over heels in love. And, like all really good loves, I wasn’t looking for it.  Sure, I was anticipating a good story (I loved her first effort) but, “Hi-Yo, Silver”, I was not prepared for my intense reaction to Kristin Levine‘s The Paper Cowboy.  I’ve set aside everything else and have read this book 3 times (and that’s saying a lot) because there is just so much to unpack within these amazingly written 333 pages.  Rumor has it that there’s already buzz for the Newbery list (I hope so!) and I can’t wait until someoneRead More →

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I love a good con.  Movie, TV show, book – it doesn’t matter, really – whatever the media, when the wool is pulled over someone’s eyes (especially when we thought we were on the look-out), it’s a genuine thrill.  I’m especially enraptured by the reveal: going back through those moments of deception, misdirection, and nuance when, now that it’s being laid out in plain sight, I wonder at how I (and the mark) could have been so blind.  But that’s all part of the fun, the lure, and the draw to this genre, isn’t it? Returning in Spring 2015 with his sophomore YA effort, JohnRead More →

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It seems a common theme: a young woman, popular, powerful, reckless, driven, and admired; yet underneath, harboring seering secret pain, broken and wracked with guilt over the merciless ways she misuses her power, crumbling under others’ expectations and the pressure to maintain the perfect facade.  And then she snaps and, in the case of  junior Liz Emerson in debut author Amy Zhang‘s Falling Into Place, drives her car off a cliff one snowy January day. Reconstructing Liz’s life –  her rise to be queen bee and her spiral downward – are her two “best friends”, Julia and Kennie.  We also meet a variety of otherRead More →

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On the day when his younger brother, Luke, needed him the most, Matt Turner wasn’t there for him.  Now, after Luke’s suicide, Matt lives in guilt over not being there for his brother both during the bullying that lead to his suicide and on that last day; anger at both his parents for their ineffectual response to the tragedy; disappointed in friends who turned their backs when things got tough; and completely without faith in God and in a future where life “will get better.”  Matt clings to his girlfriend, Hayden, like a drowning man hanging onto a life preserver, even though their relationship isRead More →

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It’s starting again: the loud buzzing in his ears, the crows following him everywhere, the cold sweats and paranoia, and the voice in his head.  Miles had a schizophrenic breakdown  two years ago on the beach near his San Francisco home and he’s blamed himself every day since for the destruction it caused his family.  He’s supposed to be managing his disease with a cocktail of meds and weekly talk therapy, but he knows it isn’t working, and  he’s gotta do something to fix his broken brain and his damaged family: “Sick. Schizo. And it really only feels like a matter of time before theyRead More →

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In his last published work,On a Clear Day, Walter Dean Myers imagines a world not too different from the one we live in today: globalization has enabled 8 giant, multi-national corporations to take over every aspect of our lives, entrenching people into rigid socio-economic classes with little hope of upward mobility; millions living on the edge of poverty turn towards racial and class violence as a means of survival; the food supply is heavily regulated and people are starving to death on a daily basis; terrorism is on the rise in all parts of the world; and the global education system has been dismantled in favor ofRead More →

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John Feinstein puts you in the heart of the game.  Doesn’t matter if it’s the baseball field, the basketball court, or the football field, when you open up the pages of one of his books, you are in the center of the action with the thrill, the agony, and the controlled chaos of sport whirling around you.  Years of sports experience, finely honed descriptive skills, and a gift for storytelling combine to make Feinstein’s young adult novels captivating, action-oriented, and worth reading whenever you can get your hands on one. In The Walk On, out this Fall from Knopf, we meet freshman Alex Myers. His folksRead More →