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In the summer of 1941, 15 year old Lina’s life changes forever: she, her mother, and her 10 year old brother are rousted from their home in the middle of the night by NKVD soldiers, loaded into a truck, and taken to a rail yard. There, thousands of other Lithuanian teachers, intellectuals, soliders’ families, lawyers, bankers and everyday citizens are crammed into stock cars to begin the long deportation to the Siberian gulags.  The conditions on the crowded train are terrible and people succumb daily to disease, exhaustion, and starvation.  When they arrive at the gulag the treatment from the guards is merciless, the workingRead More →

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There’s certainly something special about debut author Trent Reedy’s Words in the Dust.  Zulaikha has never dared to hope: born with a cleft palate, she is teased and shunned by the people in her small Afghan town.  Her prospects for a good husband are dim even though she is a very hard worker, taking care of her family’s compound and watching after her two younger half-brothers.   Her life is very hard, but despite the challenges, now that the Taliban is gone, Zulaikha feels the stirrings of hope that things may get better for her and her family –“Inshallah,” God willing.  Then she meets Meena, an old friend of herRead More →

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Pete Hautman’s latest, The Big Crunch, is not the kind of love story you’d expect when someone says it’s a love story.  June and Wes are an unlikely couple, both to themselves and to the reader.  June’s parents drag her from city to city every year when her dad changes jobs, so she never has much time or inclination to make any real connections that will have to be dropped and forgotten.  She’s developed a jaded stance that allows her to observe her life and remain aloof and safe from emotional attachments.  Wes thinks of himself as a “semi-cool semi-geek” who at the start ofRead 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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In a strong follow-up to her debut memoir, I Don’t want to Be Crazy, Samantha Schutz creates a poignant, intimate novel that peels back the layers of loss and grief in You Are Not Here.  Annaleah meet Brian one day by chance. Not long after, the two teens start hanging out, and sparked by what felt like kindred spirits and is certainly mutual attraction, they envelope each other in a sensual, secretive romance.  But because they go to different schools, Annaleah is excluded from parts of Brian’s life.  In addition to not having any mutual friends, Brian erected walls around other parts of his life,Read More →

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12 year old Blaise Fortune, also known as Koumail, has been fleeing west across Eastern Europe with his guardian, Gloria, since he was 7.  When the Soviet Union fell and the Caucasus states began to fight for their independence, Blaise and Gloria become two of thousands of war refugees scrabbling across a battle-scarred land in search of safety and a better life. As they’ve traveled westward towards France, Gloria has told Blaise the story of his past many times: picking fruit in her father’s vast orchards in Georgia, Gloria heard the derailment of an express train; in her rush to help the vicitms, she discovered a French womanRead 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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The events and grief of September 11, 2001, will be explored in fiction for many years to come as our nation continues to work through the most profound, gut-wrenching event of our times.  It’s no surprise, then, that 9/11 will also have continuing impact on Young Adult fiction, even though today’s teens were in elementary school at the time.  Virgin Territory, James Lecesne’s next novel after Absolute Brightness, is in its own way a post-9/11 recovery novel.  15 year old Dylan and his dad have lived in the small town of Jupiter, Florida for the past 9 years.  Still feeling like an emotional and physical outsider, DylanRead More →

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15 year old Pearl lives with her recently divorced mother on her uncle’s sprawling California avocado farm.  Uncle Hoyt routinely hires migrant labor to work in the groves and until the day when Pearl notices beautiful, mysterious, quiet Amiel, she’d never thought twice about the undocumented migrant workers’ plight.  But something about shy Amiel speaks to Pearl: he’s beautiful, of course, but there’s more; he’s mute due to a tragic accident in his past, he seems vulnerable and kind, and he’s very reluctant to open up to her overtures of friendship.  Pearl finds herself drawn repeatedly to the quiet bend in the river after she discovers Amiel’s small campsite where he’s beenRead More →