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Gayle Forman’s If I Stay is an incredible book.  It’s heartbreaking, lyrical, visceral and beautiful.  I shed tears a few times while reading it. And when Mia chose to come back to a broken body, a life without her parents and beloved younger brother, to an uncertain future, but to the fierce love of her grandparents and boyfriend Adam, I rejoiced.  Next month, Dutton will release Where She Went, Forman’s sequel to If I Stay.  Three years have passed and now, and from Adam’s perspective we learn what happened to Adam and Mia.  Adam’s band, Shooting Star, has propelled him to rock star existance: he’s rich; hounded byRead More →

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Sally Lodge of Publisher’s Weekly reports: This week—quite fittingly on March 15—novelist Patrick Carman debuted “3:15,” an app for Android and iPhone that introduces nine spooky stories and involves listening to an audio introduction, reading a text story, and watching its conclusion on video—the three components represented in the app’s title. The title’s reference to 15 indicates the approximate number of minutes it will take kids to listen to, read, and watch each story.   The first episode, Buried Treasure, is currently available for download and the second, Reflecting Pool, will be released on March 29. The subsequent stories will become available at two-week intervals,Read More →

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The long war between the Uplanders and the Downlanders is finally over: there’s a new lord, an Uplander; refuges, hoping for healing and a new life, are still fleeing south after their villages and livelihoods have been destroyed; battle-scarred soldiers are returning home to an uneasy welcome and must face questions about the fates of those did not; and the day-to-day life in every village will never be the same as everyone deals with the overt and subtle changes, wounds, and uncertainty about what lies ahead.  Cam Attling was 12 when he marched off to war. Now he’s 18 and has returned to the small village heRead More →

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Blake Nelson’s latest YA novel, Recovery Road, is a novel about a journey. At the opening of the book, high school junior Maddie is being committed to a rehab facility after a drunken car accident.  The story gets going a  few weeks later once she’s in the transitional program nearing her release.  On one of the weekly movie nights that the patients in the transitional program are allowed to leave the facility to attend, Maddie meets Stewart, a beautiful but remote guy about her age. Their attraction is instantaneous and soon they are finding ways to be together whenever they can.  Once Maddie is back homeRead More →