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Jake Collier is a cyclist, a fierce competitor and a smart strategist.  He’s also a bit jealous of his talented teammate Juan Carlos from Ecuador.  Caught in the middle is Tessa Taylor, the seventeen-year-old host of KidVison, a television show for young people that runs on Greater Boston Cable News (GBC N).  Although Tessa is known as the “PBS Princess” and Juan Carlos is known as the “altar boy,” Diana Renn’s book Latitude Zero proves that we are all more than a nickname. Set in both Cambridge, Massachusetts (latitude forty two), and Ecuador (latitude zero), where poinsettia trees grow wild and unpruned among the lushRead More →

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Nell and Layla are sisters with a close bond. Their parents are separated, which requires the girls to rely on one another regarding their friends, school, and personal problems. Layla is the perfect child. She excels in her academics, is involved with extra curriculars at school, and is popular among her peers. Nell looks up to her older sister, especially as she begins her freshman year in high school. She wants to follow Layla’s footsteps and make her proud for accomplishing similar feats and experiences. As the new school year begins, Nell and her best friend Felix, are full of anxious excitement as they begin theirRead More →

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Any reader who seeks out books with thrills, chills, high stakes, and a fast pace should grab Uncaged when it releases next month!  The first in a series called The Singular Menace by John Sandford and Michele Cook, Uncaged features two teens, Shay and Odin Remby, both in the foster care system after losing their parents. For his computer skills, Odin has been recruited by the Animal Rights Group STORM.  Hoping to sabotage their experiments and rescue the caged animals, the group raids a Singular Lab in Eugene, Oregon, a medical company doing Parkinson’s research.  What they discover, however, is shocking.  Singular appears to beRead More →

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Amber Lough writes The Fire Wish with a creative style that showcases the simile, so analogies like “The music hung thickly in the air, like the scent of cinnamon” (2-3) are common throughout her imagery-rich book.  The tale—told from the perspectives of two girls living in two different worlds—also features battles, magic, oud music, and many forms of love and loyalty.  One girl, Najwa, is a jinni—a being of fire and sand that lives within earthen tunnels among gems and magic.  In a simple transporting spell, Najwa penetrates the wards that protect the palace in Baghdad enabling her to bring back a rose from theRead More →