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In her last book, Solace of the Road, Siobhan Dowd takes the reader on a gut-wrenching journey with Holly, and her alter-ego, Solace, as she finds her way to facing the pain in her troubled past and possibly moving beyond it to live her life. A ward of the state since she was a small child, 14 year old Holly has grown jaded and angry on the streets of London.  She accepts a placement in a quiet middle class home but can’t let her guard down to accept the comfort and love her foster parents try to show her.  The anger and mistrust that hasRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Elementary Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Mystery & Suspense, Sci Fi & Fantasy
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Powerless, Matthew Cody’s debut novel,  is a fun, action-packed novel that middle grade readers will really enjoy.  When 12-year old Daniel and his family move to the small town of Noble’s Green he’s nervous about making new friends and fitting in at school.  But soon enough he makes friends with some kind of odd, but cool, kids, as well as making some instant, and scary enemies. Daniel begins to realize that what he thought were simply oddities and quirks are actually powers – super powers, that is:  Mollie is the fastest flier ever; Rohan has super senses; Rose can disappear; and Eric is super strong and can fly.  ButRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Elementary Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy
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Sometimes you’re craving an over-the-top, action packed summer-block buster, full of outrageous aliens, unbelievable CGI special effects, fast dialogue, and zany surprises & intrigue… and when you’re looking for that perfect thing, and nothing else will do, then Hollywood screenwriter David O. Russell and video game designer Andrew Auseon’s Alienated is the ticket you want to buy. But I am getting ahead of myself, since Alienatedwas just published, as a book, by Aladdin.  Clearly conceptualized and written as the beginning of a series destined for the big screen, this book is one over-the-top, crazy episode and character after another.  Middle grade guy readers (and some girls too) whoRead More →

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In: Romance (YA), Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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In this deliciously tempting collection of  stories, Laini Taylor and illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, offer fragrant, forbidden fruit that begs to be tasted, relished and devoured.  The stories in Lips Touch are three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls.  In Goblin Fruit, Kizzy is the girl with a fiery spirit and dark, smoldering beauty who is always on the outside, looking in and longing for a normal life.  Her aching need is a perfume that draws Hell’s goblins to crave her soul.  When an unbelievably gorgeous new guyRead More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Supernatural & Horror, Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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14 year olds Stuck and Pete are best friends who live on the shores of a glacier-lake in New England, surrounded by a dense, dark wood. Every summer their lake gets an influx of summer visitors and their friends from the city come back for another season. But this year is different – the kids are older now, their relationships are changing, and the terror in the woods that’s haunted them in the past has crossed over into their world. As part of their annual summer activities the gang of friends spend most nights around the campfire, telling ever more complicated and scary versions of theRead More →

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Publisher’s Weekly reports that  Daniel Handler, who had a long and successful run with his Lemony Snicket-penned A Series of Unfortunate Events series at HarperCollins, is moving to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in a five-book deal announced late Wednesday afternoon. Under the agreement, Handler will write four Lemony Snicket titles in a new series, with the first due out in 2012. Before that series hits, LBYR will release a Handler young adult novel in 2011 that will feature full-color illustrations by Maira Kalman. Read Jim Milliot’s — Publishers Weekly, 11/11/2009 3:24:00 PM — article by clicking here.Read More →

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In: Ideas You Can Use, Reaching Reluctant Readers, This is interesting
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November 3, 2009 was RIF’s (Reading is Fundamental) 43rd birthday!  Founded in 1966, RIF is the oldest and largest children’s and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8. Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, RIF provides 4.5 million children with 16 million new, free books and literacy resources each year.  All RIF programs combine three essential elements to foster children’s literacy: reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep.  RIF’s accomplishments are due in part to the generous support of the U.S. Department ofRead More →

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Like his Lightning Thief star Percy Jackson, Rick Riordan is a demigod—at least in the eyes of his readers. With the release next May of the first title in his new middle-grade fantasy series, about ancient Egypt, he is set to become a pharaoh, too.  In The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid, kids will meet Carter Kane, 14, and his sister, Sadie, 12, descendants of Egyptian magicians who battle gods accidentally released in the present. (Watch out for the god of chaos.) “In my classroom, there was only one thing that was more popular than ancient Greece, and that was ancient Egypt,” said Riordan,Read More →

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By Sue Corbett — Publishers Weekly, 11/5/2009 12:15:00 PM Alex Rider’s eighth adventure, Crocodile Tears, hits stores November 17 and Penguin is partnering with MAKE magazine to challenge young inventors to come up with a gadget cool enough for the teen spy’s arsenal. After all, author Anthony Horowitz says that when he needs a new tool to get his hero out of peril, he goes to his own kids for inspiration. “I look around their bedrooms to see what kind of electronics and such they have littering the place,” said Horowitz, father of Nicholas, 20, and Cassian, 18. The challenge is to design a gadgetRead More →