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In Jillian Cantor’s first novel, The September Sisters, we watch a family fall apart.  One summer night, 11 year old Becky goes missing from her suburban home.  Left behind are her parents and 13 year old sister, Abby, the narrator of this aching story.  The mother retreats into depression, the father focuses on finding Becky and maintaining normalcy, and Abby is left adrift in her confusion and loss.  The majority of the story focuses on the year following the kidnapping as the family unravels as each person tries to deal with (or escape from ) the horrible pain and anguish caused by Becky’s disappearance.  Abby’s emotionsRead More →

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The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act went into effect Feb 10, 2009, and the good news for booksellers, librarians, etc., is that the Consumer Product Safety Commission said it would “not impose penalties against anyone for making, importing, distributing or selling” a list of specified products, including “an ordinary children’s book printed after 1985.” Read more at the Publisher’s Weekly site.Read More →

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Sunny Hathaway is just the kind of girl I would have loved to have had as a best friend going into 6th grade: she’s smart, creative, a bit of a day-dreamer, and funny.  She freely admits that change is not her strong suit, she often goes off on tangents, and she’s an entrepreneur.  Well written, sassy, and thoughtfully drawn characters abound in Marion Roberts’ debut novel, Sunny Side Up. The start of 6th grade and a lot of things are happening: her best friend Claud(ia) is now frustratingly boy-crazy, her mom’s boyfriend and his annoying kids are moving in, and her dad & his newRead More →

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Told in the alternating perspectives of two eigth grade narrators, Wendelin Van Draanen’s Flipped is a charming entrance to the battle of the sexes.  Bryce is cute, with stunning blue eyes, and the center of Juli’s universe.  Juli is a dreamer, an artist and, according to Bryce completely weird.  She’s been in love with him ever since he moved in across from her in 2nd grade, but all Bryce has wanted to do is avoid Juli.  Things start changing in 8th grade, however, when Bryce realizes there’s something special and compelling about Juli, and Juli begins to realize there’s not much character behind Bryce’s amazingRead More →

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Laurie Halse Anderson’s latest novel for young adults, Wintergirls, due out in March 2009, is the haunting, gut-wrenching story of 18 year old Lia who is losing her battle with the demons of anorexia.   Her estranged best friend Cassie has died suddenly, and Lia is lost in a world of her own making as she is failing to cope with her family life, school, and Cassie’s death. Lia’s relationships with everyone around her – mother, father, stepmother, sister, therapist, guy she meets at hotel where Cassie died – take the back seat to the ghosts that plague her. Their appeals to her to eat, to save herself, fall on ears thatRead More →

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In Timothy Mason’s first novel, The Last Synapsid, we visit Faith, Colorado. It’s a quiet town, but this spring, a mysterious creature is lurking on the mountain.  What is it, and what does it want? Only Rob and his best friend, Phoebe, are brave enough to investigate.  What they find is the Last Synapsid—a squat, drooly creature that looks like a dinosaur crossed with a wienerdog—that claims to need Rob and Phoebe’s help. Having wandered into a time snag from his own era, 30 million years before the dinosaurs, “Sid” is chasing a violent carnivore called a gorgonopsid. The Gorgon refuses to return to his properRead More →

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Gaby Triana’s latest novel, The Temptress Four, is a light and flirty cruise through the last days of high school.  Four longtime girlfriends, Fiona, Killian, Alma & Yoli have been fast friends all through school and on the day after high school graduation they embark on a week-long Caribbean cruise to celebrate their past, enjoy their present, and seal their friendship for the future. Just before leaving, however, they have a spooky Tarot card reading full of warnings about strife, storms and the premonition that one of them won’t be coming home. Typical conventions of high school girl novels abound, and while an enjoyable read,Read More →

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Woodson’s story is set in 1994, when the anonymous narrator is 11, and Tupac has been shot. Everyone in her Queens neighborhood is listening to his music and talking about him. Meanwhile D, a foster child, meets the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, while roaming around the city by herself. They become close and Tupac’s music becomes a soundtrack for the their friendship as they search together for their “Big Purpose.”  The story ends in 1996 with Tupac’s untimely death and the reappearance of D’s mother, who takes D with her, and out of the narrator’s and Neeka’s lives forever. After Tupac & D Foster delicately unfolds issues about race and socialRead More →

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In the first of a new sci-fi action series by prolific author James Patterson we meet Daniel X.  His secret abilities — like being able to manipulate objects and animals with his mind or to recreate himself in any shape he chooses — have helped him survive. But Daniel doesn’t have a normal life. He is the protector of the earth, the Alien Hunter, with a mission beyond what anyone could imagine.  From the day that his parents were brutally murdered in front of his very eyes, Daniel has used his unique gifts to assume their quest to hunt down the worst aliens hiding out onRead More →