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Just in time for Earth Day 2021, Hannah Gold’s debut novel, The Last Bear calls us all to do one thing in the planet’s best interest. Naturally, the efforts of the novel’s protagonist, eleven-year-old April Wood, are much bigger since she rescues a polar bear! Despite the fanciful aspects of Gold’s novel that targets middle grade readers, this is a book with more than an environmentalist message. It speaks to animal lovers and to lonely children, to those of us who have lost a parent and those who feel neglected and adrift. Set on Bear Island in the Arctic Circle, the story revolves around April,Read More →

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Set in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon is a horror story. Along with the Fantastic Four, readers will drown in a sea of scary. If you don’t believe monsters are real, wait until you experience the creepy encounters of Hermon’s characters! Since his mother died, Justin Vaughn believes that everybody leaves, nothing stays the same, and nothing fits anymore. One of his best friends, Zee Murphy is back after a long absence, but he has been changed by the trauma of his experience while lost. Now, along with two other friends—Lyric Rivers, who is loyal and believes that friends help and don’tRead More →

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Because Sarah Lean’s first novel features an Irish wolfhound, who looks like he would go to the ends of the earth to save his master, A Dog Called Homeless is a dog story, but it is also a ghost story, a coming-of-age story, and a story somewhat reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, which also features a female protagonist whose selective mutism follows personal tragedy.  Because Lean’s tale embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences, the book also deserves a look by the Schneider Family Book Awards committee.  With all of its identities, this author’s first novel has multi-audienceRead More →