By:
On:
In: Action & Adventure, General Book Reviews, Middle Grade Reviews, Supernatural & Horror
With: 0 Comments

With a name like Grimsbane, a person is bound to find connections to death, destruction, woe, and gloom. And readers will find all that in Joan Reardon’s The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters. Set in Witchless, Indiana, this novel for middle grade readers features Anna and Billy Grimsbane, twin siblings who are about to turn thirteen. Billy is a “nerd extraordinaire” and a lover of scones. He is also organized, intelligent, and fearless. Anna, on the other hand, is more impulsive. She is also naturally agile, protective, and loyal. Both are eager to enter the family business, although for very different reasons. A family of witchRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Lamar Giles, author of Ruin Road, takes the idea of selling one’s soul to the devil to a whole new level. His novel further reinforces the moral: Be careful what you wish for, and even suggests that sometimes fear can be a good thing. Playing wide receiver, Kincade (Cade) Webster attends Neeson Preparatory School on an athletic scholarship and dreams of playing football for Ohio State. When he makes it into the pros, he plans to take his best friends out of Jacob’s Court with him: Gabby and Booker Payne. One night, while escaping an altercation on the bus, Cade walks into Skinner’s Pawn andRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Reviews
With: 0 Comments

With her novel When We Flew Away, Alice Hoffman writes an emotionally stirring prequel to The Diary of Anne Frank. In this poignant piece, Hoffman reminds readers of the power of hope even when evil walks in the world. Even when it seems impossible to have hope, Anne Frank shows us that it is possible to be brave, to have dreams, and to live on in the words we have written or the record we leave behind. Set in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from 1940-1942, Hoffman’s book begins with Otto and Edith Frank wondering if their escape from Germany to the Netherlands with their two girls wasRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Multicultural
With: 0 Comments

With their graphic novel Pearl, Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie bring readers a historical fiction account of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent response from the United States. In this version, Amy Hakata lives in Hawaii in 1941. However, when a family member in Japan grows ill and her parents are unable to travel, Amy flies to a country she has never visited. Once in Hiroshima, she sits with her sick Sōsobo. Here, only the food tastes familiar, but as Amy gets to know her grandmother, she learns of Grandma’s legacy as a pearl diver. However, everything changes in an instant, andRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Reviews, Multicultural, Realistic Fiction, Sports
With: 0 Comments

In her novel Kareem Between, Shifa Saltagi Safadi shares a story about the experiences of seventh grader Kareem, who loves football and dreams of being the first Syrian American NFL player. Seeing his name on an American jersey would spell perfection for him, but first he has to earn a position on the middle school team. Set in Indiana from 2016-2017, Kareem feels invisible since he doesn’t make the football roster and his best friend Adam has moved away. To find comfort, Kareem escapes to the library where the smell of paper and ink and books surrounds him. A lover of words, Kareem uses NFLRead More →

By:
On:
In: Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Set largely in Helena, Alabama, Blood at the Root tells the story of Malik Baron who has pain, anger and magic in his DNA. At age seven on the night his magic manifests, Malik’s mama disappears. Believing his magic is responsible for this loss and that he killed his mama, Malik buries his talent because he can’t always control it and because it reminds him of pain. Inspired by Toni Morrison, Ladarrion Williams sets out to cultivate a new era of Black fantasy with this book, one that celebrates Black boys and their magic, one that shouts, “Blackness is magic!” Given his mother’s disappearance andRead More →

By:
On:
In: Graphic Novels, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

With her writing and illustrating for the graphic novel The Deep Dark, Molly Knox Ostertag takes readers on a journey into the psychology of dark thoughts and their potential to suck the life from us. Trying to survive senior year, Magdalena Herrera (aka Mags) is stuck in a small Southern California town under a mountain of responsibilities that include coursework, a part-time job, caring for her mostly bed-ridden abuela, and struggling with her gender and sexual identities. When her transgender childhood friend Nessa returns from college, Mags has a kindred spirit to help support her, and together they must make the choice to thrive orRead More →

By:
On:
In: Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction
With: 0 Comments

G.F. Miller sets out to explore early relationships in her book Not If You Break Up with Me First. The novel follows two best friends: Eve McNeil and Andrew Ozdemir. The pair has “seen each other through growth spurts, family drama, and broken bones” (9). However, hormones and other life changes occur during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. When Andrew returns from a Florida trip taller, stronger, and with a deeper voice, Eve’s parents are struggling to hold their family together. At school in Andrew’s circle of friends, talk of Legos and video games has shifted to talk of which girls the boysRead More →

By:
On:
In: General Book Reviews, Historical Fiction (YA), Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
With: 0 Comments

Set in 1955 in Levittown, Pennsylvania, The Color of a Lie by Kim Johnson explores a tumultuous period in our country’s history. During this time when school integration was new and Jim Crow Laws were still in effect, Levitt and Sons were mass-producing homes under the guise that they were helping to create affordable housing, especially for veterans. That housing, however, was for white families only, creating a deeply discriminatory practice. After serving as a soldier in World War II, Williams Greene is determined to provide access to the American Dream for his family. He is tired of the race riots in the big city,Read More →