Heavy Medal
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A Fuse #8 Production
by Betsy Bird
Teen Librarian Toolbox
by Amanda MacGregor
February 9, 2012 by Angela Carstensen
William Landay’s new legal thriller is one of the big buzz books of the season. Comparisons to Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, arguably one of the best and most popular courtroom dramas ever, are ubiquitous, as are comparisons to John Grisham. Why for teens? This one involves two 14-year-old boys. One murdered, the other accused. Start […]
February 2, 2012 by Angela Carstensen
Arthur and Kel are both isolated and lonely, and that is about all their stories seem to have in common for much of this novel. Arthur is a morbidly obese adult; Kel is a teenager whose life is just not going very well. Kel’s story doesn’t launch until about 80 pages into the novel, which […]
September 14, 2011 by Angela Carstensen
Mary McGarry Morris’s latest is a coming of age novel set in a small New England town. Morris is perhaps best known for Songs in Ordinary Time (Viking, 1995), which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 1997. It too includes a young teen afraid to tell the dark truth about an adult in his life. (Although […]
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August 15, 2011 by Angela Carstensen
Given the recent News of the World phone hacking scandal, the timing could not be better for the release of famed hacker Kevin Mitnick’s memoir. At one point, Mitnick went so far as to eavesdrop on National Security Agency telephone calls. At times Ghost in the Wires reads like a thriller, not only for computer […]
August 1, 2011 by Angela Carstensen
Helen Schulman’s book, centered on a family torn apart by the teen son’s sexting scandal, was yesterday’s New York Times front page Sunday Book Review, accompanied by a Book Review Podcast in which Schulman discusses the book. The Pew Internet & American Life project includes many, many data resources on teens, including a 2009 report on […]
June 28, 2011 by Angela Carstensen
When her parents split, Blessing is moved from the comforts of a modern apartment complex to a poor rural village in the Niger Delta. The American teens we serve are certainly familiar with changes of circumstance – often due to parents who divorce, lose jobs or relocate. Blessing experiences all of those changes in one […]
April 25, 2011 by Angela Carstensen
Perhaps posting a review of this book will be somewhat controversial, given the language and topics involve. However, if we’re talking teen appeal there are plenty of readers who will be fascinated by both the criminal and celebrity lifestyles depicted. Tracy Morrow’s path from thief to Grammy-winning rapper musician to television and movie actor is a unique […]
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