Vaddey Ratner’s debut novel is being widely hailed as a new classic, likened to Loung Ung’s memoir, First They Killed My Father and another excellent debut from earlier this year, Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron. It seems likely to end up on summer reading lists and classroom syllabi. Accordingly, Simon & Schuster has provided a [...]
Megan Abbott’s new psychological thriller is a dark look at high school cheerleading, a book referred to by its publisher as “Fight Club for girls” and by Amazon’s Best Books of August as “Glee on steroids.” Publishers Weekly did a profile of the author which includes this revealing tidbit: “When I was figuring out the plot [...]
Richard Ross, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, spent five years photographing and interviewing teens in juvenile detention centers across the United States. Juvenile in Justice allows for conditions and teens to speak for themselves. Excerpts of his work are available on the book’s website and on the CBS 48 Hours/Mystery page, and you [...]
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith: Continuing in a summer reading—and summer reading promotion—vein, Dan Zettwoch’s first graphic novel provides a stunning array of possibilities: a summer-visit-to-the-country marbled with social and political commentary and served up with intriguingly detailed but accessible schematics of cell tower construction, live bait farming and lifestyles doomed by commercial [...]
“Full Body Burden” refers to the amount of radioactivity which can be safely tolerated by a human body through its lifetime. Kristen Iversen‘s memoir combines life within a dysfunctional family and the investigation of a nuclear weapons program cover-up that took place in her own backyard. Teens will be outraged by the government’s willingness to hide [...]
AB4T is going on summer hiatus after today’s post, resuming Monday, July 23rd. But before we go, I am very excited to share this wonderful coming of age novel. I only wish I had read it in time to include it in our Best Books of the Year so far list. Nice of Amazon to [...]
An incredible amount of hype surrounds this slim, intimate tale of a possible end of the world scenario. My hope is that readers will be able to put that aside and enjoy this lovely coming of age novel without too many preconceived notions. That said, when a New York Times review compares a book to [...]
Ted Kosmatka‘s first novel receives our latest starred review. The Games has nothing to do with The Hunger Games, although it is a dystopian thriller that deals with a gladiatorial fight to the death (or rather, destruction), in a great blend of horror and science fiction. Library Journal named The Games a science fiction/fantasy debut [...]
Jerry McGill’s inspiring short memoir tells the story of coping with disability and the injustice of a life changed in a moment. Originally self-published, Dear Marcus was acquired by an editor at Random House thanks to a piece in the New York Review of Books. That editor recently shared her story in The Ampersand, the [...]
Ben Fountain was inspired to write his first novel by a television broadcast of the Thanksgiving 2004 Dallas Cowboys game (still available for viewing in a very blurry Youtube video). Destiny’s Child performed the halftime show, which featured men dressed in military attire and a prominent martial drumbeat. The strange combination struck him, and the result is [...]
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