Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo. Alfred A. Knopf, Random House. 2012. Review copy from publisher. YALSA Morris Award Finalist. The Plot: Amelia, fifteen, is in love with Chris. Chris is her co-worker at the local supermarket. Chris is twenty-one years old. Chris is finishing up university, trying to get over Michaela, figuring out what [...]
Titanic: Voices From The Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson. Scholastic 2012. Review copy from publisher. Finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award. Edited to add: Sibert Honor. It’s About: The sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic on April 15, 1912, resulting in the loss of over 1,400 men, women and children. The Good: I believe [...]
After the Snow by S. D. Crockett. Feiwel & Friends, an imprint of Macmillan. 2012. Review copy from publisher. Finalist for the YASLA Morris Award. The Plot: Willo is watching and listening and waiting. Willo was born after the weather changed, after the seas dried up and the snow kept coming and coming, and people got [...]
We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson, Peachtree Publishers 2012. Review copy from publisher. Finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award. It’s About: In May, 1963, African Americans marched for freedom in Birmingham, Alabama. The marchers were school children. Just as with adult protesters, they were met with police resistance; [...]
Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2012. Review copy from publisher. Morris Finalist. The Plot: Portia Remini has not run away from home to join the circus. First, its’s a carnival, not a circus, and it’s called Mosco’s Traveling Wonder Show. Second, it was not home, not a home with parents or family. Parents [...]
Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L’Engle in Many Voices by Leonard S. Marcus. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2012. Review copy from publisher. It’s About: Madeleine L’Engle, beloved author of A Wrinkle In Time (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1962). The Good: How to write a biography of Madeleine L’Engle, especially when so many people [...]
Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross. Egmont USA. 2012. Review copy from publisher. The Plot: Mirabelle has been raised by her godmothers, Elsa and Bliss, since the death of her parents while she was still an infant. As Mira’s sixteenth birthday approaches, she decides that she wants to find out more about the place she [...]
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. Poppy, an imprint of Little, Brown. 2012. The Plot: Hadley is four minutes late for her plane, the plane to London to take her to her father’s wedding. Now she has to wait for the next one, and if she is lucky, she [...]
Back in August, I blogged about Melina Marchetta’s short story, Ferragost, a companion to her Lumatere books. As Marchetta explained in a blog post, “Ferragost is a stand alone short story. If you are a reader of the Lumatere Chronicles, you’ll remember that Celie is the daughter of Lord August and Lady Abian and is [...]
Broken Harbor by Tana French. Viking Adult. 2012. Personal copy. This is my Thanksgiving Holiday Read, a review of something that is not a YA book. (Yes, it’s the day after, but you have the weekend to read it!) Book 4 in the Dublin Murder Squad series. Previous books: In the Woods; The Likeness; and [...]
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