Strings Attached by Judy Blundell. Scholastic 2011. Reviewed from ARC from publisher at ALA Midwinter. The Plot: October, 1950. Kit has left Providence, Rhode Island for New York City. Kit, 17, is lucky — she’s found a job dancing in a Broadway musical. It’s not a great musical, it’s not a great job, it’s not [...]
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group. 2011. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. The Plot: 1941. Lithuania. Lina Vilkas is fifteen when the Soviet secret police come to her home, giving Lina, her mother, and her younger brother twenty minutes to pack their bags. Twenty minutes. They [...]
This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel. Simon & Schuster. 2011. Brilliance Audio. 2011. Narrated by Luke Daniels. Review copies from publisher. The Plot: Victor Frankenstein, the teenage years. What made the boy into a man who was driven to create the monster? The Good: Confession: I’ve never read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I’ve read the [...]
My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson. Marshall Cavendish. 2011. Reviewed from copy from publisher. The Plot: September, 1960, and brothers Luke, 12, Bunna, 10, and Isaac, 6, are on their way to the Sacred Heart School. Luke is not his real Inupiaq name, but that name has sounds that white people find hard to [...]
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai. HarperCollins. 2011. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. The Plot: Saigon, 1975. Ha is ten, the youngest (and only daughter) in her family. While the war has touched her life — her parents fled North Vietnam years ago; her father has been missing for years — Ha is a [...]
Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt. Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2011. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. Companion to The Wednesday Wars. The Plot: Doug Swieteck and family have just moved to upstate New York. His abusive, drunk of a father mouthed off to his boss and got fired. The family packs up what [...]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffee and Annie Barrows. Dial Press, a division of Random House. 2008. Personal Copy. Another in my series of “holiday reads” for grown ups! The Plot: London, 1946. Author Juliet Ashton, thirtysomething, is looking for an idea for a new book when she gets [...]
A Lesson in Secrets, a Maisie Dobbs novel by Jacqueline Winspear. Harper Collins. 2011. Reviewed from ARC from ALA. With the July 4th weekend coming up, here’s another holiday reads for the grown ups. The Plot: Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and private investigator, is recruited in 1932 to go undercover for the British Secret Service. Her [...]
Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper. Bloomsbury. 2011. Reviewed from ARC from ALA. The Plot: London, 1861. Grace and Lily Parkes, two teenaged orphans, have little and keep losing the little they have. Despite it all — despite the poverty, the hunger, the work — Grace and Lily have each other. The bond between the sisters [...]
An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear. Henry Holt. 2008. Macmillan Audio. 2008. Listened to audio borrowed from library. Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy. A holiday is coming up, so here’s a book for the grown ups. I’ve done this once or twice before, so just added the tag “holiday reads” to those [...]
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