This week’s starred review is a powerful debut novel about the war in Iraq. Check out Kevin Powers’ website for lists of the honors and praise The Yellow Birds has already received, even though it releases tomorrow.
The author himself joined the army in 1997 at age 17, and he writes with firsthand knowledge about young men [...]
The Yellow Birds
By on September 10, 2012
The Distance Between Us
By on September 7, 2012
In her new memoir, Reyna Grande, author of Dancing with Butterflies and Across a Hundred Mountains, tells the story of illegally immigrating to the U.S. from Mexico, and the difficulties being apart for long periods of time caused her family. The Los Angeles Times calls it “the “Angela’s Ashes” of the modern Mexican immigrant experience,”and praises [...]
God Save the Queen
By on September 6, 2012
Kate Locke’s debut is an alternative history that combines paranormal, steampunk, romance and fantasy. As the author put it in an interview with USA Today, “My world is an alternate world where vampires and werewolves are a result of the Black Death, and where World Wars I and II never happened. Hitler never amounted to [...]
A Hero’s Revival
By on September 5, 2012
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
Ben McCool and Mario Guevara have respected creative reputations in the superhero comics world. Turning now to a legendary hero—remembered for his humanity as an essential aspect of his heroism—this newly teamed pair also brings their experiences with film to a complex project:
Retain an historically [...]
Little Century
By on September 4, 2012
This week’s starred review, Anna Keesey’s debut, incorporates the traditional elements of the classic western or frontier novel. This is a genre that has been well-represented in adult books with teen appeal — I’m thinking of Alex Award-winning novels such as Ivan Doig’s The Whistling Season and Thomas Maltman’s The Night Birds. Last year’s The Little [...]
Arab Spring Dreams
By on August 30, 2012
This collection of essays gives teen readers a chance to hear about life in the Middle East and Africa straight from writers (all 25 years old or younger) who live there.
For more about AIC’s (American Islamic Congress) Dream Deferred Essay Contest, check out the contest rules & guidelines. The judges “are looking for essays that [...]
A Taste of Essentials
By on August 29, 2012
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
Philosophy and comics are much more common bedfellows than might be expected; take, for instance, that philosophy was Art Spiegelman’s academic choice although his parents had promoted dentistry as a good choice. Margreet de Heer studied the life of the mind for years within academia, but presents the path [...]
The Red Chamber
By on August 28, 2012
Pauline Chen’s new novel is a great recommendation for historical fiction or romance-loving teens wishing to expand their horizons. Chen retells and dramatically shortens the Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng, often translated as Dream of the Red Chamber, which includes the most famous love triangle in Chinese literature. (For more about the original, see this [...]
In the Shadow of the Banyan
By on August 27, 2012
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 wonderful [...]
Where’d you go, Bernadette
By on August 24, 2012
Maria Semple honed her comic timing as a writer for Mad About You, Ellen, and Arrested Development. Where’d You Go, Bernadette is the best kind of summer read – funny and bitingly satirical, yet centered on a warm, loving mother/daughter relationship. And the plot moves quickly, thanks to a wonderful variety of narratives and voices.
One [...]
Blackout
By on August 23, 2012
What began with Feed and continued with Deadline, now concludes with Blackout. Oh, and there’s Countdown, a novella that goes back to the origins of the zombie plague. And another titled San Diego 2014, which takes place during Comic-Con. Seems like Grant is hardly finished with this world!
There is a fun piece on the Orbit website, [...]
Cartoons of the Writer as a Young Woman
By on August 22, 2012
from our weekly graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
Flannery O’Connor’s perceptive but incising fiction has captured many young intellectuals. Here is a storyteller who writes fluidly but with the sharpness of whitewater rather than a gentle stream. In bringing O’Connor’s earlier cartoon work to contemporary readers, Fantagraphics advances the case for image and text being [...]
Saving Ruth
By on August 21, 2012
Zoe Fishman’s sophomore effort mirrors her own experience. “As a sassy, liberal and ragingly insecure Jewish girl amongst my overwhelmingly blonde and Baptist peers, I always felt like a bit of an outsider growing up. The novel reflects that perspective.”
This and more can be found in a USA Today interview with the author, which also [...]
Dare Me
By on August 20, 2012
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 for [...]
Shelter
By on August 16, 2012
Frances Greenslade’s debut novel is about family, particularly mothers and daughters, and about survival. Shelter is also notable for its vivid British Columbia wilderness setting.
The author provides all kinds of cool extras on her book clubs page, including a playlist, discussion questions, and a list of titles about British Columbia. Simon & Schuster also provides [...]
The Debut: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
By on August 15, 2012 1 Comment
In her first novel, Carol Rifka Brunt tells a story of love and loss, sibling rivalry, secrets, and jealousy. June Elbus is 14 when she finds out that her uncle Finn, the one person in the world who seems to understand her, is dying of AIDS. June is devastated when he dies, and wary when she’s approached by Finn’s longtime partner, Toby.
The Power of Personification
By on August 15, 2012
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
For some years now, business and technical publisher O’Reilly Media has been distributing a manga-based series devoted to offering narrative fiction-based instruction in mathematics and hard sciences. Under the No Starch Press imprint, we can find explanations and demonstrations of Linear Algebra, Statistics, and other heady advanced conceptual disciplines [...]
Albert of Adelaide
By on August 14, 2012
Quirky, adventure-filled, contemplative. Albert of Adelaide is a book that is hard to describe. Probably because there isn’t really another book like it. No read-alikes here. After all, our title character is a platypus. And I think that quality – that uniqueness – is enough to attract the curiosity of certain teens all by itself.
Howard [...]
Juvenile in Justice
By on August 13, 2012
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 can [...]
Redshirts
By on August 10, 2012
