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 [...]
Cartoons of the Writer as a Young Woman
By on August 22, 2012
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
Devil’s Wake
By on August 9, 2012
Devil’s Wake, the first in a new series by husband and wife writing team Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due, adds welcome diversity to the crowded zombie field.
Tananarive Due is author of the acclaimed African Immortals series, which can also be recommended to young adults. It includes My Soul to Keep, The Living Blood, Blood Colony, and My Soul to Take.
Zombie fans [...]
The Boy is Father to the Man
By on August 8, 2012
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
Becoming a parent, as many teens know or will know too soon, can send one on an unexpected journey to one’s own childhood expectations of and disappointments in his own parent. Jeff Lemire, who has been lauded for his ability to expose the real humanity that underlies characters and [...]
Alif the Unseen
By on August 7, 2012
G. Willow Wilson is the author of an acclaimed memoir, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam (Grove, 2010). She has also published graphic novels with illustrator M.K. Perker, including Cairo (2008) and the Air series (2009-2011).
Alif the Unseen, in her own words, “represents the moment at which I said “screw it” [...]
Zombie
By on August 2, 2012
The colorful, unusual cover of J.R. Angelella’s first novel is bound to inspire curiosity in teens, don’t you think? It’s hard to tell just what it might contain. The answer — a different sort of coming-of-age story which, despite its title, harbors no zombies. Instead, a zombie movie-obsessed teen boy.
The review on Paste is a particularly [...]
Display’s the Thing
By on August 1, 2012
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 zealots [...]
The Violinist’s Thumb
By on July 31, 2012
In 2010 Sam Kean debuted with The Disappearing Spoon: and other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the periodic table of elements. He began with chemistry. In The Violinist’s Thumb he takes on DNA.
His talent lies in communicating his own passion for science and making science fun — and human. [...]
Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling
By on July 30, 2012
Michael Boccacino makes his debut with this terrific, spooky Victorian gothic novel.
Give it a try — the first three chapters are available on the Harper website.
BOCCACINO, Michael. Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling. 320p. Morrow. 2012. pap. $14.99. ISBN 978-0-06-212261-2. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Charlotte Markham has seen the Black Man all her life: [...]
Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow
By on July 26, 2012
Juliet Grey is back with the second in her trilogy based on the life of Marie Antoinette. Becoming Marie Antoinette began Marie Antoinette’s story at age 10. Days of Splendor picks up when she begins her reign, and covers the next 15 years of her life, ending in 1789, after the storming of the Bastille. The first 300 [...]
Nurse Nurse
By on July 25, 2012
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
As July rolls to its close, there is nothing more inviting in the way of books than one that can be read with no strings attached. Nurse Nurse fills that bill perfectly. It fits into even the smallest bag–or even a big pocket–so it can travel anywhere. Its inky [...]
Full Body Burden
By on July 24, 2012
“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 the [...]
Kingdom of Strangers
By on July 23, 2012
And we’re back from hiatus feeling refreshed and energized. I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful summer!
Today I am thrilled to share a review of the third book in one of my personal favorite mystery series, which began with the 2009 Alex Award-winning Finding Nouf.
Author Zoe Ferraris followed Finding Nouf with City of Veils, which we [...]
