February 16, 2013

SLJTeen Talks to Shannon Hale

91912palaceofstone

Shannon Hale’s follow-up to Princess Academy, Palace of Stone picks up the story of Miri, a girl whose smarts and sense of fairness have just brought a new age of prosperity to Mount Eskel, a remote area of Danland. She’s also destined to serve the princess-in-waiting and her dear friend, Britta, who has recently sent for her to come to the royal city of Asland. I’m delighted that Shannon Hale will be visiting with her fans via a free live-stream event on October 1, sponsored by Bloomsbury Children’s Books (register here!), and that she took time to answer a few questions about her latest book.

Pick of the Day: The Good Braider

book cover: African girl's braided hair

FARISH , Terry. The Good Braider. 222p. maps. Amazon. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-7614-6267-5; ebook $7.99. ISBN 978-0-7614-6268-2. LC 2011033659.
Gr 9 UpThe Good Braider follows Viola on a journey from her home in ravaged Sudan to Cairo and finally to the folds of a Sudanese community in Maine. Viola’s story, told in free verse, is difficult to read without a constant lurking sense of both dread and hope. In the opening scene she gazes at the curve of the back [...]

Pick of the Day: The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure

Book cover: Whaleship in the arctic circle

SANDLER, Martin W. The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure. 176p. bibliog. chron. index. maps. notes. photos. CIP. Candlewick. Sept. 2012. RTE $22.99. ISBN 978-0-7636-5080-3. LC 2011018618.
Gr 5 Up–Endurance. Fortitude. Bravery. Any of these words could easily describe the people involved in this amazing, but little-known rescue-adventure. The year was 1897 and whaling was big business in America. Whaleship captains hunting in the Arctic Circle, pushing for more whales and the profits they meant, ended up [...]

Pick of the Day: The Spindlers

the spindlers

OLIVER, Lauren. The Spindlers. illus. by Iacopo Bruno. 246p. HarperCollins/Harper. Oct. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-06-197808-1; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-06-219025-3.
Gr 4-6–Patrick has always been a sweet, lovable child, but one morning Liza notices that her younger brother seems remote and somehow empty. Their parents are too preoccupied to notice, but Liza remembers eerie stories her beloved babysitter used to tell. She realizes that this not-Patrick is a changeling. Her real brother has been taken by the spindlers–spiderlike creatures that haunt [...]

Pick of the Day: The Diviners

Book cover with blue background and eye

BRAY, Libba. The Diviners. Bk. 1. 578p. Little, Brown. Sept. 2012. Tr $19.99. ISBN 978-0-316-12611-3; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-316-21464-3.
Gr 10 Up–Set in 1920s New York City, this literary tour-de-force from Printz Award-winner Bray offers grand themes, complex characters, and suspense. After her secret gift for divining information from objects lands her in trouble, 17-year-old Evangeline O’Neill is sent from Ohio to live with her uncle, who runs a museum specializing in folklore and the occult in Manhattan. Evie is a [...]

September 2012 Reviews: Grades 5 & Up

Jump to

Preschool to Grade 4

Graphic Novels

Fiction Series Update

BRAY , Libba. The Diviners. Bk. 1. 578p. Little, Brown. Sept. 2012. Tr $19.99. ISBN 978-0-316-12611-3; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-316-21464-3.
Gr 10 Up–Set in 1920s New York City, this literary tour-de-force from Printz Award-winner Bray offers grand themes, complex characters, and suspense. After her secret gift for divining information from objects lands her in trouble, 17-year-old Evangeline O’Neill is sent from Ohio to live with her uncle, who runs a museum [...]

September 2012 Reviews: Stars List

Interior Image from, Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! (Marsalis)

Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! (Marsalis)©2012 Illustration by Paul Rogers

Preschool to Grade 4

FERRIS, Jerri Chase. Noah Webster & His Words. illus. by Vincent X. Kirsch. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. p. 129.

HOPKINSON, Deborah. Annie and Helen. illus. by Raul Colón. Random/Schwartz & Wade Bks. Sept. 2012. p. 130.

HATKE, Ben. Legends of Zita the Spacegirl. illus. by author. First Second. Sept. 2012. p. 171.

KLASSEN, Jon. This Is Not My Hat. [...]

To Infinity and Beyond | New Sci-Fi Titles for Teens

Adaptation

Underneath the spaceships, extraterrestrials, and techno bling, these new young adult science fiction novels feature complex characters exploring the question of what it means to be human. Set them on the launch pad of social studies, technology, and literature classes, and blast off into discussions touching on politics, culture, science, the environment—the possibilities are limitless!

The Poetry of Earth and Stars

Bug Off!

What could be better for training for close observation than science and poetry in combination? Here are a handful of picture books with poems and illustrations that illuminate nature and science both far away and in our own backyards.

On the Radar: Top Picks from the Editors at Junior Library Guild: New Books for Back- to-School

Book cover: girl's legs on a limb with 3 chickens

The start of a new school year is the perfect moment for taking chances—trying out for cheerleading, going against the crowd, or learning how to get along with your new teachers. This fall’s releases are all that and more. Read these school stories and keep them close to your newly sharpened bouquet of pencils.

Pick of the Day: Same Sun Here (Audiobook)

Orange and black Audiobook cover with kids in silohuette

Same Sun Here. By Silas House and Neela Vaswani. 5 CDs. 5:49 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4558-2231-7. $49.7.
Gr 4-7–Meena, a recent immigrant from India, lives in Manhattan’s Chinatown with her family. Through a program arranged by their schools, she becomes a pen pal with River, who lives in rural Kentucky and is the son of a coal miner. They exchange letters via snail mail and, as a result, learn about each other and themselves. Sharing day-to-day activities, secrets, opinions, [...]

Pick of the Day: One Year in Coal Harbor

Book cover Girl on Tree

HORVATH, Polly. One Year in Coal Harbor. 216p. CIP. Random/Schwartz & Wade Bks. Sept. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-375-86970-9; PLB $19.99. ISBN 978-0-375-96970-6; ebook $10.99. ISBN 978-0-375-98536-2. LC 2011023591.
Gr 5-7–Primrose Squarp, heroine of Everything on a Waffle (Farrar, 2001), is back, perceptive and quirky as ever, as she narrates another year of events in Coal Harbor, British Columbia, picking up right where the last book left off. Her parents, charming Uncle Jack, and the rest of the cast provide ample [...]

On the Radar: Top Picks from the Editors at Junior Library Guild: Middle School Readers—New Offerings from Favorite Authors

Book cover: Caught- green train

For our middle school readers, finding a favorite author can be a difficult task. They are at the age in which one day they’re still children, and the next they think they are adults. Kids are busy with activities, so this is also the time in their lives where we could lose them as readers if their choices are few. Thankfully in the last ten years, popular authors and series have increased for this group of tweens and early teens. For students in grades five to eight and those that teach them, fall releases will be a welcome sight.

Pick of the Day: Safekeeping

Book cover: safekeeping

HESSE, Karen. Safekeeping. photos by author. 294p. Feiwel & Friends. Sept. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-1-250-01134-3.
Gr 7 Up
–Radley Parker-Hughes has been volunteering in an orphanage in Haiti after the recent earthquake, but she returns home to a country in the grip of an even more chaotic situation. The American Political Party has assumed power, the president has been assassinated, and martial law prevails. Soldiers with guns at the airport, travel paper requirements–is this really the New Hampshire she left just a [...]

Pick of the Day: Splendors and Glooms

Book cover Splendors and Glooms

SCHLITZ, Laura Amy. Splendors and Glooms. 384p. Candlewick. Aug. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-7636-5380-4; ebook $17.99. ISBN 978-0-7636-6246-2.
Gr 4-8–Victorian London could be a magical place: horse-drawn carriages, puppet shows, elaborate upper-class houses. Of course it could also be miserable: fog, filthy streets, shabby hovels where too many people live in too few rooms. Schlitz conjures both the magic and the mundane here. For Clara’s 12th birthday, her parents hire a street performer to give a puppet show in their [...]

Grades 5 & Up: August 2012

HARTMAN, Rachel. Seraphina. 464p. glossary. CIP. Random. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-375-86656-2; PLB $20.99. ISBN 978-0-375-96656-9; ebook $10.99. ISBN 978-0-375-89658-3. LC 2011003015.
Gr 7 Up–For nearly 40 years, the treaty between the humans of Goredd and the dragons of dragonkind has held strong. Humans must not enter dragonkind territory and dragons, upon entering human lands, must take their human shape, or saarantrai. In Goredd, Seraphina’s human father, a high offical, needs her to stay anonymous. The dark secret that she [...]

On the Radar: Top Picks from the Editors at Junior Library Guild: Survival Stories for Middle & High School Readers

the-calling

When askings teens what they did this summer, you expect responses like: “I went to camp,” “I visited my grandparents,” or “I slept a lot.” Not so for the teens in the stories presented here! These kids have to overcome forest fires, global cooling, evil scientific organizations, volcanic explosions, and worse. Readers looking for a suspenseful read that takes place in a world gone awry can’t go wrong with any of these titles.

Grades 5 & Up: July 2012

In this Article

Fiction Series Update

ANDERSON, Jodi Lynn. Tiger Lily. 292p. HarperCollins/HarperTeen. July 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-06-200325-6; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-06-211461-7.
Gr 8-11–Tiger Lily is the adopted daughter of Tik Tok, shaman of the Sky Eater tribe of Neverland. As such, she should be a revered member of her community. Instead she is teased and harassed by other children–until one of her tormentors mysteriously dies. After that Tiger Lily is still an outsider, still looked down on, but she is [...]

School Library Journal Stars List: July 2012

Olive and the Big Secret (Freeman), image from the book.

Olive and the Big Secret (Freeman)©2012 by Tor Freeman

Preschool to Grade 4

BATEMAN, Donna M. Out on the Prairie. illus. by Susan Swan. Charlesbridge. July 2012. p. 65.

CECIL, Randy. Horsefly and Honeybee. illus. by author. Holt. p. 55.

CERULLO, Mary M. City Fish, Country Fish. photos by Jeffrey L. Rotman. Tilbury. p. 67.

FREEMAN, Tor. Olive and the Big Secret. illus. by author. Candlewick/Templar. Aug. 2012. p. 56.

HILLS, Tad. Rocket Writes a Story. illus. by [...]

Fiction Series Roundup (Grades 5 & Up): July 2012

Book Covers

Fiction series that are most likely familiar to most of our readers, and we assume that purchase will be based on the popularity of the earlier titles.