Ask the Passengers by A.S. King. Little, Brown. 2012. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. The Plot: Astrid lives in a small town where everyone knows, or thinks they know, everyone’s business. Everyone judges. So Astrid keeps some things to herself: like that her father is smoking pot. Like how she and her younger sister Ellis are [...]
Boy21: Feeeeeeeelings, a Whole Lot More Than Feeeeeelings
By on January 20, 2013
Boy21, Matthew Quick Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, March 2012 Reviewed from Final Copy So, I should start this post by disclosing that I have a personal connection with this book and its author. I want to acknowledge my personal baggage (a topic that has been addressed particularly well in the comments to the [...]
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
By on January 2, 2013
Another guest post from Joy Piedmont, who is saving our bacon at this crunch time, as we realize just how many books we haven’t read yet! My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, Annabel Pitcher Little, Brown, August 2012 Reviewed from an ARC Annabel Pitcher’s debut novel has earned four starred reviews landed on Kirkus’ Best [...]
The Diviners: Divine, and the Bee’s Knees Too!
By on December 29, 2012
One of the best things about having progressed from new librarian to rapidly aging librarian is the opportunity to work with bright young things. Former colleague Clair Segal is now the library technology coordinator at an independent school in NYC, and has graciously agreed to guest blog for us once again, this time about Libba [...]
Ask the Passengers
By on December 28, 2012
Pick of the Day: The Diviners (Audiobook)
By on December 14, 2012 Leave a Comment
The Diviners. By Libba Bray. 15 CDs. 15:15 hrs. Prod. by Listening Library. Dist. by Listening Library/Books on Tape. 2012. ISBN 978-0-449-80875-7. $60.
Gr 10 Up–Printz winner Libba Bray’s latest literary masterpiece (Little, Brown, 2012) is stunning, suspenseful, and sure to leave listeners utterly breathless. Thoroughly modern flapper Evie O’Neill’s psychic ability to divine secrets from inanimate objects gets her exiled from her stuffy Ohio town. Sent to stay with her Uncle Will in Prohibition-era New York City, the last thing [...]
Roundup: Vaguely Paranormal
By on December 12, 2012
Paranormal fantasy, which is to say fiction with a fantastic angle, but not set in a secondary world, with at least one character who is not human or not, technically, alive, and a romance plot or subplot, continues to go strong. (Even if we, as adults who have seen vast quantities of formulaic fiction pass [...]
Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
By on December 4, 2012
Drowned Cities
By on November 17, 2012
The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
Little, Brown, May, 2012
Reviewed from final copy
So you know that Ship Breaker was the winner the year I served on the RealPrintz committee, right? And I can be a mature blogger — mature enough to admit that I wonder if my affection for “my” winner skews my reading of Ship [...]
Pick of the Day: Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington
By on October 29, 2012 Leave a Comment
ASIM, Jabari. Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington. illus. by Bryan Collier. 48p. bibliog. chron. Little, Brown. Dec. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-316-08657-8.
Gr 2-4–Here sits a barefooted boy leaning against a tree trunk, eyes closed, dreaming about reading. Here he is following his master’s daughter to school, carrying her books, feeling their “magic seeping into his hands.” Booker was born a slave, and slaves were forbidden to read. Emancipation came while he was still young. He worked [...]
