Angela Carstensen
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On Top of His Game: SLJ Interviews Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner Markus Zusak
This month, multiple award-winner Markus Zusak, author of 'The Book Thief,' will receive yet another honor: SLJ's own Margaret A. Edwards Award. The author talks about finding his voice, his responsibility to readers, and his obsession with getting things right.
Survival Stories
We know that many teens love survival stories for their pacing, suspense and the unexpected trials the characters endure. In both of these historical novels, a young person is displaced from home, loses parents and security, makes a journey into the unknown, and overcomes obstacle after obstacle. My Name is Resolute is quite a tome, a [...]
BookExpo Preview 2014
BookExpo America is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s all books all the time. And now that the availability of e-galleys effectively lessens my need for paper galleys (well, in some cases), the pressure of making it to this or that booth at a particular time is off. More time and energy [...]
Guaranteed Chills!
We begin with Above by Isla Morley. When I first heard about this book in a publisher pitch, it was described as very like Room by Emma Donoghue. A girl is abducted by a survivalist, held underground for years (supposedly for her own protection from the coming apocalypse), during which time she has a child. [...]
All the Light We Cannot See
I’m excited to begin the week with All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This World War II novel hinges on the U.S. bombing of St. Malo, an isolated port on the northern French coast, which continued to be occupied by the Nazis after most of Brittany was liberated. All the Light We Cannot [...]
Dragons & Romance
For the last two school years, a good half of my student bookgroup meetings have devolved into chatter about The Game of Thrones. There are those who have read all of the books, those who are obsessed with the HBO series, those just getting their feet wet. And yes, there are the quiet few who [...]
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin, the popular YA author of Elsewhere, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac and the Birthright series, has a wonderful new adult novel out this month. Although there is nothing specifically teen about The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, this is the kind of book that anyone who loves bookstores and books will simply [...]
Pressure to Succeed
Today I’m combining two books about pursuing competitive, pressure-filled fields — dance and basketball. One is nonfiction, one fiction. Both are full of struggle, family difficulties, and the stress of expectations. Misty Copeland is a phenomenon, and her book is a gift to the many young people obsessed with ballet (or dance of any kind). [...]
Novels about the One Percent
Today we have two very different novels that feature the lives of the uber-wealthy. I love Jamie Watson’s reference to Brideshead Revisited in her starred review of The Last Enchantments. I was completely obsessed with that novel when we read it in senior year English, and I think the fact that I never fully understood [...]
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