Reviews+

They may be young, but teacher Arturo Avina’s talented kindergarteners are already celebrities in their own right. Students at the Los Angeles Unified School District Olympic Primary Center are the stars of a short-film adaptation of Harry G. Allard Jr.’s beloved children’s classic Miss Nelson Is Missing. Over the course of two months, Avina directed the youngsters, filmed the scenes, and, with the help of the budding actors, edited the movie with technology available in most classrooms.

Angela and I were talking last week about what a great year this is shaping up to be for adult books with teen appeal–we have a backlog of great books that we still want to review, and another list of books that we had to give up on getting to because too much time has [...]

Hattie Ever After by Kirby Larson. Delacorte Press. 2013. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. Sequel to Hattie Big Sky. The Plot: June 1919. Hattie Inez Brooks has a dream: she wants to be a reporter. She’s seventeen years old. She doesn’t have a high school diploma. She’s an orphan. She doesn’t have any money. She’s [...]

We write a lot about genre and the types of books that teens enjoy reading. But what about setting? Do teen readers care about sinking into the setting of a book? This is an element that teens rarely mention when they share what they enjoy reading, or how much they liked a particular book. But [...]

Superman, with a 75-year canon to draw upon, should be included in any curriculum that covers science fiction.

The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers. 2013. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. Book website. First in a trilogy. The Plot: It is months after the aliens first came, the Others, and sixteen year old Cassie Sullivan is huddled in a tent, alone with just her baby [...]

A Girl Called Problem By Katie Quirk Eerdmans Books for Young Readers $8.00 ISBN: 97800-8028-5404-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. Who says that mystery novels for kids all have to include the same tropes and settings? I tell you, half the time when a kid comes up to a reference desk asking for a mystery [...]

The latest installments in intriguing adventures, gripping sci-fi, and more.

Two magical books topped off our April reading, both earning starred reviews. The Golem and the Jinni is a mash-up of Jewish and Arab folklore, historical fiction and fantasy,  new and old world sensibilities.  Helene Wecker’s debut seems destined to be among the best of the year. The publisher has certainly gone all-out. The physical package is richly [...]