Reviews+

Two new apps feature terrific artwork and engaging characters, but will viewers be inclined to return for repeat visits? Our reviewers weigh in.

Though the reviews of the recently released film, The Great Gatsby, are remarkably mixed, the soundtrack gets high praise from our teen reviewer. It's hard not to like Lady Antebellum, with their sweet sounds and finely wrought lyrics on love and heartbreak, on their latest album Golden. What happens to Star Trek when it just becomes a shoot-em-up and logic goes by the wayside? Read on for our reviewer's take on Star Trek: The Video Game.

Both curriculum and pop culture, perhaps not coincidentally, have no problem dealing with class systems when they’re at a remove.

National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) is June 27th . First established in 2005 by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, NHTD seeks to bring attention to the importance of HIV testing, and through its website, make resources readily available to those who are looking for testing locations, disease facts, and more.

More than 30 years after it was published, Judy Blume's YA novel Tiger Eyes has been adapted for the big screen. Directed by Lawrence Blume, the author's son, the quiet film stars Willa Holland as Davey and Amy Jo Johnson as her mother, both reeling from the results of a tragic shooting. The gorgeous landscape of northern New Mexico serves as a perfect backdrop to the long-awaited adaptation, also available via video on demand. Kent Turner reviews it for SLJ.

The Young Ancestors (Cinema Guild) explains how the Tewa Indian tribe of New Mexico is making an effort to retain its Native language and is the perfect choice for multicultural studies classes in high school and above.

I recently discovered a couple of wonderful information literacy-inspired song parodies. Chad Bauman wrote and produced a sweet, clever, slightly goofy song on the CRAPtest mnemonic many of us recommend for evaluating sources.  Although I would advise kids about thinking a little more contextually about their sources, it’s a very cool way to open the conversation [...]

Erica S. Perl’s When Life Gives You OJ receives stellar treatment in the audiobook version narrated by Abigail Revasch. Read the starred review of this delightful story.

Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy by Emily Bazelon. Random House 2013. Random House Audio 2013. Reviewed from borrowed copy of audiobook. Making this part of my “vacation reads” series, figuring most of my readers who work in schools are on vacation now or soon [...]