Reviews+

Though I'm surrounded by Walking Dead fans, I'd have never imagined a soundtrack—guess I was wrong! This might be just the thing to listen to while taking part in Run For Your Lives, a zombie-infested 5K obstacle course race that's going nationwide. Spring training has wrapped up and the baseball season has begun, so there's no better time to break out MLB 13: The Show, which sports many new features. Ready for some classic gaming? Sounds like Sly Cooper, Thieves in Time has all the moves for a satisfying experience.

a beautifully presented lesson on frogs

Flashing back to two short years ago: April 2011! The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson. From my review: “In Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes, Ginny Blackstone was left thirteen envelopes by her late aunt, resulting in a tour of Europe that pushed Ginny outside her comfort zone and gave her some insight and understanding into [...]

Today’s reviews are all notable debut novels by women. I spent part of my spring break tearing through Kimberly McCreight’s Reconstructing Amelia, and let me tell you — teens are going to eat this up. It came out just yesterday, so go order a couple copies now. There are several appeal elements here. First, the [...]

Our fourth title from the YALSA Hub Reading Challenge is Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm. Fetter-Vorm has found a solid career in creating nonfiction graphic novels with the publisher Hill & Wang, including the forthcoming Cartoon Introduction to World Civilization and a history of the Civil War. Trinity was highlighted as [...]

It’s spring! Just like the narrator says in the 1947 educational film Body Care and Grooming, "Ah, spring. When birds are on the wing, when flowers bloom... Spring, when a young man's fancy likely turns to...."—Author unknown. The answer has to be testing! High-stakes testing! Advanced Placement testing! American College Testing or even the SAT! Students feel pressured to work hard to prove themselves in this world of achievement.

My friend Hornberger and I are having a conversation about nonfiction ebooks. In a recent post I chatted about my students’ eager acceptance of the EBSCO e-Book Academic Collection. Karen, the librarian at Palisades High School, as well as our PSLA Tech Committee co-chair and blogger, decided to test drive the database herself.  She also [...]

This sci-fi thriller from Universal Pictures opens in theaters on April 19, 2013. Based on a yet-to-be-published graphic novel (Radical Publishing) by movie director/writer Joseph Kosinki, Oblivion (PG-13) is set 60 years after Earth is attacked by alien invaders. The entire human population has been relocated, and Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), a drone repairmen and part of a large-scale venture to extract vital resources, is one of the few remaining individuals stationed on a planet left in ruins. Update your collections with a selection of novels that prophesize an often earth-shattering (sometimes literally), tantalizingly thought-provoking, and always page-turning future for our planet and humankind.

Add depth to your poetry collections with these new titles: Gail Bush & Randy Meyer’s Indivisible Poems for Social Justice, J. Patrick Lewis’s When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders, and Marilyn Singer’s Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems.