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Sparrow Road by Sheila O’Connor is an enchanting, heartwarming story about the power of love, forgiveness and creativity.  The summer before seventh grade, Raine O’Rourke’s mother takes a job as a cook and housekeeper at Sparrow Road, a worn-out old former orphanage that houses an eccentric group of artists-in-residence during the summer.  Raine can’t figure out why Mama would leave her waitress job, their home with her grandpa, and  Milwaukee  to spend the summer outside the tiny town of Comfort on a sprawling farm where there’s a silence rule from sun-up to sun-down every day and there’s seemingly nothing to do.  To make it even more disconcerting, her mom keeps taking periodicRead More →

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Adam Ziegler is in his element up in the catwalks:  bringing the magic of light into the theatre below; creating the illusions of color and shadow, helping to transport the audience into the world of the play; he wants to run the spot, not be in it.   Adam’s still lost after the tragic death of his father two years ago and even though darkness brings up terrible anxiety for him, being a Techie in the theatre department at his high school gives him a safe, secure place to try to survive.  But a few days before the opening of the spring show, nothing about the productions isRead More →

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When Greg Heffley from The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series gets to high school, his journal may look a lot like Larkin Pace’s hilarious blog in Rick Detorie’s (One Big Happy) The Accidental Genius of Weasel High. Larkin is 14 and a typical freshman tech geek: introverted and height-challenged; not comfortable with girls, jocks, or popular kids; wishing he was cooler than he is; has every classic Hollywood film memorized and can recite movie dialog on a dime; a small group of likewise oddball friends; and a family he’d rather escape from that claim relation to.  But Larkin knows he will be the nextRead More →

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On a dark and stormy night in mysterious Calcutta, a British officer is barely able to save the lives of twins before a maniacal demon torments him to death.  But on that deep, dark night, the twins lives are not truly saved, because the creature made of pure madness and revenge will simply bid its time until they turn 16. Now, in 1932, as the summer monsoons rage over the sprawling, exotic capitol of the British Raj, those twins are about to turn 16:  Ben, raised in an orphanage in the hopes of hiding from a fate he doesn’t know is coming for him, and Sheere,Read More →

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23 interwoven stories and poems are edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner in Welcome To Bordertown: New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands.  Carefully crafted, skillfully interwoven, and richly textured, the collection flushes out the dark and the magical, the secrets and the mysteries, of the border between the Faerie Realm and The World.  Truebloods (High and Low-born Elves), Halfies (mixed race elves & humans), and mortals, as well as many other magical creatures live in, search for, and get lost in Bordertown.  It’s a city that’s been lost to The World for 13 years (only 13 days to those in Bordertown) where neitherRead More →

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Getting shipped off to spend the summer with a grandmother you’ve never met, who lives out in the middle-of-nowhere Washington State, while all of your friends have basketball camp, pool parties, and days of uninterrupted hanging out ahead of them is a pretty cruddy turn of events.  To make it worse, what if your grandmother is the town kook and runs a space-themed “intergallactic” bed and breakfast that is crawling with weird guests and is the joke of the town?  For middle-schooler Scrub, it’s his worst nightmare.  And he has the whole summer ahead of him before he can go back home to Florida. Grandma needs help atRead More →

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Set in 1881 in New Pacifica (a fictional territory of the US, much like the Pacific Northwest), James Nelson’s On the Volcano is a coming of age story, laced with romance, loss, and adventure. Katie was born in a small cabin on the rim of a powerful volcano, far from the turmoil and dangers of the pioneer world. She’s only ever known her beloved father and two other adults, Lorraine – a travelling healer who stays with them from time to time, and Old Dan- a nomad who drops in every decade or so to visit.  Approaching 16, Katie wonders about the world off theRead More →

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I read a lot of books; fortunately, my profession and one of my hobbies jive like that.  And since I read so many books, I find myself jaded by the repetition on theme, the slight variations on popular books that are churned out in the hopes of finding “the next whatever“, and the lackluster writing and poor editing that occurs in the rush to print more and more.  So it’s a rare day when I am so engrossed in a book I cannot stop reading it and then cannot stop telling people about it.  And on Saturday, I got to have one of those days whenRead More →

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5 years ago, Nora’s father left their small village in Mexico for America, promising that this was the only way to save the family orchard.  Up until a few months ago, her father kept his promise to send money and an occasional note, but now the situation has become dire: no word, no money, and a terrible grapefruit harvest has pushed Nora, her mother, and her grandmother to the brink of ruin.  15 year old Nora hears a whisper in the orchards, telling her to follow her father to Houston and once she finds him, all will be well. She convinces her mother to join her andRead More →