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Some adolescents attempt to break out of the traps they perceive in their current life conditions by acting out; others use creative outlets like music to escape.  Breakout by Kevin Emerson follows the story of fourteen-year-old Anthony Castillo and his best friend Keenan on a twelve day journey to Fall Arts Night in Seattle, Washington. Prone to hyperbole, Anthony plays lead guitar in a band called the Rusty Soles, and Keenan plays bass.  Both boys attend Catharine Daly, a K-8 school in which the eighth graders are expected to lead by example.  Anthony takes exception to that nearly impossible expectation by suggesting that eighth gradersRead More →

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It’s been awhile since the last time I fell head over heels in love. And, like all really good loves, I wasn’t looking for it.  Sure, I was anticipating a good story (I loved her first effort) but, “Hi-Yo, Silver”, I was not prepared for my intense reaction to Kristin Levine‘s The Paper Cowboy.  I’ve set aside everything else and have read this book 3 times (and that’s saying a lot) because there is just so much to unpack within these amazingly written 333 pages.  Rumor has it that there’s already buzz for the Newbery list (I hope so!) and I can’t wait until someoneRead More →

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I love a good con.  Movie, TV show, book – it doesn’t matter, really – whatever the media, when the wool is pulled over someone’s eyes (especially when we thought we were on the look-out), it’s a genuine thrill.  I’m especially enraptured by the reveal: going back through those moments of deception, misdirection, and nuance when, now that it’s being laid out in plain sight, I wonder at how I (and the mark) could have been so blind.  But that’s all part of the fun, the lure, and the draw to this genre, isn’t it? Returning in Spring 2015 with his sophomore YA effort, JohnRead More →

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“Here is a girl trying to change her story” (276) Mysti Murphy knows that the people in her family – “a person who paints and cooks and never leaves the house … a person with a job who gently tries to get everyone to leave the house together … a bratty little uninformed person who practices raising an eyebrow as a hobby … [and] a girl person who would just like everyone to leave her alone by the window…” (7) – would make for an interesting story.  Her strange story begins within a story, since she came into this world believing she was a characterRead More →

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In his last published work,On a Clear Day, Walter Dean Myers imagines a world not too different from the one we live in today: globalization has enabled 8 giant, multi-national corporations to take over every aspect of our lives, entrenching people into rigid socio-economic classes with little hope of upward mobility; millions living on the edge of poverty turn towards racial and class violence as a means of survival; the food supply is heavily regulated and people are starving to death on a daily basis; terrorism is on the rise in all parts of the world; and the global education system has been dismantled in favor ofRead More →

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John Feinstein puts you in the heart of the game.  Doesn’t matter if it’s the baseball field, the basketball court, or the football field, when you open up the pages of one of his books, you are in the center of the action with the thrill, the agony, and the controlled chaos of sport whirling around you.  Years of sports experience, finely honed descriptive skills, and a gift for storytelling combine to make Feinstein’s young adult novels captivating, action-oriented, and worth reading whenever you can get your hands on one. In The Walk On, out this Fall from Knopf, we meet freshman Alex Myers. His folksRead More →

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A fearsome force, Susan McCallum is determined, ruthless, and in-charge, but she’s only ten years old and a girl—ineligible for military service during the World War II era.  When the brothers she idolizes, Hank and Theo, decide to serve their country in the navy, Susan is beyond angry.  Their typically stoic, Scottish father, who fears that he may lose both sons, forbids that they serve in the same branch of the military.  So, Theo joins the Army Air Corps, and the two brothers—the best defensive in-fielders in the game of baseball in Accokeek, Maryland—vow to play catch across the world, one aboard an aircraft carrierRead More →

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Nothing is going right for 11-year old Jarrett: he’s gotta pass summer school at an all-boys charter school if he wants to advance to seventh grade, and he overheard the teacher tell the principal she thinks he stupid and won’t pass; his best friend Ennis, recently back from his summer trip to see his dad in Jamaica, is acting aloof and strange; he’s scared to tell the girl he likes, Caprice, about his feelings for her; but worst of all, the most recent foster baby that his mom has taken in came to them with an older brother, Kevon, who’s Jarrett’s age and has takenRead More →

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K.A. Harrington‘s Forget Me is a decent little mystery with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure.  Set in a small New England town, aptly named River’s End, the mystery surrounding a doppelganger for a murdered young man unravels at a measured pace until the very end when the secrets, lies, and motives are exposed in one high-stakes altercation on the top of the town’s waterfall. Three months ago, Morgan’s secretive, moody boyfriend Flynn was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run accident on a dark road outside River’s End’s long shuttered family amusement park.  Morgan is still reeling from the loss of her firstRead More →