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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Mystery & Suspense, Supernatural & Horror
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Although R.L. Stine’s edited collection of spooky stories for middle-grade readers from American mystery writers, Scream and Scream Again! aren’t exactly horror stories by definition, mystery and imagination play heavily in them as the authors spin the element of fear into every day, ordinary things. In his introduction, Stine promises twenty different stories by twenty different authors, all beginning or ending with a scream and all waiting to give readers the “shivers and shakes.”   Some of the screams come from giddy, gleeful moments like roller-coaster rides while others result from shock at dealing with a morbid or utterly uncanny situation like encountering a zombie orRead More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction
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The protagonists in Stewart Foster’s recent release, All the Things That Could Go Wrong are enemies.  Alex Jones is a germophobe with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).  His specialty subject is worrying.  His classmate in Year 7, Dan Curtis is a curious young man with an active imagination who asks questions that sometimes irritate his teachers.  He’s also angry and releases his anger by bullying people like Alex who don’t seem quite normal. Alex’s days are spent wondering how much longer Dan, Sophie, and the two Georges will go on bullying him and how much longer he will have to look for places to hide.  Dan, Sophie,Read More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy
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Set in New York in 1863 at the time of the Civil War, Daniel José Older’s series novel Dactyl Hill Squad is a blend of history and fantasy with an abundance of action and adventure. Although Older adds dinosaur riders to his story—giving twelve-year-old Magdalys Roca the special ability to hear the dinos’ thoughts and control them with her mind—he tells the truth about orphan life and explores some other very real social issues.  For example, he mocks segregation habits like designating riding privileges along racial lines or colonization attempts like renaming. When the Kidnapping Club, led by the devious Magistrate Rich Riker, burns downRead More →

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Told with a combination of texting and prose and in an African-American Vernacular English, So Done by Paula Chase is a novel about friendship and growing up in the ‘tween years. Having been a squad since fifth grade, Mo, Sheeda, Tai, and Mila are thirteen and kicking back during the summer before they enter eighth grade at Woodbury Middle School in Del Rio Bay.  Their neighborhood is called Pirates Cove, one of four low-income projects and “home to more than seven hundred people, some Latino but most Black, all of them poor by Del Rio Bay standards” (29). In the Cove, it was boss orRead More →

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In: Elementary Book Reviews
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In Mac B. Kid Spy: Mac Undercover, a humorous children’s book illustrated by Mike Lowery, Mac Barnett tells the story of Mac Barnett who is a kid one minute and the next, a secret agent for the Queen of England. Once he arrives in London, the Queen equips Mac with a secret identity kit and an alias so that he can go undercover to recover the queen’s spoon.  As Hugh Anthony Cregg III, a piano tuner from Kalmazooo, Michigan, Mac travels from London to France and then to Russia on the trail of a thief. In France, he meets the President, who also plays SpyRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure (YA), Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Ellen Goodlett’s debut novel Rule is a fantasy-adventure story that recounts the tale of three sisters, each hiding a dangerous and treasonous secret.  When King Andros of Kolonya announces that these girls from vastly different backgrounds are his daughters, each struggles to adapt to new circumstances and expectations but eventually all three come to see being a bastard daughter of King Andros as an opportunity to make a difference and to change conditions for their people. Zofi, a Traveler from the North with a battle-ready stance, is built for a life on the move, not for one cooped up with haughty nobles. She has masteredRead More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Multicultural, Realistic Fiction
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Jacqueline Woodson’s recent middle-grade novel, Harbor Me imparts how story holds the power to heal because it helps us make sense of the world.  Woodson tells a tale about rising from tragedy and how tragedy not only takes away but bestows gifts. Similar to other novels that use trees as metaphors for survival and interconnected relationships—novels like Hidden Roots by Joseph Bruchac, Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith—Woodson’s book alludes to Ailanthus trees with their extensive root systems that help not only to ground them but to lend endurance in harsh conditions. Set in Brooklyn, the native landRead More →

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In: Realistic Fiction (YA), Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Hoping to be the next great foreign correspondent, Viola Wynne Li plans to attend New York University Abu Dhabi when she graduates from Liberty Prep School in Seattle.  Intent on being a voice for the powerless and the homeless, Viola envisions herself as a truth-teller in a conflict zone, one who covers “the forgotten issues, the ones more convenient to ignore” (117). Also passionate about comics, Viola especially loves Firefly, and considers her own super power to be researching.  Not only does knowledge empower, but data prepares a person to make a good decision in difficult circumstances.  She and her friends Aminta and Caresse areRead More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Romance (YA), Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Sheltered on a remote island and taught to think that the rest of the world has been destroyed by swelling tides and rising temperatures due to the effects of global warming and selfish, greedy people, Moss lives a nearly idyllic existence with her Pa and their dogs, Jess and Adder. On Flower Island, Pa experiments with magic since the storm-flowers that grow there have healing properties and their petals are capable of engendering a buzz of relaxation, happiness, and queasy-strange feelings—even hallucinations.  When Pa is “flower-struck,” his thinking buzzed, he dances and tells stories.  In this hopeful and happy state, he pushes healing pollen toRead More →