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Bravelands: Broken Pride is the first book in a beast fable series by Erin Hunter.  The novel offers significant lessons for human society about identity, change, excessive ambition, and the value of believing in a higher power or of adhering to a Code, such as “You may kill only to survive” (18).  Although Hunter recycles plot elements from the Disney film Lion King, she reshapes the story with new connections and perspectives, adding threads to develop her themes. Hunter’s novel follows the adventures of the young lion Fearless, who has been exiled from his pride by the ambitious and evil Titan, who kills Fearless’ father,Read More →

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Imagine living underground without sunlight, sky, fresh air, or space to run unfettered.  Set in an underground city called Caverna, A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge imagines that possibility for the reader.  An amazing machine where nothing happens naturally or without planning, the city is home to many craftsmen and women who create the world’s delicacies: wines, cheeses, spices, perfumes, and balms.  Despite these elegant refinements with their magical properties, Caverna is a dark and drab and dank place, where even the citizenry have been deprived of real emotion.  Instead, they select a suitable Face from the 200 they have been taught in infancy. Read More →

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How to Be The Someday Suitcase by Corey Ann Haydu Share the lives of believable and genuine characters: Ten-year-old, curious, and easily distracted Danny who is in charge of passion and of reminding others how to have fun; eleven-year-old Clover who loves science, has a knack for observation, and is in charge of reason and reminding Danny to focus; six-year-old Jake who can make any situation lighter, sillier, and simpler because his moods are big, buzzy, and contagious. Look for scientific reasons to explain life’s mysteries but realize that science shows us both certainties and limitations to those certainties. “Ms. Mendez says the best scientistsRead More →

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If you’re looking for a novel this summer that will inspire thought about all of life’s big topics, like love, sex, kissing, loss, and death, Cath Crowley’s Words in Deep Blue is that book.  Although a simple-looking book on the surface, Words in Deep Blue packs a philosophically powerful punch by asking some tough questions, inviting the reader to wrestle with a variety of options about topics that matter, questions like: Are all worthwhile things—like love and the ocean’s depths—also terrifying?  It poses some theories, too—about how people are like secondhand books, full of mysteries, or how science attracts us because it is rich withRead More →

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According to seventeen-year- old Louna Barrett, “You can’t measure love by time put in, but by the weight of those moments” (115).  She had only loved Ethan Caruso for a short time, but he was her “once and for all,” until he wasn’t. Since losing Ethan, Louna is prickly, antisocial, and somewhat cynical about love.  Ethan, whose mother had been married multiple times, had been cynical about marriage, but Louna knows a lot about weddings, after having worked summers at her mother’s wedding planning business.   She sees a wedding as a series of special moments, strung together like beads on a chain.  A Natalie BarrettRead More →

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While Lady Julia Lindsay Mackenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart (aka Julie) is home from a Swiss boarding school and exploring her grandad’s Murray Estate in Strathfearn, Scotland, she wanders upon a pearl thief and receives a blow to the head.  As she tries to recall the events of that fateful day on the Fearn River and to untangle a mystery of thievery, assault, and murder, she learns that memory is a strange and unreliable thing.  To solve the mystery, Julie must string together the clues, like pearls torn from a necklace. Besides being a mystery, The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein fits my definition of Cultural IdentityRead More →

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Readers who enjoy science and mystery are in for double the pleasure in Jack and the Geniuses at the Bottom of the World by Bill Nye and Gregory Mone.  Although the book–the first in what promises to be quite a series– is clearly a work of fiction, it has qualities of nonfiction, like back matter, notes about real science, and answers to essential questions about Antarctica, which literally is the bottom of the world. The novel features twelve-year-old Ava who builds talking toasters, motorized skateboards, and robots from spare parts; her fifteen-year-old brother Matt, an observer who thinks things through, circumvents obstacles, and forms theories from his collectedRead More →

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Book One in The Wingsnatchers saga, Carmer and Grit by Sarah Jean Horwitz, will likely appeal to readers who enjoy fantasy adventure stories and steampunk settings.  Blending just the right proportions of science, action, and magic, Horwitz creates an engaging tale with lessons about self-discovery, the value of perseverance, the environmental impact of mankind’s industry and inventions, and the importance of achieving a balance for harmonious coexistence. The key characters in this tale are thirteen-year-old Felix Cassius Tiberius Carmer III, who is Antoine the Amazifier’s apprentice; and Grettifrida Lonewing, a fire faerie who cuts quite an intimidating figure for one only five inches tall andRead More →

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April 15 will mark the 105th anniversary of the historic event of the Titanic’s sinking, an event which is memorialized in Dan Gutman’s latest installment of The Flashback Four: The Titanic Mission.  Gutman preserves the Titanic’s history, as well as that of 1912, in a retelling that features four twelve-year-olds: Luke, a large white boy with a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder and a compassionate heart; Julia, a prep school blonde with a penchant for money, clothes, and risk-taking; David, a tall African American boy who never learned to swim but loves to laugh; and Isabel, a studious girl from the Dominican Republic who prefers toRead More →