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Alex Meadows has just passed from primary to secondary school in Lambourn, England, so he is constantly on guard to protect his status and to avoid being targeted by Alan’s Battalion, a gang of school yard bullies commanded by Alan Tydman.  Alex plans not to react to any of the gang’s bait since reactors get hurt, a truth that David Marsh can testify to when he refuses to fly under the radar.  But when Alex—and everyone else in his grade—gets an invitation to the Icarus Show, he dares to believe in possibility.  From the teaser campaign to the main event, Alex is intent on solving theRead More →

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With the overwhelming amount of homework in middle school, Gregory Korenstein-Jasperton wonders how all the popular kids at Morris Champlin Middle School have time to be popular.  He hasn’t even found the time or the energy for writing the poetry and short stories he loves.  When his dropping grades get him grounded, preventing him from attending open mic night at Booktastic, an indie bookstore and his favorite place on earth, Gregory decides to take action. Borrowing inspiration from Dr. Seuss’ character, the Lorax, Gregory realizes change never comes unless someone speaks up: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going toRead More →

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Written with an imagery-rich style and set in Tampere, Finland, As Red As Blood is a mystery, the first book in a trilogy by Salla Simukka featuring Lumikki Andersson.  Prinsessa Lumisirkku ja kääpiöt (Princess Snow-bunting and the Dwarfs) was the original title for the fairy tale “Snow White” in Finland, and Lumikki, like her fairytale namesake, is pursued by bullies who wish her dead.  The violence, torture, and subjugation of this bullying, which began in elementary school, has hardened Lumikki into an independent and pragmatic survivalist.  The physical similarities, however, don’t match the brown-haired Lumikki, who likes her “coffee black and strong, facts straight up, and an apartmentRead More →

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Her brother Nolan is dead, her parents are divorced, her aunt Joan is a “hurricane,” and Mel Hannigan has one of many versions of bipolar disorder, but some things you just don’t tell the world.  In the same spirit with which Terry Spencer Hesser skillfully and credibly illustrates obsessive compulsive disorder in Kissing Doorknobs  and Mark Haddon writes about life for someone coping with autism in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Eric Lindstrom shares his honest and informative novel,  A Tragic Kind of Wonderful.  Books like these, with realistic representations of people who experience mental health issues, can help readers notRead More →

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For almost four years, birthdays have been a problem for fifth grader Cadence Mariah Jolly, the main character in Sherri Winston’s novel The Sweetest Sound.  The trickiness of birthdays began the day after Cadence’s seventh birthday, when her mother left a farewell note on the coffeepot revealing that life in Harmony, Pennsylvania, was hampering her passion to be a singer.  When Chantel Marie Jolly abandons her family, her daughter’s world slips into darkness. Now, Cadence, whom everyone calls Mouse, is known as the shy and quiet girl whose mother has left.  For Cadence, spending an entire day reading and writing or listening to music andRead More →

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Set in Manhattan, New York, with scenes from Santa Monica, California, History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera is a deeply unsettling but important book about the total nightmare of life after losing a loved one.  Although th e book features more references to sex than some readers might find necessary, the book captures how love and heartbreak can turn someone crazy and suspicious and how the death of a loved one can make us “the worst kind of alive” (139), a life after death zombie without a brain, heart, light, or direction. Griffin Jennings, a seventeen-year-old with a fixation for even numbersRead More →

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Despite his warm, friendly, and generous nature, junior Lawrence Barry is on the verge of expulsion for his actions at a diversity assembly at Meridian High School while stoned.  Because his father is a powerful attorney of the law firm Barry, Yu and Singh and because his counsellor Mr. Lunley believes Lawrence has potential and simply needs to channel his energies in more positive directions, the expulsion hearing is thwarted.   However, with his dad’s threat of Langdon Military Academy hanging over his head, with Mr. Lunley’s having recruited him for the Buddy Club, and with Principal Stone scrutinizing his every action, Lawrence has to reformRead More →

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Readers who enjoy reading fantasy-adventure stories like the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull or the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer will likely find pleasure in the Secrets of the Pied Piper series by Matthew Cody. In The Magician’s Key, the second book in Cody’s series, thirteen-year-old Max Weber and her younger brother Carter are separated after the Pied Piper used Carter to free himself from imprisonment in the Black Tower.  What had begun as a quick research trip to German so that Max’s father could work on his new book turned into something stranger than fiction.  Now Max’s parents are missing, her brother isRead More →

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Girls who love science, engineering, and creativity; girls who are subversive and revolutionary; and girls who have moxie—that’s what Nothing But Trouble by Jacqueline Davies is made of–forget sugar and spice and everything nice!  Although this is mostly Maggie Gallagher’s and Lena Polachev’s story, it is also the story of Grandpop, Mrs. Gallagher, Mrs. Dornbusch, and any number of other secondary characters who reveal their ability to face difficulty with spirit, courage, determination, and attitude. Set in Odawahaka, a small town where the humiliations of childhood follow an individual forever, the plot of Davies’ book revolves around the town’s middle school, its teachers, its students,Read More →