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In the 17th century being different from your fellow villagers, and being a woman, was a dangerous combination.  14 year old Mary Newbury lives a quiet life on the outskirts of a village in England with her healer grandmother. Until the day when the townsfolk turn against them, the witchhunters “try” her grandmother, convict her of being a witch, and hang the old woman. Mary is rescued by a cloaked woman who takes her to join a group of Puritans set to sail for the new world and the religious freedom the colonies offer. Thus opens the long lost journal of Mary Newbury and Celia Rees’ captivating and thrillingRead More →

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When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead’s, second book for young readers, is a charming, lovingly crafted story about friendship, hope, and growing up.  I’ll even go so far as to say it will be a contender for the Newbery Medal. Set in New York City in the Fall of 1979, 12-year old Mira’s life is getting complicated: her best friend Sal has suddenly decided he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, and after an encounter with the school bully, Sal avoids her and won’t say why;  Mira makes some new friends at school and gets a lunchtime job in the local sandwich shop;  a strange, sometimes frightening homelessRead More →

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If you like big special effects, non-stop action, and massive deadly creatures, you will love Steve Cole’s new series for young readers, Z. Rex, Book 1: The Hunting! Taking cues from great films like Jurassic Park, King Kong and Alex Rider: Stormbreaker, with a villainous company bent on controlling the world (Alien, Aliens), Z. Rex blends cutting edge sci-fi technology with fully interactive virtual reality gaming, throwing plenty of mayhem, destruction and adventure into the mix.  Life as the son of a genius virtual reality developer is pretty cool for 14 year old Adam Adlar.  But when his dad mysteriously vanishes and some scary thugsRead More →

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There are some books and movies that capture summertime like nothing else: the long, languid days; the limitless stretches of time; the danger and excitement that comes from the combination of good friends and boredom; and the freedom from school, adult supervision and rules.  Ron Carlson’s The Speed of Light, is just such a book. So much, and really nothing at all, happens to Larry the summer between elementary school and junior high.  Set sometime in the 1960’s, Larry and his best friends, Witt and Rafferty, spend their days playing all kinds of variations of baseball, conducting “scientific” experiments, horsing around with the other neighborhood kids,Read More →

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Leander Watts’ novel, Beautiful City of the Dead, reminds me of those amazing albums where great bands use their songs to tell a complex, multi-dimensional story.  Each classic song stands alone, brilliant and enchanting, but when interwoven with the others on the album, makes something deeper, wider and more powerful as the listener lets him/her-self be enveloped in the band’s vision. Of course this interpretation isn’t highly original, since on the surface the story is about a teenage “ghost metal” band – four friends who come together through their music and find meaning and power in their awkward teenage years.  But the way Watts weaves a supernatural, other-wordly elements into theRead More →

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Action, adventure, mythology and high-tech crime are packed into Stephen Cole’s Thieves Like Us.  The first book in an explosive series, Thieves Like Us, introduces us to a crew of brilliant teens whose skill and ambition are harnessed by a criminal mastermind, Coldheart, making them an almost unstoppable band of high-end thieves.  First we meet Jonah Wish, an ultra-talented computer programmer as he’s serving the second month of a year-long incarceration for illegal computer hacking and multi-million dollar theft.  Jonah’s as surprised as the reader when a commotion breaks out in the jail and he’s spirited away by some well-trained, technologically savvy teens to aRead More →

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15-year old Zeeta’s life with her free-spirited mother, Layla, is anything but normal. Every year Layla picks another country she wants to live in  – this summer they’re in Ecuador, while Zeeta longs for a “normal” life in the American suburbs. Zeeta makes friends with vendors at the town market and begs them to think of upstanding, “normal” men to set up with Layla. There, Zeeta meets Wendell who was born nearby, but adopted by an American family. His one wish is to find his birth parents, and Zeeta agrees to help him. Their quest takes them to an idealized indigenous village, through jungles, crystalRead More →

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Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink will release from Little, Brown in August 2009.  In it, readers are taken to late 19th-century Upstate New York where we meet wealthy heiress Lia, whose father has just died under mysterious circumstances.  16 year old Lia, along with her twin sister Alice and younger brother Henry, are left under the guardianship of their spinster Aunt in their family mansion.  Soon after her father’s death, Lia’s life takes a sharp turn for the worse as she discovers that she is caught up in a prophecy that has spanned generations of her family, and it may now be theRead More →

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When Thomas wakes up in a dark lift, headed upwards to who knows where, all he can remember is his first name. He has no idea where he came from, who he is, or how he got where he is. When the door above him opens, he discovers he’s “welcomed” by other teen boys, in a large expanse, called The Glade, surrounded by tall stone walls.  The Gladers also have no memories of their lives before – they only know they’ve been virtual prisoners in the maze for about 2 years.  They know that every morning, the large stone doors open and runners head out into the mazeRead More →