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In Frances O’Roark Dowell’s  latest novel, The Kind of Friends We Used to Be, Kate and Marilyn are starting 7th grade.  Friends since preschool, the two girls start a new stage in life when things become more complicated and they begin to explore who they are and who they want to be. For Marilyn, getting in to the popular crowd is the focus of her ambitions. She’s joined the cheerleading squad and with hard work, she’s now part of the “in crowd.” Just the opposite is coming true for Kate – she’d rather learn to play guitar, wear combat boots every day, and join the creative writing club.Read More →

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Just finished reading, and loving, the advance reading copy of Fat Cat, the second novel by Arizona’s Robin Brande. (due from Random House in Oct ’09) Catherine (Cat) is a smart, wise-cracking, funny high school junior who is trapped in a fat suit. She wishes there was a way to unzip the suit and start living her real life; but instead she’s trapped in a body that keeps her from being the person she longs to be.  Start of junior year and she’s in for a tough year:  lots of AP classes, no real social life to speak of (except her awesome best friend Amanda),Read More →

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In James Roy’s Max Quigley: Technically Not a Bully, Australian 6th grader Max Quigley is the biggest kid at school. He and his mate Jared casually torment, tease, and bully just about everyone around them. He’s confident, self-centered, and completely clueless about how his behavior impacts other people.  He claims, repeatedly, not to be a bully since he doesn’t physically hurt people, steal or make them cry; instead, he’s really proud of his powers of “persuasion.” Things start to change when the mother of his favorite victim,  Nerdstrom, suggests a plan to help both boys work through this: Triffin will tutor Max in math and both boys willRead More →

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“Vampires are meant to be glamorous and powerful, but I’m here to inform you that being a vampire is nothing like that. Not one bit. On the contrary, it’s like being stuck indoors with the flu watching daytime television, forever and ever.  If being a vampire were easy, there wouldn’t be a Reformed Vampire Support Group.  …God I’m sick of it.” And so we meet Nina; a fifty-one year old vampire who’s had a chip on her shoulder since she was infected at the age of 15.  Tired of a listless, sickly  life stuck in her mother’s house, Nina writes a vampire adventure series with aRead More →

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In the first book in the new Frontier Magic trilogy, fantasy writer Patricia C.  Wredeintroduces Eff, the 13th child of a large magical family.  Wrede imagines an alternate history of world, where magic and magical creatures co-exist seemlessly with history as we know it. Eff’s twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son; in their magical world he is a rare, special, gifted and powerful person.  Being the 13th child is as powerful, but in the most negative way possible. Seen as a witch, a purveyor of bad luck and misfortune, Eff is shunned and blamed as much (or more) than LanRead More →

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Mark Walden’s debut novel, H.I.V.E. (Higher Institute for Villainous Education) is a fast, fun story with similarities to Artemis Fowl, The Alex Rider adventures, Austin Powers and James Bond.  Here, talented teens attend an elite boarding school learning to be the world’s future criminal masterminds.  13 year old orphan Otto Malpense awakens on a helicopter on the way to a tropical volcanic island; he has no memory of being taken and no idea of where he’s headed.  He soon discovers that he and 200 other teens have been abducted to HIVE, a secret school to nurture those with “a special talent for the supremely villainous.” Otto, who hasRead More →

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In one word: Delightful! Rescuing Seneca Crane is Susan Runholt’s second Kari + Lucas Mystery.  She again delivers a action-packed, clever, well-structured mystery.  Kari and Lucas are perceptive, interesting, self-sufficicient teenagers with whom girls will enjoy spending time solving mysteries and just hanging out. Kari and Lucas are on a trip to Scotland with Kari’s mom. She’s there to interview a piano-playing teen prodigy, Seneca Crane.  At first, Kari & Lucas think Seneca will be too talented to relate to, but soon after meeting her and her over-protective parents, they decide she needs to be rescued from her restrictive life.  What they don’t realize is that they’ll soonRead More →

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Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival is a sharp, fun, and quick read.  Newton Starker always knew he would most likely die from a lightning strike. It would all happen in the blink of an eye – Zap! One fried 14-year old Newton, the last heir of the Starker line. Two years after his mother was killed by a lightning strike (as has every other member of the Starker family for generations), Newton is starting a new life at a survival school in the Canadian prairie.  He’s got challenges ahead – having lived most of his life indoors,  sheltered from the menace of the weather,Read More →

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Rita Murphy’s latest novel, Bird, blends magical realism and mystery in telling the story of a girl easily carried away by the wind; a grim secretive widow; and an ominous house on a cliff. Miranda has no memory of where she came from – only that one day a huge gust of wind picked her up and brought her to Widow Barrows and Bourne Manor.  The Widow outfits Miranda with steel boots to keep her on the ground and forbids her leaving the house, but show her no other warmth or kindness. Bourne Manor is also a cold, grim place, full of foreboding, secrets and menace.Read More →