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In: Young Adult Book Reviews
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Best-selling author Louanne Johnson (Dangerous Minds) has a new YA book due out from Random House in September 2009, Muchacho. Eddie Corazon is an angry, but smart, guy.  Since grade school he’s been working hard to maintain his image as a juvenile delinquent, but he’s a secret reader.  He hangs out with his cousins in the rough barrios of Rosablanca, New Mexico, who always back him up (when they’re not in jail), but he won’t get himself involved in the robberies, drug deals and gang violence that surround him.  But then he meet Lupe at school and over the course of his junior year, Eddie startsRead More →

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In: Mystery & Suspense (YA), Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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What happens when your truth is so unbelievable, so horrifying, so awful that you can’t bear it? And you can’t ever trust anyone with this truth? You become a liar.  Micah tells us that right up front that she’s a liar, and then in the next breath, promises to tell the reader the whole truth, because she’s tired of living under the burden of all of her lies.  But when you’ve become addicted to something, you can’t just quit cold turkey (and when someone promises finally to tell the full truth, chances are more lies are what you’ll be hearing). Throughout Liar, the forthcoming book fromRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure (YA), General Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews
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What’s the toughest part about Hunger Games? After finishing it, the next book that I read just doesn’t have as much grab for me. I wonder if that’s a problem for Suzanne Collins. As I talked with students and staff about what to expect with Catching Fire, we had no clue how the author would follow up such a great story. Now I can’t figure which one’s my favorite. We knew that there would be rebellion. There’s no way that Capitol officials would let Katniss’ act of defiance go unnoticed. In the first book it is made very clear that Panem resembles Ancient Rome, hostingRead More →

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Brilliant!  Little, Brown’s Fall 2009 line-up includes a collection of short stories edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci, Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, and it’s freakin’ awesome. Bringing together some great voices in YA lit: John Green, Cassandra Clare, M.T. Anderson, Scott Westerfeld, David Levithan, Barry Lyga, Garth Nix, Libba Bray and more, Black & Castellucci have created a smart, wry, funny and sometimes painful look at all things geek.  Opening with a laugh-out-loud story by the editors about a hook up at a comicon gone wrong (Klingon and Jedi – no way!), through stories of geek education classes for cheerleaders, cosplayers and MMORPG enthusiasts meeting upRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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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 →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Romance (YA), Supernatural & Horror, Supernatural & Horror (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Shiver is the perfect title for Maggie Stiefvater’s romance due out from Scholastic in August 2009.  In the literal sense, of course, because it’s the cold that forces Sam into wolf form and pulls him away from his one true love, Grace. But in the figurative sense as well because both Sam & Grace, and readers, will shiver throughout this book with delight, anticipation, yearning, fear and delicious sexual tension.   Grace is a 17 year old girl who yearns for something other than her middle class existence – escape; passion; an uninhibited life – something embodied in the wolves she watches every winter in the woods behindRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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“I will have to travel from district to district, to stand before cheering crowds who secretly loathe me, to look into the faces of the families who children I have killed…” By page four of Catching Fire I am swept away with emotion.   When I left the heroine of The Hunger Games, Katniss, I thought I could easily hold it together until she returned in its sequel.  How wrong I was.  When I was able to read an advanced copy, I found myself pinned to the couch, taking only time to eat one meal…forcing myself to stop at 1am with 40 pages to go.  Why? Read More →

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In: On the Edge, Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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The Answer: “I have a secret. And everyone knows it. But no one talks about it, at least not out in the open. That makes it a very modern secret, like knowing your favorite celebrity has some weird eccentricity or other, or professional athletes do it for money, or politicians don’t actually have your best interests at heart.” So begins Daniel Bradford’s, aka Sprout‘s, answer to the question, posed for the Kansas statewide essay contest.  16 year old Sprout’s got lots of potential material in his life to use as inspiration: his mom died of cancer when he was 12; his dad’s a deeply depressedRead More →

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In: Action & Adventure, Action & Adventure (YA), Middle Grade Reviews, Sci Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Action, adventure and an engaging story set deep in the heart of Chinese culture – oh, and it’s all set on Mars in the year 2515. Welcome to the latest book by Chris Roberson, Iron Jaw and Hummingbird. In this engaging book, Roberson continues his development of  The Celestial Empire, where China rose to world dominance in the fifteenth century on Earth and eventually colonized Mars, or Fire Star.  It’s intriguing to imagine and develop alternate world histories (and futures) as Roberson does with his Celestial Empire stories (which remind me of the excellent book by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt) and toRead More →