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A lazy, last-day-of summer holiday was the perfect day to read Jane Smiley’s latest, Pie in the Sky.  An exquisitely crafted character-focused story, gently told, meditatively plotted and rich with detail, I couldn’t put this book down.  Its first fans will be young women in love with horses and all things equine, but readers who devour richly textured character-driven stories (my favorite!) will be hooked within the first few pages as well. As the summer of 1966 bleeds into Autumn, fourteen year old Abby Levitt, whose life revolves around the meditatively hard work of training and caring for her family’s horses, finds herself and her beloved geldingRead More →

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How would you feel if all of your friends had super powers and you had none? Jealous? Insecure? Left out? What if you suddenly manifested the power to steal the powers from those around you, your friends; a power shared by a recently defeated super villain who had stolen the powers and memories from a hundred generations of “supers”? This is especially disconcerting to Daniel Corrigan, as he was the one who helped vanquish this villain, Herman Plunkett aka The Shroud. This new power appears as Plunkett’s grandson, Theo, returns to Noble’s Green and things begin to go awry in a disturbingly familiar way. Shadows,Read More →

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Life is about to change in the sleepy little town of Blackbird Tree for two 12 year old best friends, Naomi and Lizzie.  When a charming, but unusual boy, Finn, drops out of a tree, the girls don’t quite know how to react to his questions about their town and the people who live there.  Finn’s unexplained arrival isn’t the only mystery in town, either;  a dapper Dingle Dangle man has also recently arrived, snooping around asking the adults lots of questions.  And Naomi wonders about other mysteries and secrets too: 3 dusty, sealed trunks, a pair of crows, a crooked bridge, and some long-supressedRead More →

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17 year old Jack’s summer job, as a “nanny” for an 8 and 12 year old brother and sister, seems like it would be a cake walk.  He’ll be making really good money and all he has to do is hang out with a couple of kids for a couple months.  The major downside is that the kids live on an isolated island off the mainland that’s devoid of any modern connectivity; sure, they have generator-powered electricity, but there’s no phone, no wi-fi or internet, and the only connection to the outside world is the twice weekly ferry that passes by the island.  Willing toRead More →

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Kids who love James Patterson and Chris Tebbett’s Middle School series, as well as those who love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, will go nuts for Patterson’s latest, I Funny: A Middle School Story, which this time has him partnered with Chris Grabenstein.  Middle School series illustrator, Laura Park is also back filling the pages of I Funny with a minimum of three energetic, detailed cartoons per chapter.  It’s a combination, along with Patterson’s trademark short chapters and snappy pacing, that will rocket this book to the top of plenty of reluctant readers’ favorite lists. Middle schooler Jamie Grimm has a mission –Read More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Realistic Fiction, Realistic Fiction (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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In the sequel to his Printz Honor book, Stuck in Neutral, Terry Trueman takes us back into Shawn McDaniel’s life:  “Night before last my dad tried to kill me. At least, I’m pretty sure that was his plan. For weeks and months I’d been worrying about it. I guess Dad had his reasons, but he didn’t do it. Obviously. Lucky me, huh? Sorry, sarcasm is one of the few weapons I possess.” (1) The power of Stuck in Neutral  lay in the dynamic between Shawn and his dad, as both characters struggled to understand and connect with each other.  In Life Happens Next, Shawn’s dadRead More →

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Acclaimed British novelist Catherine Fisher (Incarceron – The Times’ Children’s Book of the Year) is back this Fall with a new subtly woven, spooky Faust-inspired, fantasy, Darkwater. In the early twentieth century in a windswept British village on the sea, 16 year old Sarah Trevelyan would give anything to regain the power, prestige, and wealth her family held for generations but lost in the folly of a card game gone wrong.  Reduced to living with her family’s only remaining loyal servant, Sarah’s sickly and broken father sinks deeper into a wasting illness while she is forced to humble herself as a scullery maid at the localRead More →

We're Moving!

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Join us for our Moving & Back-to-School Blowout Sale! Now Extended Through September | Sale Hours: M-F: 10-6, Sat: By Appointment Hardbacks: $5 | Paperbacks: $3 (or less)  In Store Shopping Only | Purchase Orders Accepted | Some exceptions apply, see store for details. Books available on a first come, first served basis. No back-orders (available at promotional prices) if/when titles sell out.Read More →

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Christopher Krovatin’s recent book Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones is designed for readers  who don’t mind horror or creepy concepts like zombies.  Following a plotline similar to that found in R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, this book features three middle-schooler’s perspectives: Ian, a hard-headed athlete who thinks muscle will help him outrun any danger; Kendra, a sharp-minded library resident who relies on her brain to out-think a crisis; and PJ, a nervous camera addict who controls his fears by framing and directing shots. On a field trip designed to “separate the wolves from the poodles,” the trio engages with Homeroom Earth, an education program about survival in theRead More →