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Similar to the Harry Potter and Charlie Bone series’,  Ed Masessa’s Wandmaker series focuses on magical learning. Wandmaker’s Apprentice is the second novel in the series and picks up from the dramatic events of Wandmaker. In that first novel, Henry and his sister, Brianna, came to terms with their different abilities connected to wand making. In this world, hidden behind the scenes from ours, magical ability is harnessed through different wands for various purposes. For those in this magical world, “your wand is an extension of you” (99). After defeating the villainous Dai She, Henry and Brianna are taken in by Wand Master Coralis. CoralisRead More →

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Life is a physics lesson, and each of us plays a part in both weaving and repairing the fabric of the universe.  Both particles and waves of energy link us, bind us, protect us, and remind us that we a part of that tapestry.  These are the lessons that Wendy Mass discloses in her latest installment of the Willow Falls series, Graceful. In this book targeted for ages 8-12, readers will reconnect with familiar characters: Angelina D’Angelo, Grace, Bailey, Amanda, Leo, Rory, Tara, Connor, and David.  The latter seven comprise Team Grace, the guardians and advisors for the next Willow Falls Protector.  In a multi-genre format—with inventor’sRead More →

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Because she’s “a shadow, a footstep in the woods that disappears, a twig no one notices” (19) and because she spends so much time climbing apple trees, Teresa Jane Fowler is better known in Sidwell, Massachusetts, as Twig.  Twelve-year-old Twig, the protagonist in Alice Hoffman‘s newest book, Nightbird, is good at running and at keeping the Fowler family secrets—among them the recipes for specialty pink apple desserts, the effects of the Agnes Early curse, and the reasons for the family’s reclusive manners and unusual nature.  These secrets lead to hurt and loneliness for Twig, but she wears her loneliness like armor. Although life without aRead More →

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Sixteen-year-old Agnes Mochrie, aka Canny, stars as the protagonist in Elizabeth Knox’s new fantasy novel Mortal Fire.  This novel is set in 1959 in Southland, the same locale as the famous Dreamhunter Duet.  Canny, a Pacific Islander who attends Castlereagh Tech, is a math genius and the star of the school’s math team—a gender marvel for the time period.  But then, much about Canny is a marvel—from her massive, impassive, and queenly mother who presides over Canny’s life like an unexploded bomb to Canny’s admirable loyalty to her polio afflicted friend Marli. Readers are certain about the depth of Knox’s book early in, when Canny’sRead More →

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Book One in the Three Doors Trilogy by Emily Rodda, The Golden Door, tells the story of three brothers: Dirk, Sholto, and Rye who are residents of Southwall, a community in the city of Weld governed and over-regulated by a suspicious Warden. Eighteen-year-old Dirk is brave and determined if not a bit of a conspiracy theorist who thinks the Warden is up to no good.  Sholto is equally determined but dark and cynical, although the thirst for knowledge glows in him.  As an apprentice Healer, he tends to seek out peace. Rye, the youngest, is cautious, perceptive, and pragmatic. Their home, previously a place of peaceRead More →