Feeling wanderlust heading into the summer? Join humble pumpkin farmer and reluctant hero, Bera, the one-headed troll, and her owl pal, Winslowe. The day a human baby mysteriously washes up near Bera’s tiny island, they embark on a quest to return the strange creature to her kind before former Head Witch of the Troll King, Cloote, […]
A terrific international review of cities becoming more cycling friendly; this book may have changed my life. There were several key insights for me: 1) Requiring helmets significantly reduces usage of bikes; people are robbed of the terrific health benefits of biking if usage is reduced; and helmet may or may not help most folks […]
Abdel-Fattah’s new book goes right for today’s news headlines: Michael’s parents run an anti-immigrant group and Mina is a beautiful, strong Afghan refugee who won a scholarship to Michael’s prestigious school. Narrated alternately by both teenagers, this story is compelling, powerful and stirs up questions about how to find our place and our voice in […]
Hop aboard Hope Larson’s new and exciting high seas adventure series with illustrator Rebecca Mock, titled Compass South (Four Points). Right from the start this author and illustrator pair are in sync, Larson’s way with dialogue and story blending deftly with Mock’s emotional and expressive rendition of the setting and characters. Set in 1860, New […]
This heartfelt and quixotic road trip novel finds Fella and Zany on their way to Asheville NC in Mama Shannon’s car to release their beloved Mama Lacey’s ashes. They are grieving more than their mother: since each girl was born to a different mom in the couple, the (pre-June 2015) law separates them at Lacey’s […]
Margarita Engle’s insightful poems and Rafael López’s vibrant, soulful illustrations work together to create a memorable poetry collection that celebrates the contributions of a wide variety of Hispanics. What makes this book special is readers learn about people rarely covered in collective biographies for kids. Each biographical sketch consists of a double page spread with a […]
Rashad is a boy trying to navigate high school. He’s clean cut, an ROTC kid, and he has mad art skills. Quinn is also a boy trying to navigate high school: he’s on the basketball team and he’s really focused on impressing all those college recruiters. Rashad is black and Quinn is white. They have […]
I couldn’t put it down; sometimes I couldn’t pick it up. Starr lives in Garden Heights, the ghetto. It’s home, where her close-knit and extended loving family live. It’s where gangbangers and drug dealers terrorize the streets. It’s where cops protect and cops kill. Sometimes they kill the innocent. Starr is in the car with […]
An entertaining and deeply creepy novel starring the infamous Lizzie Borden as its heroine. In this story, she did, in fact, kill her father and stepmother with an ax – but only because they were turning into Lovecraftian monsters. Now, she lives with her sister and studies in her secret lab, trying to find the […]
This is a beautiful graphic novel that will appeal to adults just as much as teens. Visually, it’s like returning to those lush fairy tale picture books of my youth, but in the second half of the story when the princess is held captive and all the colors are muted. In truth, the story isn’t […]
