Parenthetical

Ok, I’m way late to the party on this one because I was in the middle of wrapping up my school year, but: a couple of weeks ago, Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote a column called “Darkness Too Visible” in the WSJ about dark YA lit. There’s too much of it nowadays, teens are inundated with [...]

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I’ve just read three books about kids with different ways of perceiving the world, and because they’re thematically linked (also to catch up on reviews quicker) I’ll review two together: Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, and Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin. Al Capone, my favorite of the two, takes place [...]

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When Frederick starts 8th grade in a new state, he falls in with a group of Latinas who call themselves Las Sexy Seis. His new best friend, Xio, has the hots for him, but he only feels tingly when he hangs out with his new soccer buddy Victor. Could that mean he’s gay? Alex Sanchez [...]

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4 out of 5 Ingrid and her sprawling extended family get together for every possible occasion, where no matter how old she and her teenage cousins get, they are always stuck at the kid table. Hanging out with each other beats discussing mortgages with their parents, but what will it take for the family to [...]

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Naomi and her little brother Owen are content living with their great-grandmother in a trailer park — Naomi carves soap into animal shapes, hangs out with the (clearly flaming, even though the text doesn’t say so explicitly) librarian at school, and watches Wheel of Fortune every night with Gram and her best friend Fabiola. But [...]

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In two weeks I’ll be heading to the Simmons College Children’s Literature Summer Institute. Three days of talks by and schmoozing with fabulous authors, editors, and other people working in the children’s lit field (not to mention some dear friends). So excited! I realized that I’m unfamiliar with the work of a number of people [...]

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This was a request from Zix, who wanted to know what I thought of this after reading Luna. (I do take requests, btw — if there’s a YA novel you want me to review, just let me know! I’d rather post stuff I know people want to read.) Parrotfish opens in the middle of Angela’s [...]

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The only people in Samara’s life are her neglectful mother, her mother’s abusive live-in boyfriend, and her favorite chimpanzee at the zoo… until elderly Mr. Brook subs for her regular English teacher and changes her life with some poetry. Sound like a cliche? Well, it… pretty much is. The book is only 173 small-format pages, [...]

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