Parenthetical

Ok, let’s get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. There’s a series of books called The Clique. If you know Gossip Girls, it’s basically the same deal, only for middle schoolers: shockingly privileged, entitled girls who only care about fashion and popularity bitch at each other and name-drop their favorite brands. This book [...]

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Martin Maple and his dad live alone on an island. Mr. Maple spends all his time building a mysterious machine that he says will bring hope. When the machine is almost done, he rows off to the mainland to bring back the final piece. He never returns, nor do the vacationers who come to the [...]

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This was the other book in our Nerds Heart YA round, against Toads and Diamonds. We ultimately selected that one to go on, but here is my review of Tall Story. Andi adores basketball, and is devastated to learn that her new London school has no girls’ basketball team. Meanwhile, in a small village in [...]

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Ambrose is the son of Martin Truax, wealthy and mysterious inventor of the social network Unison. Everyone who’s anyone has a login, and Ambrose’s entire life is devoted to running the company for even bigger profit. Mistletoe has no idea whose daughter she is — she lives with junk dealer Jiri in the impoverished subcanopy [...]

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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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Wallace hasn’t told a lie in his life. So when Mr. Fogelman assigns him to review the classic Old Shep, My Pal, he says exactly what he thinks: “[This] is the most boring book I’ve read in my entire life…. This book couldn’t be any lousier if it came with a letter bomb,” etc. Mr. [...]

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A classic middle-school clique situation: five friends, including one queen bee, one follower, and three quieter hangers-on… And then there were four. The queen bee, Candace, decides she doesn’t want to hang out with Maya anymore. Who knows why? But the rest have to go along with it, lest they be next. This is told [...]

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Cap Anderson (short for Capricorn) was raised by his grandmother Rain at Garland, a formerly active commune now occupied by exactly two people. Rain is Cap’s entire world. So when she breaks her leg and has to recuperate in a rehab facility for a few weeks, Cap is stunned to learn that he has to [...]

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The moment when Helen Keller, splashing water over her hand, connects Annie Sullivan spelling W-A-T-E-R with the concept of “water” is part of our national mythology. This is Annie’s story up to that point — her arrival at the Kellers’, her attempts to tame Helen from a wild brat into a civilized child, her own [...]

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The afternoon D Foster roams onto the narrator’s street in Queens, the two girls and the narrator’s best friend Neeka start up a tight friendship. It lasts through the shooting of their idol Tupac, through visiting Neeka’s brother in jail, as all three girls turn thirteen… and then D’s real mom comes to get her [...]

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