I can definitely see why George Washington’s Socks was on a book list for 5th grade book reports. It contains many lessons, just under the surface of the adventure. As an English major and former literature teacher, it felt heavy handed to me, but apparently they weren’t quite so obvious to my daughter until we […]
Dancing Queen
April 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In Dancing Queen, Liv—who just finished her junior year of high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan—spends her summer working as an intern with Music Mix in London, where she’ll be wrangling celebrities and helping plan concerts, all in the name of hopefully getting a future job in the entertainment industry. She’s living in a flat […]
Witch & Wizard
April 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Witch & Wizard opens with 15 year old Wisty, her 17 year old brother Whit, and their parents about to be publically hanged for being witches and wizards by a modern day New Order. Then it flashes back to when they were first kidnapped by the New Order, which is where the story really starts. […]
Fairy Wings
April 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Fairy Wings: A Fairy Tale is the story of Tamisin, a girl who doesn’t fit in; eventually she learns it’s because she’s actually half fairy. She befriends Jak, another halfling—he’s half cat goblin—and they end up having adventures in the land of the Fey. The story’s take on goblins is interesting—they’re all affiliated with different […]
Dinocalypse Now
April 17, 2012 by 1 Comment
Dinocalypse Now isn’t written specifically for younger readers, but with dinosaur attacks, talking apes, Neanderthals, dirigibles, and jet packs, a lot of kids will find it intriguing. It’s set in the world of Spirit of the Century—if you’re not familiar, it’s a bit like the world of Indiana Jones and The Mummy but with even […]
Love on Cue
April 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I’ve been looking for age appropriate romantic stories for my 11 year old. Simon Pulse has put out an entire line of them, and Love on Cue is the first one I checked out. I suppose it’s harmless enough, but I was really hoping for a better story and a main character I really cared […]
Snow in Summer
April 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Snow in Summer: Fairest of Them All is a variation on Snow White set in the late 1940’s in the hills of West Virginia. Snow in Summer, our Snow White analogue, is a farmer’s daughter instead of a princess. She reads books and fairy tales, including Snow White, and often compares herself to characters in […]
Mockingjay
April 10, 2012 by 4 Comments
Mockingjay, the final book in the trilogy (see my reviews of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire), brings Katniss’ story to its brutal but overall logical end. Katniss becomes the face of the rebellion—the Mockingjay—a tool of politicians on both sides of the conflict. Finally she violently takes things into her own hands and fights […]
Lily Dale
April 9, 2012 by 1 Comment
Although this series is made up of four books—Awakening, Believing, Connecting, and Discovering—they’re really better considered a complete novel split into four parts. In fact, they’re probably best read back to back. (I only figured out the A, B, C, D naming convention as I started the fourth novel.) The series follows high school senior […]
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
April 4, 2012 by 1 Comment
Review written by Jonathan Lavallee The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is about a girl named September who is unhappy with the way things are going in her life. Her father is off fighting in the war and her mother spends too much time working at the factory. She […]
