The Twice Upon a Time series by Wendy Mass tells a familiar fairy tale from the point of view of both the heroine and the hero. Rapunzel, The One With All the Hair certainly takes liberties with the tale (Rapunzel is taken by the witch on her twelfth birthday instead of at her birth, for […]
A Tale Dark & Grimm
March 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A Tale Dark & Grimm takes several familiar and a nice variety of less familiar Grimm fairy tales and links them together, casting Hansel and Gretel as the main characters in all of them. The premise is that these seemingly unconnected tales are actually all parts of one story. The author is also very straightforward […]
Entwined
March 25, 2013 by 1 Comment
Entwined is a novel length retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” (Retellings of this tale seem to be popular—I talked to author and frequent Reads 4 Tweens reviewer Jocelyn Koehler about that.) This version deals with the logistical issue of giving birth to 12 daughters by having the youngest being born right before the mother […]
The Princess Bride
March 22, 2013 by 3 Comments
Review written by Jonathan Lavallee. I’m sure most people have seen the movie and not read the book, turning this book into every one’s favourite book that they’ve never read. The Princess Bride is a story about William Goldman editing out all the boring bits of a beloved childhood book that his father had read […]
Deadwood
March 14, 2013 by 1 Comment
Martin Cruz moves to Deadwood (known to most people as Lower Brynwood) to live with his “Aunt” Michelle—actually his mother’s cousin, as she’s quick to tell people—because his mother is deployed to Afghanistan and his grandmother has recently passed away. Still grieving and separated from everything he knows and loves, Martin bonds with a huge […]
Hatchet
March 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jocelyn Koehler. Hatchet is one of my favorite-est “boy books” (more on that below). It freaks me out to think that it’s 25 years old! Maybe that’s partly because it seems like it should be ageless. The core of the story is a boy living alone in the woods, and no amount […]
Insurgent
February 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jonathan Lavallee. If you haven’t read the Divergent review, I suggest you read that first because I’m not going to go over the descriptions of the various factions and the setup. If you need a reminder, it’s probably a good place to start. Insurgent starts off immediately where the last one left […]
Kat, Incorrigible
February 22, 2013 by 1 Comment
Review written by Jocelyn Koehler. For reasons of my own, I’ve been reading a lot of Regency period romances. So when I saw Kat, Incorrigible, a children’s novel set in 1803 England, I snapped it up. (Note: it was published in Britain as A Most Improper Magick). The plot borrows heavily (and amusingly) from tropes […]
Planet Middle School
February 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Planet Middle School is told in poems that show moments in Joylin’s life during her first year of middle school. Although spare in words, it’s full of emotion and insight. My daughter identified with the things Joy is going through even though the specific details of their lives are different. Typically I’m not a huge […]
What Came from the Stars
February 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jocelyn Koehler. It would it be too high of praise to say that Gary D. Schmidt’s What Came from the Stars is a solid block of crazy cool braised in awesome sauce. It would not be too high of praise, however, to say that this book is special. In the town of […]
