Review written by Jonathan Lavallee. The King of Attolia is a huge departure from The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. Not in tone, with its lovingly put together plot and brilliantly defined characters. Not in style, written with major intrigue rather than roaring battles as the focus. It’s a huge departure because the main character […]
Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon
Amber Brown Is Not A Crayon is the first book in the Amber Brownseries. Amber Brown is in 3rd grade and dealing with the fact that her best friend, Justin, is going to be moving away soon. It’s a surprisingly deep story of loss in a short book easily accessible to young readers. SPOILER ALERT: […]
Princess Academy
My daughter’s assessment of Princess Academy was “Really good, but not at all what I was expecting.” That seems quite accurate to me. Due to machinations of the plot, a tutor from the lowlands comes to Mount Eskel to try to get a bunch of mountain girls trained up enough that one of them can […]
Moonsilver
Moonsilver is the first book in The Unicorn’s Secret series. It’s written for newly independent readers, with short paragraphs and less than 100 pages. Like many books like this, it also takes some short cuts on character development, but it’s a more complex world than many books for young readers. Heart Avamir is a young girl […]
The Giver
My daughter is reading The Giver in her 8th grade English class, so I used that as my excuse to finally reread this pioneer of middle grade dystopian literature. It holds up pretty well. There are some things that may seem a bit clichéd or predictable, but it reminded me of when I finally watched […]
Wonder
I’ve been meaning to read Wonder for ages, but even though it came out over two years ago, it’s still nearly impossible to find in softcover (to keep down the expenses of this site, I try not to buy hardcovers very often). I eventually borrowed it through my daughter’s middle school library summer lending program. […]
Ungifted
Ungifted is the story of Donovan, a very academically average kid, who through a series of circumstances accidentally ends up in the district’s school for the very gifted. It’s not like he’s actually brilliant and no one ever noticed—it doesn’t take long for everyone to realize he doesn’t have the academic chops to be there. […]