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 […]
How to Survive Ancient Spells & Crazy Kings
March 20, 2013 by 1 Comment
In How To Survive Ancient Spells And Crazy Kings, Bianca and her cousin Melvin convince their parents to take them to the Maya ruins of Tikal to look for Zebulan, their archeologist grandfather who has gone missing. Bianca found a jade necklace that Zeb sent to her father for safekeeping. Of course, she decides that […]
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 […]
Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story
March 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jonathan Lavallee. I picked up Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Storyhoping for a good laugh that I could share with the tweens in the house. I loved Adam Rex’s other book, The True Meaning of Smekday, and when I read that this was a parody of vampire stories and coming […]
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 […]
The Magician’s Elephant
February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jocelyn Koehler. Are there kids out there who read the New Yorker? Because those are the only kids I can imagine loving The Magician’s Elephant. That’s not to say it isn’t beautiful and at times moving. But entertaining? Not so much. Ostensibly, it’s the story of a young boy named Peter in […]
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 […]
