My first copy of Frankenstein was a graduation gift from my senior English teacher in high school. I read it on my own soon after (i.e., not as a class assignment), and I adored it. After reading The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, I decided it was time to read it again. I still […]
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter
September 1, 2018 by Leave a Comment
A friend of mine got me a copy of The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss and the sequel European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman because she thought that I would love them. I’ve finished the first one, and she was so right! I feel like this book was written for me. The […]
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers
October 2, 2017 by Leave a Comment
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers looks like a children’s easy reader book, but it’s definitely not one! Written, illustrated, and bound in the style of Dr. Seuss, it tells the basics of the Cthulhu mythos. I wouldn’t use it as bedtime reading for your 5 year old, but my teenagers and […]
The Sleeper and the Spindle
March 19, 2017 by Leave a Comment
The Sleeper and the Spindle, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Chris Riddell, is a picture book inspired by Sleeping Beauty and some other fairy tales. But don’t let the picture book format make you think this isn’t a wonderful book for older readers. In fact, I think it’s probably best for older readers, including […]
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
September 20, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jennifer Lewis. Everyone knows that Grandpa Portman’s stories about the peculiar children are just that, stories. There’s no such thing as children with special powers—a levitating girl, a boy with bees living in his body, a girl who can conjure fire, or a boy who can animate toy soldiers. And there’s definitely […]
Don’t Look Back
January 8, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Review written by Jennifer Lewis. Don’t Look Back begins with Samantha not knowing where she is, how she got there, or why she is in such a disheveled state. This confusion is due to a traumatic event that resulted in the loss of all of Samantha’s personal memories. To make matters worse, her best friend […]
Shelter
November 5, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Shelter is the first book in Harlan Coben’s YA series. Our hero is Mickey Bolitar, the nephew of Myron Bolitar who is the protagonist in Coben’s adult series. It’s a fun and exciting book, but it’s pretty clearly also primarily an adult thriller scaled down for a somewhat younger audience. Mickey is a high school […]
The Rag and Bone Shop
June 30, 2014 by 2 Comments
The Rag and Bone Shop is the last book Robert Cormier wrote before his death, and it was published posthumously. I’ll admit I’m not a big Cormier fan, although the last time I read one of his books, I was the age of the target audience. Several decades haven’t really made me more of a […]
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 […]
