Gamer Girl, by Mari Mancusi
Mancusi, Mari (2008). Gamer girl. NY: Dutton Juvenile. 224 pages.
When fifteen-year-old Maddy’s parents divorce and Maddy, her eight-year-old sister and their mother move in with their grandmother in New Hampshire, Maddy is crushed to leave her Back Bay Boston brownstone, private school and gang of friends. After a disasterous first day at school–in a funny [...]
Take a Chance on Me (Gossip Girl, The Carlyles #3), by Cecily von Ziegesar
von Ziegesar, Cecily (2009). Take a chance on me (Gossip Girl, The Carlyles #3). NY: Poppy. 256 pages.
So I’m a total sucker for the new “Gossip Girl” spin-off, “The Carlyles,” and almost get more pleasure in the mental comparison of “Carlyles” characters to “Gossip Girl” characters (there’s an equivalent “Carlyle” for every “GG” character) than [...]
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
Ryan, Carrie (2009). The forest of hands and teeth. NY: Delacorte. 308 pages.
Deep in a forest inhabited by zombie-like creatures–beings known as the Unconsecrated who have risen from the dead and who hunger for human flesh–Mary and her family live in uneasy peace in a fenced Village patrolled by Guardians and administered by the Sisterhood. [...]
Education or Escape, Reform or Release
After a long time of not visiting (I’m lazy and I don’t have any kind of blog alerts set up), I stopped by the teen marketing website Ypulse (www.ypulse.com) and saw this note about a new marketing initiative from Penguin called “Point of View.” The note, which links to Penguin’s website by the same title, [...]
Read MoreNo Such Thing as the Real World, edited by Harper Teen
Various authors (2009). No such thing as the real world. NY: Harper Teen. 246 pages.
A lot of times collections of young adult short stories by various authors seem to become engineered excuses for the anthologized authors to take a stance on a thematic issue or try a hand at writing outside of their usual genre [...]
If the Witness Lied, by Caroline B. Cooney
Cooney, Caroline B. (2009). If the witness lied. NY: Delacorte Press. 213 pages.
Man, Caroline B. Cooney must be about 100 years old by now and she’s still churning them out. In her latest novel, a family thriller (written in a style not unlike 2007’s re-release of her 1993 novel Diamonds in the Shadow), three teenage [...]
Preaching to the Choir
Preaching to the Choir
So, I just finished reading Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother and this, combined with my memories of Steve Kluger’s My Most Excellent Year and (to a lesser degree) F. Paul Wilson’s Jack: Secret Histories, made me wonder about the YA literary audience. While I think that most of us would argue that the [...]
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
Doctorow, Cory (2008). Little Brother. NY: Tor Teen. 382 pages.
After terrorists attack San Francisco and blow up the Bay Bridge, seventeen-year-old Marcus is detained by the Department of Homeland Security for essentially being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A hacker, gamer, and healthy paranoiac, Marcus is shaken by the experience and, together [...]
Skeleton Creek, by Patrick Carman
Carman, Patrick (2009). Skeleton Creek. NY: Scholastic. 185 pages.
I was so psyched to see this at my library because I had seen Angela Kennedy (a student at Texas A and M University) talk about this book (and others) at the Children’s Literature Association conference in Charlotte this summer. The novel, the first in an interactive [...]
Bliss, by Lauren Myracle
Myracle, Lauren (2008). Bliss. NY: Amulet Books. 444 pages.
After her hippie parents drop her off at her grandmother’s house in Atlanta and leave for Canada, Bliss, a fourteen-year-old who has grown up in various communes, begins her freshman year at a posh private school. The year is 1969 and, although Bliss is surprised at the [...]