Amara has lived her whole life in Portland, Oregon, with her parents. It's a good life. She has a great best friend, and her dad has his dream job at the Nike store, so she gets all the new shoes at an employee discount. But her mother is pregnant again, and Amara can't let herself get excited since none of the other babies ever made it. Plus, she feels like her fashion designer mother is disappointed to have a daughter who doesn't fit her idea of fashionable.
She's always dreamed of going to New York, and this year she is determined to get a New York trip for her birthday. Her father has a business trip, and she knows her chances will be practically zero once the baby is born.
When she finally gets her wish, she is excited to experience all Harlem has to offer, but things aren't quite as perfect as she hoped. Her father really hasn't spoken to her grandfather in twelve years, not since she was born. Does this conflict have something to do with her? And as much as she enjoys spending time with her grandfather and her cousins, she can't help but be a little jealous of their closeness, and her cousins treat her like a baby.
But there is more to Harlem than she had ever imagined, and this trip will reveal more truths about her family history and her connection Black history than she thought possible.
Renee Watson's new book is an exploration of family relationships and one girl's journey to find her place in the world. This was a great book, but it is a bit slower paced. Hand this one to the kids who like a quiet story of self discovery.
Everyone knows you don't compliment a baby. In fact, the more attractive and pleasant the baby, the more you should insult him. This is a protection against the fairies. If a fairy overhears you praising a baby, she might steal him and replace him with a changeling.
Mollie momentarily forgets this one day while she is watching her baby brother while gardening. She looks away for a moment, and when she looks back, Thomas has been replaced by a changeling.
Her only hope of getting her brother back is to journey to the land of the fairies and demand an exchange. Her family has been calling the changeling Guest, but he screams and bites constantly. As she continues on her journey Guest grows faster than a human child, and after a chance encounter with a peddler on the road, he begins to talk. She soon realizes Guest is no longer the angry changeling. He's just a child who is terrified to return to the land of the fairies.
The fair folk know Mollie is coming, and they have plenty of traps and tricks to keep her out of their realm, but Mollie refuses to give up no matter what dangers she faces.
Mary Downing Hahn's newest book is a dark fantasy with the perfect amount of scary for middle grade readers. Recommended.
Ryn and her younger brother and sister have been scraping by since their parents died. She's taken up her father's position as a gravedigger for their small village at the foot of a mountain range. But in Colbren, the dead don't always stay in the ground.
For years, bone houses have appeared in the forest, but lately, they've been appearing more frequently and venturing into the village. Ryn knows how to dispatch them with her ax, but because she is so efficient there are some who don't believe the bone houses exist. When the local landowner decides to evict them to pay their missing uncle's debts, they must abandon their home or find a way to pay.
Ellis is an apprentice mapmaker who is nearly killed by a bone house as travels toward Colbren. He is lucky Ryn is nearby with her ax to save him. After Ellis sets up at the local boarding house, the bone houses begin to attack with greater ferocity, and the town is quickly overrun.
Soon Ellis and Ryn are on a quest through bone house infested forests to break the curse that started the whole problem. Aside from saving the village and finding enough money to save her home, Ryn is hoping to discover the truth about what happened to her father who disappeared into the forest years ago and never returned. And Ellis is hoping to discover the truth about his own history. He stepped out of the forest as a child with a terrible injury as a child with no memory of his past.
Will they be able to survive the bone houses, or will they become just two more victims of the curse?
Emily Lloyd-Jones's take on the zombie narrative is suspenseful and heartfelt. It manages to be both a zombie horror story and fairy tale/quest story at the same time. There is a romance subplot, but it's very light. Good creepy fun! Recommended.
Guinevere is going to Camelot to marry a man she's never met, but she's not really concerned about her own happiness. Her father has trained her to protect Camelot from the dark magic threatening its borders. Since Arthur and his allies defeated their enemies, all magic has been banned from the kingdom. This is a necessary precaution on paper, but a dangerous one in reality since Arthur still needs magical protection. That's where Guinevere comes in. As the daughter of the powerful wizard Merlin, she's in the perfect position to be close to the king.
Arthur is the only one who knows her true identity, and the charismatic king quickly wins over her affections even if their relationship is strictly platonic. Everyone at court seems to be hiding something, and it's harder to keep her magical protections hidden than she thought.
She's not sure who to trust. The brooding and magnetic Mordred? The ladies of the court with their gossip and suspicion? What about the patchwork night who has won fame by defeating all the knights and working his way up to battling the king? Can she even trust herself? Why can't she remember anything beyond her training to protect the king?
Kiersten White's take on Camelot is an engaging fantasy adventure that pays homage to the old legends while still being an original take on the characters and mythology. Hand this to fans of dark fantasy. Recommended.
April's mother only left two clues when she abandoned her as a baby--a letter saying she would return one day and a key. April doesn't know what the key if for, but she does know she isn't like the rest of the kids in her foster homes. She is only a temporary foster kid. Even though she's twelve now, she still holds out hope her mother will return. Maybe that's why she's never really had friends or a longterm good experience in the system.
One day on a museum field trip, she discovers a clue to unlocking her past. There's a new exhibit opening about some rich Winterborne family, and the crest on her key matches the crest on a small chest in the exhibit! She has to find out the truth. It isn't hard to slip away and hide in the museum until everyone is gone. What is more challenging is figuring out how to escape when she accidentally causes a massive fire.
Now instead of being in serious trouble, she's suddenly living in the Winterborne mansion with a group of orphans, Ms. Neslen, and a butler. Part of her thinks she should just sit back and enjoy this new life, but something seems wrong.
Gabriel Winterborne, sole heir to the Winterborne fortune has been missing for years, but April discovers the truth. He's actually living in secret in the basement of Winterborne house! He's been living on the run for years, and now he's back for revenge. April is drawn to him for reasons she doesn't understand and promises herself she will keep him alive. Plus, she's hoping her mother's key will fit a lock somewhere in the mansion.
April has always been a loner, but now she realizes she will have to start trusting the other kids at Winterborne house. The girl who has always taken pride in being self-sufficient will have to trust these new friends to help her. But even with the help of a kid genius, a con artist, and an overprotective street-wise kid may not be enough.
Everyone at Winterborne house has a secret, and some of them go back generations. Will April and her friends be able to uncover the truth before it's too late?
Ally Carter's new middle grade mystery is just about the perfect gothic mystery for the middle school crowd. Huge mysterious house with secret passages, check. Creepy guy living in the basement, check. Plucky orphans, check. Secrets, lies, and murder, check. Thunderstorms and night time apparitions, check. So much fun! This one wraps up the adventure, but there are still questions to be answered which means April and friends will be back for round two, and so will I! Highly recommended!
Audra's parents rarely let her venture from their farm outside a Lithuanian village. Life is dangerous for all Lithuanians since cossack soldiers are determined to eradicate their culture and turn them into Russians, but the Lithuanian people don't want to be erased.
When soldiers arrive on the farm to arrest her parents, her mother gives Audra a package and a name and tells her to run. As she hides in the forest to find the mysterious Milda, Audra learns the truth about her parents. They were book smugglers.
When their language was outlawed, many Lithuanians refused to give up. They had books printed over the border in Prussia and relied on smugglers to get them to the people.
Now that her parents are gone, Audra decides to step into their shoes to keep books in the hands of the people and resist the Russian occupiers. If she is hesitant at first, the violence of the Russian reaction and the passion of the Lithuanian people strengthen her resolve, and Audra vows to do everything she can for her people.
I am a fan of Jennifer A. Nielsen's work, especially her historical fiction, and this was good. It just didn't really have the resonance of her other works. Maybe the topic is just too big in scope for the book. There are some exciting scenes, and I am all for saving books, but this book focuses on an intense but brief period of Audra's life, but Lithuania doesn't receive its independence until decades later. The stakes are high, but the payoff fizzles.
Sophie is still a little at odds about failing her exams and dropping out of high school, but her internship at Castle in the Clouds is turning out to be more rewarding than she could have hoped. The grand hotel in the Swiss mountains is more than 100 years old, and Sophie has fallen for its charms and for the somewhat eccentric staff.
Even an assignment as a babysitter to the guests' children can't dampen her spirits. But when she overhears talk about the hotel being sold to a questionable developer who just wants to make a profit, she's disappointed. Castle in the Clouds hasn't been her home for long, but she doesn't want it to lose any of its charms.
But then a strange incident gets Sophie and some of the guests thinking maybe something strange is going on. Missing jewelry? Rumors about kidnappers? Could any of it be true?
Sophie only knows for sure she is in serious danger of losing her heart. There's the crazy handsome hotel guest with a strange habit of climbing walls and the equally attractive son of the hotel owner who's been raised to take over the hotel one day...assuming it's not sold before he gets the chance.
Honestly, I almost gave up on this new novel from Kerstin Gier several times because nothing happens in the first half of the book. This was just not for me. The second half was more exciting, but the first half is just long descriptions of hotel staff and guest and their activities.
