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Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, A Magic Young Adult Novel by Michelle Tea

Editor — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:47:32 +0000

Everyone in the broken-down town of Chelsea, Massachussetts, has a story too worn to repeat—from the girls who play the pass-out game just to feel like they’re somewhere else, to the packs of aimless teenage boys, to the old women from far away who left everything behind. But there’s one story they all still tell: the oldest and saddest but most hopeful story, the one about the girl who will be able to take their twisted world and straighten it out. The girl who will bring the magic.

Could Sophie Swankowski be that girl? With her tangled hair and grubby clothes, her weird habits and her visions of a filthy, swearing mermaid who comes to her when she’s unconscious, Sophie could be the one to uncover the power flowing beneath Chelsea’s potholed streets and sludge-filled rivers, and the one to fight the evil that flows there, too. Sophie might discover her destiny, and maybe even in time to save them all.

About Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea is the author of 4 ½ memoirs, 1 ½ novels and a collection of poetry. Her memoir Valencia is an underground classic and is currently being made into a feature film by 21 different filmmakers. She is the founder and executive director of RADAR Productions, a literary non-profit which hosts the monthly RADAR Reading Series (voted Best Literary Series by SF Bay GuardianReaders), the infamous Sister Spit Literary Performance tours, an annual poetry chapbook contest, and the Radar LAB Writers’ Retreat in Akumal, Mexico. She is a former writer of horoscopes and a current reader of tarot cards. Jason Polan’s illustrations are featured regularly in The New York Times. He lives in New York City.

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Michelle Tea turns a radical eye on YA in ‘Mermaid in Chelsea Creek’

The Los Angeles Times Book Review – May 10, 2013 (Excerpt)

NEW YORK — Michelle Tea has been a horoscope writer, an activist and a sex worker. She never graduated from college, but she has written a novel, a poetry collection and four memoirs — one of which, “Valencia,” is being made into an independent film by 21 filmmakers. As co-founder of the literary performance group Sister Spit, she’s led troupes of performance poets and artists across the United States and Europe.

On a Sunday afternoon at a Polish restaurant in lower Manhattan, over a plate of pierogis and vegetarian borscht, she describes what might be her most unlikely project yet: a trilogy of young adult novels about a “radical Polish mermaid,” the first of which, “Mermaid in Chelsea Creek” (McSweeney’s McMullens, $19.95), will be published this month.

“I was kind of burned out on writing memoir,” Tea says. “I wanted to write something really different.” A friend persuaded her to read “His Dark Materials,” Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy for young adults, and she was hooked. “I thought, how liberating to not have to try to find a way to tell the truth but just go totally bonkers and use your imagination.”

“Mermaid” is Tea’s first novel written in the third person, and her first book to involve magic and fantasy. It is set in a place familiar to readers of Tea’s memoirs, her childhood home of Chelsea, Mass., a place she describes in her novel as “far from the New England of sailboats and lobsters” and full of “flocks of dirty pigeons and dented old cars; fish sticks with freezer burn and fast-food drive throughs; scuffed, neglected parks, trash-strewn train tracks and a putrid creek.” [Read the full article...]

Gorgeous, A Cinderella Story with a Difference by Paul Rudnick

Editor — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:13:15 +0000

A book that will make you see yourself clearly for the first time.

When Becky Randle’s mother dies, she’s whisked from her trailer park home to New York. There she meets Tom Kelly, the world’s top designer, who presents Becky with an impossible offer: He’ll design three dresses to transform the very average Becky into the most beautiful woman who ever lived.

Soon Becky is remade as Rebecca – pure five-alarm hotness to the outside world and an awkward mess of cankles and split ends when she’s alone. With Rebecca’s remarkable beauty as her passport, soon Becky’s life resembles a fairy tale. She stars in a movie, VOGUE calls, and she starts to date Prince Gregory, heir to the English throne. That’s when everything crumbles. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. But the idea of a prince looking past Rebecca’s blinding beauty to see the real girl inside? There’s not enough magic in the world.

Defiant, naughty, and impossibly fun, GORGEOUS answers a question that bewilders us all: Just who the hell IS that in the mirror?

About Paul Rudnick

Paul Rudnick is a frequent contributer to the NEW YORKER and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, as well as an Obie Award-winning playwright, and the screenwriter for ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES and IN & OUT. This is his first young adult novel.

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Editorial Reviews

Something magical will soon befall checkout clerk Becky Randle, 18, her mother tells her, making Becky promise she’ll say yes to it. After her mother’s death, the mysterious yet ubiquitous designer Tom Kelly flies Becky to New York, proposing to create three dresses for her guaranteed to make her the most beautiful woman on the planet. With, at best, average looks, Becky’s understandably skeptical, but Kelly delivers, and Rebecca is born. Though Rebecca’s gorgeous, confident and smart, Becky stubbornly hangs onto her identity (she sees her glamorous alter ego in mirrors only when others are present). Supermodel Rebecca lands a movie role alongside the star Becky’s crushed on since middle school (veteran screenwriter Rudnick’s film scenes are hilarious). Soon, smitten with Rebecca, the heir to the English throne captures Becky’s heart—but which of her is he in love with? While Becky’s voice and cultural referents are far too sophisticated and mature for a teenager raised in a Missouri trailer park, her fears and hopes are universal. – Kirkus Reviews

Paul Rudnick On His ‘Gorgeous’ Adventure

NPR Book Review – May 2, 2013 (Excerpt)

Paul Rudnick has made a name as a playwright, novelist, columnist and screenwriter. Now he’s turned his attention to the Young Adult market with a kind of Cinderella story starring a young woman named Becky, who’s grown up in a trailer park.

When Becky’s mom dies, she discovers a mysterious phone number. Calling it, she receives a mystical offer: A legendary New York fashion designer will make her three dresses, one each in black, white and red, and if she’ll only wear them — and do everything he says — she’ll become history’s most beautiful woman.

The book’s voices are diverse, funny and surprising. Rudnick joined NPR’s Rachel Martin to talk about the power of fashion, the terrors of first seeing someone reading your work, and the high that comes from hearing an audience laugh. [Read the full article...]

Nine Days: American High School Student Experience Human Rights Abuse in China, A Novel by Fred Hiatt

Editor — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:53:34 +0000

A fast-paced contemporary thriller in the vein of James Patterson and Anthony Horowitz set against the bustling backdrop of Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the border of China. This heart-pounding adventure takes place as two teens, an American teenage boy and his friend, a Chinese girl from his Washington, DC-area high school, must find her father who has been kidnapped—and they only have nine days.

Although the characters in the novel are fictionalized, they are based on a real Chinese family who were part of the Chinese Democracy Movement and inspired this story.

About Fred Hiatt

FRED HIATT is the editorial page editor of The Washington Post. He writes editorials for the newspaper as well as a biweekly column.

Editorial Review

Tenth-graders Ethan and Ti-Anna gradually become closer friends and partner investigators when Ti-Anna’s father disappears. Known for his activism on behalf of Chinese dissidents, he loses contact with his family on a trip to Hong Kong. Ethan and Ti-Anna engineer a trip to Asia to investigate, which ultimately puts the initially retiring Ti-Anna into peril. It is a dangerous journey, full of mysterious threats, that requires them each to trust and support the other. It’s not a romance at all, though there are some overtones of that: Front and center is the conundrum of how they will track someone who doesn’t want to be tracked, in a strange city and with the government as their opponent. There’s a nice vibe to the friendship between the two, which is supported by the assurance that all is ultimately well; Ethan states at the beginning that the account he narrates is being written for a judge. Hiatt neatly folds in information and background on 20th-century Chinese history and current events. Few mysteries combine cultural diversity, politics and physical danger with a lighthearted friendship. – Kirkus Reviews

Book World: In Fred Hiatt’s ‘Nine Days,’ 2 teens risk their lives to rescue a Chinese dissident

The Washington Post Book Review – April 5, 2013 (Excerpt)

In Fred Hiatt’s new young-adult novel, “Nine Days,” a high school junior steals his mother’s credit card and runs away from home with a girl. The stunt may get him grounded until his 30th birthday, but this isn’t “Romeo and Juliet” redux. Ethan Wynkoop and his friend, Ti-Anna, are frantically trying to find Ti-Anna’s father, an exiled Chinese activist. When the two set off for Hong Kong, where he was last seen, they’re risking their lives — and an international incident.

Enlisting adults for help doesn’t occur to either teen: Ti-Anna’s mother is reeling from her husband’s disappearance, and Ethan, who feels like an afterthought to his absent-minded-professor parents, is used to taking care of himself.

But the odds are not even remotely in their favor. The two teenagers have no idea where to start looking, Ethan doesn’t speak Chinese and they’re not even sure if the Chinese government has Ti-Anna’s dad. Then, their first night in Hong Kong, someone searches their room, and it becomes apparent that Ti-Anna may also be in danger. [Read the full article...]

A Real-Life Fight For Freedom In ‘Nine Days’

NPR Book Review – April 17, 2013 (Excerpt)

Two high-school sophomores — Ethan Wynkoop and Ti-Anna Chen — sneak away from their homes in suburban Washington, D.C., and fly to Hong Kong. They’re searching for Ti-Anna’s father, a Chinese emigre and dissident who believes that China is just a spark away from democratic revolution.

He’s gone missing after landing in Hong Kong, and Ti-Anna is determined to find out what happened. Ti-Anna is based on a real person, and her story is now part of a new young-adult novel — a thriller — by Fred Hiatt, who also holds down a day job as editorial page editor of The Washington Post.

Fred Hiatt and Ti-Anna Wang, the real young woman behind the story, stopped by to chat with NPR’s Melissa Block. [Read the full article...]

The Summer Prince, A Nuanced and Original Cyberpunk Adventure by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Editor — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:14:04 +0000

A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil.

The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June’s best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.

Together, June and Enki will stage explosive, dramatic projects that Palmares Tres will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government’s strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.

Pulsing with the beat of futuristic Brazil, burning with the passions of its characters, and overflowing with ideas, this fiery novel will leave you eager for more from Alaya Dawn Johnson.

About Alaya Dawn Johnson

Alaya Dawn Johnson’s short story “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was included in the ZOMBIES VS UNICORNS anthology (Margaret K. McElderry, 2010), edited by Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black. THE SUMMER PRINCE is her first young adult novel. She lives in New York City.

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Editorial Review

June, 17, remembers the last sacrifice of the Summer King, nine years before. In a future Brazil, after climate change, wars, natural disasters and plague have devastated the world, Palmares Três is a peaceful and just city, technologically supported with holos, nanohooks and bots. Beneath the city’s glittering facade, however, there’s another reality. Youth is stifled while the governing Aunties keep Palmares Três static in a class-stratified society centuries behind the rest of the developed world. June and best friend Gil, both relatively privileged artists, happily spend their spring dancing, creating public art and voting for the newest Summer King to be sacrificed for the city’s prosperity after a year. When gorgeous, dark-skinned Enki is elected, both June and Gil fall for him—but it’s Gil he takes as a lover, and June he takes as an artistic collaborator. Their love triangle, in a city with no gender-based limitations on romantic or sexual partnerships, is multifaceted, not the usual heroine-chooses-between-two-boys dynamic. As the trio dances—often literally—around one another, June must negotiate between the extremes of stasis and post-humanism, learn to see beyond herself, discover the meaning of integrity, and maybe even save her rotten-at-the-core and best-beloved city. – Kirkus Reviews

Questions For Alaya Dawn Johnson, Author Of ‘The Summer Prince’

NPR Book Review – February 15, 2013 (Excerpt)

Alaya Dawn Johnson has written a number of novels for adults (including the delightful Zephyr Hollis series), and now she’s venturing onto the young adult shelves with The Summer Prince, a complex science-fiction narrative set in post-apocalyptic Brazil. The action takes place in the city of Palmares Tres, which is entirely contained in a giant pyramidal structure on a bay, surrounded and fed by giant algae vats. The city is ruled by women, through a system that mixes technology, politics and quasi-religious ritual. Teenager June Costa is the heroine, along with her best friend, Gil, and a boy named Enki, who’s just been elected as the city’s Summer King. We’ve selected The Summer Prince as an NPR Books Exclusive First Read, and we asked Johnson a few questions about her story. [Read the full article...]

Ttyl: A Modern Tale Told Entirely in Instant Messages by Lauren Myracle

Editor — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 11:30:54 +0000

This funny, smart novel follows the friendship of three 16 year old girls as they experience some of the typical pitfalls of adolescence: boys, queen-bee types, a flirty teacher, beer, crazy parents, and more. Lauren Myracle has a gift for dialogue and characterization, and the girls emerge as three distinctive and likable personalities through their Internet correspondence. This light, fast-paced read is told Entirely in instant message format, the first book ever for young adults to be written so.

About Lauren Myracle

Lauren Myracle is the author of many popular books for teens and tweens, including New York Times bestsellers ttyl and ttfn (Abrams). She lives with her family in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Told entirely in instant messages, this modern epistolary tale prompts both tears and LOL (laughing out loud). Best buds SnowAngel (Angela), zoegirl (Zoe), and mad maddie (Maddie) IM with one another constantly when not in school. Tenth grade is tough, with obnoxious trendy classmates, unfair parents, and sex. Friends can help each other get through the year, but only if they manage to stay together. Angela flits through a series of rotten boyfriends, Zoe discovers Christianity while becoming disturbingly close to her English teacher, and Maddie befriends the class bad girl. Since cynical Maddie can’t cope with Zoe’s emerging faith, and trusting Zoe won’t see anything wrong in her growing relationship with Mr. H., the trio might not survive. But best friends are always there for each other, and a series of emergencies pushes them further apart and then brings them back together, closer than ever. After a slow start due to the unusual format (a glossary would probably help), this develops into a surprisingly poignant tale of friendship, change, and growth. Perfectly contemporary. ROTFL. – Kirkus Reviews

Childhood, Uncensored

The New York Times Book Review – December 28, 2012 (Excerpt)

LAUREN MYRACLE has been called Satan, a pedophile, and a corrupter of youth, yet her series of books about a trio of Atlanta teenagers, written entirely in text messages, has sold a total of 1.5 million copies. She has been hailed as this generation’s Judy Blume for her candor, but outraged parents have lobbied to ban her books, which tackle topics like erections, that awkward first bra purchase, and clueless flirting that leads one sophomore to have a hot-tub encounter with a teacher. (Spoiler: her BFFs rescue her in the nick of time.)

With 17 tween and teen novels under her belt, Ms. Myracle, 43, a newly divorced mother of three, ruffles feathers because she unflinchingly addresses the pitfalls of adolescence. Many people would prefer that she not write about teenagers dancing topless at a boozy frat party, or smoking marijuana to impress a friend with benefits. While she understands their impulse to protect children, she feels it is more dangerous to keep knowledge from them.

“Give your kid some credit for being smart — just because they read about something doesn’t mean they will do it,” she said. “Fiction is a safe place to explore.”

Last year, Ms. Myracle’s so-called Internet girls series — consisting of the titles ”ttyl,” “ttfn,” and “l8r, g8r” (ask a young person to decipher the texting language) — topped the list of challenged and banned books nationwide, according to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. [Read the full article...]

Seraphina: Young Adult Novel of Humans and Dragons by Rachel Hartman

Editor — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 12:07:24 +0000

In her New York Times bestselling debut, Rachel Hartman introduces mathematical dragons in an alternative-medieval world to fantasy and science-fiction readers of all ages. Eragon-author Christopher Paolini calls them, “Some of the most interesting dragons I’ve read in fantasy.”

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Rachel Hartman

As a child, RACHEL HARTMAN played cello and lip-synched Mozart operas with her sisters. The famous Renaissance song “Mille Regretz” first moved Rachel to write a fantasy novel rooted in music, but her inspiration didn’t end there. She wrote Seraphina while listening to medieval Italian polyphony, Breton bagpipe-rock, prog metal, Latin American baroque, and Irish sean nós.

Rachel Hartman lives with her family in Vancouver BC. To learn more about her, visit her website at RachelHartmanBooks.com.

Editorial Review

The dragons could destroy the humans, but they are too fascinated by them. As musician Seraphina describes it, attempting to educate the princess, humans are like cockroaches to dragons, but interesting. As the anniversary of the treaty approaches, things fall apart: The crown prince has been murdered, anti-dragon sentiment is rising, and in the midst of it all, an awkward, gifted, observant girl unexpectedly becomes central to everything. Hartman has remixed her not-so-uncommon story and pseudo-Renaissance setting into something unexpected, in large part through Seraphina’s voice. By turns pedantic, lonely, scared, drily funny and fierce, Seraphina brings readers into her world and imparts details from the vast (a religion of saints, one of whom is heretical) to the minute (her music, in beautifully rendered detail). The wealth of detail never overwhelms, relayed as it is amid Seraphina’s personal journey; half-human and half-dragon, she is anathema to all and lives in fear. But her growing friendship with the princess and the princess’ betrothed, plus her unusual understanding of both humans and dragons, all lead to a poignant and powerful acceptance of herself. – Kirkus Reviews

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

NPR Book Review – December 20, 2012

My relationship with high fantasy — fantasy set in another world — has always been tumultuous. Actually, I’d like to refer you to the first item on this list. Everything I said about historical fiction also applies here. Which is why, despite multiple recommendations, I let this debut novel about a half-dragon, half-human girl sit unread on my desk for five months. I’ll admit I very much wanted to remain a curmudgeon, but the thorough world-building and specific characters won me over. This city of austere dragons and emotional humans felt complete, as if I could turn down any number of alleys and never find the seams showing. At 480 pages, the novel is satisfyingly plump with politics, religion and prejudice — and a restrained but edifying measure of love. It also has a healthy dose of music (I was unsurprised to discover Rachel Hartman was a fellow admirer of medieval polyphony), and I find I’m very interested to see what Hartman writes next. Teens and adults alike will love to creep down the magical streets of Seraphina’s city. I certainly did.

Endangered: Protecting Wildlife in a War-Torn Jungle by Eliot Schrefer

Editor — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 11:47:10 +0000

The compelling tale of a girl who must save a group of bonobos–and herself–from a violent coup.

The Congo is a dangerous place, even for people who are trying to do good.

When one girl has to follow her mother to her sancuary for bonobos, she’s not thrilled to be there. It’s her mother’s passion, and she’d rather have nothing to do with it. But when revolution breaks out and their sanctuary is attacked, she must rescue the bonobos and hide in the jungle. Together, they will fight to keep safe, to eat, and to survive.

Eliot Schrefer asks readers what safety means, how one sacrifices to help others, and what it means to be human in this new compelling adventure.

About Eliot Schrefer

Eliot Schrefer is the author of The Deadly Sister, The School for Dangerous Girls, Glamorous Disasters, and The New Kid. He lives in New York City, and has never discovered any bodies. Visit him online at www.eliotschrefer.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

On her way to spend the summer at the bonobo sanctuary her mother runs, 14-year-old Sophie rescues a sickly baby bonobo from a trafficker. Though her Congolese mother is not pleased Sophie paid for the ape, she is proud that Sophie works to bond with Otto, the baby. A week before Sophie’s to return home to her father in Miami, her mother must take advantage of a charter flight to relocate some apes, and she leaves Sophie with Otto and the sanctuary workers. War breaks out, and after missing a U.N. flight out, Sophie must hide herself and Otto from violent militants and starving villagers. Unable to take Otto out of the country, she decides finding her mother hundreds of miles to the north is her only choice. Schrefer jumps from his usual teen suspense to craft this well-researched tale of jungle survival set during a fictional conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Realistic characters (ape and human) deal with disturbing situations described in graphic, but never gratuitous detail. The lessons Sophie learns about her childhood home, love and what it means to be endangered will resonate with readers. – Kirkus Reviews

Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

NPR Book Review – December 20, 2012

Ordinarily I judge young adult novels on the precise same scale I would judge an adult novel. These are not books for children, after all — these are novels for readers who are, in many cases, every bit as sophisticated as myself. There should be no sliding scale. And yet here I am admitting that I lovedEndangered because of how it would’ve affected me as a teen versus now. It’s a story about bonobos — a more peaceful relative of the chimpanzee (and us) — but it is also a story about the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sophie, whose mother runs a bonobo sanctuary, rescues a bonobo and ends up on the run with him during a sudden political upheaval. This book reminded me a little bit of those old-fashioned adventure stories I read growing up. There’s something a bit timeless about the telling of it, about the girl-and-an-animal element, about the questing for safety. Something familiar. It’s not a book that changed my life now, having read about the Congo before. But it would’ve changed my life then, as a teen. The world would have become a bigger and more terrible place.

Every Day, Imagining Waking up in a Different Body Every Day by David Levithan

Editor — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:03:54 +0000

In his New York Times bestselling novel, David Levithan introduces readers to what Entertainment Weekly calls a “wise, wildly unique” love story about A, a teen who wakes up every morning in a different body, living a different life.

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

With his new novel, David Levithan, bestselling co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, has pushed himself to new creative heights. He has written a captivating story that will fascinate readers as they begin to comprehend the complexities of life and love in A’s world, as A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About David Levithan

DAVID LEVITHAN is a children’s book editor in New York City, and the author of several books for young adults, including Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (co-authored with Rachel Cohn); Will Grayson, Will Grayson (co-authored with John Green); and Every You, Every Me (with photographs from Jonathan Farmer). He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Editorial Review

A is a 16-year-old genderless being who drifts from body to body each day, living the life of a new human host of the same age and similar geographic radius for 24 hours. One morning, A wakes up a girl with a splitting hangover; another day he/she wakes up as a teenage boy so overweight he can barely fit into his car. Straight boys, gay girls, teens of different races, body shapes, sizes and genders make up the catalog of A’s outward appearances, but ultimately A’s spirit—or soul—remains the same. One downside of A’s life is that he/she doesn’t have a family, nor is he/she able to make friends. A tries to interfere as little as possible with the lives of the teenagers until the day he/she meets and falls head over heels in love with Rhiannon, an ethereal girl with a jackass boyfriend. A pursues Rhiannon each day in whatever form he/she wakes up in, and Rhiannon learns to recognize A—not by appearance, but by the way he/she looks at her across the room. The two have much to overcome, and A’s shifting physical appearance is only the beginning. Levithan’s self-conscious, analytical style marries perfectly with the plot. His musings on love, longing and human nature knit seamlessly with A’s journey. Readers will devour his trademark poetic wordplay and cadences that feel as fresh as they were when he wroteBoy Meets Boy (2003). – Kirkus Reviews

“Every Day,” by David Levithan

The Washington Post Book Review – November 20, 2012 (Excerpt)

David Levithan has traversed the giddy highs and dismal lows of young love — gay and straight — for a decade in his fiction (“Boy Meets Boy,” “The Lover’s Dictionary”) and collaborations (“Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” with Rachel Cohn; “Will Grayson, Will Grayson” with John Green). In matters of the heart, teens have certainly taken him to theirs. Levithan’s new YA novel proves to be his most nuanced yet, a tender meditation on identity and romantic love that evolves with surprising grace from a rather odd premise. Each morning for the past 16 years, A, a kind of drifting, non-corporeal consciousness, has awakened in the body of a different person, an existence that A finds both lonely and “remarkably freeing.” [Read the full article...]

Jepp, Who Defied the Stars: A Historical Novel for Young Adults by Katherine Marsh

Editor — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 11:21:34 +0000

Fate:

Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?

Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?

Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.

He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them; but it breaks Jepp’s heart to see his friend Lia suffer.

After Jepp and Lia attempt a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe in a kidnapper’s carriage, Jepp fears where his unfortunate stars may lead him. But he can’t even begin to imagine the brilliant and eccentric new master—a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars—who awaits him. Or the girl who will help him mend his heart and unearth the long-buried secrets of his past.

Masterfully written, grippingly paced, and inspired by real historical characters, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is the tale of an extraordinary hero and his inspiring quest to become the master of his own destiny.

About Katherine Marsh

An only child, Katherine Marsh spent a lot of her youth reading, trading stories with her grandmother who had run a bar in New York, and listening to her mother’s frequent astrological predictions. After surviving high school and graduating from Yale, Katherine spent a decade as a magazine journalist, including as a reporter for Rolling Stone and an editor at The New Republic. Her first book, The Night Tourist, won an Edgar Allen Poe Award for mystery writing, and was followed by the sequel The Twilight Prisoner. Katherine lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and two children. Find out more about Katherine at: www.katherinemarsh.com or follow her on Twitter: @MarshKatherine.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Edgar Award–winning author Marsh (The Twilight Prisoner, 2009, etc.) has written a fast-paced adventure, abundant with period details, that comprises about two years of the diminutive Jepp’s life. Jepp’s account begins at a perilous point in his story—“imprisoned in [a] star-crossed coach, bumping up and down bone-rattling roads”—which leads to an exposition of the events that have brought him to this fate. Eventually his tale moves to a time beyond the hazardous coach journey and on to a satisfying, if overly contrived, ending. The book has three parts, loosely linked to three crucial northern European settings: the rural inn where Jepp was raised by a loving mother; the kingdom of Coudenberg, where he endures the luxurious but humiliating life of a court dwarf and is involved in a horrible tragedy; and the palace of Uraniborg, renowned for astronomical research, where Jepp’s status rises almost miraculously from pet dog to that of a respected scholar as well as a favored suitor for his beloved. – Kirkus Reviews

A Tale Of Fate: From Astrology To Astronomy

NPR Book Review – November 10, 2012 (Excerpt)

When Katherine Marsh was a young girl she was mesmerized by the dwarfs in Diego Velazquez’s masterpieces. Years later, that obsession became the inspiration for her latest novel for young adults, Jepp Who Defied the Stars.

Marsh spoke with weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz about her book, which is rooted in history, yet speckled with fantasy. It carries her readers to the Spanish Netherlands in the late 16th century where the coming-of-age story of Jepp of Astraveld begins. [Read the full article...]

Jester and Magician - ‘Jepp, Who Defied the Stars,’ by Katherine Marsh

The New York Times Book Review – November 9, 2012 (Excerpt)

Self-conscious about your body? Unsure where — or if — you’ll ever fit in? Wondering when people will start treating you like an adult? Katherine Marsh’s “Jepp, Who Defied the Stars” delves into these perennial adolescent challenges while transporting her readers to a tiny island in Denmark in the late 16th century — and without the help of either time machine or wizard. Instead Marsh turns to one of history’s real-life magicians, the brilliant, eccentric astronomer Tycho Brahe, to welcome her readers to his castle-cum-observatory, Uraniborg.

A Danish noble, Brahe lacks the renown of his apprentice, Johannes Kepler, but he made similarly significant contributions to astronomy, especially for a pioneer whose work was unaided by the yet-to-be-invented telescope. Kepler’s discoveries about planetary motion rest on the work of the half-scientist, half-Mad Hatter Brahe, who kept a dipsomaniac moose as a pet, and a dwarf named Jepp as court jester.

In the novel, the fictionalized Jepp travels from his home in Astraveld, a kind of crossroads “claimed by both the Spanish Netherlands and the Protestant North,” to the Infanta Isabella’s palace in Brussels, and then from Brussels on to the “intricate universe” of Uraniborg. There Jepp will be delivered from the status of a dog at Brahe’s feet, dependent on scraps from his master’s dinner, to that of an esteemed scientist in his own right. [Read the full article...]

Son, the Long-Awaited Finale to the Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry

Editor — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:57:45 +0000

They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive?　 She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice.

Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver, as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil.

About Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader’s Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

A designated Birthmother, 14-year-old Claire has no contact with her baby Gabe until she surreptitiously bonds with him in the community Nurturing Center. From detailed descriptions of the sterile, emotionally repressed community, it’s clear Lowry has returned to the time and place of The Giver, and Claire is Jonas’ contemporary. When Jonas flees with Gabe, Claire follows. She later surfaces with amnesia in a remote village beneath a cliff. After living for years with Alys, a childless healer, Claire’s memory returns. Intent on finding Gabe, she single-mindedly scales the cliff, encounters the sinister Trademaster and exchanges her youth for his help in finding her child, now living in the same village as middle-aged Jonas and his wife Kira. Elderly and failing, Claire reveals her identity to Gabe, who must use his unique talent to save the village. Written with powerful, moving simplicity, Claire’s story stands on its own, but as the final volume in this iconic quartet, it holistically reunites characters, reprises provocative socio-political themes, and offers a transcending message of tolerance and hope. – Kirkus Reviews

Book World: ‘Son’ by Lois Lowry concludes series that began with ‘The Giver’

The Washington Post Book Review – September 28, 2012 (Excerpt)

Like a crisp breeze through the election year’s hot rhetorical winds comes “Son,” Lois Lowry’s beautifully wrought political fable that concludes the series she began in “The Giver.” Called “remarkable” and “unforgettable” in a Washington Post review two decades ago, “The Giver” won a Newbery Medal in 1994 and become a classroom staple, the kind of book sure to spark lively discussion. It also consistently ranks among the 25 most frequently challenged books, according to the American Library Association.

“The Giver” starts out pleasantly enough, with a well-organized society going about its business, but the story darkens as the reader realizes the deeper cost of this order: the removal of everything deemed unnecessary or disruptive, including colors, birds, dissenters and a challenging tot named Gabriel, whom the 12-year-old protagonist, Jonas, is determined to save.

The first section of “Son” revisits that place and those characters from the perspective of Gabriel’s teenage mother, and her tender, disquieting story should prove as galvanizing and controversial as its acclaimed predecessor. [Read the full article...]

Review: Lois Lowry’s ‘Son’ a gripping end to ‘The Giver’ series

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – September 30, 2012 (Excerpt)

It’s been 19 years since the publication of Lois Lowry’s pioneering Newbery Medal winner, “The Giver,” which painted a bleak picture of a future society in which color does not exist, love is suppressed and sameness is revered. No one would have guessed that almost two decades later, “dystopian” would be its own genre in the young adult biblioscape, giving rise to blockbuster franchises such as “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent,” “Matched” and now, a follow-up from the author who’s credited with starting it.

“Son” is the Rashomon-style conclusion to “The Giver,” told from the perspective of the young birth mother whose infant was saved in the original book. It’s an intriguing premise that finally resolves the question readers have long pondered: What happened to 13-year-old Jonas and his infant charge, Gabriel, after they fled their well-ordered community? The answer is presented in three sections, or “books,” that read like interlinked individual novellas — each of them taking place in different worlds with characters culled from other titles in what is now a literary quartet that also includes “Messenger” and “Gathering Blue.” [Read the full article...]

The Searcher - ‘Son,’ by Lois Lowry

The New York Times Book Review – October 11, 2012 (Excerpt)

In 1993, when Lois Lowry shocked adult and child sensibilities alike with her Newbery Medal-winning novel “The Giver,” J. K. Rowling had not yet begun scribbling magic words on the back of cafe napkins and Stephenie Meyer had just graduated from her (presumably vampire-free) high school. Suzanne Collins had just sold her first teleplays for the gentle, nonviolent world of children’s television, and “dystopia” was a 50-cent SAT word unlikely to trip off the average sixth-grade tongue.

It’s difficult to imagine, in our post-“Hunger Games” world, how unusual and unsettling it was then for a children’s book to touch on euthanasia, suicide and murder, to couch it all in a bleak vision of political and emotional oppression and to leave its protagonist’s ultimate fate undecided. In many ways, Lowry invented the contemporary young adult dystopian novel. Now, nearly 20 years later — and with a glut of fictional oppressive societies leaving many of us with a bit of dystopia fatigue — she’s returned with a concluding volume that gloriously rebels against the restraints of the very genre she helped to create.[Read the full article...]

The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam) by Jasper Fforde

Editor — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:53:13 +0000

In the good old days, magic was indispensable—it could both save a kingdom and clear a clogged drain. But now magic is fading: drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians—but it’s hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world’s last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam—and for Jennifer. Because something is coming. Something known as . . . Big Magic.

About Jasper Fforde

JASPER FFORDE, the author of the best-selling Thursday Next mysteries and the Nursery Crime books, has a devoted worldwide following for his highly entertaining and original novels. He lives with his family in Wales.

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Exclusive First Read: ‘The Last Dragonslayer’

NPR Book Review – September 12, 2012 (Excerpt)

Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange has a lot of responsibility. In a world that’s rapidly losing its magic, she’s the acting director of Kazam Mystical Arts Management, riding herd on a crowd of cranky wizards who’ve been reduced to doing magical odd jobs to make ends meet. But change is afoot in this charming comic adventure for younger readers: Seers throughout the land have been having powerful visions of the death of the very last dragon at the hands of a destined Dragonslayer and the return of Big Magic. In this scene, we meet Jennifer and her charges as they prepare to use their diminished powers on a home-improvement project. The Last Dragonslayer will be published Oct. 2. [Read the full article...]

The Last Dragonslayer, By Jasper Fforde

The Independent – November 22, 2010 (Excerpt)

Money is a form of alchemy,” says Mother Zenobia, the kindly head of the Sisters of the Lobster Orphanage.

“It turns kind normal people into greed-mongers, intent only on acquisitiveness.” Jasper Fforde has one of those effervescent imaginations that never throws in one joke when he can fit in two or three, but he also has a provocatively serious purpose. He creates his mad but logical parallel version of the Welsh Marches with loving detail.

The Last Dragonslayer stars Jennifer Strange, a teenage foundling who runs Kazam Mystical Arts Management. This Hereford-based company uses the now-failing power of wizards to do such mundane jobs as installing domestic electrical circuits by telepathy or delivering live organs by flying carpet. [Read the full article...]

A Mashup Of Mundane And Magical In ‘Dragonslayer’

NPR Book Review – October 4, 2012 (Excerpt)

It’s been a big year — well, a big few years — for young adult fiction, which I’m not going to complain about in the slightest; nothing beats a good YA novel for pure storytelling punch. But I might complain, just a little, about the overwhelming sameness of some of the plots. Dystopian futures, quiet-yet-spunky teenage girls, doomed love triangles — sound familiar? Suzanne Collins has a lot to answer for. Luckily, you can crack open The Last Dragonslayer and spend time with a protagonist who has a refreshingly different set of priorities.

Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange is considerably more mature and responsible than her age would suggest. As the acting director of Kazam Mystical Arts Management, she rides herd on 45 “sorcerers, movers, soothsayers, shifters, weathermongers, carpeteers and other assorted mystical artisans,” all various degrees of distempered and dysfunctional in a world that’s becoming steadily less magical as the years roll on. She’s also the receptionist, accountant, chauffeur and paper-shuffler, filling out all the forms required by the Magical Powers (amended 1966) Act. [Read the full article...]

A Greyhound of a Girl, A Warm, Witty, Exquisitely Nuanced Multigenerational Story by Roddy Doyle

Editor — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:39:16 +0000

Mary O’Hara is a sharp and cheeky 12-year-old Dublin schoolgirl who is bravely facing the fact that her beloved Granny is dying. But Granny can’t let go of life, and when a mysterious young woman turns up in Mary’s street with a message for her Granny, Mary gets pulled into an unlikely adventure. The woman is the ghost of Granny’s own mother, who has come to help her daughter say good-bye to her loved ones and guide her safely out of this world. She needs the help of Mary and her mother, Scarlett, who embark on a road trip to the past. Four generations of women travel on a midnight car journey. One of them is dead, one of them is dying, one of them is driving, and one of them is just starting out.

About Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels. He won the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. His novels have been made into popular films, including The Commitments and The Snapper. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

That’s four generations of Irish women, all whirling about in some state of consciousness or another, and it’s enough to make Mary dizzy. Mary is a cheeky girl, like many almost-teenagers, but she’s level-headed enough to embrace the ghostly visits from her great-grandmother Tansey, who looks young but “talks old” because she died at age 25 in 1928. Tansey’s spirit is sticking around for her dying daughter, Mary’s granny, to reassure her “it’ll all be grand” in the great beyond and, as it turns out, to join her family for one last tearful, mirthful midnight road trip. Doyle divides up the novel by character, giving readers first-hand glimpses into the nature of each woman through time. In a lovely, lilting Irish dialect, he deftly explores the common threads of their lives through story and memory, from family-owned racing greyhounds to the traumatic dropping of an egg. On the subject of mortality, Mary says, “…it just seems mean.” Her mother agrees. “It does seem mean. Especially when it’s someone you love.” Indeed. – Kirkus Reviews

‘A Greyhound of a Girl’ by Roddy Doyle

The Washington Post Book Review – September 4, 2012 (Excerpt)

Several years ago, the Irish writer Roddy Doyle published a children’s picture book called “Her Mother’s Face.” It told the story of a girl whose mother is dead and who lives in a desolate world with her bereaved father. The child is comforted by a mysterious stranger — an emissary from the afterlife, perhaps, or a figment of her imagination — and grows up to have a daughter of her own. Now, in a book for all ages titled “A Greyhound of a Girl,” Doyle revisits this theme of childhood loss and matriarchal consolation.

Mary O’Hara is 12 and cheeky. She lives in Dublin with her mother, father and two teenage brothers who are “boring and weird.” Mary’s best friend has left the neighborhood, her grandmother is dying in the hospital, and Mary fears that her childhood, too, is slipping away. One afternoon, she meets an oddly antique woman who seems to know her dying granny. When the stranger’s identity is revealed, Mary realizes that “her world was suddenly full of the dead and the dying, people she loved and people she was supposed to love.” The cocky girl is suddenly angry and afraid. “You look like your granny and I look like mine,” she snaps at her mother. “So what, like? Your granny is a ghost and mine is dying. And that’s the only thing that isn’t stupid.” [Read the full article...]

The Raven Boys, A Magic Novel by Maggie Stiefvater

Editor — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:24:30 +0000

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

About Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Shiver, Linger, Forever, and The Scorpio Races. She is also the author of Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception and Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie. She lives in Virginia with her husband and their two children. You can visit her online at www.maggiestiefvater.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

Meanwhile, 16-year-old Blue Sargent, daughter of a small-town psychic, has lived her whole life under a prophecy: If she kisses her true love, he will die. Not that she plans on kissing anyone. Blue isn’t psychic, but she enhances the extrasensory power of anyone she’s near; while helping her aunt visualize the souls of people soon to die, she sees a vision of a dying Raven boy named Gansey. The Raven Boys—students at Aglionby, a nearby prep school, so-called because of the ravens on their school crest—soon encounter Blue in person. From then on, the point of view shifts among Blue; Gansey, a trust-fund kid obsessed with finding King Glendower buried on a ley-line in Virginia; and Adam, a scholarship student obsessed with his own self-sufficiency. Add Ronan, whose violent insouciance comes from seeing his father die, and Noah, whose first words in the book are, “I’ve been dead for seven years,” and you’ve got a story very few writers could dream up and only Stiefvater could make so palpably real. Simultaneously complex and simple, compulsively readable, marvelously wrought. The only flaw is that this is Book 1; it may be months yet before Book 2 comes out. – Kirkus Reviews

‘The Raven Boys,’ by Maggie Stiefvater

The Washington Post Book Review – September 4, 2012 (Excerpt)

Hard on the hooves of “The Scorpio Races,”which won one of this year’s Printz Honors, comes Maggie Stiefvater’s latest supernatural thriller, “The Raven Boys”(forthcoming Sept. 18). In contrast to the melancholy werewolves of her popular Shiver trilogy, the Raven Boys are not paranormal critters but the entitled students of elite, raven-crested Aglionby Academy. They roam nearby Henrietta, Va., like a “pack of sleek animals armored with their watches and their Top-Siders,” says Blue Sargent, 16, the “trashy chic” daughter of the town psychic. That observation encapsulates what sets this book above the usual fangs-and-heavy-breathing fare: Stiefvater not only weaves a suspenseful tale of Blue’s involvement with three such boys and their quest for the grave of an ancient king, but she also does so stylishly, with sly social commentary. [Read the full article...]

Silver: Return to Treasure Island by Andrew Motion

Editor — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 12:48:22 +0000

It’s almost forty years after the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins now runs an inn called the Hispaniola on the English coast with his son, Jim, and Long John Silver has returned to England to live in obscurity with his daughter, Natty. Their lives are quiet and unremarkable; their adventures have seemingly ended.

But for Jim and Natty, the adventure is just beginning. One night, Natty approaches young Jim with a proposition: return to Treasure Island and find the remaining treasure that their fathers left behind so many years before. As Jim and Natty set sail in their fathers’ footsteps, they quickly learn that this journey will not be easy. Immediately, they come up against murderous pirates, long-held grudges, and greed and deception lurking in every corner. And when they arrive on Treasure Island, they find terrible scenes awaiting them—difficulties which require all their wit as well as their courage. Nor does the adventure end there, since they have to sail homeward again…

Andrew Motion’s sequel—rollicking, heartfelt, and utterly brilliant—would make Robert Louis Stevenson proud.

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About Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion is a poet, critic, novelist, biographer, and a professor. He served as Poet Laureate of the UK for ten years and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.

Editorial Review

It’s 1802, and 35 years since the Hispaniola set sail for Treasure Island. Former cabin boy Jim Hawkins owns a Thames-side inn outside London; his only child, also called Jim, is a well-educated amateur botanist. This 17-year-old Jim is our new hero and narrator, but don’t expect Stevenson’s pell-mell pace; Motion’s rhythm is much more leisurely. A blanketed figure in a small boat beckons to Jim. This is Natty, the tomboy daughter of the treacherous Long John Silver, who has his own inn upriver. It’s love at first sight for Jim, despite his unexplained fear of women. Natty takes Jim to meet Silver, blind and feeble. The old reprobate’s dying wish is for the youngsters to retrieve the remaining silver from the island. A ship and crew await them. Silver needs Jim to get the map, which his father keeps locked away; Jim’s theft of the map weighs heavily on his conscience, but he’s not about to pass up an adventure with Natty, disguised as a man for the voyage. Their position on board is privileged; Natty is her father’s representative, and Jim’s history is well-known. The situation on the island is horrifying. Stevenson’s three maroons, or castaways, have been joined by passengers from a shipwreck: 50 slaves and their guards. The maroons have imposed a reign of terror, resulting in a Conrad-ian “impenetrable darkness.” Natty will be captured. There will be exciting reversals of fortune before her stouthearted Captain’s party confronts the former pirates, who are almost too freaky in their “disgustingness.” Good people die; Jim must spill blood. In these scenes, Motion matches the raw vitality of Stevenson, though his conclusion is far more grim. – Kirkus Reviews

Buccaneers and Bullion - ‘Silver: Return to Treasure Island,’ by Andrew Motion

The New York Times Book Review – August 23, 2012 (Excerpt)

Alas for the unintended cruelty of a book-reviewing aunt! On the long ride to catch the sunset from the dunes above Lake Michigan, I handed my restless 7-year-old nephew a book from my beach bag: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” Instantly and intently, he began reading aloud, propelled by the excitement of discovery. Later, back at the cottage, he asked, “Can I have my book now?” Guiltily, I told him he’d have to wait: I needed it for a story I was writing about “Treasure Island” and its new sequel, “Silver,” by the British poet Andrew Motion. I felt like a blackhearted mutineer.

But my nephew should count himself lucky. A boy who read “Treasure Island” when the book was first published in 1883 would have had to wait much longer than he did for a continuation of the adventures of the hapless but doughty innkeepers’ son, Jim Hawkins, and the wily one-legged pirate Long John Silver, who sailed on the Hispaniola seeking the doubloons of the notorious Captain Flint. The hoard they found was so vast they couldn’t haul it all back to England, so they took the gold and left the silver behind. Just as a gun that appears in Act I of a play must be fired before the curtain closes, a second treasure trove demands a second expedition. But Stevenson never launched one. He died in 1894, at the age of 44, a year after the publication of “Catriona,” the sequel to his second most famous novel, “Kidnapped.” [Read the full article...]

Ash, An Unexpected Re-Imagining of the Cinderella Tale by Malinda Lo

Editor — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:40:58 +0000

In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

About Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo’s first novel, Ash, a retelling of Cinderella with a lesbian twist, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the Lambda Literary Award. Her second novel, Huntress, a companion novel to Ash, is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Her young adult science fiction duology, beginning with Adaptation, will be published in fall 2012.Â She lives in Northern California with her partner and their dog. Visit her online at www.malindalo.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

An unexpected reimagining of the Cinderella tale, exquisite and pristine, unfolding deliberately. Aisling—Ash—knows the fairy stories and lore told her by her now-dead mother, but she does not know if she believes them. When her father dies and her stepmother and stepsisters move her away from the Wood to the City, she finds herself returning to her mother’s grave, where she meets the fairy Sidhean. Ash barely notes her harsh treatment at the hands of her stepfamily, as she both longs for and fears her glimpses of Sidhean. He longs for her, too, in ways she is slow to understand. Ash also is slow to see Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, as the source of her own desire. When she does, Ash turns to Sidhean to make it possible for her to spend time with Kaisa, despite the price Ash knows she will have to pay. Ash and Kaisa’s dance at the King’s Ball is a wild and gorgeous moment, no less so than the night Ash must spend in Sidhean’s Wood. Beautiful language magically wrought; beautiful storytelling magically told. – Kirkus Reviews

A Beautiful Mask

The Los Angeles Review of Books – July 12, 2012 (Excerpt)

KNOWN AS A LESBIAN retelling of “Cinderella,” Ash by Malinda Lo is a beautifully subversive fairy tale, but the main character’s attraction to another woman is not what makes the story so astonishing. Rather, Lo’s book sets itself apart from recent young-adult novels through its contemplative pace, subversion of gender roles, and sad, lovely, dreamlike descriptions. The experience of reading the story is not unlike sinking into a soft blanket of moss in the Wood, as afternoon sunlight filters through the trees above you.

At its heart, Ash is a book about what it means to read and love fairy tales, and what it might mean to have the opportunity to live in one. (For what is the point of fairy tales if not to tempt the reader into making a wish to exchange his or her world for a different one?)

Ash‘s “Cinderella” roots are clear: Evil stepmother Isobel and slightly-less-evil stepsisters Clara and Ana make life miserable for 11-year-old Aisling (nicknamed Ash), claiming that Ash’s late father has left them in debt. They force Ash to repay her “family” by working as their maid (read: slave). Her only solace comes from the book of fairy tales left behind by her mother. Ash cherishes the stories and relies on them for comfort. [Read the full article...]

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose

Editor — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:14:59 +0000

B95 can feel it: a stirring in his bones and feathers. It’s time. Today is the day he will once again cast himself into the air, spiral upward into the clouds, and bank into the wind.

He wears a black band on his lower right leg and an orange flag on his upper left, bearing the laser inscription B95. Scientists call him the Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime, this gritty, four-ounce marathoner has flown the distance to the moon—and halfway back!

B95 is a robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego, headed for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, nine thousand miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey.

B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping, but eventually he must descend to refuel and rest. However, recent changes at ancient refueling stations along his migratory circuit—changes caused mostly by human activity—have reduced the food available and made it harder for the birds to reach. And so, since 1995, when B95 was first captured and banded, the worldwide rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Most perish somewhere along the great hemispheric circuit, but the Moonbird wings on. He has been seen as recently as November 2011, which makes him nearly twenty years old. Shaking their heads, scientists ask themselves: How can this one bird make it year after year when so many others fall?

National Book Award–winning author Phillip Hoose takes us around the hemisphere with the world’s most celebrated shorebird, showing the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a worldwide team of scientists and conservationists trying to save them, and offering insights about what we can do to help shorebirds before it’s too late. With inspiring prose, thorough research, and stirring images, Hoose explores the tragedy of extinction through the triumph of a single bird.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Phillip Hoose

Phillip Hoose is the widely-acclaimed author of the National Book Award winner Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, which is also a Newbery Honor Book, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, a YALSA Finalist for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, among other honors. His other books include The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and We Were There, Too!, a National Book Award Finalist. Mr. Hoose lives in Portland, Maine.

Editorial Review

B95 is a 4-ounce, robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego and heads for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, 9,000 miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey. Scientists call him Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime of nearly 20 years, he has flown the distance to the moon and halfway back. B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping but eventually must land to refuel and rest. Recent changes, however, at refueling stations along his migratory circuit, most caused by human activity, have reduced the available food. Since 1995, when B95 was captured and banded, the rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Scientists want to know why this one bird survives year after year when so many others do not. In a compelling, vividly detailed narrative, Hoose takes readers around the hemisphere, showing them the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a global team of scientists and conservationists, and offering insights about what can be done to save them before it’s too late. – Kirkus Reviews

Young readers: Phillip Hoose’s ‘Moonbird: A Year on the Wind With the Great Survivor B95

The Washington Post Book Review – July 31, 2012 (Excerpt)

Phillip Hoose’s first big book about a bird celebrated the loud, large and almost certainly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker. His new, equally well researched book focuses on a smaller, less distinctive-looking creature, but one that has a decent chance of survival — if humans cooperate.

Just as “The Race to Save the Lord God Bird” (2004) chronicled how conservationists tried to protect the woodpecker’s habitat, “Moonbird” shows a loose-knit team of scientists struggling to figure out why the worldwide population of the shorebirds called red knots has fallen by nearly 80 percent.

The true star of Hoose’s new book, however, is one particular red knot that was tagged with leg band No. B95 in 1995. Since then, the bird has often been seen during his epic migrations — more than 325,000 miles so far, farther than the distance between Earth and the moon.

With an effective mix of facts and conjecture, Hoose conveys B95’s wide experience, from the challenges of his first month in Arctic Canada 20 years ago to the physical demands of flying for three days straight. Hoose’s vivid prose and the book’s close-up photos give a sense of other red-knot talents, like fattening up for a long flight and sleeping while staying alert for predators. And there’s recent good news: B95 was photographed in late May, feasting on horseshoe crab eggs in Delaware Bay. [Read the full article...]

Code Name Verity, A Tale of Friendship During World War II by Elizabeth Wein

Editor — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 10:49:15 +0000

Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun.

When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

Harrowing and beautifully written, Elizabeth Wein creates a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other. Code Name Verity is an outstanding novel that will stick with you long after the last page.

About Elizabeth Wein

Elizabeth Wein was born in New York, and grew up in England, Jamaica and Pennsylvania. She is married with two children and now lives in Perth, Scotland. Elizabeth is a member of the Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots. She was awarded the Scottish Aero Club’s Watson Cup for best student pilot in 2003 and it was her love of flying that partly inspired the idea for Code Name Verity.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

In a cell in Nazi-occupied France, a young woman writes. Like Scheherezade, to whom she is compared by the SS officer in charge of her case, she dribbles out information—“everything I can remember about the British War Effort”—in exchange for time and a reprieve from torture. But her story is more than a listing of wireless codes or aircraft types. Instead, she describes her friendship with Maddie, the pilot who flew them to France, as well as the real details of the British War Effort: the breaking down of class barriers, the opportunities, the fears and victories not only of war but of daily life. She also describes, almost casually, her unbearable current situation and the SS officer who holds her life in his hands and his beleaguered female associate, who translates the narrative each day. Through the layers of story, characters (including the Nazis) spring to life. And as the epigraph makes clear, there is more to this tale than is immediately apparent. The twists will lead readers to finish the last page and turn back to the beginning to see how the pieces slot perfectly, unexpectedly into place. – Kirkus Reviews

Elizabeth Wein’s ‘Code Name Verity’: Thrilling WWII spy drama for young adults

The Washington Post Book Review – July 31, 2012 (Excerpt)

A spy during World War II, Julie is known by many names: Queenie, Eva, Scottie, Lady Beaufort-Stuart. But to English pilot Maddie Brodatt, she is a best friend “full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous.” This gripping story opens in occupied France. Julie has been captured and is being forced to write a confession for a Nazi interrogator. To keep herself alive for a possible rescue, she must weave a tale that’s compelling (and informative) enough to keep him reading day after day. Julie writes on hotel stationery, recipe cards and the sheet music of a Jewish flutist, slowly providing the details demanded about her mission and plane, which was piloted by Maddie and lost in the French countryside.

This heart-in-your-mouth adventure has it all: a complex plot, a vivid sense of place and time, and resonant themes of friendship and courage. Practical Maddie and mischievous Julie are brought to life through their vibrant narrative voices and intriguing backstories, and allusions to J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” deepen their alternating tales. In one poignantly humorous scene, as a guest at Julie’s home in Scotland, Maddie dines upon a precious egg boiled by her friend’s wounded brother and eight chatty, bombed-out “Lost Boys” taken in by the aristocratic family. In this powerful work of historical fiction, Julie and Maddie need never fear “flying alone”; the reader will soar with them until the final page. [Read the full article...]

Code Name Verity

The Christian Science Monitor Book Review – December 20, 2012 (Excerpt)

Aviation, espionage, World War II, emergency landings/crashes, POWs, the Gestapo – this is starting to sound like a very male kind of story, isn’t it?

Not at all, actually. Code Name Verity is a powerful young adult novel (aimed at readers ages 14 and up) starring two dynamic female protagonists. Author Elizabeth Wein, a pilot herself, spun her story after learning about Britain’s civilian Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) – a World War II organization that employed a number of female pilots.

“Code Name Verity” tells the intertwined stories of Maddie, a gutsy working-class woman who flies for the ATA, and “Verity,” a glamorous Scot useful to British intelligence because of the perfect French and German she learned in her Swiss boarding school. [Read the full article...]

Flowers in the Attic, the Dollanganger Series by V.C. Andrews

Editor — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:23:47 +0000

The four Dollanganger children had such perfect lives — a beautiful mother, a doting father, a lovely home. Then Daddy was killed in a car accident, and Momma could no longer support the family. So she began writing letters to her parents, her millionaire parents, whom the children had never heard of before.

Momma tells the children all about their rich grandparents, and how Chris and Cathy and the twins will live like princes and princesses in their grandparents’ fancy mansion. The children are only too delighted by the prospect. But there are a few things that Momma hasn’t told them.

She hasn’t told them that their grandmother considers them “devil’s spawn” who should never have been born. She hasn’t told them that she has to hide them from their grandfather if she wants to inherit his fortune. She hasn’t told them that they are to be locked away in an abandoned wing of the house with only the dark, airless attic to play in. But, Momma promises, it’s only for a few days….

Then the days stretch into months, and the months into years. Desperately isolated, terrified of their grandmother, and increasingly convinced that their mother no longer cares about them, Chris and Cathy become all things to the twins and to each other. They cling to their love as their only hope, their only strength — a love that is almost stronger than death.

About V.C. Andrews

One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of her spellbinding classic Flowers in the Attic. That blockbuster novel began her renowned Dollanganger family saga, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. Since then, readers have been captivated by more than fifty novels in V.C. Andrews’ bestselling series. The thrilling new series featuring the March family continues with Scattered Leaves, forthcoming from Pocket Books. V.C. Andrews’ novels have sold more than one hundred million copies and have been translated into sixteen foreign languages.

‘In The Attic’: Whips, Witches And A Peculiar Princess

NPR Book Review – July 23, 2012 (Excerpt)

At age 13, I survived almost entirely on green apple Jolly Ranchers and Flowers in the Attic, and to this day I can’t look at the book without my mouth watering. My much loved copy must have come from a supermarket (it was impossible to go to a supermarket in the ’80s to, say, secretly stock up on green apple Jolly Ranchers, without a V.C. Andrews book lurking by checkout).

It was not the kind of thing my earnest, thoughtful parents would have bought me: “Here, Gilly, is a novel about four children who are locked away in an attic by their beautiful mother. There’s sex, lust, murder, ballet, betrayal, potato salad, whippings and — oh yes, the eldest brother and sister are incestuous. Discussion questions to come!”

And yet I loved that book. Of course I did. The story is about the picture-perfect Dollanganger kids: Chris and Cathy and their much younger twin siblings. When Daddy dies in a car crash, their gorgeous but useless mother reveals a secret: She comes from a family worth millions but was disinherited by her parents. They return to the family home under cover of night; the children are secreted in a far-off room and locked in. They’ll stay there while their mother squirms back into her father’s good graces. It’ll just be a few nights, maybe a week. [Read the full article...]

The Girl With Borrowed Wings, A Glimmering Love Story by Rinsai Rossetti

Editor — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 14:00:07 +0000

A stunningly written tale of an isolated girl and the shape-shifting boy who shows her what freedom could be–if only she has the courage to take it.

Controlled by her father and bound by desert, Frenenqer Paje’s life is tediously the same, until a small act of rebellion explodes her world and she meets a boy, but not just a boy–a Free person, a winged person, a shape-shifter. He has everything Frenenqer doesn’t. No family, no attachments, no rules. At night, he flies them to the far-flung places of their childhoods to retrace their pasts. But when the delicate balance of their friendship threatens to rupture into something more, Frenenqer must confront her isolation, her father, and her very sense of identity, breaking all the rules of her life to become free.

About Rinsai Rossetti

Rinsai Rossetti has lived in Thailand, Canada, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries. She has completed two years at Dartmouth College and now continues traveling.

Editorial Review

Expatriates, Frenenqer and her parents have lived many places but called none of them home. The teen’s world now is comprised of three boxes: her family’s apartment, her school and the car that takes her from one to the other within the dusty, isolated oasis. When, much to her father’s displeasure, Frenenqer rescues a large cat she finds caged in the souk, she liberates a “Free person,” a shape-shifting being “born without rules.” His are the wings she “borrows,” when he nightly takes her in his arms and flies her around the world and into the realms of the Free people. With Sangris, Frenenqer feels free for the first time in her life—but can freedom accommodate love? Rossetti’s lush language is highly metaphorical and often sensuous, befitting the unfurling of Frenenqer’s stunted soul: “And when I came back up the air was still fresh and calm-smelling,…and the palm trees rustled in faint applause.” Her earthy, often funny exchanges with Sangris represent freedom for both Frenenqer and readers from her cold, controlling father, whose “words have a way of shaping the world around him.” – Kirkus Reviews

Not Just for Kids: Rinsai Rossetti’s ‘The Girl With Borrowed Wings’

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – July 22, 2012 (Excerpt)

Ever since Stephenie Meyer’s”Twilight” grew into a worldwide phenom, paranormal romance has been dominated by shape-shifting mythological creatures embroiled in torrid, hormonal love triangles. So “The Girl With Borrowed Wings” is a welcome departure. Written by first-time novelist Rinsai Rossetti, this elegant, young-adult debut is a paranormal title, but the creature who shape-shifts is a common cat, and the romance is overshadowed by a domineering father so cold that his teenage daughter no longer believes in love.

It’s difficult to find modern, young-adult titles that so effectively convey female oppression or the perils of perfectionism. Whether it’s the searing Middle East heat that keeps 16-year-old Frenenqer isolated in three “boxes” — her home, her school and the gleaming white sedan that shuttles her between the two — or a family so unaffectionate and unadventurous that Frenenqer spends all of her free time reading books, the isolation is palpable.

Frenenqer isn’t a name so much as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The word means “restraint,” which is the manner in which Frenenqer is expected to conduct herself. She is the quintessential good girl who perceives her father as all powerful and suppresses her real thoughts and desires to conform to his ideals. If her father told the sky to rain, it would; if he told Frenenqer to jump off a cliff, she’d do it, she says. [Read the full article...]

Daughter of the Blood, Book One of the The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop

Editor — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:34:37 +0000

Seven hundred years ago, a Black Widow witch saw an ancient prophecy come to life in her web of dreams and visions. Now the Dark Kingdom readies itself for the arrival of its Queen, a Witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But she is still young, still open to influence-and corruption.

Whoever controls the Queen controls the darkness. Three men-sworn enemies-know this. And they know the power that hides behind the blue eyes of an innocent young girl. And so begins a ruthless game of politics and intrigue, magic and betrayal, where the weapons are hate and love-and the prize could be terrible beyond imagining…

About Anne Bishop

Anne Bishop made her first short fiction sale in 1988. Her most recent work has appeared in White Swan, Black Raven and 365 Scary Stories. She lives in upstate New York.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Unicorns And Witches And Wild Mood Swings, Oh My!

NPR Book Review – July 2, 2012 (Excerpt)

I love the My Guilty Pleasure series, I really do. But here’s the thing — I don’t think it’s nearly guilty enough. It’s like saying your guilty pleasure is ’50s pulp novels, but only first editions. Or fried chicken, but only from this one perfect stall in the Taipei night market — not actually guilty at all. Except for Gary Shteyngart — dude, call me up and let’s talk about Zardoz, because I think you might be my new best friend.

So bring the Cheetos and the cheap pink wine, because I’m about to bring the guilt (though let’s not forget the pleasure).

I’m a fervent, if not unabashed, fan of Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy. I reread it at least once a year, and I never tire of the overheated adventures of Jaenelle, Saetan, Daemon and an awful lot of other characters with “ae” somewhere in their echt-fantasy-novel names. And, yes, Saetan is who you think he is — the ruler of this world’s version of hell. Warning: mild spoilers ahead!

Bishop actually has an interesting project. She’s flipping fantasy tropes on their heads: In this world, the common pairings of good/light and evil/dark have come uncoupled. Power and honor come from the darkness, and only women can rule. Not only that, but the ruling class arises from an inborn magical caste system quite separate from the standard oligarchy — even the poorest village girl can be a queen. And Saetan’s a good guy, when you get to know him.

Our heroine is Jaenelle Angelline, the misfit daughter of a noble family. Of course she’s blonde, fragile and lovely, and of course her family doesn’t understand or appreciate her because she shows none of the standard signs of magical power — but she does claim to talk to unicorns, which supposedly don’t exist. [Read the full article...]

Between the Lines, Teen Fiction by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer

Editor — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:06:26 +0000

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult and her teenage daughter present their first-ever novel for teens, filled with romance, adventure, and humor.

What happens when happily ever after…isn’t?

Delilah is a bit of a loner who prefers spending her time in the school library with her head in a book—one book in particular. Between the Lines may be a fairy tale, but it feels real. Prince Oliver is brave, adventurous, and loving. He really speaks to Delilah.

And then one day Oliver actually speaks to her. Turns out, Oliver is more than a one-dimensional storybook prince. He’s a restless teen who feels trapped by his literary existence and hates that his entire life is predetermined. He’s sure there’s more for him out there in the real world, and Delilah might just be his key to freedom.

Delilah and Oliver work together to attempt to get Oliver out of his book, a challenging task that forces them to examine their perceptions of fate, the world, and their places in it. And as their attraction to each other grows along the way, a romance blossoms that is anything but a fairy tale.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer

Jodi Picoult is the author of eighteen novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers House Rules, Handle With Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister’s Keeper. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. Visit her at JodiPicoult.com.

Samantha van Leer is a junior in high school. She conceived the idea for this book and pitched it to her mom, who was in the middle of a book tour. In her spare time, Samantha can be found playing softball, doing contemporary dance, acting and singing in musicals, and cuddling on the ground with her two dogs, Dudley and Oliver—for whom the prince in this fairy tale was named.

Editorial Review

Delilah is a 15-year-old, self-professed loner who would rather have her head buried in a book than gossip about boys or play fashion police in the halls between classes. But it’s not just any book that Delilah wants to lose herself in; it’s an obscure fairy tale called Between the Lines with a dashing young prince who literally comes to life before her very eyes. Prince Oliver is equally captivated with Delilah, and the two embark on a quest to find a way and a world in which they can finally be together. Told from Delilah and Oliver’s alternating points of view, this take on the traditional star-crossed-lovers tale will make for a light read for those preteens and early teens who aren’t looking for more mature, emotionally complex love stories. Book lovers in particular are likely to get a kick out of the blurring of the lines between character and reader, fact and fiction. Periodic illustrations from the fairy tale Between the Lines function well as reminders of Oliver’s fictive “reality,” but others, too closely resembling clip art, are distracting and out of place. – Kirkus Reviews

A fairy-tale romance with a twist

The Washington Post Book Review – June 29, 2012 (Excerpt)

Jodi Picoult, the cultishly successful writer of middle-aged ovarian gothic (“My Sister’s Keeper,” “Nineteen Minutes”) has returned in her latest work with a new goal: Capture your daughters.

“Between the Lines,” her first foray into young-adult fiction, comes with its own origin story: The novel is co-written by Picoult and her own teenager, Samantha van Leer, who told her mom, “I think I have a pretty good idea for a book.” Mother and daughter took turns at the computer, alternating sentences without wanting to murder each other — which makes the effort, if nothing else, a massive triumph in parenting.

And it is a good idea: a plot based on the concept that the characters in your favorite novels have lives and agendas that continue even when you’re not reading. “Between the Lines” is a romance between a girl and a boy, but even more, it’s a love letter to the visceral bond between a reader and a musty, beloved book.

The book, in this case, is the eponymous “Between the Lines,” a fairy tale that 15-year-old Delilah unearths in her school library and becomes obsessed with in a way that will give many parents post-traumatic “Twilight” flashbacks. Easy, girl. Step away from the Edward. Oliver is no sparkly vampire, but a prince destined to escape the same villain, outsmart the same mermaids and rescue the same simpering princess again and again, every time a new reader opens the book. [Read the full article...]

The Age of Miracles: A Young California Girl’s Coming of Age in a Dystopian Future, A Novel by Karen Thompson Walker

Editor — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:54:16 +0000

With a voice as distinctive and original as that of The Lovely Bones, and for the fans of the speculative fiction of Margaret Atwood, Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles is a luminous, haunting, and unforgettable debut novel about coming of age set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.

“It still amazes me how little we really knew. . . . Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.”

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

About Karen Thompson Walker

Karen Thompson Walker is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program and a recipient of the 2011 Sirenland Fellowship as well as a Bomb magazine fiction prize. A former editor at Simon & Schuster, she wrote The Age of Miracles in the mornings before work. Born and raised in San Diego, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband. The Age of Miracles is her first book.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Reviews

Sixth-grader Julia, whose mother is a slightly neurotic former actress and whose father is an obstetrician, is living an unremarkable American middle-class childhood. She rides the school bus and takes piano lessons; she has a mild crush on a boy named Seth whose mother has cancer; she enjoys sleepovers with her best friend Hanna, who happens to be a Mormon. Then one October morning there’s a news report that scientists have discovered a slowing of the earth’s rotation, adding minutes to each day and night. After initial panic, the human tendency to adapt sets in even as the extra minutes increase into hours. Most citizens go along when the government stays on a 24-hour clock, although an underground movement of those living by “real time” sprouts up. Gravity is affected; birds begin to die, and astronauts are stranded on their space station. By November, the “real time” of days has grown to 40 hours, and the actual periods of light and dark only get longer from that point. The world faces crises in communication, health, transportation and food supply. The changes in the planet are profound, but the daily changes in Julia’s life, which she might be facing even in a normal day, are equally profound. Hanna’s family moves to Utah, leaving Julia without a best friend to help defend against the bullies at the bus stop. She goes through the trials and joys of first love. She begins to see cracks in her parents’ marriage and must navigate the currents of loyalty and moral uncertainty. She faces sickness and death of loved ones. But she also witnesses constancy and perseverance. Julia’s life is shaped by what happens in the larger world, but it is the only life she knows, and Walker captures each moment, intimate and universal, with magical precision. – Kirkus Reviews

Normalcy Grinds to a Halt - ‘The Age of Miracles,’ Debut Novel by Karen Thompson Walker

The New York Times Book Review – June 18, 2012 (Excerpt)

In the 1954 Ray Bradbury story “All Summer in a Day,” Earthlings who have colonized Venus see the Sun shine only once every seven years, and then only for a couple of hours: The rest of the time it rains, and a little girl, who has recently arrived from Earth, is mocked by her schoolmates for describing her memories of what the Sun looked like from home.

This story is referred to in Karen Thompson Walker’s much anticipated first novel, “The Age of Miracles,” which reads as if it had been inspired by Bradbury’s classic tale and sprinkled with some extra “Twilight Zone” magic dust. The premise of Ms. Walker’s novel is this: The rotation of the Earth has begun to slow, and days and nights are growing longer and longer. All the scheduled rituals of daily life are disrupted.

More ominously, as days and nights elongate, people start getting sick and acting out. Crops begin to fail, the oceans rise and flood waterfront homes, and food and water are hoarded. There is talk about the end of the world, and the possibility of emigrating to space or another planet.

“The Age of Miracles” has made headlines for reportedly earning its first-time author a seven-figure deal. What sets the story apart from more run-of-the-mill high-concept novels is Ms. Walker’s decision to recount the unfolding catastrophe from the perspective of Julia, who is on the verge of turning 12. Her voice turns what might have been just a clever mash-up of disaster epic with sensitive young-adult, coming-of-age story into a genuinely moving tale that mixes the real and surreal, the ordinary and the extraordinary with impressive fluency and flair. [Read the full article...]

Karen Thompson Walker’s ‘The Age of Miracles,’ reviewed by Ron Charles

The Washington Post Book Review – June 26, 2012 (Excerpt)

As if global warming, terrorism and taxmageddon weren’t enough to worry about this summer, now the Earth’s rotation is slowing down. Fast. At least that’s the premise of Karen Thompson Walker’s first novel, “The Age of Miracles.” It’s about a sixth-grade girl facing the end of the world in her California suburb. Too dull for the YA market, it’s been dressed up as an affecting literary novel for adults, one of the more depressing trends in modern publishing.

That Random House reportedly paid $1 million for this manuscript may be all the evidence we need that we’re living in the final days. (This isn’t just an American problem: A British publisher apparently paid almost that much, and there are reports of lucrative deals in Italy, Spain and Germany.) The Great Recession was supposed to have wrung this kind of irrational exuberance from the publishing world, but I guess the last trump hasn’t sounded yet. [Read the full article...]

‘The Age Of Miracles’ Considers Earth’s Fragility

NPR Book Review – July 2, 2012 (Excerpt)

The Age of Miracles is literary fiction, but it spins out the same kind of “what if?” disaster plot that distinguishes many a classic sci-fi movie. Too bad the title The Day the Earth Stood Still was already taken, because it really would have been the perfect title for Thompson’s novel.

Our main character here is named Julia and, though she’s now in her 20s, most of her narration is retrospective, taking us back to her 11-year-old self — the year everyday life fell apart. At first, Julia tells us, nobody noticed “the extra time, bulging from the smooth edge of each day like a tumor blooming beneath skin.” That so-called extra time is caused by the fact that the Earth’s rotation is growing more and more sluggish. When scientific experts finally do go public to acknowledge the mysterious change, they call it “the slowing.” Daytime stretches first by minutes, then hours, and, then, days; so, too, does nighttime. After “the slowing” is officially acknowledged, there’s an immediate run on canned food and water, and people begin building underground survival shelters. Birds fall from the sky, and whales wash up on beaches — their navigation systems all messed up by the changes in gravity and temperature. Apocalyptic cults flourish, and a rift widens between those folks called “real timers,” who stubbornly decide to live by the extended rhythms of sunrise and sunset, and the majority of Americans, who obey the president’s orders to carry on in semi-denial and stick to the 24-hour clock. As Julia recalls, “We would fall out of sync with the sun almost immediately. Light would be unhooked from day, darkness unchained from night.” [Read the full article...]

The Killing Moon, A New Ancient Egypt Flavored Fantasy by N. K. Jemisin

Editor — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:36:40 +0000

In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe . . . and kill those judged corrupt.

But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh’s great temple, Ehiru – the most famous of the city’s Gatherers – must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering dreamers in the goddess’ name, stalking its prey both in Gujaareh’s alleys and the realm of dreams. Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill – or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.

About N. K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin is a career counselor, political blogger, and would-be gourmand living in New York City. She’s been writing since the age of 10, although her early works will never see the light of day. Find out more about the author at nkjemisin.com.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Editorial Review

In the city and state of Gujaareh, the Hetawa temple is dedicated to Hananja, goddess of dreams, and its priests harvest the people’s dreams to create dream-magic to heal wounds and cure ailments. The Hetawa’s elite Gatherers also ease the passage of the dying—and kill those judged corrupt. When Gatherer Ehiru is ordered to kill Charleron, a corrupt outlander, somehow his flawless technique goes awry; Charleron dies in agony, but not before hinting that something is gravely amiss in the Hetawa. Shaken, Ehiru finds he can no longer function as a Gatherer and goes into seclusion, watched over by his young apprentice, Nijiri—until Ehiru receives orders to kill Sunandi Jeh Kalawe, the “corrupt” ambassador from neighboring Kisua. Sunandi bravely defends herself and reveals that her predecessor and adoptive father passed to her a dreadful secret involving war, murder and, perhaps, Eninket, Prince of the Sunset Throne—who happens to be Ehiru’s brother. Though all the signs point towards the Hetawa—innocent dreamers are being murdered by an insensate, renegade Reaper—Ehiru cannot believe that the priesthood itself is corrupt. Nevertheless he agrees to help Sunandi unravel the conspiracy. Though a little too heavily dependent on the intricate details of Gujaareh’s religion, Jemisin’s patient world-building and extraordinary attention to detail help frame and propel the complex plot, and she weaves subtle, emotionally complex relationships between the main characters. The text includes a useful glossary but, alas, no maps. – Kirkus Reviews

The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin

NPR Book Review – June 6, 2012

N.K. Jemisin mixes ancient Egyptian magic and Jungian theory in her latest work, a tale of dream-hunting assassins in a city on the brink of war. The Killing Moon kicks off her second series, and like the books in her first (the excellent Inheritance Trilogy) it works as a stand-alone tale.

Ehiru and Nijiri are Gatherers of the city of Gujaareh, trained to enter people’s dreams and guide them from life into death. These gentle deaths — usually welcomed — produce dreamblood, a magical substance on which the city depends. When a Gathering goes badly wrong, the two men realize that something dreadful is stalking the city’s nights.

So spend a while visiting the dreaming city of Gujaareh, where peace is the only law. You won’t regret it. And you won’t have to wait long for the sequel, which comes out June 12.

Crucible of Gold: The Adventures of Captain William Laurence and his Chinese Celestial Dragon Temeraire by Naomi Novik

Editor — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:17:37 +0000

Naomi Novik’s beloved series returns, with Captain Will Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire once again taking to the air against the broadsides of Napoleon’s forces and the friendly—and sometimes not-so-friendly—fire of British soldiers and politicians who continue to suspect them of divided loyalties, if not outright treason.

For Laurence and Temeraire, put out to pasture in Australia, it seems their part in the war has come to an end just when they are needed most. But perhaps they are no longer alone in this opinion. Newly allied with the powerful African empire of the Tswana, the French have occupied Spain and brought revolution and bloodshed to Brazil, threatening Britain’s last desperate hope to defeat Napoleon.

And now the government that sidelined them has decided they have the best chance at negotiating a peace with the angry Tswana, who have besieged the Portuguese royal family in Rio—and thus offer to reinstate Laurence to his former rank and seniority as a captain in the Aerial Corps. Temeraire is delighted by this sudden reversal of fortune, but Laurence is by no means sanguine, knowing from experience that personal honor and duty to one’s country do not always run on parallel tracks.

Nonetheless, the pair embark for Brazil, only to meet with a string of unmitigated disasters that force them to make an unexpected landing in the hostile territory of the Incan empire, where they face new unanticipated dangers.

Now with the success of the mission balanced on a razor’s edge, and failure looking more likely by the minute, the unexpected arrival of an old enemy will tip the scales toward ruin. Yet even in the midst of disaster, opportunity may lurk—for one bold enough to grasp it.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik is the acclaimed author of His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, Victory of Eagles, and Tongues of Serpents, the first six volumes of the Temeraire series, recently optioned by Peter Jackson, the Academy Award–winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In 2007, Novik received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the World Science Fiction Convention. A history buff with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era, Novik studied English literature at Brown University, then did graduate work in computer science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. She is also the author of the graphic novel Will Supervillains Be on the Final? Novik lives in New York City with her family and six computers.

Editorial Review

Previously, Laurence was convicted of treason and transported for preventing the British from infecting the enemy French dragons with a fatal disease. As this volume opens, ambassador Arthur Hammond ends Laurence’s Australian exile, restoring his commission and appointing him to negotiate with a force of African dragons sent by Napoleon to Brazil. Along the way, Laurence and his companions endure shipwreck, capture, stranding on an island and a desperate journey through the Incan Empire (the local dragons prevented the conquistadors from succeeding in this universe, although the smallpox they left behind has proved fairly devastating). While there is some intriguing but sadly limited time spent examining the differing political, societal and spiritual roles played by dragons in various cultures, most of the plot is devoted to nonstop action. Underneath it all, however, Novik is ambitiously exploring what it is to be a moral man in a world where such a quality is considered inconvenient at best; a man who, despite the powerful leverage provided by his dragon, may never be able to fully triumph over rampant corruption and petty opportunism. – Kirkus Reviews

Crucible Of Gold - A Novel Of Temeraire

NPR Book Review – June 6, 2012

When so much thought and care has gone into creating a world, authors and readers both want to spend more than the span of one book exploring it. This is why it can seem almost impossible to find a good fantasy novel that’s not part of a series. Now, my editor did tell me I couldn’t include books that happen to be number five or six or 12 in a series. But what can I do when there’s a new Naomi Novik book out?

Consider this selection a bonus.

Crucible of Gold is the seventh volume in the globetrotting Temeraire series, which is probably best described as “Patrick O’Brian with dragons.” Novik paints a vivid picture of the Napoleonic wars, except that these Napoleonic wars involve an air force of massive dragons, crewed and armed much like warships of the day (midwingmen, ahoy!).

She has the elegant language of O’Brian’s books down pat, but more than that, she’ll make you fall in love with the characters. Temeraire is the young dragon at the heart of the series, and watching him grow up and discover his Chinese heritage — and develop the beginnings of a dragony political conscience — is just as fascinating as the well-drawn aerial battles.

Throne of the Crescent Moon, A Distinctive Middle Eastern Fantasy by Saladin Ahmed

Editor — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:54:07 +0000

From Saladin Ahmed, finalist for the Nebula and Campbell Awards, comes one of the year’s most anticipated fantasy debuts, THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON, a fantasy adventure with all the magic of The Arabian Nights.

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, land of djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, Khalifs and killers, is at the boiling point of a power struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince. In the midst of this brewing rebellion a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. It is up to a handful of heroes to learn the truth behind these killings:

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, “The last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat,” just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years old, he has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives, and is more than ready to retire from his dangerous and demanding vocation. But when an old flame’s family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter’s path.

Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla’s young assistant, a hidebound holy warrior whose prowess is matched only by his piety, is eager to deliver God’s justice. But even as Raseed’s sword is tested by ghuls and manjackals, his soul is tested when he and Adoulla cross paths with the tribeswoman Zamia.

Zamia Badawi, Protector of the Band, has been gifted with the near-mythical power of the Lion-Shape, but shunned by her people for daring to take up a man’s title. She lives only to avenge her father’s death. Until she learns that Adoulla and his allies also hunt her father’s killer. Until she meets Raseed.

When they learn that the murders and the Falcon Prince’s brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time–and struggle against their own misgivings–to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn Dhamsawaat, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Saladin Ahmed

Saladin Ahmed was born in Detroit and raised in a working-class, Arab American enclave in Dearborn, MI. His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and have appeared in Year’s Best Fantasy and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five foreign languages. He is represented by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON is his first novel. Saladin lives near Detroit with his wife and twin children.

Editorial Review

In Dhamsawaat, chief city of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms, Doctor Adoulla Makhslood has devoted his life to hunting and destroying ghuls, constructs brewed from bones, sand and bugs and animated by the vile blood-magic of evil sorcerers. Now fat, old and weary, Adoulla endeavors to ignore the power struggle developing between the cruel, despotic, aloof Khalif and the elusive, magic-powered Robin Hood-style thief who calls himself the Falcon Prince. But when the family of his old flame-turned-brothel keeper Miri is slaughtered by ghuls, Adoulla sets aside his teacup, summons his young assistant, Raseed, a deadly but naive warrior dervish steeped in the religion of his sect, and by the will of God steels himself for another battle. Tracking the ghuls into the desert, Adoulla and Raseed come upon a young girl, Zamia, whose entire family have also been slaughtered by the ghuls. Zamia, a shapeshifter who can take the form of a huge golden lioness with silver claws, proves more than adept at killing ghuls, but her femininity and forwardness deeply trouble the pious and traditional Raseed. Equally disturbing to Adoulla is the sheer sorcerous power necessary to create such terrible ghuls, and indications that the Falcon Prince is somehow involved. Adoulla, while no fan of the vicious Khalif, refuses to endorse a disastrous civil war. As you might expect, the Arabian Nights theme dominates, and in language, style and approach, Ahmed carries it off with only minor slips into American vernacular. Equally impressive are characters who struggle not only against their opponents but against their own misgivings and desires, and accept that victory may be achieved only at great personal cost. – Kirkus Reviews

Throne Of The Crescent Moon

NPR Book Review – June 6, 2012

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is “the last real ghul hunter in the city of Dhamsawaat.” He’s almost retired: he’s old, he’s fat, his joints creak, and all he wants is a good cup of cardamom tea from his friend Yehyeh’s teahouse.

But rebellion is roiling in Dhamsawaat as the corrupt ruler faces off against a charismatic crime lord. After an old flame’s family is attacked by demons, the venerable Doctor ends up taking one last job.

Makhslood, his uptight young dervish sidekick Raseed, and the young tribal shape-shifter they rescue make for an unlikely but effective demon-hunting team in this colorful debut novel (though really, no points for guessing Raseed would fall for Zamia the shape-shifting lion girl).

But the keenest pleasure in this book is spending time in the great and detailed city that Saladin Ahmed creates: visiting the roasted nut vendors on Gruel Lane (it was originally named for a king, but no one remembers him), making purchases at the alchemist’s shop, and being glad you’re not stuck in the cart jams that keep our heroes from rushing to the rescue as quickly as they’d like.

Throne of the Crescent Moon is a satisfying swashbuckler with solid characters and marvelous world-building — and Makhslood and Raseed are a nice contrast to the lily-whiteness of many fantasy novels.