The One and Only Marfalfa

  The Heirs by Faridah Abike-Iyimide This book about prodigies, their secrets, and their father's murder could be fascinating. Let's...

  The Cove by Claire Rose My first note on this book is that I struggled with some blatant factual errors. While some may not even notice th...

  The Cove by Claire Rose This tale of a troubled teen exiled to a strange farm in Maine could make for an entertaining listen. Let's gi...

  Styx and Stones by Gary D Schmidt and Ron Koertge Styx and Stones is no Percy Jackson clone. Yes, it is deeply rooted in Greek mythology. ...

  Styx and Stones by Gary D Schmidt and Ron Koertge I was pretty invested in the mythology trend during it's height. I read so many Perc...

  Three Sisters by David Macinnis Gill At first, I was pretty on board with this book. It is, to be clear, a fairly standard survival book. ...

  Three Sisters by David Macinnis Gill I've long been a fan of survival stories, so this book about sisters stranded on a mountain durin...

  Some of Us Are Brave by Saadia Faruqi At first, this book is pretty much exactly what I expected. We have three kids from different backgr...

  Some of Us are Brave by Saadia Faruqi This tale of kids surviving in Houston during the floods of Hurricane Harvey promises both physical ...

  K-Jane by Lydia Kang As I suspected, there was a lot of second-hand embarrassment in this book. When you have a character who starts out t...

  K-Jane by Lydia Kang This story of a Korean-American girl who sets out to make herself an expert in Korean culture to "save" her...

  Incredibly Penelope by Lauren Myracle I somehow missed, in selecting this book, that it was a modern retelling of A Little Princess, a fac...

  Incredibly Penelope by Lauren Myracle I have my doubts about this book. I find any boarding school narrative a bit of a stretch when it co...

  Return to Sender by Vera Brosgol With a premise like this one - a kid finds a magic wishing mail slot in his new apartment - you're go...

  Return to Sender by Vera Brosgol I've enjoyed Brosgol's graphic novels, so when I found she had written a regular novel about a bo...

  What Fell from the Sky by Adrianna Cuevas When I selected this one I'd hoped that the combination of alien encounters and Cold War era...

  What Fell From the Sky by Adrianna Cuevas Stories about kids finding and helping aliens can be interesting. Add in a setting of Cold War e...

  Our Shouts Echo by Jade Adia I can't quite settle on how I feel about this book. From the start, when it was clear that the protagonis...

  Our Shouts Echo by Jade Adia I've read books about kids being raised by preppers, but this may be the first I've read where the te...

  Tangleroot by Kalela Williams Consider the set-up here - a girl forced to spend the summer at an old plantation with her high-achieving mo...