Book review - After You Vanished

 

Title: After You Vanished

Author: E. A. Neeves

Genre: realistic fiction

Similar books: We Told Six Lies by Victoria Scott

                     Paper Towns by John Green

Rating:

 

defied some expectations

Summary (provided by publisher): Teddy’s favorite place is Bottomrock Lake, where sunfish swim in their little saucer nests and lilypads edge the shore. She’s worked there as a lifeguard every summer, including last year, when her twin sister Izzy waded into the lake for a midnight swim and never came out. Now, Teddy can’t stop scripting stories for where she went. Izzy was an accomplished swimmer, so she couldn’t possibly have drowned. And if she did somehow drown, where’s her body and why is her passport missing?
When Toby, the gorgeous jerk who was with Izzy on the night she vanished, comes to Bottomrock to work as a lifeguard alongside Teddy, she can’t help but be suspicious. How many of her sister’s secrets does he hold? And how can Teddy unearth them—without falling for the boy who watched her sister disappear?

My opinion: (Alert - here there be mild spoilers) At first, this seemed like it was set up to be a standard missing person narrative. Teddy and Toby track down secrets and threads that seemed to stymie the police. We expect them to uncover a vast conspiracy. Or people desperate to cover up dark secrets. Some of their clues sure point in that direction. But that's not really what this book is about. It's a story about grief and personal secrets. About discovering who your sister really was and realizing that you never know everything about a person. It's about accepting truth. And also about accepting things that you can't know and finding a way forward. It becomes a more introspective and thus a more realistic story.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - The Dark Lord's Daughter

 

Title: The Dark Lord's Daughter

Author: Patricia C. Wrede

Genre: fantasy

Similar books: Dark Lord by Jamie Thomson

                      Dr. Critchlore's School for Minions by Sheila Grau

Rating:

 

a fun twist

Summary (provided by publisher): Kayla is just an ordinary girl . . . or so she thinks. When a day at the state fair is interrupted by the news that she’s the daughter of a “Dark Lord,” she and her family are quickly whisked to another world—one that’s chock-full of magic but lacking in technology!
As her family encounters fantastical creatures in place of their Earthly gadgets, Kayla must prepare for the unpreparable: meeting her father, the Dark Lord himself, for the very first time. All Kayla wants is to go home, but she must learn magic to do so. The catch? For the Dark Lord’s daughter, the road to mastering magic is filled with evil traditions.
As she ventures closer to her father, Kayla must decide whether to accept her birthright. Is she destined for darkness? Or can she become a new kind of Dark Lady?

My opinion: We read plenty of books about characters who find they are "the chosen one". But what if the thing you're chosen for is evil? That's the central problem at the heart of this book. In a turn not unlike Pratchett and Gaiman's Good Omens, though, Kayla has been raised by a "normal" family. Thus, she has pretty average and sensible approaches to what should be dramatic problems. She's also a girl after my own heart. When told she must do something her first reaction is to ask "why". And she's strong-willed enough to resist tradition and forge a new path. A fun story for fantasy fans and kids unafraid to forge their own path.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Listen With Me

 

Dust by Dusti Bowling

I've read a couple of Bowling's books before and they're typically a solid narrative with reasonable characters. This one promises a blend of interpersonal issues and the potential for magical realism. Let's find out.

Book review - Bright

 

Title: Bright

Author: Brigit Young

Similar books: Fifty-four Things Wrong With Gwendolyn Rogers by Caela Carter

                     Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Rating: 

 

a solid read

 

Summary (provided by publisher): Marianne Blume has always known she’s not smart.

 After years of trying and trying at school, she’s mastered the art of getting by on a combination of luck, deflection, and her winning personality—that is, until she lands in the classroom of Mr. Garcia. Suddenly she’s at risk of flunking his class, repeating the eighth grade, and getting left behind by her best friend, Skyla. To receive much-needed extra credit and get into high school, Marianne makes the desperate decision to join her school’s Quiz Quest team, only to find out that her teammates have problems of their own—and that they need to win for her to get the credit.

Now Marianne will need to try—like, actually try—for the first time in her life, while also helping her teammates pull it together. Can Marianne learn to be smart? What does it mean to be “bright,” anyway? And will she be left in eighth grade forever?

My opinion: Young certainly isn't the first author to tackle the affect of labels on students. Even so, this book handles the topic well. Not only are we looking at the affect of other people's perception on behaviors, but the character's own self-labeling. We see how each aspect of the problem, especially years of falling behind, compound and create a nearly insurmountable school issue. While the ending is fairly predictable, the characters are dynamic and relatable.

Advance Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Graphic novel spotlight - Things in the Basement

 

Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke

If you are looking for artistic, adventurous graphic novels Ben Hatke is a solid, consistent choice. You can count on his books for odd adventures that explore a child's emotional development, that look at what it means to be brave, to be a hero. This book is in many ways typical of Hatke's work as seen in Zita the Spacegirl or Mighty Jack. This book is a little more sparse in the text, a little less action oriented. It's a simple quest but highly atmospheric. And it makes careful use of color and facial features. And each panel is so packed with details that you could leaf through the book a dozen times and not see everything.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - The Story of Gumluck the Wizard

 

Title: The Story of Gumluck the Wizard

Author: Adam Rex

Genre: fantasy

Similar books: Gnome and Rat by Lauren Stohler

                      The Famously Funny Parrott by Eric Daniel Weiner

Rating:

 

sweet without becoming saccharine

Summary (provided by publisher): Meet Gumluck the Wizard, the star of a new chapter book series by the inimitable Adam Rex!
This is a story about magic, if you like that kind of thing. It is also a story about a ghost with amnesia, an unpopular fairy, an ungrateful little town, and an extremely wise and helpful raven (who happens to be a pretty talented storyteller). But mostly, it is about a friendly little wizard who lives inside a big hill and really, really, really wants to be a hero. His name is Gumluck, and he is a bumbling noodlehead.
In this tall tale about a short wizard, celebrated author Adam Rex proves once and for all that the biggest heroes often come in the smallest nightgowns.

My opinion: This is, undeniably, a somewhat silly story. Young readers (or listeners - this is a book well suited to being read aloud) will giggle over misunderstandings and Gumluck's bumbling attempts at being helpful. Meanwhile, they will be absorbing messaging about honesty, kindness, and the harm in changing yourself in an effort to please others. The text is well supported by the occasional detailed illustration that makes this a solid choice for independent readers as well.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Pick 6: new in town

 Moving to a new town or a new school is a classic set-up for a youth novel, and with good reason. Finding yourself in a new situation, adjusting to new schedules and a new peer group; these are a solid framework for addressing personal and family issues. Here are six books published in the last six months that feature kids who recently moved to new town, neighborhoods, or schools as a primary character.

 6 New books with characters new to town:

1. Ghosts, Toast, and Other Hazards by Susan Tan
2. Peculiar Woods by Andrea Cohmes
3. The Do-Over by Rodrigo Vergera
4. The Gray by Chris Baron
5. We Don't Swim Here by Vincent Tirado
6. Lo and Behold by Wendy Mass