What are you currently reading?
Glitch Girl by Ranie Oet - A verse novel about a middle grade kid with ADHD struggling with gender identity and navigating social relationships.
What did you recently finish reading?
Zero! The Number that Almost Wasn't by Sarah Albee - A kid's guide to the numeral zero, it's development, and the impact it has on the world.
What do you think you'll read next?
Not Nothing by Gayle Forman
While it is described as a picture book biography, this book extends beyond the standard picture book length and contains a great deal more text on each page. It is perhaps better described as an illustrated biography. Exploring the nature of life in Germany during and after the war, the topic is a heavy one but Paterson handles it gently. This is a book easy for young readers to understand and celebrates not only the achievements of this one person but also the power of art to change lives. With nearly old-fashioned illustrations, this is a very readable narrative and should be a nice addition to a young history buff's collection.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
When I selected this one I'd hoped that the combination of alien encounters and Cold War era Texas would allow Cuevas to explore some deeper themes and introduce some complexity to a fairly standard plot. I was not disappointed. We have the standard scenes of finding an alien and trying to figure out ways to communicate. And as is typical, the extraterrestrial is a stand-in for the character's sense of isolation, in this case in a racially stratified culture. While the messaging is rather heavy-handed the plot and characters are compelling enough to make this very readable.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
I live on a sixty-some acre property that includes a fair number of maple trees. So we have occasionally tapped the trees and made maple syrup. The sap is running now so this week we cooked up our first batch for the year. Here's the result of cooking down the first run sap.
What are you currently reading?
We Were Warned by Chelsea Ichaso - Legend has it anyone who trespasses on the abandoned Fairport Village resort is cursed to die, cursed by the former owner after she murdered her own son. Two teens have died already and Eden's senior class just held a party at the ruins.
What did you recently finish reading?
Down Came the Rain by Jennifer Mathieu - Two teens struggle with climate anxiety in the wake of a devastating hurricane.
What do you think you'll read next?
The Strongest Heart by Saadia Faruqi
If you want to capture the attention of young readers there are a couple of key phrases that you can use: weird, gross, deadly. And the construction here is solid. First we learn about the big cats - how they're defined, where they're found, that sort of thing. Once we have a basic introduction we look at what might make them deadly. Then we look at how many human/cat encounters there are on average and the rate of fatality. It lays out all of the metrics and a clear calculation for why one might be considered deadlier than another. In spite of this, the focus is definitely on education and conservation rather than any sort of fear mongering. While the illustrations are perhaps a bit simplistic, they add to the appeal overall.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
Author: Amanda Dewitt
Genre: mild sci-fi
Age range: teen
Similar book: Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackson
Summary (provided by publisher): Thirty years ago, Grace’s mom left her hometown of Hermitage, Florida and never looked back—which is exactly why Grace thinks it’s the safest place to spend her summer now. Since her mom died in a car crash, Grace has been desperate to get away from the memories and reminders of her loss. Spending the summer transcribing cassette tapes for the Hermitage Historical Society might be boring, but boring is just what Grace needs.
Until she hears the voice of Jake Underwood—the boy who first recorded the cassette tapes back in 1992. When Grace realizes he can hear anything she records, despite thirty years of time between them, they strike up an impossible conversation through the tapes.
But the past isn’t any simpler than the present, and a mystery has haunted Hermitage through the generations. In the 1970’s, a hurricane made landfall and resulted in the tragic death of Jake’s uncle Charley. In a town as suffocatingly small as Hermitage, it’s impossible not to notice how no one talks about that storm, or Charley, and as the mystery unfurls, Grace can’t help but realize a worse truth: No one talks about Jake either.
What I liked: Time travel(ish) narratives can be a tricky thing to maneuver. Discovering you have a way to communicate with the past always introduces the question: can you change what has already happened? Dewitt's handling of this question is stellar. Without the conversational nature of the tapes this would be a standard true crime investigation, with Grace digging into the town's secrets. Giving her an interactive link to the past humanizes the victims, reminds us that the people involved were real, not just names on a screen. And I feel like the ultimate conclusion is realistic as well.
What I didn't like: The tension isn't always consistent. This is less a mystery than it is a story of a relationship. While Grace and Jake are reasonably complex, the other characters leave a little something to be desired.
Advanced Reader Copy provided b NetGalley
