Although he seems to be a child of privilege, 16-year-old Alex Riley has lost his way. Friendless at school and constantly fighting with his single mother, a rising star in Albany politics, Alex hears from his therapist (a man of…
Category: Family
Letters to a Girl at War: Dear Blue Sky
With the spread of the internet, an increasing number of young people in war zones have been able to tell their own stories, and to be heard by a wider world. One of the most famous blogs of this kind…
Crow: If You Think “It Can’t Happen Here”…Well, It Already Has
In the early 1990s I reviewed a historical novel for young readers, part of a historical fiction series from an educational publisher, about an interracial friendship between two 12-year-old boys in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898. In the story, a…
Abandoned Children Nobody Knows
In 2004 the Japanese filmmaker Hirozaku Kore-eda released Nobody Knows, a feature film based on the story of five children in Tokyo, abandoned by their mother and forced to fend for themselves. The film gained widespread attention for its depiction…
What can we learn about past lives?
Transcendence (Walker Books) by C.J. Omololu, $16.99 Spiritual, religious and life beliefs can bring people close or drive a wedge between friends and family. But exploring possibilities and beliefs outside our own immediate cultural, religious and life experiences can also…
The Forsaken speaks to reluctant heroes
The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) $16.99 Dystopian novels often allow readers inside the scariest of ideas. They encourage readers to think about war and our darkest fears, both internal and…
No Name Baby by Nancy Bo Flood
No-Name Baby by Nancy Bo Flood Published by Namelos, 2011. Warning: This review contains some spoilers. Of all the tough subjects tackled by authors we have reviewed on The Pirate Tree, our own Nancy Bo Flood’s newest novel,…
Focus on the Disability Experience: A Review of Wonder
This weekend I’m headed to Montpelier, Vermont for my final residency and graduation from the Vermont College of Fine Arts program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. One of my MFA requirements is to deliver a lecture on an…
Focus on the Bully: A Review of Orchards
The recently released video of middle schoolers tormenting a 68-year-old bus monitor in Greece, NY, near Rochester, has prompted national outrage aimed at the young bullies. Last week in a post titled “Where Have All the Manners Gone,” my sister…
The Upstanders Award Goes to Ghetto Cowboy!
This past weekend, the Fifth Annual Horace Mann Upstanders Book Award was given to G. (Greg) Neri for his middle grade novel Ghetto Cowboy. The ceremony took place at the Wildwood Elementary School in Los Angeles, and along with Neri…