Dig Too Deep Written by Amy Allgeyer Reviewed by Linda Boyden Seventeen year old, Liberty Briscoe believes two things: she will never cry and will only refer to her mother, Jamie Briscoe, as MFM, my former mother.…
Dig Too Deep by Amy AllGeyer
Category: Social Issues – Friendship
Review: Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash
Every so often I read an article or hear someone argue that lgbtq+ literature for teens needs to move beyond coming out and coming of age stories. I disagree. Of course we need more stories of all kinds featuring lgbtq+…
Friendship and Finding Yourself on the Road: A Review of An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes
With his debut novel, An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes, Filipino-born author Randy Ribay emerges as a bright new star of YA literature. His novel follows four teens—players of Dungeons & Dragons since sixth grade—they take a cross-country drive at…
Interview with Pat Schmatz About Lizard Radio
“I do not believe.” So begins Pat Schmatz’s new YA novel Lizard Radio (September 8, 2015, Candlewick Press). It is a perfect first line for a book largely about belief – belief in one’s self, belief in a government and…
On Family, Friendship, and Finding Yourself: A Review of Show and Prove
With the increasing gentrification of New York City, it’s sometimes hard to imagine the early 1980s in the city, when public officials, both local and national, wrote off huge swaths of the city populated by people of color. News and…
Jessica’s Box by Peter Carnavas
Jessica’s starting school in a new place. She takes a box with her. It has something special in it. Will the kids like her surprise? Will she make friends? This is an absolutely delightful picture book about a young girl…
A Handful of Stars: Cindy Lord Gives a Community a Story
This is a story about blueberries, and migrant workers, and writing, and my friend, author Cynthia Lord. So it’s not so much a review. I saw her middle grade novel, A Handful of Stars, unfold over the months of Cindy’s…
Loving Someone With Depression: A Review of When Reason Breaks
This past spring, I joined with six other writers, librarians, and activists to create the 2015 We’re the People Summer Reading List. The most recently published book on that list is Cindy L. Rodriguez’s When Reason Breaks, the debut novel…
Review: Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
Serena Williams just won her twenty-first singles grand-slam title, and yet there has been more discussion about her body and femininity than about the sheer brilliance of her performance or her dedication to her sport. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer…
The Intersectionality of Black and Gay: A Review of Zero Fade
In an acclaimed piece on reviewers and diversity, author Malinda Lo addressed some of the familiar criticisms leveled against diverse books by reveiwers who just don’t “get it.” Most common criticism #2 was “so many (too many?) issues.” She saw…