On the day that seventeen-year-old Che’s little sister Rosa was born, his mother told him that he was going to have to look out for Rosa. His father added, “Protect her from the world.” But now that Rosa is ten,…
Tag: young adult
Review: American Girls by Alison Umminger
My first Manson girl was Leslie Van Houten, the homecoming princess with the movie-star smile. She was on death row at nineteen for putting a knife into the already-dead body of some poor, random woman for the lamest reason that…
Wandering Wild written by Jessica Taylor, Skyhorse Publishing, 2016
Wandering Wild Written by Jessica Taylor Reviewed by Linda Boyden “Good night, you thief, you vagabond…” is the way narrator Talia and younger brother, Wen, have always said good night. Not Gypsies, the two belong to a caravan of…
Review: All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely (Atheneum, 2015) takes place over the span of one week – the week after a white police officer brutally beats an African American teen boy. It’s told in alternating points of…
Interview With Author Shannon Gibney
Shannon Gibney‘s debut young adult novel See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, November 2015) opens with a prologue. The six-year-old version of main character Alex Kirtridge is sitting on her father’s lap, obstensibly learning to fill out a score card for…
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+…
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…
The Dark Part of the Forest provides a contemporary fairy tale for teens
The Darkest Part of the Forest (Little Brown Books for Young Readers) by Holly Black, $18.00 In the woods is a glass coffin. It rests on the ground, and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and…
The Poetic Voice of Jacqueline Woodson
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulson Books) $16.99 Sometimes we pick up a book because we know the voice will be poetry. That’s always the case with novels written by Jacqueline Woodson. Through poetic snapshots in Brown Girl…
A General’s Life After War: Review of The Compassionate Warrior
A growing body of literature for middle grade and teen readers explores the lives of child soldiers, young refugees, and other survivors of war. In the past, however, biographies of those who sent others to war often celebrated the feats…