Teen and Young Adult Fiction Reviews
The five-star rating system.
The “coming-of-age” story. When a boy becomes a man.
…and now Miguel is a great read for boys ages nine through thirteen. Joseph Krumgold really gets into the head of a kid during that in-between age, wanting to be respected as a man yet child enough that he’s not quite ready for a man’s responsibilities.… Read the rest
Lady Selene is the heir to the Great House of Ravenwood and the secret family gift of dreamwalking. As a dreamwalker, she can enter a person’s dreams and manipulate their greatest fears or desires.
Last month I reviewed a Newbery winner which fascinated me with its intricate puzzle mystery. When You Reach Me is based on another complicated mystery, which, if I tell you the type of puzzle it is at its core, I would ruin the ending for you.… Read the rest
The Westing Game is a mystery, or more accurately, a puzzle-mystery as 
described in the author’s own words. With sixteen characters, each with their own point-of-view, the challenge of solving the mystery ranks on par with the difficulty level of a 3000-piece jigsaw puzzle.… Read the rest
When Antony John’s wife challenged him to write a book about rock music and its personalities from a deaf person’s point of view, Five Flavors of Dumb was the result.
Synopsis
Eighteen-year-old Piper Vaughn lost her hearing in fifth grade, so her speech is pretty clear, and she’s mastered the skill of reading lips.… Read the rest
Set in the late 1930s, Thimble Summer captures the era’s atmosphere of farm life in Wisconsin. Elizabeth Enright wrote this while people were just beginning to recover from the Dust Bowl further south, and the book gives an excellent sense of the Depression years through a child’s eyes.… Read the rest
My local library had the foresight to carry several novels with deaf characters for children and teens. Rocky Road is one of them. In the coming months, I will be including additional reviews as part of a “Deaf Series.”… Read the rest
Power has its Price…
Madeline Oliver is dying from lung disease and there’s no cure. Jason Wu, after tragedy strikes, is left grief stricken and promises to only speak the truth from that point on. … Read the rest
Set in post-Revolutionary War New England, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is the biography of Nathaniel Bowditch, author of The American Practical Navigator, nicknamed the “Sailor’s Bible.” While I never paid attention to the author’s name when I was a child, I’m sure I read several of Jean Lee Latham’s biographical works.… Read the rest
Lois Lenski’s American Regional books have been likened to the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yes, the similar settings are hugely important to the story, but Lenski’s style is far different than Wilder’s, and I like them both. … Read the rest