Teen and Young Adult Fiction Reviews
Were you one of those children who adored horses? Do you have a child who 
devours every book on horses that she can get her hands on?
Then you have probably read books by Marguerite Henry.
I didn’t. As a kid, I liked horses.… Read the rest
The publishing powers-that-be claim today’s readers are 
impatient. If you don’t hook them on the first page, the first paragraph even, you’re not publishable. Vintage Reads always start a little slower. Teach your children patience for this book. … 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
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
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
Synopsis
Set in Appalachia of northern Kentucky along the Ohio River, M.C. Higgins is the oldest son in an African American family, proud of his great grandmother’s mountain and proud of his skills as a swimmer, a hunter-tracker, and how he can shimmy up his forty-foot steel pole to view the hills.… Read the rest
Twelve-year-old Andy Rusch walks to school and walks home for lunch. He’s 
free to roam the countryside surrounding his small town of Serenity the whole day long, and his parents have no trouble with him befriending the village’s odd-man character, Onion John.… Read the rest
The Saturdays, first book in The Melendy Quartet, is a delightful trot into yesteryear’s childhood. Elizabeth Enright created a family of four siblings who live an “ordinary” life in New York City, yet their minor escapades become “special” adventures.… Read the rest
Until last week, I had never read Johnny Tremain. Shame on me! And shame on me that after the first thirty pages, I was ready to recommend only the most patient of readers should stick with the book.… Read the rest