Teen and Young Adult Fiction Reviews
The Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede is a Young Adult fantasy suitable for sixth grade and up. This engaging story is set in a re-imagined wild west.
Eff is the older twin sister of Lan, the superpowerful seventh son of a seventh son in a family of magicians.… Read the rest
Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son is turning eleven and this birthday marks the beginning of his awakening as the last of the Old Ones. The Dark is Rising tells how Will, met by Merriman Lyon, comes to power in the modern world and must accumulate the six “signs” to help fight the rising Dark.… Read the rest
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers is not only a true coming-of-age story set in the early 1900s, but it also records old, satisfying values and codes of conduct that made the USA the strong nation it became.… Read the rest
Icarus Down by James Bow is a YA Sci/fi that takes the reader on a fast-paced journey to a planet far from Earth. Sixteen-year-old Simon Doud lives in Iapyx, one of thirteen cities suspended down deep chasms. The sun on the diamond lands above can kill a human in less than five minutes.… Read the rest
Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven is an engaging contemporary Young Adult novel most suited to high school readers. It addresses some of the concerns and problems of overweight teens.
I’d like to see more contemporary realism like Holding Up the Universe that encourages teens to draw upon their personal power and offers them hope of happiness without being sugary-sweet.… Read the rest
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness is a bittersweet teen fiction about a boy struggling to come to terms with his mother’s serious illness.
Connor, a twelve-year-old-boy, is faced with unbelievable stress – a dying mother, a father who has split from the family, a recurrent nightmare, a domineering grandmother, and bullies at school.… Read the rest