Fun, wry, ridiculous love story set in the LA world of bookstores, quiz shoes and freeways. Nina Hill is a wonderful introverted anxious young adult character whose whole life is disrupted during the course of the book. An only child, she finds out she has a family about which she never guessed. A bookstore employee, […]
Martha Tom, a Choctaw girl, crosses the river and befriends Lil’ Mo whose enslaved family works on a plantation in the Southeastern United States in the early 1800’s. Soon after, Lil’ Mo’s family is threatened with forced separation. Told with humor, warmth and heart, this story has a climax based on Choctaw folklore, told with […]
Historical fiction meets fantasy in this story of travel, adventure and friendship during the Victorian era. Merrick Tremayne, a botanist injured while smuggling opium for the East India Company, is sent by them to Peru to steal shoots from the “quinine tree” so that the Company will have its own supply. Merrick finds forests full […]
Imagine a world where everyone loses their emotions once they become a teen. This is Natalia Peña’s reality. Natalia and her brother, Calvino, are parentless and living with guardians. Calvino is a few years younger and his emotions should have started to wane, but they’re not. After Calvino takes a test regarding his emotions at […]
This is a well written, heartfelt story of a thirteen year old Elephant boy in 1975 Nepal who works with his “elephant brother, Hira Prashad,” to keep animals and humans safe in the Boarderlands area. A Circle of Elephants is a sequel and throughout the text refers to the protagonists’ earlier experiences, captured in What […]
Wonderful (and terrifying) story set in a terrific steampunk world replete with airships, mechanical animals, and very bad guys with silver eyes. A page turner with heart and wind up keys. Lily lost her mother years ago – and now word comes that her father’s been lost in an airship accident. Then her governess threatens […]
A lovely teen romance with South Asian American athlete protagonists. Ashish is a star basketball athlete at his school but he’s lost his flow because of a bad break up with his ex girl friend. Sweetie is the star runner in her school, but she’s also carrying some extra weight. Her mother feels strongly (along […]
Cool story about Iris, a deaf girl named after a whale. Iris has strong tech skills (she repairs antique radios for pocket money) but she’s main streamed in a school with no deaf students and feels frustration at being alone. Then she learns about a whale (Blue 55) who communicates in a different frequency from […]
I don’t often read novels in verse. They aren’t my thing, but Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel, “The Poet X,” is making think I have been missing out. Acevedo tells the story of Xiomara who feels ignored at home and school, but is also the target unwanted attention from both her classmates and mother. The boys […]
Wonderful companion novel to The Mad Wolf’s Daughter (2018), this book shares Drest’s story as she struggles with the dual challenges of deciding how to cope with the price on her head — and with her place in the family whom she rescued in the The Mad Wolf’s Daughter. In order to remove the threat […]
