By the NumbersTeen: 10
Tween: 11
Children: 13
Sources
Review Copies: 10
Purchased: 4
Library: 12
Standouts
Teen: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
I am an evil, evil person for mentioning this because it won't even be out for months. But. I LOVED IT. Dragons and war and politics and adventure and romance and the deeply practical, quick-witted, identity-confused girl at the center of it all. Review closer to publication.
Tween: The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah by Nora Raleigh Baskin
I kept looking for this book because it promised to be about faith and coming of age, two of my particular loves. It brings that, but it's mostly about a girl coming to terms with her beloved grandmother's death and how her faith plays into that.
Children: Keeper by Kathi Appelt
I have a half-written review in my drafts, trying to put my finger on why this book about the Gulf Coast and mothers and cobbled-together families captured my heart. Guys, I don't know why, but it did.
Because I Want To Awards
Why Didn't I Grow Up in New York City?: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithin
Just like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, this book made me long to live in New York. At least over Christmas. Don't talk to me about the rents. This is my fantasyland.
Darker Than I Expected: Alibi Junior High by Greg Logsted
Okay, a kid raised in the CIA going to regular school for the first time? Should be laff-a-minute. But with lingering PTSD, a secondary character that's an amputee from the Afghanistan war, and the complicated realization that the way he was raised was completely crazeballs, this is a book with a little more meat on it.
I Love You, David Wiesner: June 29, 1999 by David Wiesner
Yes, this is an older one. I happened across it on my shelves, and I remembered why I'm a David Wiesner fangirl. It leads you blithely in one completely kooky direction, and at the last minute, cuts away and drops the reality (also deliciously kooky) into your lap.
Just Try and Keep It on Your Shelves: If Dinosaurs Lived Today by Dougal Dixon and M.J. Benton
Just for the picture of a bear fighting a dinosaur for a salmon, you need this book. But more, it's a book that posits dinosaurs in our world, speculates on what they'd eat and who'd eat them and how humans would use them. Too, too cool.
2 comments:
Isn't Keeper lovely? (Have you also read the equally lovely The Underneath?)
Alibi Junior High sounds interesting. Making note to look for it.
I have read the Underneath! In fact, I went into Keeper with similarly high expectations and was not disappointed.
If you want, you can borrow my copy. I had to buy it online because the library doesn't have it.
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