Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Lynn: Kristin Cashore is a gifted storyteller - one of those remarkable writers who spin a web of words that wraps around readers, capturing them completely with a tale. I’d wager my classic sf collection that every reader coming to the end of the first book, Graceling (Penguin/Dial, 2008), immediately asked when the second volume [...]

Cindy: “It’s not nice when girls die.” Ten years ago Laurie Halse Anderson gifted teen readers with her first YA novel, Speak, about a girl dealing with depression following a date rape. In Wintergirls (Penguin/Viking, 2009), Anderson is as unflinching and honest in presenting Lia, who learns on page one of chapter {001.00} that an [...]

Cindy: It’s Banned Books Week. What better time to review a Chris Crutcher book! Angry Managment (Greenwillow, 2009) is his latest and the fabulous title and cover is sure to draw in teen readers. This one features three novellas that incorporate characters from previous Crutcher novels and short stories. The three stories are wrapped in [...]

Lynn: We left Todd Hewitt and Viola Eade in a breathless cliff-hanger at the end of The Knife of Never Letting Go. It has been a long year of waiting! The second volume, The Ask and the Answer (Candlewick, Sept. 2009), picks right up from that point. Todd and Viola have run right [...]

Lynn: Wow! I never thought anything would top my awed regard for Craig Thompson’s Blankets but Stitches (W.W. Norton, Sept. 2009) has elbowed through to do just that and the two stand shoulder to shoulder for me. Both books are coming-of-age stories, both explore the power of artistic expression (among other things) and both books [...]

Lynn: Laura’s diary is filled with entries that could be found in any teenage girl’s journal: her crush on the boy next door, fights with her older sister, exam worries and her love for music and her band. What sets this book apart are the other entries! In Carbon Diaries 2015 (Holiday House, 2009) global [...]

Cindy: March Madness is behind us and I’m at a loss. College basketball is my favorite fan sport, and even the excitement of the Masters golf tournament doesn’t completely satisfy the hole I feel in my sports world each April. Fortunately, there’s a tonic for us round ball fanatics in David Gill’s debut novel, Soul [...]

Lynn: In recent years we have seen several books centering on a narrator with a condition in the Asperger’s syndrome spectrum. The device allows commentary from a detached perspective on social interaction, language and the customs we take for granted. The risk is in creating a voice that does not sound authentic, [...]

Cindy and Lynn: We first wrote about Swim the Fly (Candlewick, April 2009) back in November at our original blog site, and you can read the complete comments here. But this funny book has done laps in our brains since then and we wanted to reprise our enthusiasm for it now that its pub date [...]

Lynn: There are authors for whom I take off my reviewer’s hat and just sit back, read and enjoy. The voice or the story or the humor just works for me. Deb Caletti is one of those authors (there are several - full disclosure here). I love her humor, [...]