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Cindy: Well, I’m probably the last one on the trolley to read Bray’s new book. As you can see by Lynn’s comments below, I picked up this book early at the summer ALA Conference, gave it to Lynn first and then didn’t get it read myself. I have no good excuse. This week I finished [...]

Lynn:  As veteran Bookends readers know, we are never short of opinions!  So let me say straight out that Elizabeth Wein’s earlier Arthurian/Ethiopian series  is as innovative as it is beautifully written and, in my opinion anyway, never received the attention it deserved.  Her new book, Code Name Verity (Hyperion 2012) again displays this extraordinary [...]

Cindy: Talk about a timely historical fiction novel. Tough economic times, fathers who have to relocate to find work, and children who are caught in the middle. The Mighty Miss Malone (Random/Wendy Lamb 2012) could be describing many families today instead of in Great Depression era Gary, Indiana. As the cover proclaims, “Deza Malone from [...]

Lynn: Seventeen-year-old Farrah Higgins is a math genius.  She can see math patterns instantly, topped the nation in math test scores and is heading to MIT in the fall.  Once nicknamed “Digit,” Farrah has spent her high school years hiding her gift, hanging with a popular and apparently brainless group and trying to be “normal.  [...]

Cindy: Months behind the rest of the book-reading world, I finally read The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton 2012). I did not preorder the book–like the thousands of other true nerdfighter fans–because I could not trust myself to have the new John Green book in my house and stay focused on my 2011 L.A. Times [...]

Lynn: Stiefvater kicks off  The Scorpio Races (Scholastic 2011) with one of the most attention-grabbing sentences of the year: “It was the first of November and so, today, someone would die.” Find me one soul who could put the book down after that opening!  Stiefvater doesn’t make it any easier to stop reading after that [...]

Cindy: One Crazy Summer is not only a description of the months ahead in the Dobrez household with a daughter fresh home from her first year of college and another graduating high school in a month. One Crazy Summer (Harper/Amistad, 2010) is the new middle grade book from Rita Williams-Garcia, who usually writes for older [...]

Lynn: OK – let me just get this out of my system at the start. I am furious with Philip Reeve! I have PILES of books that I need to read, review deadlines and a blogging partner who was wondering quite vocally why I hadn’t passed Fever Crumb (Scholastic, April 2010) along to her. It [...]

Lynn: As a teen (a loooong time ago) I balanced my sf/fantasy reading with big doses of romantic mysteries by authors like Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. As a librarian, I struggled to find books to meet that same interest for the girls in my 8th-9th grade building. This new series, The Agency, promises to [...]

Lynn: So – Cindy and I are reading the great new 2010 arc’s as fast as we can turn the pages but we don’t want to move on without wedging in some of the outstanding late 2009 books. Raiders’ Ransom (Scholastic/Chicken House, Dec. 2009) is one I don’t want anyone to miss. It’s 23rd century [...]