August 2011
34 posts
Book Review: Blue Chameleon
Reading Level: Ages 4+
Poor, lonely blue chameleon. He can turn into anything, and blend in anywhere, but despite this wonderful ability, blue chameleon cannot find anyone who wants to be his friend.
Enchanting colored pencil drawings and excellent use of color, expression, and symmetry will delight readers as chameleon struggles to find a friend.
If you liked Blue Chameleon, try these...
Book Review: The Brave Cowboy
Originally published in 1959, this small book is sure to warm your heart. Stark black and white illustrations of a young cowboy contrast wonderfully with red drawings of imaginary wild animals, Indians, and outlaws that our hero must face. Great for any imaginative reader.
Book List: @loolabette
A list of awesome YA books @loolabette should read. Links head to my own reviews here on the tumblr. There are a handful I haven’t reviewed yet… BUT THEY ARE NO LESS GOOD I JUST HAVE NO TIME D: :shameface:
THE WHOLE LIST ON GOODREADS (without any of my reviews.)
Baratz-Logsted, Lauren - The Twin’s Daughter
Black, Holly - White Cat
Boudreau, Helene - Real Mermaids...
book review: into the beautiful north
Nayeli lives in the small town of Tres Camarones, Mexico – a town abandoned by its men for the optimistic, job-filled land of Los Estados Unidos. With the town unprotected and vulnerable, banditos have begun to settle their drug cartels in. After seeing a rerun of The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides that she herself will go to the States and bring back seven men who will protect the town,...
book review: they came from below
Emily and Reese are best friends who see each other only over summer vacation, where they both pass the time lazing on the beach or going to parties, hoping to pick up a summer fling. After a strange organism washes up on the local beach, the girls meet Steve and Dave, two ‘foreign-exchange students,’ their whole summer turns upside down. Steve and Dave are strange, giving Emily and Reese ...
Book Review: The Fold
Joyce has always lived in her sister Helen’s shadow. Helen is beautiful, smart, an aspiring doctor – everything Joyce isn’t. Joyce would do anything to be beautiful like Helen, especially so she can attract the attention of her crush, John Ford Kang. So when Joyce’s aunt Gomo shows up with a once-in-a-lifetime offer, Joyce wants to jump at the opportunity. But Gomo’s gift of plastic surgery...
Book Review: Un Lun Dun
Zanna and Deeba, twelve-year old best friends, think that their lives are pretty normal. But when the girls follow a broken umbrella down into the world of Unlondon, a world on the brink of war against the Smog, they learn that their lives are a little more significant than they thought. Zanna is a girl long-prophesized as the Shwazzy – the girl who will save Unlondon (and London) from the ...
Book Review: Ape House
This novel centers on a group of Bonobo chimps living in a laboratory and being trained in American Sign Language by our heroine, Isabel. Of course, Isabel has fought against activist groups who feel her work with the chimps is wrong, inhumane, and should be stopped, but she feels her work is important, and that the chimps enjoy their surroundings as well as learning experiences. One day she...
Book Review: My Life in Pink and Green
Lucy Desberg is, like, businesswoman of the year in training. She plans to single-handedly save the future of her family’s pharmacy by creating a Relaxation Room (which she later decides will become an eco-spa) and doing makeup for kids in town before special events. The only problem is, her mom and grandmother don’t take her seriously. And she has a crush on her best friend’s older brother.
Book Review: Wither
In this first installment of the Chemical Garden Trilogy, we meet Rhine, a girl stolen from the streets where she lived with her brother and sold as to a rich governor’s son as a wife. Polygamy is common in Rhine’s world, as a virus (caused by the over-sterilization and genetic purification of <i>our</i> generation) kills men at the age of 25 and women at 20. Rich men like Governor...
Book Review: White Cat
The Sharpe family is full of curse workers, con artists, mobsters, thieves, and generally tricksy people. Cassel is no different, except that out of all the members of his family, he is not a worker, and wants nothing to do with the mafia. He’s perfectly content attending Wallingford, a private school where he runs a betting circle and keeps to himself, his secrets buried under a handsome...
Book Review: Inkblot
Reading Level: Grades 3 - 6
Inkblots: a messy, awesome project with fascinating techniques for such a seemingly random piece of art - and they aren’t just used for Rorschach tests, either! After reading this, I want to buy gallons of India Ink and rolls of parchment!
Book Review: Whiteblack the Penguin Sees the World
Whiteblack the penguin is running out of stories to tell on his radio show - not a good thing to happen to the Chief Storyteller of Penguinland. Waving goodbye to his friends, Whiteblack sets off in a little boat, in search of new stories. His journey is fraught with mishaps and misadventures, and doesn’t quite go as Whiteblack had planned - but the plucky little radio star takes it all in...
Book Review: Tiny Little Fly
Tiny Little Fly lands on everyone he meets but no one wants him there at all! Everyone swats at Tiny Little Fly and tries to capture him, but he is too fast for them!
Little readers will enjoy the fly’s-eye-view of each animal he bothers, and guessing what the animal will be!
Book Review: My Boyfriend is a Monster #1: I Love...
Athletic baseball star Dicey Bell and quiet, nerdy Jack Chen are assigned to a school project together - care for an egg as if it were a real baby. Over the course of the project, the two bond over the egg, finding that they have much more in common than they initially thought. At the conclusion of the project, Jack musters up the nerve to ask Dicey out on a date.
A typical,...
Book Review: Winnie the Witch
Winnie the witch has a problem. She lives in a biiiiiiiiig black house with black everything. The floors are black, the walls are black, the furniture is black, even her bathtub is black. Winnie loves the color black.
Like most witches, Winnie also has a black cat. His name is Wilbur. Winnie loves her cat Wilbur. There’s just one problem…
When Wilbur is awake, she can see him...
Book Review: Imaginary Girls
Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby. But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns...
Book Review: Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie
When Eleanor’s babysitter Bibi moves far away, Eleanor is devastated. Life without her favorite person is hard. Everything Eleanor used to like to do is now unpleasant and sad because it reminds her of Bibi. It’s awful - way worse than pickle juice on a cookie. Things get even worse when Eleanor’s parents hire a NEW babysitter.
Written in verse, this short, charming novel...
Book Review: Flygirl
Ida Mae Jones dreams of flight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy’s gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her. When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots - and Ida suddenly sees a way to fl y as well as do...
Book Review: The Marbury Lens
Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury. There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where...
1 tag
Book Review: I'm a Shark!
Shark isn’t afraid of anything - and why should he be? He’s a terrifying SHARK!!!
Shark swims about the ocean, reminding all the other sea creatures how scary and terrifyingly awesome he is.
But even terrifyingly awesome sharks can be scared of some things….
Book Review: Living Dead Girl
Once upon a time, I was a little girl who disappeared. Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I didn’t know how lucky I was.
When Alice was ten, Ray took her away from her family, her friends her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over. Now Alice is fifteen and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of...
6 tags
Book Review: Square Cat
Eulah is a square cat who wishes more than anything in the world that she was round like her friends. Then she would be able to have the same kind of fun that the other cats do. Poor Eulah.
Then her friends show her the things that are wonderful about a square cat — all the great things she can do!
It is good to have friends who care.
6 tags
Book Review: Okay For Now
Doug Swieteck and his lousy older brother just moved to a brand-new town that will be probably just as lousy as the old one - and with less baseball. And, just like in his old town, everyone who’s anyone (teachers, the police, his dad, Lil Spicer down the street) thinks that Doug’s just a skinny good-for-nothing kid who won’t ever amount to anything except for trouble.
Despite...
3 tags
Book Review: Where's Walrus?
Take a jaunt through famous scenes as you search for a goofy walrus. Great for kids & parents alike.
Book Review: The Cardturner
When Alton’s ageing, blind uncle asks him to attend bridge games with him, he agrees. After all, it’s better than a crappy summer job in the local shopping mall, and Alton’s mother thinks it might secure their way to a good inheritance sometime in the future. But, like all apparently casual choices in any of Louis Sachar’s wonderful books, this choice soon turns out...
9 tags
Book Review: Divergent
Beatrice “Tris” Prior has reached the fateful age of sixteen, the stage at which teenagers in Veronica Roth’s dystopian Chicago must select which of five factions to join for life. Each faction represents a virtue: Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity, and Erudite. To the surprise of herself and her selfless Abnegation family, she chooses Dauntless, the path of courage. Her...
6 tags
Book Review: Ferret Fun
What do two ferrets named Fudge and Einstein do when they meet a cat who thinks that they would be a perfect snack?
Convince him otherwise, that’s what!
12 tags
Book Review: Unlocked
When you’re the janitor’s kid, you don’t have many friends. You don’t have any friends. Andy is no different, but when he hears a rumor that the school outcast, Blake, has a gun in his locker, he decides to make friends with Blake. When the boys do become friends, Andy must choose between protecting his only friend and protecting a school full of kids who could care less...
5 tags
Book Review: You're Finally Here!
Rabbit is SO SO SO happy to see you he can barely stand it. But he isn’t excited for long - soon he is demanding to know where on earth you were and WHY you weren’t with him??
A delicious follow-up to the Scaredy Squirrel series.
9 tags
Book Review: Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku
Won Ton is a shelter cat who is pretty skeptical of his new home and family. Like most cats, he pretends not to care about any of the new toys or food his adoptive family gives him… but sneaks just a peek.
A cute story told in perfect haiku that everyone will enjoy.
6 tags
Book Review: Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator!
Mo Willems has done it again, (though really, has he ever not?) perfectly epitomizing the many expressions of a good friendship in Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator!
The book takes the form of several stories about the title best friends. Whether you read them aloud, to yourself, or listen, you are sure to love Amanda and her Alligator.
Book Review: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton...
When we last saw Miss Penelope Lumley, governess to three wolflike children (but making tremendous strides!), she was trying to recoup after the Incorrigibles had brought Lord and Lady Ashton’s Christmas ball to a disastrous halt. Now home renovations are needed, so the Ashton household is on the move to London, where Lady Ashton hopes she will be the belle of British society, and...
8 tags
Book Review: The Replacement
Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world....
July 2011
23 posts
6 tags
Book Review: In a Heartbeat
Eagan has been figure-skating practically since she could walk, and she’s good. Really good. It’s just not feasible that she could ever hurt herself while skating. But she does. Coming down from a triple axel, Eagan lands too close to the boards, smacking her head.
Amelia has lived the past few years of her life quietly, without moving much or making too much of a fuss about...
6 tags
Er…. I was really behind on reading and then finished like… a lot of books today. So, catching up on book reviews Saturday didn’t really… er… accomplish anything, it seems, because now I’m just as backlogged as I was before, since I want to review… well… all the books I read today.
My to-review list now stands thus: Bray, Libba - Beauty Queens...
6 tags
Book Review: Ella Minnow Pea
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use...
6 tags
Book Review: Room
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it’s the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack’s curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer. Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating—a...
8 tags
Book Review: Little Chicken's Big Day
Cluck, cluck, cluck. Do this, Little Chicken, do that, Little Chicken. Come here! Brush your teeth! Get dressed! Little Chicken is sick of being told what to do!! But uh oh…
Big Chicken?
Where are you?
6 tags
Book Review: Suki the Very Loud Bunny
Bunnies are supposed to be nice and quiet, nibbling clover and grass, and staying out of the mud and dirt. Suki loves to SHOUT and YELL and play in the mud. One day, Suki leaves her burrow and gets lost… will her loud voice be able to reach her mother’s ears?
8 tags
Book Review: The Zombie Who Visited New Orleans
Catalina and her class are on a field trip to New Orleans when odd things start to happen everywhere they go. Is someone working voodoo against them? Who is responsible for all the accidents?
7 tags
Book Review: Glitz
Ann Michelle has a quiet life, living with her grandma, going to school, hanging with her friends, listening to hip hop music and lusting after the artists. Everything changes when Rachel, who insists everyone call her Raq to acknowledge the rock star that she is, crashes into Ann Michelle’s life. Raq is everything Ann Michelle isn’t – she’s sassy, loud, confident, boisterous, and...
5 tags
Book Review: Me and My Dragon
You might think that a dog or a cat is the perfect pet, but you would be wrong. The perfect pet is a dragon. Read this funny book about how to find, train, and have fun with a dragon that’s just right for you!
4 tags
Book Review: Seaglass Summer
Poppy knows exactly what she wants to be when she grows up – a veterinarian. So when she gets the opportunity to spend the summer with her Uncle Sanjay, who runs a veterinary practice in a small Washington state town, she leaps at it with a vet kit ready. But as she begins helping out at Uncle Sanjay’s clinic, she starts to question whether or not veterinary medicine is really the thing for her.
10 tags
Book Review: Girl Parts
Wouldn’t it be great if you could tailor-make a girlfriend for yourself? Make sure she’s got the perfect height, the perfect smile, the perfect hair and eyes. Even better, she is guaranteed to love you.
Like many kids, David’s online presence is often more real and confident than offline. Worried, his parents provide him with a Companion bot – the perfect girlfriend. Rose is programmed to help...
8 tags
Book Review: Queen of the Falls
Retirement isn’t for everyone – especially not sixty-two year old Annie Edson Taylor. Schoolteaching in the late 1800s was not a high paying job, and after retirement, Annie needed a way to earn some money so she could live out the rest of her days in comfort and happiness. She knew that stuntmen and daredevils often made good money from their bravado, and so she decided to become the first...
When my child turns 11 I am going to write them a...
thegentlemaninthetophat:
This is genius. I already had plans to take any kids I raise there.
My kids will either love this or think their father is crazy.
11 tags
Book Review: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
“I’ve left some clues for you. If you want them, turn the page. If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.” So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the New York Times bestselling authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is...
9 tags
Book Review: Stolen
Gemma is flying from Bangkok to Vietnam on vacation with her parents. Exhausted and on layover, she decides to get a cup of coffee and meets a cute guy, who offers to buy the drink for her. Gemma’s a little embarassed, but he is really cute, and so, in a departure from her norm, she agrees and sits down with him at a small table, sipping at her coffee.
Soon she becomes dizzy, the airport...
18 tags
Book Review: The Price of Freedom
When I put The Price of Freedom on hold, it was half as a joke - the thing seemed to me to be a giant, somehow published fanfic tome, and I wanted to see just how nuts it would be. And come on… more Captain Jack? I’m not going to say no to that.
And so the 653 pager sat on my library bookshelf for weeks, untouched. My boyfriend laughed at me, incredulous that I would read something...
