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On Our Shelves: New Young Adult Fiction

/ Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

Looking for something new to read? Well, here is a sampling of the latest additions to our Young Adult collection:

Allegiant by Veronica Roth. (Divergent #3)
The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered–fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. But will she be prepared to face impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice and love?

More Than This by Patrick Ness.
A boy named Seth drowns, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying. So how is he here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighborhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust, and completely abandoned. What’s going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world.

Dear Life, You Suck by Scott Blagden.
Irreverent, foul-mouthed, seventeen-year-old Cricket Cherpin, living under the watchful eye of Mother Mary at a Catholic boys’ home in Maine, has such bleak prospects he is considering suicide when Wynona Bidaban steps into his world.

If You Could be Mine by Sara Farizan.
In Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, seventeen-year-olds Sahar and Nasrin love each other in secret until Nasrin’s parents announce their daughter’s arranged marriage and Sahar proposes a drastic solution.

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang.
In 1898 China, Little Bao has had enough of foreign missionaries and soldiers robbing peasants, and he recruits an army of Boxers to fight to free China from its oppressors.
Do not forget it’s companion book Saints.

Still reading? You might also want to check out; A Really Awesome Mess by Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin, Ghost Time by Courtney Eldridge, Revealed by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. (A House of Night novel), Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem, Earthbound by Aprilynne Pike, Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston, Paradox by A.J. Paquette, Raven Flight (the second Shadowfell novel) by Juliet Marillier, Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin (sequel to Impossible) , Compliance by Maureen McGowan. (A Dust Chronicles novel), The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (A Heroes of Olympus novel), The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White, Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub, Now I’ll Tell You Everything by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, or Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas (A Throne of Glass novel).

Reading Around the Globe – For Book Clubs

/ Linda / Leave a comment

worldDo the members of your book club like to travel?  Or do they like to “travel” via books?  Here are some books that will take them on a trip around the world.

Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson (Biography)

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder (Biography)

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (Non-fiction)

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious – and Perplexing – City by David Lebovitz (Non-fiction)

Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip by Peter Hessler (Non-fiction)

A Beautiful Place to Die: An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery by Mall Nunn (Mystery)

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo (Fiction)

A Guide to the Birds of East Africaby Nicholas Drayson (Fiction)

Babylon Rollingby Amanda Boyden (Fiction)

The Sound of Waterby Sanjay Bahadur (Fiction)

What is Middle Grade Fiction?

/ Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

When shopping around for books to read for yourself, or your children, it is often hard to find books that fit exactly what you are looking for. Sometimes the labels publishers, bloggers, and marketing teams slap on books and there descriptions to help only make it harder because no one knows quite what they mean. Middle Grade fiction is one of those labels. Middle Grade fiction typically refers to books for the hard to please audience of eight to twelve-year-olds. Heavy readers in this age range are often bored with most books in the children’s room because of their reading ability but are often deemed too young to branch out into the young adult section because oft he content that can be found in those books. As a reader that was reading adult books while still in this age range, and learning about all sorts of things my parents might not have been thrilled about, I can understand the concern other parents might have when their book loving children hit this challenging in between stage.

Some people and groups chose the label of ‘Middle Grade’ by the age of the main characters. However, in many cases the themes and conflicts play a large role in whether a book is really better suited for the young adult or middle grade designation. For example, a book featuring a nine year old protagonist that faces harsh violence or abuse might be better suited for the young adult section while a book featuring a fourteen year old with a lighter, relate-able story might be better received by the middle grade set than teenagers. Like many genre and age group labels it is often hard to decide which label, or labels, are best suited for each book and help it reach the best audience. Thankfully, many attempting to label these books have been book lovers since they were that age as well are doing their best to get the right books in the hands of eager readers.

Here are some of the best ‘Middle Grade’ fiction books that I have seen in the last year:

Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

Who Could That Be At This Hour? (All The Wrong Questions #1) by Lemony Snicket
Thirteen-year-old Lemony Snicket begins his apprenticeship with S. Theodora Markson of the secretive V.F.D. in the tiny dot of a town called Stain’d By The Sea, where he helps investigate the theft of a statue.

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead
Seventh-grader Georges adjusts to moving from a house to an apartment, his father’s efforts to start a new business, his mother’s extra shifts as a nurse, being picked on at school, and Safer, a boy who wants his help spying on another resident of their building.

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block
After a devastating earthquake destroys the West Coast, causing seventeen-year-old Penelope to lose her home, her parents, and her ten-year-old brother, she navigates a dark world, holding hope and love in her hands and refusing to be defeated.

Sure Signs of Crazy by Karen Harrington
Twelve-year-old Sarah writes letters to her hero, To Kill a Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch, for help understanding her mentally ill mother, her first real crush, and life in her small Texas town, all in the course of one momentous summer.

There are many more great books in this little subsection of children’s literature. Some more of my favorite examples are; The Wishing Spell (The Land of Stories, #1) by Chris Colfer, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson,  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan,  Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, and The Mysterious Benedict Society (The Mysterious Benedict Society, #1) by Trenton Lee Stewart.

Seven Novels That Will Creep You Out

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creepy hand

Do you like the creepiness of Halloween?  Do you like books that scare the dickens out of you?  Here are seven novels that will creep you out.

The Terror by Dan Simmons – The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition’s leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the Terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape. A haunting, gripping story based on actual historical events.

The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper – You won’t be able to put down this spellbinding literary horror story in which a Columbia professor must use his knowledge of demonic mythology to rescue his daughter from the Underworld.

The Last Policemanby Ben H. Winters – A fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Goneby Stefan Kiesbye – A village on the Devil‘s Moor: a place untouched by time and shrouded in superstition. There is the grand manor house whose occupants despise the villagers, the small pub whose regulars talk of revenants, the old mill no one dares to mention. This is where four young friends come of age—in an atmosphere thick with fear and suspicion. Their innocent games soon bring them face-to-face with the village‘s darkest secrets in this eerily dispassionate, astonishingly assured novel.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters –  Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan – One neighbor after another succumbs to a creeping, always fatal disease. Our sole witness to this epidemic is Jacob Hansen,  sheriff, undertaker, and pastor. As the disease engulfs the town, Jacob must find a humane way to govern, as well as take care of his wife and baby daughter.  And what of the tramps slipping nightly through the tinder-dry woods, the spiritualists from the city camped on the edge of town with their charismatic leader Chase? Who-will bury the dead properly, if not Jacob?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy – An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion.  Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

On Our Shelves: New Paperbacks

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We’ve got three new Mysteries and three new Romances for your reading pleasure.

Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery) by Ellery Adams – When Olivia Limoges and other Oyster Bay patrons of the arts sponsor a retreat for famous storytellers, one of them is going to have a very unhappy ending.

Final Catcall (A Magical Cats Mystery) by Sofie Kelly – Small-town librarian Kathleen Paulson gets plenty of entertainment from her extraordinary cats, Owen and Hercules. But when a theatre troupe stumbles into more tragedy than it bargained for, it’s up to Kathleen to play detective.

Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) by Riley Adams – Even Lulu Taylor—proprietress of Aunt Pat’s Barbeque Restaurant in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee—needs to get out of the kitchen now and then. But at the Rock and Ribs festival, she finds more than a taste of trouble.

Cowboy Justice (Catcher Creek) by Melissa Cutler – Transforming their parents’ rundown ranch in the small town of Catcher Creek, New Mexico, into a tourist destination is the toughest challenge the three Sorentino sisters ever faced. But now one of them has another fight on her hands – to keep from falling for the sexy town sheriff – again.

Anything But Love (A Cupcake Lovers Novel) by Beth Ciotta – For Reagan Deveraux, Sugar Creek, Vermont, and the Cupcake Lovers are a dream come true: A cozy little town where family and friends come before everything else. She’s never experienced anything like it—especially not growing up with her mother, a fickle, fame-hungry heiress. But Rae’s plan to hide out in anonymity for a year until she can claim her inheritance—and her independence—changes with one kiss from gorgeous pub owner Luke Monroe.

Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) by Nina Bruhns – Dashing and devilish Major Kiptyn Llowell is the opposite of reasonable. But when his top secret mission on exotic Hainan Island, China, goes belly up, Kip throws himself on the mercy of the eminently sensible (and irresistibly sexy) DeAnne Lovejoy to hitch a ride to his rendezvous point. But he gets far more than he bargained for.