What's New? Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Hop on over there to ogle what other bloggers got this week.

For review:

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers.452 p. His Fair Assassin series #3. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2, 2014. 9780547628400.

Publisher synopsis: In the powerful conclusion to Robin LaFever's New York Times bestselling His Fair Assassins trilogy, Annith has watched her gifted sisters at the convent come and go, carrying out their dark dealings in the name of St. Mortain, patiently awaiting her own turn to serve Death. But her worst fears are realized when she discovers she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever sequestered in the rock and stone womb of the convent. Feeling sorely betrayed, Annith decides to strike out on her own. 
  
She has spent her whole life training to be an assassin. Just because the convent has changed its mind, doesn’t mean she has.

Oh how I adored books 1 & 2 of this trilogy. I cannot wait to get into this.

Tomboy: a graphic memoir by Liz Prince. 256 p. Zest. September, 2014. 9781936976553.

Publisher synopsis: Growing up, Liz Prince wasn't a girly girl, dressing in pink tutus or playing Pretty Pretty princess like the other girls in her neighborhood. But she wasn't exactly one of the guys either, as she quickly learned when her Little League baseball coach exiled her to the outfield instead of letting her take the pitcher's mound. Liz was somewhere in the middle, and Tomboy is the story of her struggle to find the place where she belonged.

Tomboy is a graphic novel about refusing gender boundaries, yet unwittingly embracing gender stereotypes at the same time, and realizing later in life that you can be just as much of a girl in jeans and a T-shirt as you can in a pink tutu. A memoir told anecdotally, Tomboy follows author and zine artist Liz Prince through her early childhood into adulthood and explores her ever-evolving struggles and wishes regarding what it means to "be a girl."

From staunchly refuting anything she perceived as being "girly" to the point of misogyny, to discovering through the punk community that your identity is whatever you make of it, regardless of your gender, Tomboy is as much humorous and honest as it is at points uncomfortable and heartbreaking.

I'm participating in blog tour for this one. Look for my review in early November. 


I went to the Little Brown preview on October 1 and, sadly, have not gotten around to writing about the exciting list that is due this spring. Great middle grade stuff in the pipes and some superb picture books due as well. They very nicely provide a checklist and mail the arcs instead of having to lug them home. These arrived this week:

Wonder at the Edge of the World: a novel by Nicole Helget. 369 p. Little, Brown and Company, April 14, 2015. 9780316245104. 

Publisher synopsis: In this captivating quest that spans the globe, a young girl must challenge her assumptions about family, slavery, and friendship as she fights to save her father's legacy...and to begin creating her own.

Hallelujah Wonder wants to become one of the first female scientists of the nineteenth century. Her father was a scientist and explorer, but his life was cruelly cut short by an evil Navy captain who coveted his cache of artifacts. Hallelujah feels a great responsibility to protect the objects--particularly a mesmerizing (and dangerous) one called the Medicine Head--before the captain can succeed. Now she and her best friend, a slave boy about to be sold, must set out on a sweeping adventure by land and by sea to the only place where no one will ever be able to find the cursed talisman: the forbidding land of Antarctica.

Outstanding in the Rain by Frank Viva. 32 p. Little, Brown and Company, April 14, 2015. 9780316366274.

Publisher synopsis: Step right up! Step right up to the amusing amusement park!
It's a whole story, and the pages have holes!
Watch the holes transform pictures!
Turn an umbrella into a cake and balloons into ice cream!
See the holes transform words!
Turn an ice man into a nice man and see fork handles turn into four candles!
Outstanding in the Rain will turn any gray day into one that is Grade A!

From the creator of New York Times Best-Illustrated book Along a Long Road and A Long Way Away, picture book master Frank Viva does it again, this time with astounding die-cuts that transform both words and pictures in delightful ways, while telling the story of a young boy spending his birthday at Coney Island, in search of his heart's desire.

Woundabout by Lev Rosen. Illustrated by Ellis Rosen. 269 p. Little, Brown and Company, June 23, 2015. 9780316370783.

Publisher synopsis: Welcome to Woundabout, where routine rules and change is feared. But transformation is in the wind....

In the wake of tragedy, siblings Connor and Cordelia and their pet capybara are sent to the precariously perched town of Woundabout to live with their eccentric aunt. Woundabout is a place where the mayor has declared that routine rules above all, and no one is allowed to as questions--because they should already know the answers.

But Connor and Cordelia can't help their curiosity when they discover a mysterious crank that fits into certain parts of the town, and by winding the crank, places are transformed into something beautiful. When the townspeople see this transformation, they don't see beauty--they only see change. And change, the mayor says, is something to fear. With the mayor hot on their trail, can Connor and Cordelia find a way to wind Woundabout back to life?

No Cover Art

The Book That Proves Time Travel Happens by Henry Clark. 400 p. Little, Brown and Company, April 14, 2015. 9780316406178.

Publisher synopsis: This never-before-seen twist on time travel adventure explores the theme of accepting those who are different--and having the courage to join them. The moment Ambrose Brody steps into a fortune-teller's tent, he is whisked into a quest that spans millennia with his best friend, an enigmatic carnival girl, and an unusual family heirloom that drops them into the middle of the nineteenth century! 

The year 1852 is a dangerous time for three non-white children, and they must work together to dodge slave-catchers and save ancestors from certain death--all while figuring out how to get back to the future. Fortunately, they have a guide in the helpful hints embedded in an ancient Chinese text called the I-Ching, which they interpret using Morse Code. But how can a three-thousand-year-old book be sending messages into the future through a code developed in the 1830s? Find out in this mind-bending, time-bending adventure!

Purchased: I bought these books on my own to add to my school library collection so that a couple of my students would not have to wait. I probably spend way too much of my own money to subsidize my library collection but it tickles me when students get so psyched about books or a series.

The Uprising by Lisa Stasse. The Forsaken book #2. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, July, 2014. 

Publisher synopsis: In this dystopian sequel to The Forsaken, Alenna has survived the brutality of life on the wheel—and now she’s going back for more.

Alenna escaped. It was expected that she would die on the wheel, the island where would-be criminals are sent as directed by the UNA—the totalitarian supercountry that was once the United States, Mexico, and Canada. But Alenna and her boyfriend, Liam, made it to safety. Except safety, they will soon learn, is relative.

In order to bring down the UNA, they must first gain control of the wheel. If the mission succeeds, the wheel will become a base of revolution. But between betrayals, a new Monk leading a more organized army of Drones, and the discovery of a previously unknown contingent, Alenna, Liam, and their allies might be in over their heads. One thing Alenna knows for sure: There will be a reckoning. And not everyone she loves will make it out alive.

The Defiant by Lisa Stasse. The Forsaken book #3. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, July, 2014. 9781442432710.

Publisher synopsis: In this gripping conclusion to The Forsaken Trilogy, Alenna’s loyalties are put the ultimate test—and it’s one of life and death.

Alenna Shawcross and the others who escaped the wheel are working toward an all-out assault on the United Northern Alliance. The plan is to dismantle it from the inside—and Alenna is one of the few people who can access the organization’s inner sanctum. But when she returns to the home she has nearly forgotten, she encounters old friends and is swept into a secret plan that puts everything she loves in danger.

Knowing what is at stake for her and her friends, Alenna ventures into the heart of the treacherous UNA. She’s determined to bring them down, because freedom is the only choice. Or is it?

Heroes of Olympus: Book one: The Lost Hero Graphic Novel by Rick Riordan, Robert Venditti and illustrated by Nathan Powell. Disney-Hyperion, October 7, 2014. 9781423163251.

Publisher synopsis: Jason has a problem. He doesn't remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently she's his girlfriend Piper, his best friend is a kid named Leo, and they're all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for "bad kids." What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong.

Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he's in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn't recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on?

Leo has a way with tools. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What's troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper's gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god.  

The Red Pyramid Graphic Novel by Rick Riordan, Robert Venditti. Disney-Hyperion, October, 2012. 9781423150695.

I actually had this already in the collection but it was stolen borrowed without being checked out.

That's what's new with me. What's new with you? Put a link to your stack in the comments.