Saturday, May 16, 2020

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:
Image: Peachtree Publishing
The Candy Mafia by Lavie Tidhar. Illustrated by Daniel Duncan. 300 p. Peachtree Publishing Company, September 1, 2020. 9781682631973.

Publisher synopsis: In a city where candy is a crime and sugar is scandalous, Nelle Faulker is a 12-year-old private detective looking for her next client.

When notorious candy gangster Eddie de Menthe asks for her help to find a missing teddy bear, Nelle Faulkner is on the case. But as soon as the teddy turns up, Eddie himself goes missing! As a seemingly innocent investigation unravels into something more sinister, Nelle and her friends quickly find themselves swept up in a shady underworld of sweets smugglers, back alley deals, and storefront firebombs.

If Nelle has any hope of tracking down her missing client, first she’ll have to unmask the true faces behind the smuggling ring. Can Nelle and her friends find a way to take the cake? Or will they come to a sticky end…?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets Bugsy Malone in this page-turning mystery from World Fantasy Award-winning author Lavie Tidhar. With moody spot illustrations by Daniel Duncan, readers will be sucked into the action-packed narrative as Nelle pulls the curtain back on the black market candy rings.



Image: Candlewick Press
Kids Fight Plastic: how to be a #2minutesuperhero by Martin Dorey. Illustrated by Tim Wesson. 128 p. Candlewick Press, September 8, 2020. 9781536212778.

Publisher synopsis: Every kid can be a superhero, fighting plastic waste at home, at school, and in their community. This engaging guide is chockfull of facts, vibrant art, graphics, and #2minutesuperhero missions—practical ways to take action now. Some ideas may spring to mind right away, such as picking up trash. Others are surprising, such as learning to cook with fresh ingredients or mending clothes. Readers will learn not only how to combat plastic waste head-on, but how to advocate for a cleaner world, beginning at home. Anti-plastic campaigner Martin Dorey brings both extensive experience and boundless enthusiasm to this essential book for young people who want to create a better world.

Kids can become ocean-saving superheroes with these plastic-fighting missions from best-selling author and environmental champion Martin Dorey.


Image: Candlewick Press
Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka. 318 p Candlewick Press, October 13, 2020. 9781536207767.

Publisher synopsis: A teenage girl wonders if she’s inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves—which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.) And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize. Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she’s experiencing? As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew—about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.


Image: Candlewick Press
Beauty Mark: a verse novel of Marilyn Monroe by Carole Boston Weatherford.186 p. Candlewick Press, September 8, 2020. 9781536206296.

Publisher synopsis: In a powerful novel in verse, an award-winning author offers an eye-opening look at the life of Marilyn Monroe.

From the day she was born into a troubled home to her reigning days as a Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe (née Norma Jeane Mortenson) lived a life that was often defined by others. Here, in a luminous poetic narrative, acclaimed author Carole Boston Weatherford tells Marilyn’s story in a way that restores her voice to its rightful place: center stage. Revisiting Marilyn’s often traumatic early life—foster homes, loneliness, sexual abuse, teen marriage—through a hard-won, meteoric rise to stardom that brought with it exploitation, pill dependency, and depression, the lyrical narrative continues through Marilyn’s famous performance at JFK’s birthday party, three months before her death. In a story at once riveting, moving, and unflinching, Carole Boston Weatherford tells a tale of extraordinary pain and moments of unexpected grace, gumption, and perseverance, as well as the inexorable power of pursuing one’s dreams. A beautifully designed volume.


Image: Candlewick Press
All Thirteen: the incredible cave rescue of the Thai boys' soccer team by Christina Soontornvat. 280 p. Candlewick Press, October 13, 2020. 9781536209457

Publisher synopsis: A unique account of the amazing Thai cave rescue told in a heart-racing, you-are-there style that blends suspense, science, and cultural insight.

On June 23, 2018, twelve young players of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach enter a cave in northern Thailand seeking an afternoon’s adventure. But when they turn to leave, rising floodwaters block their path out. The boys are trapped! Before long, news of the missing team spreads, launching a seventeen-day rescue operation involving thousands of rescuers from around the globe. As the world sits vigil, people begin to wonder: how long can a group of ordinary kids survive in complete darkness, with no food or clean water? Luckily, the Wild Boars are a very extraordinary "ordinary" group. Combining firsthand interviews of rescue workers with in-depth science and details of the region's culture and religion, author Christina Soontornvat—who was visiting family in Northern Thailand when the Wild Boars went missing—masterfully shows how both the complex engineering operation above ground and the mental struggles of the thirteen young people below proved critical in the life-or-death mission. Meticulously researched and generously illustrated with photographs, this page-turner includes an author’s note describing her experience meeting the team, detailed source notes, and a bibliography to fully immerse readers in the most ambitious cave rescue in history.


Purchased:
Image: Cornell Publishing Group
Plastic Sea: a bird's-eye view by Kirsti Blom and Geir Wing Gabrielsen. 62 p. The Cornell Publishing Group/ WunderMill Inc., April, 2020. 9781943645503.

Publisher synopsis: Plastic garbage knows no borders. In the sea, it floats on ocean currents and makes its way around the globe, threatening seabirds and animals that eat it by mistake and are sometimes caught in plastic waste. Told from the perspective of a Northern Fulmar, a seabird that lives across the oceans of the northern hemisphere, Plastic Sea: A Bird’s-eye View uses the most up-to-date science to offer insight into a growing environmental crisis with global implications. If we continue to waste as much plastic as we do today, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. Fortunately, there are actions we can take as individuals and as a global community to reduce plastic waste in our oceans. Plastic Sea is an invitation to give seabirds, animals, and the Earth itself a chance to thrive again.

I learned about this book at a terrific webinar presented by the U of T Trash Team!


Image: DC Comics
Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang. Art by Gurihiru. 240 p. DC, May 12, 2020. 9781779504210.

Publisher synopsis: The year is 1946, and the Lee family has moved from Metropolis' Chinatown to the center of the bustling city. While Dr. Lee is greeted warmly in his new position at the Metropolis Health Department, his two kids, Roberta and Tommy, are more excited about being closer to their famous hero, Superman!

Inspired by the 1940s Superman radio serial “Clan of the Fiery Cross” and drawn by Gurihiru, Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints, The Terrifics, New Super-Man) brings us his personal retelling of the adventures of the Lee family as they team up with Superman to smash the Klan!


If you leave a comment, leave the link to your stack. I will pop by and to check out your stack!

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