January
1. Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar (1/2)
2. Claymates by Dev Petty Illustrator debut - Lauren Eldridge (1/30)
February (1)
3. The Someday Birds by Sally Pla (2/27)*
March (0)
April (2)
4. Felix Yz by Lisa Bunker (4/7)
5. The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya (4/16)
List of Cages
May (1)
6. A Different Pond by Bao Phi (5/26) (Picture book debut)
June (1)
7. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandyha Menon (6/10)
July (6)
8. See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng
9. Matylda Bright and Tender by Holly McGhee (7/10)*(MG debut)
10. Not Quite Narwal by Jessie Sima (7/11)
11. The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas (7/16)*
12. Lemons by Melissa Savage (7/19)
13. Side Tracked by Diana Harmon Asher (7/24)*
August (6)
14. Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines by Jeanne Walker Harvey (8/6) (Illustrator debut - Dow Phumiruk)
15. The Adventures of Henry Whiskers by Gigi Priebe (8/7)
16. Invisible Emmie by Terri Libenson (8/20)
17. This is Really Happening by Erin Chack (8/23)
18. Between Two Skies by Joanne O'Sullivan (8/24)*
19. The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti (8/26)
September (3)
20. Thornhill by Pam Say (9/3)
21. The Adventurers Guild by Zack Loren Clark and Nick Eliopulos (9/11)*
22. Hook's Tale: being the account of an unjustly villainized pirate written by himself by John Leonard Pielmeier (9/20)*
October (0)
November (3)
23. Every Shiny Thing by Cordelia Jensen & Laurie Morrison (Morrison's debut)(11/12)
24. The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson (11/12)*
25. Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin (11/29) (Serlin's debut)
November (1)
26. Uncommon Type: some stories by Tom Hanks (12/16)
December (0)
Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin. 191 p. Scholastic Press/ Scholastic Inc., February 27, 2018. 9781338180619. (Review from arc courtesy of publisher.)
Brian Selznick and debut author, David Serlin does for the Early Reader set what Selznick did for reluctant/ struggling/ dormant readers with his "brick" books* starting with The Inventions of Hugo Cabret. That is, gives those readers the thrill of reading a "big book" that is also accessible to them.
Oh. My. God! This is such an adorable book! Plus, it has all the hallmarks of a quality Early/ Easy Reader - large font, plenty of white space and repetition. Knock, knock, Geisel Committee, are you listening?
It goes without saying that belief must be suspended what with Baby Monkey setting up shop as a hard-boiled detective (apparently with a rotating set of office interiors) and the inexplicable ease with which he nabs the culprits. Suspend that belief baby, cuz this one's a keeper! Also, peel your peepers over those office re-dos. They are gold!
Baby Monkey is utterly appealing. He loves to read. He listens really carefully to his clients. He takes notes. He eats his snacks. Then wrestles his pants on in order to set out to find the bad guy. Honestly, he spends more time getting his pants on than it takes to actually nab the perp. It's all so-o damn cute!
I'm in a middle school and plan on buying this gem. Not only will Selznick's fans want to take a look at this, I think it should find a home in the ELL classroom as well as replacement and cooperative ed teachers who may need an appealing book to entice below grade-level readers.
In short, Baby Monkey, Private Eye is a first-purchase! And, if you are not sold by my humble review, check out this Scholastic Preview.
*I will never forget the look on the first (and then every) reluctant reader that I showed this book to. "What? I can't read that!" Gets them every time!
Between Two Skies by Joanne O'Sullivan. 272 p. Candlewick Press, April, 2017. 9780763690342. (Purchased)
Teen Tuesday features Between Two Skies by Joanne O'Sullivan. This debut is set in a tiny fishing village in Louisiana on the gulf coast before and after Hurricane Katrina decimated the area in 2005. Evangeline Riley is turning sixteen and loves nothing more than to glide out onto the water on her skiff and fish. Her sister is more interested in cheerleading and boys and can't wait to flee their tiny town. When they have to evacuate in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, their world is turned upside down as their town is nearly destroyed, and their friends scatter to different parts of the country. This evocative novel has a strong sense of place and a sweet romance.
The Adventures of Henry Whiskers by Gigi Priebe. Illustrated by Daniel Duncan. 160 p. Aladdin/ Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, January, 2017. 9781481465748. (Finished paperback.)
The Long Way Home by Gigi Priebe. Illustrate by Daniel Duncan. The Adventures of Henry Whiskers #2. 160 p. Aladdin/ Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, August, 2017. 9781481465779. (Arc and finished ppb courtesy of Blue Slip Media)
Henry Whiskers lives in the storage bins of Queen Mary's Dollhouse with his family. Twenty-five generations of Whiskers have lived there. Henry's most favorite room in the house is the library, making him instantly endearing to this librarian. According to Whisker history, it was Prince George himself who installed the first Henry Whiskers in the dollhouse. Henry's mother has one hard and fast rule. That is not to be seen by any of the caretakers of the dollhouse. "If they find one of us, they will look for all of us." But other dangers lurk besides humans. There are rats and an evil cat. When Henry's little sister Isabelle goes missing. He must summon all his courage and set out with his cousin and best friend, Jeremy to find her.
There's plenty of action, humor and suspense in these short chapters to keep newly fluent readers turning pages. Black and white cartoonish art depicts the mice in old-fashioned clothes and the automobiles are vintage.
In Henry Whiskers' second adventure, he finds a mysterious map with an X on it. He wants to go exploring with Jeremy but they end up being caught in the kitchens of Windsor Castle and instead of being exterminated, they are dumped in a park some distance from the castle. Now, they need to find their way back. They encounter strange mice, one of whom knew Henry's father. Henry learns his father had an adventure outside the castle as well. He must deal with a storm at sea (a fountain) and a hungry bird of prey before making his way back with his best pal.
Priebe keeps the action brisk and Duncan's spot art provides the visuals. This edition provides a photograph of the real dollhouse at the end of the book. This series is sure to intrigue newly fluent chapter book readers or would make for a fun elementary read aloud.
Side Tracked by Diana Harmon Asher. 233 p. Amulet Books/ Abrams, August 22, 2017. 9781419726019. (Review from arc obtained courtesy of the publisher at ALAAC)
Joseph Friedman is the narrator of this winning debut. He begins seventh grade hiding from the soccer ball in gym class because he knows Charlie Kastner's going to find a way to mow him down. Just as that's about to happen, Charlie ends up on the ground and the ball is stolen by a new girl who runs fast. She runs so fast, no one can catch up with her. After she hip-checks the only player between her and the goal and makes the goal, there is no cheering. In fact, some students are hostile and the gym teacher's only response is to suggest that she try out for the school's soccer team. For some reason, this new girl is on the outs immediately. But, while Joseph's strategy is to lie as low as possible, Heather's is to fight back.
Joseph's only respite is Mrs. T., short for Teitelbaum in the resource room. Mrs. T. understands his ADD and the variety of phobias and quirks that plague Joseph and make him a bully magnet. She helps him with strategies and suggestions. Her suggestion on the first day of seventh grade is that Joseph join the brand new cross country team. Joseph has no interest in running and his objection that he's the slowest kid in the seventh grade does not sway Mrs. T., so Joseph signs up for cross country. Turns out, Heather joins cross country as well and the two form a friendship. It also helps that Mrs. T. is the coach and that several students from the resource room are on the team.
There's a lot to like here - colorful characters, authentic middle school situations, the ins and outs of cross-country running, and dialogue that rings true. Give this to students who like gentle reads, books about unlikely friendships, books about running and fans of Jordan Sonnenblick. In fact, I think that Maverick from Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade and Joseph would become friends in the real world.
I can't wait to booktalk this when school starts.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Unabridged audiobook on 10 compact discs; 11.75 hours. Read by Bahni Turpin. Harper Audio, February, 2017. 9781470827137. (Review from audiobook borrowed from public library. Print copy purchased.)
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter lives in Garden Heights but attends a private school about 45 minutes away. Her father is an ex-gangbanger and ex-con but owns a grocery store in the neighborhood. Her mother is a nurse who works in a neighborhood clinic. They are committed to the neighborhood, but after Starr witnesses the murder of her best friend, Natasha in a drive-by shooting at age ten, her parents made the decision to remove their three children from the public school. Their family is not perfect, but is intact and striving.
Starr talks about straddling two worlds with her two personas; her private school persona and her neighborhood one. She also has a white boyfriend, which her daddy doesn't know about. Her private school friends and boyfriend have never been to Garden Heights. This delicate balance is disrupted when Starr reluctantly attends a neighborhood party. She's catching up with Khalil, a childhood friend and former crush, when gunshots ring out. Khalil grabs her hand and the two flee in his car. When they are pulled over, Starr recalls the rules her daddy drilled into her. But Khalil questions the officer. Starr focuses on the badge number - 115 and is terrified, especially when Khalil is dragged out of the car by an increasingly agitated 115. When Khalil ducks back into the car to check on Starr, 115 shoots him in the back. Three times.
This remarkable debut sucked me into Starr's world immediately and I was sorry to leave it. The setting is so vividly evoked and while a specific city was never mentioned, it could be anywhere. All the characters are so memorable! Even minor characters are so fully fleshed out that I feel I could recognize them. While tragedy is never far away, there are hilarious moments that provide respite. I listened to 4/5 (8 of 10 discs) of it and finished the book reading with my eyes. If you have never experienced a performance by Bahni Turpin, this is a great place to start. She has a remarkable range of voices, which added depth to an already deep and important book.
The Hate U Give has received a remarkable six starred reviews and has spent quite a number of weeks on the NYT best seller list. (Should "best seller list" be capitalized?) The book was on my tbr pile for quite awhile. I would get to it eventually, but what made me move it up on the pile was an eighth grader. One day toward the end of the school year, I got a inter-classroom phone call from the eighth grade science teacher who asked if I was busy/ had a class. I was not, so she told me that she had a student dying to talk to me about a book and could she come up? Absolutely! The library is on the second floor and the science classroom is on the first. She must've run from the classroom because she arrived in seconds, panting and attempting to tell me why I HAD to read this book once she learned that I had not yet read it. I take student recommendations very seriously and intended to crack the book open sooner rather than later, when I heard that Bahni Turpin was the narrator for the audio. I ordered it through Inter-Library Loan (ILL) and waited and waited. The audiobook was worth the wait and while the performance was incredible, I HAD to find out how it ended and couldn't sit through the last two discs to find out. I was so glad I had the book to finish reading it without needing to drive somewhere.
The Hate U Give lives up to the hype. It is, if not the most, one of the most important books of 2017. It is intense and timely and wholly influential. I expect it will be life-changing to all teen readers who discover it and I expect to do my part to get it into as many hands as possible.
See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng. Unabridged audiobook on 5 compact discs; 6 hours, 10 minutes. Performed by Kivlighan de Montebello and a full cast. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, February, 2017. 978152470008. (Review from purchased copy.)
See You in the Cosmos is the "transcript" of the golden iPod recordings of eleven-year-old (older in responsibility age) Alex Petrosky. Alex lives with his mother in Colorado and supported long-distance by a much older brother who lives in LA. His father died when Alex was very young. He is obsessed with space and Carl Sagan. He even named the dog he convinced his uninvolved, apparently mentally ill mother (she has "quiet days") to keep, Carl Sagan. He has built a rocket, which he hopes to launch in New Mexico at SHARF, Southwest High-Altitude Rocket Festival. Alex plans on loading these iPod recordings onto his rocket and send it into space the way the Voyager II rockets did in 1977.
He has planned the trip with precision - purchased a train ticket, cooked and labeled all the meals his mom would need and packed for the weekend. What he hadn't planned on was the need to be sixteen to travel alone on the train. The ticket agent doesn't buy his responsibility years but a free-spirited young man, wearing a backpack, offers to pose as his big brother in order to get Alex and Carl Sagan on the train.
Alex is bright, open, innocent and filled with curiosity. He is also preternaturally competent as the reader infers this from his offhand comments about his unusual home life. He really is suffering from neglect and social services should've been called a long time ago.
The best thing about this audiobook is that Alex is voiced by a kid! Finally! Even though there are a handful of adult narrators who can pull off a kid narrator, it sure was refreshing to hear a real live kid do the job. I hope there are more audiobook narrations in Kivlighan de Montebello's future. He is a terrific actor/ narrator. He really brings Alex to vivid life.
Belief needs to be suspended big-time here for as much as Alex planned, lots and lots of things go wrong for him. He is far too trusting, and lucky. Or not, poor Carl Sagan. And the adults he runs into have a few screws loose, harmless, thankfully; they possess no real sense of responsibility or common sense. But, it makes for quite the road trip and, somehow, works.
I am glad I chose to read it with my ears because I think the audio format, with its multiple narrators and sound effects, is perfect. The structure was unique and Alex is a winning character.
Give this quirky book to kids who like sad books with a spunky main character and to kids who, like Alex, are interested in astronomy in general, or the Voyager rockets in particular. It's the 40th anniversary of the launch of the two Voyager rockets. This book reminded me that I had another book to read on the old tbr pile. I thought the two would make for a terrific fiction/ non-fiction pairing - Voyager's Greatest Hits: the epic trek to interstellar space by Alexandra Siy. Look for the review tomorrow.
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya. 239 p. Viking/ Penguin Young Readers Group, May 16, 2017. 9781101997239.
Thirteen-year-old Arturo Zamora lives and works with his large extended family. They own and run a Cuban American restaurant, La Cocina de la Isla, walking distance from the apartment complex where they all live. Arturo's grandmother, and founder of the restaurant, is the glue that holds the family together. She founded the restaurant with her now deceased husband and has recently passed the reins of running the restaurant to Arturo's mother. Arturo's family gathers at the restaurant each Sunday for dinner where they engage in spirited conversation and bicker good-naturedly. The clan is hosting a new addition for the summer. Carmen and her father have moved into the complex. Arturo views her as family and is confused by the sudden rush of feelings for her. Arturo has two best friends, who will be off to separate camps for the summer soon while Arturo begins work at the restaurant as a junior dishwasher.
Arturo is an endearing narrator and clearly adores his family, especially his Abuela. He's also charmingly awkward with Carmen. When Wilfredo Pipo invades the restaurant to introduce himself one day, everyone takes an instant dislike to him and his oily ways, even Abuela, who likes everyone.
Turns out, they have good reason to suspect Pipo, he plans on gentrifying the neighbor and La Cocina de la Isla is not on the blueprints. He's pushing them out. What's more, the rest of the neighborhood seems charmed by the idea. Arturo's aunt wants to do something and Arturo's mother has a more wait and see attitude. Arturo's scared and he and Carmen team up to get to the bottom of things.
There's a lot to like about this debut. It's a gentle story of family, connection and growing up. Reading it was like being enfolded into Abuela's warm hug. It was like meeting a family for the first time but feeling like I've know them forever. Arturo's voice is earnest and awkward and at times, hilarious but always genuine.
Felix Yz by Lisa Bunker. 286 p. Viking/ Penguin Young Readers Group, June 6, 2017. 9781524775254. (Review from arc courtesy of publisher.)
This book is Felix Yz's (pronounced "iz") blog. He's counting down the days to Zero Day when he will undergo "the Procedure" where he will be separated from Zyx (rhymes with six). Zyx is an alien from the fourth dimension who was accidentally fused with Felix when he was three-year-old in a science experiment gone horribly wrong. His scientist father was killed in the accident and Felix was in a coma for quite a while. He lives with his mother, sister and Grandy, a grandparent who is gender fluid. Grandy spends three days a week identifying as female and goes by the name Vera. Then she spends three days a week identifying as male and answers to the name Vern. On the seventh day, "vo stays in veir room and doesn't eat and doesn't talk and doesn't wear any clothes and meditates all day." (p. 19)
Felix is understandably, very worried about the Procedure. If he does not have it, he and Zyx will die. If he does, there's a good chance one or both of them will die. He types in his blog, which is secret, to sort out his feelings about all this. He likes Zyx (mostly) despite the fact that their fusion results in Felix's inability to communicate normally as well as some fine and gross motor difficulties. All of which make him a target for bullying at school.
Felix is an endearing character and his voice is at once wholly unique and so like a twelve-year-old. He pours his heart out, then dances around painful topics only to circle back again. Interspersed in his musings and reveries are Zyx's comments. Zyx learned English, more or less, thanks to Grandy's running commentary as she sat vigil beside Felix while he was in a coma.
There is so much grief here. Felix and his family are close and loving and as fragile as they are strong. Were I to enumerate all the "issues" this wondrous tale covers, you'd be rolling your eyes. Yet, somehow, it works. There's a first crush, mom's boyfriend, Grandy, a sister's loss, chess, webcomics, a comic con, and more, packed into the 29 days before Felix's separation from Zyx.
And then there's Zyx - a being trapped in an alien dimension struggling to understand his human and humanity. He? She? Felix settles on the pronoun "vo" becaue Zyx cannot be fully described. He is incapable of understanding sarcasm and loves Felix unconditionally.
There will be tears folks. Many, many tears. Not ugly crying but a steady stream of tears to blink away while trying to read towards the end. It's achingly beautiful. Thoughtful readers will come away changed by Felix, Zyx and all the possibilities. Please don't miss this unique and utterly compelling debut.
