When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Miranda knows her mom wants to be on The $20,000 Pyramid.  It’s their ticket out of the dingy apartment.  Miranda’s mom works at a law firm, and her boyfriend Richard, aka Mr. Perfect, works there too.  And everywhere Miranda goes, whether home or school or Belle’s store, she brings her copy of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time with her.  She loves the story of Meg and time travel and rescuing her father.  But when she starts getting mysterious notes, Miranda doesn’t know what’s going on.  She has to unravel the mystery of what the notes mean, who the Laughing Man by the mailbox really is, and what’s going on with her friends.  And the truth is a lot stranger than even Miranda can imagine.

When You Reach Me won the Newberry Medal for 2009.

Review by Kathleen

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Will Henry is an assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a Monstrumologist.  They hunt and study monsters.  So when a villager comes to Warthrop’s door one night carrying a suspicious bundle, Will isn’t too surprised.  But inside the bundle is a dead woman and another creature who, it seems, has been trying to eat her.  The dead creature is completely headless – its eyes are in its shoulders, and its mouth is in its stomach.  Wartrhrop tells Will this is one of the Antrhopophagi.  And they do not hunt alone.  So now it’s up to Warthrop and young Will Henry to track down the rest of these creatures before they strike again.

The Monstrumologist won the Printz Honor Award for 2009.

Review by Kathleen

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Helmuth  Hubner is seventeen years old when he is imprisoned by Nazis for distributing propoganda during World War II.  A former member of Hitler Youth, he now faces execution for his crimes of bringing the truth to the German people during the war.  This is his story.  And the facts behind the story are true.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti charts the rise of the Nazi party in Germany through the eyes of a boy, showing how Hitler came to power by bits and pieces. 

Review by Kathleen

Nobody’s Princess by Esther Friesner

Odds are you’ve heard of Helen of Troy, “the face that launched a thousand ships.”  She’s the quintesential “most beautiful woman in the world.”  But was she more than pretty?  How did she feel about everyone always thinking she was just pretty and a prize to be won?  Esther Friesner is known for her butt-kicking female characters (she’s the editor of the Chicks in Chainmail anthologies), and she puts her spin on Helen (of Troy)’s early life. 

Review by Kathleen

Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer

Mary Faber is an orphan trying to survive on London’s streets when she literally stumbles across the body of her group’s leader.  Not wanting to meet the same fate, she takes his clothes and his knife and runs away, dressing herself as a boy to stay safer on her journey.  When she reaches the shore, she finds a navy vessel looking for ship’s boys, and “Jacky” is hired on.  Life becomes rough, keeping up “the Deception,” especially with her changing body, and her increasing desire for one of the other ship’s boys. 

Bloody Jack is the first book in the Jacky Faber series by L. A. Meyer.

Review by Kathleen

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

Isabel lives with her epileptic sister Ruth on Miss Mary Finch’s farm when the old woman dies.  Miss Mary had promised Isabel that when she died, Isabel and her sister would be freed from slavery, but Mary’s nephew Robert has other ideas.  He claims not to be able to locate the will, and says the lawyer is out-of-town, so, in an effort to expedite the sale of the estate, he decides to sell off Isabel and Ruth.  Thus begins their harrowing journey to New York and into the midst of the Revolutionary War.

Laurie Halse Anderson is a masterful storyteller, and, I have on very good authority, wonderful in person (she sang “Happy Birthday” to a friend of mine at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in 2009).  She was the 2009 winner of the Margaret A. Edwards award for body of work in young adult literature.

Be careful with this book, though, because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Review by Kathleen

Remember As You Pass Me By by L. King Perez

Silvy is about to turn twelve.  Her mom and grandma are throwing a party for her, but they won’t let Silvy invite her best friend Mabelee.  It’s 1953 in Texas and Mabelee is African-American.  Silvy and Mabelee go to different schools, face different pressures, and both of their families are caught up in the battles of segregation, desegregation, Brown vs. Board of Education and the “separate but equal” ruling, and institutionalized racism of the 1950s South.

Remember As You Pass Me By is good for middle grade and younger teen readers.

Review by Kathleen

A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

A Curse Dark as Gold is a retelling of the Rumplestiltkin folktale.  Charlotte Miller is ophaned with her sister when her father’s heart gives out, and the girls are left to manage the Stirwater Mill in Shearing by themselves.  Charlotte thinks that she’ll be able to pay the bills and the employees, but then a banker shows up with a notice that her father took out a mortgage on the mill and if she doesn’t pay the balance in full, the bank will foreclose on the mill.  The townsfolk think the mill is cursed.  Charlotte has little patience for country superstitions, but when her sister performs a ritual that summons a man who offers to spin straw to gold to help the girls make a down payment on the mortgage, things are less clear cut for Charlotte.

This retelling does what few versions of the original archetype do – it gives a name and identity to the miller’s daughter in such a predicament, and it uncovers a possible reason as to why Rumplestiltskin would want her newborn son.

A Curse Dark As Gold was honored with the 2009 William C. Morris Young Adult Debut award, and it was named a Smithsonian Notable Book for Children, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Kansas Notable Book, a 2008 Cyblis Award finalist, and it was awarded a Blue Ribbon from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.

You can visit Elizabeth C. Bunce’s website at http://www.elizabethcbunce.com.

Review by Kathleen