Reviews written by Angela Blount

Don’t let the name intimidate you—this guide is as extensive as it is accessible. The book features 111 pleasingly well laid out pages, each with full-color imagery worthy of Pinterest. There are plenty of quick tips, interesting facts, detailed instructions, and even a few recipes. The writing...

This durable hardback presents a sizable collection of perfectly clean kid’s jokes. There are anywhere from 3-6 jokes per page (254 pages total), with simple grayscale background images of kids, cars, roads, and semi-random objects. Types of jests include knock-knock, play on words, and Riddle Puns. ...

A well-arranged, highly portable collection of kid-friendly jokes. This little paperback book of road trip ready humor is 128 pages long, and each page contains anywhere from 1 to 5 jokes. In addition to the knock-knock jokes, puns, and riddles, the material includes activities such as a...

A dystopian-leaning mid-apocalyptic YA with a pandemic premise and a code savvy heroine. The book takes place in a slightly alternate version of the present-day U.S., several years after a catastrophic presumed terror attack (referred to as the Blackout Bombing.) Thousands of people died and those responsible...

As approachable as it is pragmatic, this college primer could largely double as a bite-sized approach to post high school transitions. (Essentially, Adulting 101.) This handbook is a quick read composed of 119 pages, broken into 4 sections (Campus Life, Academic Success, Social Skills, and Financial Aid),...

This story is told in first-person present-tense entirely from the POV of Madeline, who is turning eighteen in the first chapter. Maddy has lived her entire life isolated in the protective confines of her home, thanks to a condition that’s left her without a functional immune system. She has a...

Haunting and hopeful. The bombing one of the last working bakeries in the city of Sarajevo might have been remembered as just one more senseless act of violence at the height of a terrible ethnic war, if not for the venerable tribute of a lone cellist. The...

Rika Kuroi (Jet) has led an unusual and isolated life. Half Japanese and half Caucasian-American, she’s grown up on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico under the care of her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, J-Bird. Her mother has been relentlessly training her all her life, in secret wilderness sessions,...

A Middle Grade fantasy with some dystopian and supernatural appeal. The island of Edgeland sits on the very fringe of the known world. It is the last stop for the dead, before their very literal descent into what is believed to be a sort of...

A quick and comical read, rife with sarcasm. A particular plankton is used to eliciting a response from every sea creature it encounters. So when a mulish muscle refuses to respond to its greeting, the plankton can’t just let it go. First the plankton gets louder. Then...

A touching memorandum and homage to the armed forces—wrapped in a gentle and beautifully illustrated teaching tool. The premise is simple. A young boy travels cross-country with his beloved grandfather to Washington DC, where they attend the Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom. His simple-yet-poignant understanding of why...

A stirring, tuneful tale of familial ties—those that bind and those that constrain. This contemporary Middle Grade book is told almost entirely from the third-person past-tense perspective of Clayton Byrd, a young boy who lives in New York City with his willfully single mother and his...

An enthralling and vital YA read—boldly tackling issues of mental and relational health within a compelling narrative. Jessa Gray has been broken on the inside ever since her parent’s divorce, when her father moved several states away and her mother quickly remarried. While her mother was busy...

For fans of the Shopkins phenomenon, this product has a lot going for it. Vibrant, cheerful, and devastatingly cutsie. This activity book is composed of 85 pages worth of coloring, mazes, connect-the-dots, drawing prompts, writing prompts, color-by-numbers, word finds, puzzles, spot-the-differences, and of course stickers–along with several...

A fun new read for LEGO and NEXO Knights fans. Following the same format as others in the NEXO Knights starter-level chapter books series, this 80-page read features large font, with 3D rendered stills from the TV show featured on nearly every page. The pacing is quick,...