Reviews written by Kristie Lowry, Promotions Manager

Rose Mannering has written a terrific retelling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST that kept me flipping pages until I came to the end of the story in a breathless rush. As with most retellings, the story arc isn’t a surprise, so it’s up to the author to find a way...

Shane Woods is focused on baseball, writing and illustrating a graphic novel, and balancing time between his best friend and his new maybe-girlfriend. He’s a typical twelve-year-old boy in most ways, but when one of the other kids at his school learns something that Shane has been trying to keep...

Rory Swenson has been keeping a list of things she'll be allowed to do once she turns twelve, and although she's sure her parents have forgotten a lot of the things they've promised over the years, she has the documentation to prove that they agreed to a variety of things....

Phoebe Plumm and Micah Tanner return in the second book of an action-packed series by Cam Baity and Benn Zelkowicz. THE SECOND BOOK OF ORE: WAYBOUND has Phoebe and Micah primed for a quest. The two are asked to seek the Occulyth—something the Covenant hopes will be the key to...

NO USE FOR A NAME by Penelope Wright is the author’s debut contemporary young adult novel about fifteen-year-old “Baby” Anderson and her tumultuous sophomore year of high school. The book opens with Baby going to get her driver’s permit and discovering that she has been called...

GRIDLEY GIRLS by Meredith First follows Meg Monahan and her friends as they navigate 9th grade during the 1978-79 school year. Scenes from the past are juxtaposed with those showing grown-up Meg et al. as they all manage life as forty-somethings, and there are some similarities between the dilemmas faced...

A MILLION WAYS HOME by Dianna Dorisi Winget is a book about Poppy Parker, a little girl with a lot of very big problems. Her parents died when she was a baby. The grandmother with whom Poppy lives has had a stroke and is in the hospital, and Poppy’s living...

In the middle grades novel ALLIE, FIRST AT LAST, Allie Velasco's family is full of winners. Her mom is an award-winning newscaster. Her older sister is a champion debater. Her brother is a soccer star. Her younger sister is an actress and model. And her great-grandfather (Bisabuelo) won the Congressional...

"What this bedtime needs is a pig in a wig ... " and so begins a fun bedtime story that makes me think that every picture book should have a pig in a wig! The pig in a wig starts her bedtime routine off in the normal...

Bizzy is a strange bird, and Dill is a not-so-odd duck (at least that's what he tells himself). The two of them frolic through the pages of this fun picture book that is filled with happy illustrations. Bizzy embraces being a strange bird, and she's looking for...

Riven, the title character in Amalie Howard's THE ALMOST GIRL, is a teenager from another world and a warrior. She has been sent to Earth to retrieve the brother of her king so that he can help the king survive a seemingly terminal disease. Cale is the king and Caden...

LOIS LANE by Gwenda Bond is a book that has been on my to-read list for a while, and I was terrified to start it because I was afraid of disappointment. In LOIS LANE, we meet Lois as a teenager starting a new school and resolving...

Elizabeth Fama sets her novel, PLUS ONE, in a segregated world where half of the population lives and works in the daytime hours, and the other half is assigned to do the same in the nighttime. Sol, the feisty heroine, is a night dweller--or Smudge--and she is about to lose...

At the beginning of THE 13TH SIGN, Jalen doesn't believe in astrology's impact on human's lives; however, she's forced to reassess that belief when she unwittingly unlocks the 13th sign of the zodiac, Ophiuchus, and causes the personalities of everyone to change. Those changes will become permanent unless Jalen--with the...

I don't tend to enjoy nonfiction, so I love it when an author takes the time to do excellent research and then composes a work of fiction that is readable, enjoyable, and accurate. Kristin Tubb has done just that with her middle-grade novel "Selling Hope," based on the passing of...