Reviews written by Kristie Lowry, Promotions Manager

HEARTACHE AND OTHER NATURAL SHOCKS by Glenda Leznoff was an unexpected surprise. Set in 1970s Canada, Jules Epstein and Carla Cabrielli are teen girls who are navigating all of the usual high school stuff. Jules is new to the school they both attend having recently moved from Montreal, and Carla...

Sadie Kingston is a high school student who has survived the car accident that killed one of her best friends. She has physical and mental scars from the crash, and she has removed herself from almost everything and everyone she found important before the accident. Let me...

Sammie McCoy is a high school senior who is going places. She made a plan for herself as she started high school, and she has followed her dreams with unwavering focus. Sammie has managed to check off a lot of the items on her lifetime to-do list, and though she...

WISHING DAY by Lauren Myracle is the first in a trilogy about three sisters and the wishes they make as part of a family and town tradition. The tradition is that on the third night of the third month after a thirteenth birthday, a girl living in Willow Hill may...

BELLA UP, UP, AND AWAY is written and illustrated by Ryan O’Rourke. Bella is a cat who lives in a lighthouse, and she loves to go and explore. She meets up with Claude and invites him to go adventuring with her, but Claude is a lazier feline than Bella, and...

THE ANTS GO MARCHING is a count-and-sing book by Priscilla Burris in which the ants in the title rush to “save” a picnic before it is ruined by rain. The book opens with a few silvery raindrops and two ants, and the rain and number of ants steadily increases as...

Twelve-year-old Phoebe Plumm lives a privileged life as the daughter of Jules Plumm, an executive of The Foundry—a company that produces all items of mechanical and technological worth available in the world. While waiting for Jules to return from business trips, Phoebe spends her time playing tricks on the people...

“The first time Uncle Charlie came to live with us he was alive. The second time he came, he was dead.” With that awesome opening Avi begins the story of Tony Gilbert, a 6th grader who had only seen his odd Uncle Charlie at family reunions until he comes to...

Hope Walton is understandably crushed when her mother is missing and presumed dead after an earthquake overseas. Hope's mom, Sarah, was her teacher, friend, and ally, and Sarah kept Hope well insulated from the rest of the world as she trained Hope to manage her photographic memory and many anxieties....