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The writing life is one focus for Francisco X. Stork in his recent novel One Last Chance to Live. It tells the story of Nico Kardos who wishes to be a great writer. However, Stork’s book is also a murder mystery that explores the purpose of life. Seventeen-year-old Nico is finishing his senior year at Stonebridge Charter School in Hunts Point, New York, and his writing teacher Mr. Cortazar has assigned the class the task of writing 500 words per day in their journals. The practice is intended to teach self-knowledge, which “will make you a better person and a better writer” (18), according toRead More →

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Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow tells a poignant story about domestic violence and the impacts of unmanaged anger. Harlow’s novel features Ella Graham, a senior at North Davis High School in Georgia. She is a living ghost girl after losing her best friend, Hayley Miller, in a car accident. Because Ella had been driving and had consumed a single beer, she blames herself for the accident and the loss of her friend. As Ella struggles to go on with her life, she finds solace in Hayley’s former boyfriend, Sawyer Hawkins, who is similarly suffering. Having also loved Hayley, Sawyer knows Ella’s pain. AsRead More →

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Fierce, determined, proud, and furious, Leto wants to be remembered as extraordinary. Instead, at seventeen years old, she becomes one of the twelve girls sacrificed to appease the raging sea and to abate Poseidon’s wrath so that others in Ithaca can prosper. Only, Leto doesn’t die. She washes up on the shores of the island Pandou where Melantho introduces her to a mission: In order to break the curse and to save other girls from the annual hanging ritual, the Prince of Ithaca—who gives the orders for the deaths—must die. However, once Leto and Melantho reach the shores of Itaca under a ruse, they discoverRead More →

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E. Lockhart pens a haunting story in Family of Liars. She not only shares how unearned privilege can lead to “terrible things on top of terrible things” but how those with resources often get a pass: “They assume that girls like us—educated girls from a ‘good family’—they assume we are telling the truth. We get the benefit of the doubt, the assumption of innocence, conferred by our family name” (277). Tucked in the telling, though, Lockhart also shares how messy and miserable that “pretending, lying, trying to have a good time” (219) can become. Because Carrie Sinclair is depressed and suffering, dealing with issues ofRead More →

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Set in Scotland, Breaking Time by Sasha Alberg tells the story of Klara Spalding and Callum Drummond who are from different times—Callum from 1568; Klara from the present. After saving Callum from death in the Elder Forest, Klara discovers that he is a time-traveler whose best friend was murdered in cold blood by what appeared to be a supernatural entity. Being rooted to empirical observation and the scientific method, Klara trusts science, so the whole notion of time travel puzzles and confuses her. “The beauty and mystery of the universe had always been more than enough magic for her” (91). Now, Klara is confronted withRead More →

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Nina Stott is a daring spirit, a warrior unshy about being herself. She is someone who acts “like a prism, each person’s light reflecting through her, showing every single thing that [makes someone else] special” (259). However, she is tragically killed in a drunk driving accident. Without her sister Nina, Eleonora (Leo) doesn’t know what happy is supposed to feel like. Robin Benway’s novel A Year to the Day tells the story of Leo’s journey as she navigates the waters of grief and tries to regain her memory of that fateful night. Nina’s absence takes up space in Leo’s heart, reminding her of what hasRead More →

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Message Not Found by Dante Medema is a romantic mystery that keeps the reader intrigued with every turn of the page. Medema tells the story of two “ride or die” friends: Vanessa Carson and Bailey Pierce. A lover of Disney princesses and blue raspberry flavored Pop Rocks, Vanessa dreams of being a writer someday. Bailey, on the other hand, hopes to follow in her parents’ footsteps to work in computer coding and artificial intelligence. One night, the girls trade Pop Rocks therapy for champagne drinking and ice cream eating as they share secrets and commiserate about boys and Bailey’s breakup. When Vanessa receives a textRead More →

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With the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 having recently been commemorated, we all might wonder whether we have progressed as a nation in the last two decades. We might ask ourselves if we treat others better today than we did in the days and months after the attacks. Because today’s school age youth were not yet alive in 2001, they may wonder why September 11 carries the motto, Never Forget. They may wonder why history is so important.  Saadia Faruqi’s novel Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero will guide middle grade readers to understand these complicated questions with their layered answers. Readers will learn that historyRead More →

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Although not the historical fiction giant that is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The Wolf’s Curse by Jessica Vitalis uses Death as one of its narrators. Through her twelve-year-old protagonist Gauge, the Carpenter’s grandson, Vitalis explores the social custom of rites of passage and life after death. After his grandpapá dies, Gauge no longer has the protection he needs from Lord Mayor Vulpine who is terrorizing the village of Bouge and who blames Gauge for the death of his wife. To protect him from the Guards, who wish to arrest Gauge and set him out to sea to die because he is a VoyantRead More →