Book Review: Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2002(reprint)  ISBN: 0689836023 Available: New and Used     Branwell Zamborska hasn’t spoken since his baby sister Nikki stopped breathing. Accused of shaking the baby into a coma, he is struck completely mute, unable to speak even in his own defense. Only one person knows him well enough to find a […]

Book Review: The Twisted Window by Lois Duncan

Publisher: Laurel Leaf; Reissue edition (September 1, 1988) ISBN: 0440201845 Available: New and Used Appearances are deceiving in The Twisted Window. Brad has been following Tracy- he needs her to help rescue his sister, who was kidnapped by his stepfather. Tracy is grieving and angry, looking for someone to save. Offering her services as a […]

Book Review: Angelmonster by Veronica Bennett

Candlewick,  May, 2006 ISBN: 0763629944 . Available: New     “What manner of ungodly baby kills its creator?” Even at sixteen, Mary Shelley’s nightmares force her to face  this question. Angelmonster takes us into the mind and heart of the author of Frankenstein, in the entwined stories of her tragic love affair and marriage to the tormented poet Percy […]

Book Review: The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April, 2006 ISBN: 0374336903 Available: New and Used Ivy Spirico, age seven, is fascinated by the Rumbaugh twins, an elderly pair who run the town pharmacy, believe in eugenics, and enjoy taxidermy. She stumbles onto the family secret: the Rumbaughs are cursed with a warped and obsessive love of their mother […]

Book Review: Are You In The House Alone? by Richard Peck

Puffin, April , 2000 ISBN: 0141306939 Available: New and Used     This is probably the first young adult novel to deal frankly with rape and its aftermath. Gail, a high school junior living in a charming New England town, is getting obscene notes and phone calls. She doesn’t want to think about it, her best […]

Book Review: Underworld by Catherine Macphail

Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books, July, 2005 ISBN: 1582349975 Pages: 250     Underworld  looks on its cover that this some sort of underground monster horror book, however the true terror is more about what happens when a group of students trapped in a series of caves with no adults.  Before going into the caves the students are told […]

Book Review: In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Fiona Sampson

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Fiona Sampson Pegasus Books, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1681777528 Available: Hardcover, used paperback, Kindle edition,   We know Mary Shelley as the daughter of revolutionary writers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and muse and wife to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who as a teenage girl who […]

Book Review: Raptor by Paul Zindel

Raptor by Paul Zindel Hyperion Books For Children, 1998 ISBN: 0786823747 Available: New and Used   When Zack and his Native American friend Ute explore the cave where Zack’s paleontologist father was mysteriously injured, they discover a strange nest with very large eggs. Zack, thinking they might be worth a lot of money, takes an egg […]

Book Review: A Girl, A Ghost, and the Hollywood Hills by Lizabeth Zindel

A Girl, a Ghost, and the Hollywood Hills by Lizabeth Zindel Viking Juvenile, 2010 ISBN-13: 978-0670011599 Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition   In the introduction to A Girl, a Ghost, and the Hollywood Hills, the author explains that her intent is to portray a “Hamlet-inspired ghost story unlike any other”, and there are obvious similarities. Holly has gone […]