Reviewed by Jennifer Langreck Do you remember believing in fairy tales or scary creatures when you were young? In Tracey Baptiste’s fantasy novel The Jumbies, Caribbean lore becomes reality. The twelve-year-old protagonist Corinne doesn’t have to believe in the creatures she hears about in the local stories, but she does have to confront them. The…
Reviewed by Kate Plager There’s a limited number of classic tropes featured in most works of adolescent realistic fiction. Drama about who will be named homecoming queen, parents’ pressure about college decisions, nervous and awkward first dates with a boy you have a crush on, trying to find your place in a high school run…
Reviewed by Katie Green Imagine never communicating with the people around you. Imagine never being able to tell them you understand them. This is the frustratingly isolated world of eleven-year-old Melody. She is a genius with a photographic memory, but almost no one knows. Melody has cerebral palsy, so she is unable to talk or…
Reviewed by Racha Kassir The Turtle of Oman recounts how a third grader Omani boy named Aref refuses to move with his parents from Oman to the U.S. Ann Arbor, Michigan for three years while they obtain their doctorate degrees. Aref gives his mom a hard time while packing. No matter how large the suitcase,…
Reviewed by Jennifer Langreck No life is worth more or less than any other, right? Well, in The House of the Scorpion that becomes a more complex question. In this imagined future world, Mexico is now called Aztlán, and the border between Aztlán and the US has become its own country called Opium. Opium is…
