By: tanita✿davis,
on 9/30/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages!One of the things the kidlitosphere talked about a lot in the early days of the early 2000's was the preponderance of YA novels with ridiculously 1% families in them. Rare were the books where the kids... Read the rest of this post
By: Sarah Stevenson,
on 9/12/2016
Don't miss our interview with author Sherri Smith this Wednesday, as part of the Pasadena blog tour! Synopsis: "The thing I'm finally learning is that someone can be your best friend in the world, but you're not necessarily theirs." Pasadena. It's... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 8/30/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages!One of the uses of exploring new people, places, and things in fiction is to understand and normalize them. As I stated a few months back in my review of Marike Nijkamp's THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS, I struggle... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 8/24/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages!I taught junior high/high school in a group home, just out of college. I was a coteacher who worked in a classroom with another teacher and an aide, mostly 1:1, since my students were at wildly varying... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 8/23/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages!According to the PEW Research peeps, about 70% of people consider themselves religious in some fashion, whether through traditional Jewish, Muslim or Christian denominations or other neopagan practices... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 8/18/2016
This has been the summer of the monkeybrain - too much going on, too much we wanted to do and we're not going to get it done, because it's nearing the end of August. ::sigh:: One thing we didn't want to miss was talking about Kate Messner's latest... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 8/2/2016
Remember the whole discussion about "likeable" characters? As I recall, it sprang from a PW author interview on the unlikable female character in a book. That the author was even asked about the "likability" of her protagonist generated a furor of... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 7/22/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! So, this book was agonizing. Yeah, that's really the only word, agonizing. As the title suggests, the storyline features a lot of angst, and I read it with a rock in my stomach. I approached this novel... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 3/22/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! Synopsis: Liberty's junior year just cracked wide open and catapulted her out on the ground. Her mother - a placard-carrying, species-saving, liberal-agenda-advancing, chronic protestor - is currently... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 3/18/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! Synopsis: Privileged and perfect is how life could be described for fifteen-year-old Kambili and her brother, Jaja. In Nigeria, where so many deal with fuel shortages, power outages, strikes at hospitals... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 3/15/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! Synopsis: Snarky, brittle, awkward, British-Greek teen Melon Fouraki is fifteen and unmoored after her mother is hit by a bus. Despite them going away to Crete every summer, somehow Melon never was... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 3/8/2016
Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! Trapped.Every fingernail scrapesOn shut doors,Ripping off.At least the bloodcan escape. - from the ARCSynopsis: Fifteen-year-old Hope is her mother's last chance for vicariously getting out of the... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 12/29/2015
This is less of a book review than a book reaction, and is a little more self-indulgent than the way I usually book talk here in the Wonderland tree house. However, after reading just this morning that there's a thirteen day period where PTSD is... Read the rest of this post
By: Sarah Stevenson,
on 12/21/2015
Summary: It takes some serious stones to start a story off with a decapitation. But I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that, yes, in some ways that WAS the beginning of everything for narrator Ezra Faulkner. It wasn't fatal for HIM,... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 12/11/2015
I would have gotten to this book eventually, I think, but because Linda Sue Park mentioned it on her Beacon St. TEDx talk (and if you haven't had a chance to watch, please do) which was so full of good thoughts, I bumped it immediately to the top of... Read the rest of this post
By: Sarah Stevenson,
on 11/12/2015
Summary: Full disclosure: Amber Keyser is an author I met at a past KidLitCon; her editor Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda Lab I also know from KidLitCon (a different one) and I'm in contact with both of them online. They sent me my review copy of The Way... Read the rest of this post
By: Sarah Stevenson,
on 8/10/2015
Summary: Ashley Hope Pérez's latest novel comes out on September 1. I tell you this so you can brace yourself. Out Of Darkness is historical fiction of the most wrenching kind: based on a real-life tragedy, with plenty of collective guilt to go... Read the rest of this post
By: Sarah Stevenson,
on 8/3/2015
Summary: I finished reading this one today…and I just started reading it last night, right before bed. When I picked it up again this morning to enjoy with my coffee, it turned out to be basically un-put-down-able. It's easy to see how this... Read the rest of this post
By: Sarah Stevenson,
on 7/6/2015
Summary: This one hadn't been on my immediate radar until I signed up to attend the Printz award ceremony at ALA in San Francisco at the end of June—and then I decided I'd better get going on reading the winner of that prestigious honor if I... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 6/12/2015
Happy Friday!Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the dual read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give our on-the-spot commentary as we read and team blog a book. (You can feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 6/2/2015
Because I believe that every young reader should see themselves reflected in fiction, I am always on the lookout for books which depict the varied shades of growing up religious to put in my "faith in fiction" file. Though the author does not claim... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 3/6/2015
Narrative non-fiction is generally the only type of non-fiction we review here at Wonderland, 'cause we're all about the story. This novel isn't non-fiction, despite the jacket copy calling it an authentic immigrant story. Those writing historical... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 1/14/2015
There are tons of people who talk back to movies. I'm probably the only person you know who talks back to books. This book is a page-turner, a scary, dark, shudder-inducing and twisted thriller with a deeply satisfying conclusion - the right person... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 1/7/2015
"In third grade, it was spies vs. ninjas. What started as a pick-your-side game became an invitation-only club. In fourth grade, it was the seats on the back of the bus. By fifth, it was lunch tables. Year after year, the same kids found their way... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita✿davis,
on 12/3/2014
This book is non-fiction, and was originally self-published, because the filmmaker Nick Gray was so convinced this was a story we should know. Nonfiction what we usually review on the blog, but though this particular tale is about two real boys,... Read the rest of this post
