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What do you do when you are born to sing, yet, suddenly silenced? Stella finds herself in a world without sound. The challenge follows to find beauty in a silent world. It's Hayden, a teen boy who stutters, who will be her guide as she simultaneously leads him to find his true voice by looking at his past.

Deborah Lytton's YA release of Silence from Shadow Mountain is told from two incredibly honest points of view. The growth and truth discovered by the characters is inspirational. As Stella concludes:

"I know that dreams are for today, not for someday. They are for here. And now."

"Music is the silence between the notes." says Claude Debussy. We will be waiting for Lytton's next release, listening to the music resonating from Silence to her following work.

Silence
by Deborah Lytton
Shadow Mountain, 2015

If you're in need of a little bit of a tearjerker with super shots of hope-filled moments, Jane in Bloom is the perfect book for this weekend. Written by Deborah Lytton, readers get to meet young Jane, a girl dealing with her sister Lizzie's severe eating disorder, and ultimately her death from the disorder.

When Lizzie dies from complications with anorexia, Jane is quite sure what to do anymore. Her parents separate, saying they need to be apart to figure out how to live together without their daughter, leaving Jane with a crazy (but wonderfully crazy) babysitter and a digital camera which becomes Jane's source of healing.

Through her lens, Jane can control exactly what happens in her world and she slowly begins to gain back her life...learning to live without her sister. With a new friend and a new puppy to focus on, Jane heals and grows, making her parents proud and the reader ecstatic.

I absolutely loved the inclusion of photography into this story and felt that it truly brought Jane's character to fruition. Though death is a large part of the plot, it takes a backseat to Jane's coming-of-age moments in a remarkable way, making hope more prominent than sadness. Not too many authors can pull it off as well as Lytton did.

I would love to see another book about Jane...I'm not expecting one, but it would definitely be a pleasant surprise!

A fantastic book for mature middle graders and the young adult age group. Great for libraries or home shelves.

To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon.

Jane in Bloom
Deborah Lytton
208 pages
Middle Grade Fiction/Young Adult
Dutton Juvenile
9780525420781
March 2009