Summer's here and maybe you have time for some extra reading? Here are my recommendations, based on books I've recently read:
Novels:
THE LAST DRAGONSLAYER, by Jasper Fflorde, features a funny, self-confident heroine in fifteen-year-old foundling, Jennifer Strange. She is working off her indentured servitude by running Kazam Mystical Arts Management for the benignly inept wizards who are employed there. They used to be powerful, but magic is fading. Or it was, until the predicted death of the last dragon begins producing odd surges of power, and lots of mayhem in general. A smart romp through an alternate universe.
Jennifer E. Smith's first novel, THE
STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT, is the perfect airplane read. Seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan misses her flight to London, where her dad is getting remarried to a woman Hadley has never met. Fortunately, the worst day of her life improves somewhat when her new flight features a cute guy in the next seat. Still, there are complications. . . .
P.S. BE ELEVEN, by Rita Williams Garcia, picks up where Newbery Honor Book One Crazy Summer left off. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern arrive back in Queens, direct from their eye-opening trip to Oakland to visit their mother. After the freedom and empowerment they have just experienced, how can they slip neatly back into their lives with Pa and Big Ma?
SIEGE AND STORM,
by Leigh Bardugo, is sequel to the amazing Shadow and Bone, a Russian-tinged fantasy, which featured the deeply magical Darkling, along with newly-revealed Sun Summoner, Alina, and her childhood companion, the tracker extraordinaire, Mal. In this sequel, Alina and Mal are trying to make a life together, away from the powerful schemes of the Darkling. But when fate deems this impossible, Alina and Mal return to Ravka, to try to save their country. An intense middle book to an inventive trilogy.
Picture Books:
THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT, by Drew Daywalt with pictures by Oliver Jeffers, is the colorful account of one boy's crayons venting--who knew that crayons had so many grievances??
BLACK DOG,
by Levi Pinfold, is a beautifully rendered story about being afraid, not being afraid, and Hope. It's a lovely, accessible book on many levels.
MARY WRIGHTLY, SO POLITELY, by Shirin Yim Bridges with pictures by Maria Monescillo, is the second worthwhile book on manners I've read in two months (the other being Thank You, Mama, by Kate Banks and Gabi Swiatkowski). In this one, soft-spoken Mary needs a present for her baby brother's birthday. But, at the toy store, people keep snatching
away her choices before she can buy them. Will Mary be able to speak up and claim the perfect present? A lesson in manners AND in speaking up.
UNICORN THINKS HE'S PRETTY GREAT, by Bob Shea, is a fun, action-packed, only-slightly-sparkly friendship story. Goat is jealous of Unicorn, who seems to be better at everything, but it turns out that Goat is pretty terrific too.
--Lynn
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