Share this… Update as of 26 October 2011: This book continues to be controversial. Only this past spring, I was asked to help fight a push to not just remove this book from the twelfth grade curriculum of a public high school, but to remove the book from the school library, as well. The irony is …read more…
Share this… April is National Poetry Month. I know I’m getting this out a bit late, but better late than never (a cliché that I’m sure all aspiring poets will be careful to avoid in their work). If you don’t know what National Poetry Month is, it was inaugurated in 1996 by the Academy of American …read more…
Share this… If you are lucky, a book will come into your life at precisely the moment that you need it. I had been missing the Harry Potter books for some time, and while I didn’t want to read a clone, ripoff, or wannabe of that series (of which there are many), I did want to …read more…
Share this… In this engaging trilogy of novellas, Chris Crutcher has taken a handful of characters from his earlier works—Sarah Byrnes, Angus Bethune, John Simet, Matt Miller, and Montana West—and imagined them “living outside of their original times and in some cases outside of their original settings” as he describes in his introduction (n. pag.). If …read more…
Share this… Sixteen-year-old Barney Snow is the only patient in his hospital ward who isn’t dying. Unlike the other kids however, most of his memory is gone; he has only vague recollections of a car accident, and the knowledge that he is at the hospital as a service to others. At the heart of this story …read more…
Share this… The year is 1962, and fourteen-year-old Harry Hodby lives in a small town in Australia. His mother died when he was seven, his friend (and potential girlfriend) Linda was swept away in a flood, and he, along with his father and younger brother Keith, are left to sort out their hardscrabble lives, coping with …read more…
Share this… I find books like this one a bit maddening, first because they are expensive (all books for librarians are expensive), and second, because they are out of date almost as soon as they are in print. As an introduction to Latino literature for someone who is unfamiliar with it, it can be a good …read more…
Share this… This completely wordless book presents us first with a mystery: what is Sheep doing? After taking some measurements, Sheep finally shears off all her wool, dyes it red, and takes it to Poodle, who spins it into yarn. She (or he?) then works late into the night, knitting a special surprise. I won’t ruin …read more…
