The Book Search

 I'm super excited to be reading for the CYBILS again this year!  I love reading all the latest speculative fiction and boy are there some great ones!  Here are my two latest favorites.  The first one is "Island of Wonders" written by Frances Hardinge and illustrated by Emily Gravett.  It feels like an old fashioned story.  The format of the book is big-like picture book sized, which is good because there are lot of illustrations.  And the illustrations are just amazing-in three colors-black and blue and white, they almost feel like NC Wyeth or that Art Deco kind of traditional children's literature.  But the STORY.  Whoo-boy, is it great.  A super creepy fairy tale kind of story and so beautifully written.  It's about Milo, whose father is a ferryman, but a special kind of ferryman,  HE ferries the dead to the afterlife.  The islanders place a lot of trust in the ferryman, because if he doesn't do his job properly, the dead will wander around wreaking havoc o

 There have been some amazing new titles in my Netgalley TBR pile and YAY for finally reading them!  Here are two of my newest favorites! The first one is called Westfallen.  It's written by a sister and brother team - Ann and Ben Brashares. This is Ann's website.    Ben doesn't seem to have his own website, but they are both prolific writers and their skills show in this tightly written and exciting story.  The book opens with Henry, a middle schooler who is feeling abandoned by his two best friends-Frances and Lukas.  Frances and Lukas have found different lanes (Frances is goth, Lukas is a sports guy), Henry is neither but when the hamster that they adopted together dies, he invites them over to bury the hamster.  In digging a hole, they find an old radio that remarkably still works.  They are able to connect with three other kids, who also live in their hometown.  The 6 kids agree to meet at the local park and all six are disappointed with then other three don't sho

 I've fallen deep in the dark heart of middle grade fantasy fiction this week and there have been many, many magical creatures!  These were my two favorite ones! The first one is "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell.  It's not her first book but it's the first one I've read and I thought it was great.  The writing is compelling and beautiful.  I fell into the book but I kept stopping so I could keep going back to it!  As an example, here's the opening line:  "It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him."   The story is about two kids-Mal and Christopher.  Mal lives with her great aunt Leonor in a place where magical animals are commonplace.  Neither of them knows what happened to her parents, but the man who brought her to Leonor left a big coat that allows Mal to fly.  And then a murder shows up.  Mal narrowly escapes but Lenor does not.  Meanwhile, Christopher is going to spend the summer with his grandfather,  whom he doesn

 There is some terrific new middle grade speculative fiction coming out this month that I think kids are going to love!   My first new favorite is called Majestica by Sarah Tolcser.  It's about Hattie, who is an orphan who works in a hotel in a magical animal preserve.  She tries hard and wants to do a good job, but things don't always go the way she thinks they should.  One day, a new group of guests arrives and the group includes Evelyn, the niece of the hotel owner.  When Evelyn's chaperone takes sick (because Evelyn poisoned her), the head of the staff asks Hattie to take over as Evelyn's companion.  Hattie tries to be positive, but Evelyn is pretty headstrong and disagreeable.  They go out on a safari and Hattie starts to think something might be amiss.  When the train they're traveling on derails, Hattie knows something is wrong and wonders if Evelyn or one of the other guests might have something to do with it.  Each of the guests has reasons to possibly want

 I've been having a great time reading the books on the new Sunshine State Young Reader lists.  They never fail to find such fun books!  Here's a link to the K-2 list .  And here's a link to the 3-5 and 6-8 lists . They have such a variety of books.  And here's a link to my TPT store where there are reading comprehension questions for all the 3-5 and 6-8 books and lesson plans for the K-2 list.   But lucky me!  I've had to read some advanced readers copies from Netgalley and boy, did I find some good ones!  The first one came out a couple of weeks ago-it's called "The Cookie Crumbles" and it's written by Tracy Badua and Alechia Dow.  It's about Laila and Lucy, two girls who have been best friends since kindergarten, even though they have very different interests AND they live on opposite sides of town.  If they want to go to high school together, they BOTH need to get into the prestigious high school, Sunderland.  Laila is trying to win a sch

 Middle grade fiction is such a terrific place to find interesting characters and challenges.  These three brand new books have an amazing variety of those!   The first one is a graphic novel.  It's called Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Vera Brogsol.   Here's her website if you're interested.   She's written and illustrated a number of books, including one of my favorite picture books "Leave Me Alone", which I found hilarious.  This one is longer and more detailed and I thought it was just wonderful.  It's about Jane, who lives in a place that seems like fairy tale times, in a heavily paternalistic society.  Her parents don't think too much of her because she's not beautiful and when they die, she's forced out of her home by her horrible cousin.  In desperation,  she proposes to Peter, a handsome boy from the village.  Peter isn't exactly enthusiastic and as he's storming off, a mermaid appears and takes him under the sea.  A crone expl