GILDED CAGE

YA Series: Dark Gifts (Book 1) Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Del Rey (February 14, 2017) Language: English ISBN-10: 0425284158 ISBN-13: 978-0425284155   STORY SUMMARY: For readers of Victoria Aveyard and Kiera Cass comes a darkly fantastical debut set in a modern England where magically gifted aristocrats rule—and commoners are doomed to serve. NOT ALL ARE FREE. NOT ALL ARE EQUAL. NOT ALL WILL BE SAVED. Our world belongs to the Equals—aristocrats with magical gifts—and all...

CIRCUS MIRANDUS

Age Range: 9 - 12 years Grade Level: 4 - 7 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Dial Books (June 2, 2015) ISBN-10: 0525428437  STORY SUMMARY: Do you believe in magic? Micah Tuttle does. Even though his awful Great-Aunt Gertrudis doesn’t approve, Micah believes in the stories his dying Grandpa Ephraim tells him of the magical Circus Mirandus: the invisible tiger guarding the gates, the beautiful flying birdwoman, and the magician more powerful than any other—the Man Who Bends Light. Finally, Grandpa Ephraim offers...

THE VANISHING ISLAND by Barry Wolverton

Age Range: 8 - 12 years Grade Level: 3 - 7 Series: Chronicles of the Black Tulip (Book 1) Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Walden Pond Press (September 1, 2015) ISBN-10: 0062221906 ISBN-13: 978-0062221902 STORY SUMMARY: Does the Vanishing Island really exist? And if so, what treasure—or terrible secret—was hidden by its disappearance? It’s 1599, the Age of Discovery in Europe. But for Bren Owen, growing up in the small town of Map on the coast of Britannia has meant anything but adventure. Enticed...

KNIGHTLEY & SON

Age Range: 10 - 12 years Grade Level: 3 - 6 Series: Knightley and Son Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens (March 4, 2014) Language: English ISBN-10: 1619631539 Source:  Local Library STORY SUMMARY:  "The once highly in-demand detective Alan Knightley has just woken up after an unexplained incident kept him asleep for four years. While he was out cold, his son, Darkus, took it upon himself to read of all his dad's old cases, and he's learned a lot about the...

ORKNEY by Amy Sackville

"On a remote island in Orkney, a curiously-matched couple arrive on their honeymoon. He is an eminent literature professor; she was his pale, enigmatic star pupil. Alone beneath the shifting skies of this untethered landscape, the professor realises how little he knows about his new bride and yet, as the days go by and his mind turns obsessively upon the creature who has so beguiled him, she seems to slip ever further from his yearning grasp. Where does she come from? Why did she ask him to bring her north? What is it that constantly...

SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE by Marcus Sedgwick

US Edition This week I discovered a whole new level of writer envy when I read Marcus Sedgwick's SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE. His protagonist, Laureth, is on a quest from the UK to the US to find her missing father, with her younger brother in tow. The twist is, she is blind. Think about that for a moment. How heavily do we rely on visual descriptive detail when we write, and read? Now imagine trying to make scenes come alive without any of that. Yes. And guess what? It works. Sedgwick nails it. In the process, he gives us a unique,...

VICIOUS by V.E. Schwab

Product Details Excerpt Source: Netgalley Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Tor Books; 1 edition (September 24, 2013) Language: English ISBN-10: 0765335344 ISBN-13: 978-0765335340  A masterful, twisted tale of ambition, jealousy, betrayal, and superpowers, set in a near-future world. Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline,...

THE NAME OF THE STAR by Maureen Johnson

Genre:  Fantasy, Supernatural, Mystery Publisher:  Putnam Juvenile; First Edition edition (September 29, 2011) The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888. Soon "Rippermania" takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left...

THE SCORPIO RACES by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Fantasy Publisher: Scholastic Press (October 18, 2011) Some race to win. Others race to survive. It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride...

CLOCKWORK PRINCE by Cassandra Clare

Genre: Historical YA Fiction, Steampunk Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (December 6, 2011) "In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa’s powers for his own dark ends. With the help of the handsome,...

In Defence of Libraries

Do you remember the years between learning to read by yourself for the first time and the ones during which school workloads dealt a mortal blow to your free time? And do you remember the books you read then? Yes, the big ones, the stories and characters that have haunted you ever since, burrowing deep roots in to your fertile childhood memories, perhaps as dear to you as a childhood friend—unless you were denied books on the basis of cost or suitability. A commenter responding to an article in The Bookseller said: "Our children have...

VIXEN by Jillian Larkin

Reading level: Ages 12 and up Paperback: 448 pages Publisher: Ember (August 9, 2011)  Genre: Historical "Jazz... Booze... Boys... It's a dangerous combination. Every girl wants what she can’t have. Seventeen-year-old Gloria Carmody wants the flapper lifestyle—and the bobbed hair, cigarettes, and music-filled nights that go with it. Now that she’s engaged to Sebastian Grey, scion of one of Chicago’s most powerful families, Gloria’s party days are over before they’ve even begun . . . or are they? Clara Knowles, Gloria’s goody-two-shoes...

Editor Emma Dryden on Drydenbks and the State of the Publishing Industry

Last May, after nearly 19 years at Simon and Schuster, Emma Dryden was laid off from her position as Vice President and Publisher of Atheneum Books for Young Readers and Margaret K. McElderry Books in a cost-cutting initiative which left the publishing industry reeling. If even someone who has edited writers of the caliber of Susan Cooper and Ellen Hopkins and has 25 years of experience in the children's book publishing industry isn't immune, where would the axe fall next? And who will be left to guide the young talent left in charge...

Where I Write: LEWIS BUZBEE

Lewis Buzbee is a third generation California native who began writing at the age of 15, after reading the first chapter of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Since then he's been a dishwasher, a bookseller, a publisher, a caterer, a bartender, and a teacher of writing (currently on the faculty of the MFA program at the University of San Francisco). He and his wife, the poet Julie Bruck, live with their daughter Maddy in San Francisco, just half a block from Golden Gate Park. His books for adults include The Yellow Lighted Bookshop,...