Fiction – Page 26 – Mom Read It

Once Upon a Zombie – these aren’t the fairy tales you’re used to!

Posted on October 11, 2015October 11, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Once Upon a Zombie: Book One – The Color of Fear, by Billy Phillips and Jenny Nissenson (Oct. 2015, The Toon Studio Press), $17.95, ISBN: 9781935668343

Recommended for ages 12+

Caitlin Fletcher and her wonderkid sister, Natalie, have moved to London with their dad to try and start their lives over. Caitlin’s and Natalie’s mom disappeared four years ago, and Caitlin suffers from severe anxiety, and starting over at a new school, where the mean girls have no qualms about letting Caitlin know she doesn’t measure up, is causing more anxiety than ever. The one bright spot is Jack, the super-cute boy at school who’s been friendly to her and invites her to a school dance, but a phone mixup lands Caitlin alone, in a cemetery, where she falls down the proverbial rabbit hole and lands in a fairy tale universe! The only drawback is, in this universe, all of the inhabitants are blood-eyed zombies, living under a strange curse. The fairy tale princesses we all know and love – Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty – have been sent to find Caitlin, because she holds the key to restoring order in their world and saving her own. But how is Caitlin, who’s two steps away from a panic attack, supposed to save an entire world, let alone herself?

Where do kids go after Goosebumps? Right here. This first book in a new series is a great way to ease younger horror fans into the zombie genre. The horror is slightly ramped up, with gorier descriptions of the living dead princesses and inhabitants of the fairy tale world, and there are allusions to zombies doing what zombies do best – Cinderella has to be yelled at to stop sniffing at Caitlin on a few occasions – but we’re not leaping into full-on gore and horror just yet. The secondary characters are familiar; we’ve grown up with them and heard about them for generations, so readers will get a kick out of this latest twist on the fractured fairy tale genre. There’s just enough romance to keep middle school girls happy, especially if they like their adventure light on the romance and heavy on the action.

Related to the book and mentioned in the story is the site, UnexplainableNews.com, a tabloid site the kids love checking out and aspire writing for. Direct your readers here (and check it out yourself) for some fun “news videos” on the zombie sightings happening all over the world that garner mention in the book.

Once Upon a Zombie is good fun for readers who love things that go bump in the night, but are ready to be just slightly more scared. Shelve it with a display of Monster High books!

Espionage, Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Middle Grade, Middle School, Tween Reads

The League of Unexceptional Children – Be Ordinary and Save the World!

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The League of Unexceptional Children, by Gitty Daneshvari (Oct. 2015, Little, Brown), $17.99, ISBN: 9780316405706

Recommended for ages 9-12

Jonathan and Shelly are average. Forgettable, even. They don’t stand out, they’re not super-genius smart, and hardly anyone remembers their names five minutes after meeting them. And that’s what makes them the perfect spies. When the Vice President of the United States is kidnapped, Jonathan and Shelly find themselves recruited into the League of Unexceptional Children to find out who’s behind the kidnapping and to save the world: it seems that the VP isn’t the strongest-willed guy around, and happens to have access to some very important codes that could bring some big problems if they were to get out. Can Jonathan and Shelly save the day?

This is a hilarious beginning to a new series by Gitty Daneshvari, who’s authored the Monster High and School of Fear middle grade series. The kids in my library are ALWAYS asking me where these books are, so I know this book is a no-brainer for my shelves. Most of the adults are as hapless as the kids, and Jonathan and Shelly have a great rapport and go at one another like a regular Nick and Nora (look it up, kids). Shelly makes grandiose boasts about her abilities, while Jonathan is a little more down-to-earth, and their back and forth will leave you chuckling and inwardly wincing with awkwardness. Boys and girls alike will love this one. Heck, build a program around it and show a season of Code Name: Kids Next Door to kick off a Secret Agent Day!

Gitty Daneshvari’s author page is loaded with great little things to do. Kids (and adults!) can contact her, check out her blog, request a Skype session for your class or library, and meet Harriet, the Literary Bulldog.

Fantasy, Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

A Tale of Light & Shadow – Good, old-fashioned adventure and romance!

Posted on October 8, 2015October 7, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

A Tale of Light & Shadow, by Jacob Gowans (2014, Shadow Mountain), $9.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1609079819

Recommended for ages 12+

The world of Atolas is a world where emperors and kings rule the land. Wealth determines one’s place in society, and social stations carry more weight with some of the populace than with others. Isabelle and Henry have grown up side by side and have fallen in love. Henry, a prosperous carpenter, wants to marry Isabelle, whose wealth is in name alone, but her father won’t allow it. When her father turns to a terrible way to get Isabelle out of the way and get to her mother’s gold, Henry comes to her rescue – and their group, including their siblings, Henry’s childhood friend, Ruther, and Henry’s apprentice, Brandol – find themselves on the run from the Emperor’s guard. There are rough times ahead for Isabelle, Henry, and their group. There will be betrayals, secrets, and a hard journey to freedom for them all.

I really enjoyed this book, the first in a new series by author Jacob Gowans. It reminds me of an old-school adventure, with the young lovers in peril, the hidden betrayer, an epic journey both in body and in spirit – each of the characters in the group goes through emotional upheaval through the course of the book – and a thread of magic that promises to grow stronger as we progress through the series. I love this book because it’s the kind of book I can give to my more conservative teens, my teens who love a good romance, and my teens who love an epic fantasy. It’s a relatively clean book – there’s some battle violence and references to concubines – but it’s within acceptable levels for teen reading. Fans of older movies will be drawn into the sprawling lands and hero’s journey that lays ahead. The ending of the book promises a sequel that will pick up where this first book leaves off.

Speaking of that second book, guess what’s next on my night table? So get ready, check out A Tale of Light and Shadow, and get yourselves up to speed for the next book in the series, Secrets of Neverak.

Fantasy, Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

YA Fantasy with Greg Johnson’s Beyond the Red Mountains

Posted on October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Beyond the Red Mountains, by Greg Johnson (June 2015, Morgan James Fiction), $26.95, ISBN: 978-1630474348

Recommended for ages 14+

Teenagers Kelvin and Elizabeth are from two different worlds – or so they think. Kelvin, an apprentice fisherman, comes from a land called Triopolis, ruled by a corrupt bishop. Elizabeth, orphaned as a child, has been raised to marry the future king – a marriage that exists on paper only. When Kelvin and his mentor, Henry, end up in Elizabeth’s land of Westville, it’s the first each of them have heard of people outside of their own lands, other than the barbarians. As they learn more about one another, they discover that there are many secrets surrounding their lives; secrets kept by men in power all around them. A tragic accident causes Elizabeth and Kelvin to flee Westville; Kelvin decides to bring Elizabeth back to the safety of Triopolis. The journey they embark upon will introduce them to more men, with more secrets – secrets about Elizabeth’s own burgeoning special abilities, and secrets that can save or destroy Triopolis.

The overall plot of Beyond the Red Mountains is intriguing. I love a good epic fantasy, and had high hopes for this one. I have to admit, it was a bit of a struggle when it came down to it. The book could have used more of a guiding touch from an editor; many concepts and ideas were over-explained and over-emphasized. Short, choppy sentences added to start-stop reading; ideas could have been joined together and made for a smoother read. The book ends with the promise of a sequel, which I look forward to – it’s a good premise that true fantasy fans will stick with, but a more reluctant reader or a casual reader may not stick with this one.

Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

This is Where it Ends brings us into the heart of a school shooting.

Posted on October 1, 2015September 17, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

This is Where it Ends, by Marieke Nijkamp (Jan. 2016, Sourcebooks Fire), $17.99, ISBN: 9781492622468

Recommended for ages 13+

It’s the first day of the school year at Alabama’s Opportunity High. At 10 a.m. the principal finishes her welcome speech. At 10:03, the students, trying to get to class, notice the auditorium doors won’t open. At 10:05, someone starts shooting. Not everyone is in that auditorium, though – some kids are running track, some kids are cutting – and it’s up to them to help their classmates and, in some cases, family members, inside.

This is Where it Ends takes readers inside a school on lockdown. The shooter has things to say, and this captive audience is going to listen. Four narratives from teens inside and outside of the auditorium bring readers there, inside that school, waiting for the next bullet to fire. Every one of these teens has a history with the shooter – some good, some not.

This book is tense. It’s rough. Ms. Nijkamp excels at putting the reader into the middle of the chaos – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the churning inside – readers are thrown onto the same roller coaster that her characters are on. She creates strong backgrounds and uses each character’s narrative to move between past and present-day to provide a full picture not only of the traumatized teens, but a profile of the shooter himself.

There’s also a brilliant use of diversity here. We’ve got a queer female person of color as a main character. There are teens of all backgrounds in this school. This school can be Anywhere, USA, and these kids could be our neighbors, our families, our friends. Author Marieke Nijkamp is an executive member of We Need Diverse Books and the founder of DiversifYA; she practices what she preaches with eloquence and skill. Her author website offers a discussion guide for This is Where it Ends. Educators can also find resources at the National School Safety Center to deepen a discussion on school shootings and school safety.

This is a great book to have in libraries and classrooms, particularly those with a current events focus. Discussion groups will find a lot to delve into here. I’d love to see parent book groups read this, too – it’s not a pleasant topic to think about, but when it concerns our kids, it’s something we should start talking about.

Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Teen

On the TBR: The Silent End by Samuel Sattin

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The minute I saw the first paragraph in the press release that landed in my inbox, I knew this was a book I needed to own. When a book is compared to “Kids in the Hall meets John Carpenter”, you’ve got my attention. Throw in the fact that it’s a YA ebook that I can read with my middle schooler, whose book tastes are picky at best, and we have a possible hit.

For now, it’s got to go on the TBR since I’ve got review commitments through the next few weeks, but I promise, PROMISE, promise to review it here. In the meantime, why not check it out for yourselves? The publisher was kind enough to provide the a look at the first chapter, completely gratis, and man, it sounds good.

From the press release: “In a small, mist-covered town in the Pacific Northwest, three teenagers find themselves pitted against an unearthly menace that dwells beneath the foundations of their high school… Samuel Sattin’s THE SILENT END is funny and poignant, a novel that contains elements of supernatural fiction, horror, young adult and literary fiction in order to create a genre-bending novel, recalling authors like Neil Gaiman, Rick Yancey, Patrick Ness, Stephen King, and early Jonathan Lethem.

High school is a challenge for senior Nathaniel Eberstark. His mother disappeared almost a year ago after a long battle with depression. And his father? He’s begun conducting experiments in a bunker out back, furtively running around town in army fatigues, accompanied by a mysterious man in Ray Bans known as The Hat, hunting beasts no one else can see. After an explosion rocks the town on Halloween, Eberstark, along with his only friends Lexi and Gus, discover in the woods something beyond comprehension, something that Eberstark in particular doesn’t want to believe since it may mean his father isn’t as mad as he appears: a wounded monster. Afraid of making a stir in a town that spurns controversy, they make a decision to hide the creature. By doing so they are dragged into a frightening web of conspiracy, dream-logic, and death. From living trucks and mirror-dwelling psychopaths to hellish entities who lurk behind friendly faces, Eberstark, Lexi, and Gus find themselves battling to save not just themselves but the soul of their backwater town.

Inventive and engaging, Samuel Sattin’s THE SILENT END will have you rooting for these three unlikely heroes as they battle monsters, town bullies, and teachers who expect homework done on time. High school can be lonely and scary, the future uncertain. But finding just one, maybe two true friends, can make all the difference.”

Praise for THE SILENT END:

“Samuel Sattin has written a young adult novel that’s right over the plate for pop culture fans.”-BLEEDING COOL

“This is a book you and your kids can enjoy.”-KIRKUS, September Speculative Fiction Reading Pick

“Imagine if Halloween had been written by The Kids in The Hall instead of John Carpenter and you start to understand the wild, mesmerizing mash up that is The Silent End.”–Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver

“Do not read this at night. Do not read this alone. But read it. Now.”-Sean Beaudoin, author of The Infects

“I dreamed I climbed into a 1950s sci-fi rocket ship with Thomas Pynchon, Charles Dickens, H.P. Lovecraft, Jonathan Lethem, Rebalais, and the crew from Monty Python. I had so much fun and terror and tragedy and delight, I was ready for the booby hatch. You can’t dream my dream, but you can get everything it gave me. All you’ve got to do is read Samuel Sattin.”-D. Foy, author of Made to Break

About the author: Samuel Sattin is a novelist and essayist. He is the author of the new novel THE SILENT END and LEAGUE OF SOMEBODIES, which was described by Pop Matters as “One of the most important novels of 2013.” His work has appeared in the Atlantic, Salon Magazine, io9, Kotaku, Publishing Perspectives, The Weeklings, The Rumpus, The Good Men Project, Litreactor, San Francisco Magazine, The Cobalt Review, Cent Magazine, and elsewhere. Also an illustrator, he holds an MFA in Comics from California College of the Arts and has a creative writing MFA from Mills College. He’s the recipient of NYS and SLS Fellowships, and is represented by Dara Hyde at Hill Nadell Literary Agency. He lives in Oakland, California.

Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

What do you NEED and what are you willing to do to have it?

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Need, by Joelle Charbonneau (Nov. 2015, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s), $17.99, ISBN: 9780544416697

Recommended for ages 13+

A social network promises you whatever you need – but nothing comes for free, and the teens at Wisconsin’s Nottawa High School discover just how far they are willing to go for concert tickets, gym equipment, or just the thrill of a mission. Kaylee Dunham, social outcast at Nottawa, needs a kidney for her sick brother, but she discovers pretty quickly that the site is causing havoc around her. When things turn deadly, Kaylee starts digging to find out who’s behind NEED, but what happens when you’re up against a social network that can send someone to kill you in exchange for someone’s greatest wish?

NEED is a fast-paced thriller that teens – boys and girls – will enjoy. Everyone’s life seems to revolve around a multitude of social networks, so joining one more – that promises to give you free stuff for just one little task – will click. The tasks start off almost innocuously – more like pranks, really – but as the situations escalate and everything starts falling into place, the book becomes tense and unputdownable. The pervasiveness of social media and a seemingly invisible antagonist who can contact you anywhere, anytime – and can assemble your own classmates against you – is truly unsettling.

NEED is a good addition to collections for fans of tech fiction and a good thriller. It also lends itself to a good discussion on wants versus needs.

Joelle Charbonneau is a New York Times bestselling author of the Testing trilogy. Her author website offers links to social media, information about her books and appearances, and a section dedicated to authors united in support of Ferguson, Missouri’s youth by supporting their library, which stayed open and provided a safe space for the community during the riots. NEED will be available in November 2015, but you can pre-order a signed copy from Ms. Charbonneau’s site.

Possible booktalk: Kaylee signs up for NEED because she wants a kidney for her sick brother. Other classmates sign up for NEED because they want material possessions like concert tickets and gym equipment. What is a want versus a need? If someone offered you the chance to have something you really wanted, but you had to complete an anonymous task, would you blindly do it? Would you question it at all? Is there always a price to pay for something that appears to be free?

Fiction, Teen, Young Adult/New Adult

I Crawl Through It: Surrealist YA fiction about teens under pressure

Posted on September 2, 2015September 2, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

I Crawl Through It, by A.S. King (Sept. 2015, Little Brown), $18, ISBN: 9780316334099

Recommended for ages 14+

This surrealist novel follows the lives of four teens under pressure, ready to explode. School and testing stress, past trauma, and loss have taken them all to their limits and no one seems to see them. One turns herself inside out; one splits in two; one tells lies, and one builds an invisible helicopter that will fly far away.

Using four narratives, we get the story, piece by piece, slowly gaining clarity but never quite fully grasping it. I Crawl Through It is an indictment of the society we’ve left to our kids; focusing on ourselves, testing, and our children’s accomplishments and how they’re perceived more than seeing them for who they are and what they need.

This isn’t an easy novel to read, but it is an important one. Who hasn’t wanted to become something – someone else to deal with high school? Who hasn’t wanted to fly away from all the stress in life? When teens, who are supposed to be enjoying themselves at this stage of life want to run away and disappear, though, we need a book like I Crawl Through It to give us a sense of the disjointed, upended feelings we may be missing.

Many teens will see themselves in this novel. More adults should be reading this book to get a handle on what our adolescents are up against.

Author A.S. King received a Printz Honor for Please Ignore Vera Dietz. Her “official hideout” on the web offers educator resources, links to her blog, information about her books and author visits, and links to social media.

iBooks has selected I Crawl Through It as one of their 25 Best Books of September!

Fiction, Teen, Tween Reads, Uncategorized

The Dogs is a gripping YA thriller with a touch of the paranormal!

Posted on August 27, 2015August 5, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Dogs, by Allan Stratton (Sept. 2015, SourcebooksFire), $16.99, ISBN: 9781492609384

Recommended for ages 12+

“Mom and I have been on the run for years. Every time he catches up with us, we move to a new place and start over. But this place is different. This place is full of secrets. And they won’t leave me alone.”

Cameron and his mother are on the run from his abusive father. They make their way to their latest home, a broken-down farm with a history that no one wants to talk about. Their next door neighbor/landlord has secrets of his own, and he’s bullied by the kids at school who taunt him about the dogs they say haunt the farm. Tired of pulling up stakes at a moment’s notice and living an invisible life, Cameron is drawn to Jacky, a young boy he sees on his property. The thing is, Jacky isn’t there – or is he? Is Cameron imagining things, or is he talking to a ghost? What are the mysteries surrounding the house and the dogs, and are Cameron’s memories about his own past able to be trusted?

I love a good thriller, and The Dogs is one of the best ones I’ve read this year. Cameron, as an unreliable narrator, keeps the readers on their toes as he shifts between memory, imagination, and reality. The plot and subplots are woven together beautifully to give readers a creepy, often chilling, adventure that left me with a clenched jaw and the cold sweats. Stratton takes the mental and emotional toll that domestic violence takes on a family; the constant fear that a mother on the run deals with, and weaves them into a murder mystery, adding a dash of ghost story to the mix. There’s something for everyone here, and I can’t wait to get this book into my teen patrons’ hands. There are so many great topics for discussion here; I’m thinking of featuring this as a kickoff selection to a Teen Reads book club I want to begin this Fall.

Fantasy, Fiction, Teen, Uncategorized, Young Adult/New Adult

The Scorpion Rules: War Becomes Personal

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

The Scorpion Rules, by Erin Bow (Sept. 2015, Simon & Schuster), $17.99, ISBN: 9781481442718

Recommended for ages 13+

It’s a new world and it comes with a new age of warfare. When environmental cataclysm led to widespread war, an AI gained sentience and decided to end things his way: start bombing until everyone quieted down. Years later, under the Talis – the ruling AI – war is decidedly more personal: the children of the ruling parties are all held hostage, in a location called the Precepture, until the age of 18. If nations decide to go to war, the children of those nation’s leaders, known as the Children of Peace, are killed.

Greta is a Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy, the superpower formed from the ashes of what we currently know as Canada. She and her co-hostages witness the arrival of a new hostage, Elian, who rebels with everything he has and endures painful punishments because of it. Elian’s parents are farmers, not diplomats, but his grandmother is a different story. Through Elian’s eyes, Greta begins seeing things very differently. Elian’s and Greta’s countries stand on the brink of war and the very real consequences stare them in the face, but things really swing into action when Elian’s grandmother takes things a step further and invades the Precepture, igniting Talis’ fury. A lot of people stand to die unless Greta can think of a solution that will save everyone.

This is an interesting concept – avoid war by making it more personal. Sadly, the AI seems to forget that world leaders want what they want, and sometimes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Children die in this story, don’t think for a moment that this is a benevolent dictatorship to keep the peace. Talis is an AI that’s got way too much emotion, and while parents feel really bad about being responsible for killing off their kids via third person, it happens.

Greta is an interesting character, taking in everything she sees. She’s not a victim and she’s not a martyr, but she’s not entirely a hero, either. She’s flawed, Elian’s is obnoxiously valiant, and the co-hostages are all doing what they can to survive. While Elian is tortured because he tries to rebel and refuses to accept his circumstances, comparing himself to Spartacus, Greta endures the brunt of the brutality to come with resignation.

The story is a near-unputdownable read, with solid character development and world-building, layered with plot twists and some truly cringe-worthy characters you’ll love to hate. You’ll rage inwardly at the world these children exist in, and I know I’ll never look at HAL from 2001 in the same way again (that’s the voice I ascribed to Talis). There’s a brilliantly diverse cast, and the real jewel in the novel is the relationship that develops between Greta and fellow hostage, Xie. The awakening and confirmation of their feelings for one another is portrayed beautifully and with tremendous respect, and it was a bright spot among the dark places in the story.

The Scorpion Rules should be a popular Fall read, and would be a great enhancement to a social studies class on world relations. I’m going to see if I can foist it upon my own 16 year-old, as well as the teens at my library. Off to create discussion questions!