YA

Annie, another LQ contributor, works for a publishing company in Minneapolis and asked if one of us would be interested in reviewing the YA novel Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield. Everyone else wrote back and said they’re not fans of …

There’s considerable buzz around Angie Thomas’s debut young adult novel, The Hate U Give. The Times (UK) reviewer says that it could very well be the YA book of the decade, and The Atlantic calls it “incisive and engrossing.” This is a novel …

Why: I spend quite a bit of time in my car. My evening commute in particular can be quite lengthy and irritating. Admittedly, I was a skeptic of audiobooks. I started seeing Kathleen post some reviews on here and I …

In 1911, fourteen year-old Joan Skraggs finds herself trapped at home on a run-down farm, working tirelessly for her cruel father. He pulls her from school and requires her, “an ox of a girl” and “ugly” in his estimation, to mend, …

School’s out (at least in my neck of the woods) and summer reading season is upon us!  As I loaded my 6th grade students up with top picks, I grabbed a few middle-grade novels for myself.  My stack included a prime …

I remember reading Katherine Paterson‘s Bridge to Terabithia while on vacation with my family.  I was maybe nine years old, and it was far past my bedtime. Tears (and let’s get real: probably snot) soaked my t-shirt, and I woke my …

In the fall of 2011, an eighth-grade student of mine wrote a beautiful letter to Ruta Sepetys, the author of Between Shades of Gray, detailing what she’d gleaned from Sepetys’ first novel  – the power of perseverance, integrity, and love. Since then, …