Category: Boy Meets Book

It’s the middle of winter in 1977 upstate New York, and seventeen year old Nick has decided he’s OVER being a burnout banger. So he ditches his pot-smoking friends, trades in his ratty concert tees for a shirt and tie and memorizes his new mantra: STAND OUT. STAND UP. STAND BY. STAND FAST. When his best friend makes a break for Florida, he makes a tentative plan to join once he has the cash. He starts logging serious hours at his crappy convince store job, but at a minimum wage of $2+ an hour, he’s hardly making any bank. Just as it looks like his beach dream may not come true, he is seduced by a Joan Jett look alike named Dawn who convinces him to dip back into the druggie world for one last big score. If Nick can pull it off, he will make enough for both he and Dawn to ride south into the sunset. Can he convince Dawn’s unstable drug lord boyfriend to trust him long enough to steal his stash AND his girl? This slow-burning thriller is full of twists and tension, with a setting that really captures the white 1970’s in rural/suburban America. I felt like I knew Nick and his crew pretty well, as they resembled the guys I stood next to at the school bus stop and watched trade cigarettes in the art and shop rooms at school. If you’re not entirely sure what I’m talking about, check out these 1970’s film gems about being a kid and teen back in the day and read SNOW JOB when it hits the library and bookstore shelves March 2016.

Dan’s divorced mom has never had the best taste in men, Dan’s dad included. So when she tells Dan that she has arranged a hardcore camping trip for him and her newest beau Hank so that they can “get some quality guy time in,” Dan is obviously less than thrilled. Dan is sure that Hank is going to be just “another one of Mom’s freeloading man-child boyfriends eating all our food, shedding body hair in the shower, and stealing money out of my change jar.” At least Dan is able to convince his sarcastic brainiac best friend Charlie to come along as a buffer. But Charlie has other ideas–“You need to convince Hank that he’s in way over his head with the stepdad thing. Be creative. Have fun with it.” So the boys plan a serious of disasters intended to drive Hank as far away from Dan as possible. These include, but are not limited to: an extreme B.O. situation, a puking event, and an intense case of flatulence + diarrhea + poison ivy–all while trying to survive in woods “Man vs. Wild” style. After putting himself through bodily fluid hell, Dan hopes that will be enough to make Hank head for the hills. But when the camping team is forced to scatter due to a crazed bear attack, Dan and Hank have to depend on each other to make it out of the woods alive, and Dan starts to wonder if his scorched butt campaign was really the smart way to go. This scatologically funny comedy could only have come from the hilariously warped brain of screen writer Don Calame. The last time I was so completely amused and grossed out simultaneously was when I read his equally raunchy and highly entertaining Swim the Fly trilogy (which I recommend unequivocally to anyone aged 14+) If you appreciate witty dialogue, drawn out fart jokes and quick tips about how to survive in the woods with minimal supplies (and honestly, who doesn’t?) you are going to want to catch, snare or trap Dan vs. Nature when it comes to library, bookstore or e-reader near you April 2016.

Ruth would do anything to get out of Gran’s “old person smelling” house, but the results are disastrous when cute Ray Stevens offers a sleepover with benefits. Dora wishes she had a place she could call home because no matter how kind Dumping’s parents are, she can never forget that she is a guest in their house due to her father’s inability to stay away from the bottle. Dumpling always wears a red ribbon on the end of her braid for luck, but it doesn’t save her from what fate has in store. Alyce is torn between the two worlds of professional ballet and commercial fishing, and making a choice means disappointing one of her divorced parents. Hank is forced to take his two younger brothers on the run in order to find out where he truly belongs. This group of disenfranchised Alaskan teens living on the edges of their white, Athabaskan and Inupiat communities in the 1970’s end up coming together in complicated and unexpected ways that will delight and surprise readers. Based on the debut author’s own experiences growing up in Alaska, this character-rich, poetically-written, all-ages read will be available at a library, bookstore or e-reader near you February 2016.

Rashad is African American, an aspiring artist, the son of a police officer and a member of the ROTC. Quinn is white, a loving big brother, the son of a soldier who died in Afghanistan, and a member of a winning basketball team. Both boys find their understanding of the world challenged when Rashad is brutally beaten by a cop for a crime he didn’t commit outside a neighborhood store, and Quinn witnesses it from the sidewalk. Quinn is shocked and devastated to realize that the cop who beat Rashad is actually the older brother of his best friend. Rashad is shocked and devastated to realize that the beating has brought up a painful incident in his father’s past that paints him in a new and disappointing light. In the week following the incident, Rashad and Quinn begin questioning the safety and fairness of the society they thought they knew.

Rashad: “I wasn’t sure what to do about any of it, or if I even wanted anyone else to do anything on my behalf. The looks on my friends’ and family’s faces–it hurt me to see them that way. Especially knowing that it hurt them to see me this way. I didn’t deserve this. None of us did. None of us.”

Quinn: “I wasn’t going to stand there and and pretend I knew what life was like for Rashad. There was no way. We lived in the same goddamn city, went to the same goddamn school, and our lives were so very goddamn different…Nobody wants to think he’s being a racist, but maybe it was a bigger problem, like everyone was just ignoring it, like it was invisible.”

With quiet lyricism and unexpected poetry, co-authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely help readers make sense of “the problem we all live with” with empathy and a serious appreciation for just how deep our biases run and how much we are trying–as a community, as a people, as a nation–to overcome them. This wise, timely book is thought-provoking, philosophical, and a call to action that anyone who reads it will have a hard time ignoring.

Almost seventeen-year-old-wanna-be-screenwriter Quinn Roberts has become very anti-social–“..which is what happens when your big sister gets killed in a car wreck, right outside the school on the day before Christmas break.” So, yeah. Now it’s summer, and things have just gotten worse. Quinn and his mom are subsisting on a steady diet of sorrow and Healthy Choice frozen dinners. Finally driven out of his house by a broken air conditioner and his concerned friend Geoff, Quinn shrugs off his grief long enough to take a shower and attend a college party where he meets a sexy older college guy named Amir who makes his heart go pitter pat. Did I mention Quinn is gay? He is, even though “I’m still not out. It just seems like a hassle to come out. I want to just be out.” Amir is a great distraction to what’s really going on with Quinn, which is a) once again, his sister and best friend Annabeth died b) the last text he sent to Annabeth was something he wishes he never had to think about again c) he is terrified to complete his application to a prestigious film program without her sarcastic but loving support. Without Annabeth’s direction, will the screenplay of Quinn’s life just die in development? This raucous dark comedy is full of author Tim Federle‘s trademark witticisms–I couldn’t stop chuckling and underlining such gems as these while I read:

“I became enamored of the idea of having my own little pool. I was going to make it in the shape of a Q, and the slash at the bottom of the Q was going to be the hot tub.”

“If you don’t know what hangover feels like, congrats. You’re smarter than I am. It’s like a sledgehammer eloped with a swing set and they honeymooned in your head.”

Sometimes Quinn’s voice is a little too frenetic as the wisecracks just keep coming hard and fast page after page with no rest in between. But what the reader quickly realizes is that Quinn has to keep quipping in order to maintain his sanity. Because once he really looks at what has happened to family and asks himself some hard questions about his part in it, there’s no going back. And there’s nothing really funny about that. While you sadly have to wait until March 2016 to experience the witty stylings of Federle’s YA debut, there’s no time like the present to check out his equally diverting Better Nate Than Ever books!

Audrey is missing out on her life. Ever since her ex-friends Tasha, Natalie and Izzy launched a bullying campaign that gave her an acute case of Social Anxiety Disorder with a side order of Depressive Episodes, Audrey has been wearing dark glasses and rarely leaving the house. Dr. Sarah has assured Audrey that her “condition is fully treatable,” but Audrey isn’t so sure. The only time Audrey feels safe is when she is alone in a darkened room watching sitcoms. If she wasn’t being so entertained by her mother’s crazy crusade against her brother Frank’s video gaming habits, she’d probably forget how to laugh. Then Frank brings home his gaming partner, Linus, who’s sweet, cute and intrigued by Audrey’s dark glasses. They embark on the most adorable courtship ever, which mostly involves passing notes and touching the tips of their shoes together. Then Linus challenges Audrey to go out to Starbucks with him. Audrey is torn–should she stay home where no one can ever hurt her again? Or should she trust Linus and face the caffeinated crowd at Starbucks? Audrey thinks she can do anything as long as Linus is there to love and support her. But it’s only when she takes her anxiety into her own hands that the glasses come off and her life REALLY begins to turn around. This delightful oddball romance comes from the pink pen of British Confessions of a Shopaholic author Sophie Kinsella. I have always hugely enjoyed and recommended the Shopaholic series, so I was thrilled to see SK try the YA thing. The results are touching, funny and completely Kinsella. For another atypical romance, take a look at OCD Love Story or try some of these other British funnies.

In this raucous medieval-ish fantasy turned upside down and sideways, Nimona is a sassy shape shifter who offers her slick sidekick services to professional villain Ballister Blackheart. In turn, she wants nothing more than to take out a few good guys. But that’s not the kind of villain Blackheart is. In fact, he’s kind of…kind, more like a Robin Hood than Sheriff of Nottingham. So when Nimona’s unstoppable powers attract the attention of the deadly Director of the mysterious Institute, Blackheart does his best to keep things from getting too heated between Nimona and the Institute’s champion, Ambrosius Goldenloin. But for sad and terrible reasons of her own, Nimona is out for blood, and soon Blackheart finds himself trapped between his arch enemy and his closest ally, no longer able to tell which is which. This inventive graphic novel was originally a web comic that earned oodles of raves, all heartily well deserved. Stevenson’s small scale art and text is packed with big universal truths about corruption, morality and heroism while also delivering some hardcore giggles along the way. You’ll find yourself wanting a Nimona of your own after finishing this delightfully subversive tome.

Jack Hurd is a thoughtful twelve year old who lives and works on a farm with his devoted parents. Joseph Brook is a troubled fourteen year old from an abusive home who’s already done time for trying to kill a teacher. The two meet when Jack’s folks agree to take Joseph on as a foster child. Even though Joseph has a bad rep, Jack likes him right away. Sensitive cow Rosie moos her happy moo whenever he’s near, and Jack knows, “You can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him.” Luckily, Jack’s parents feel the same way. After having to fight his way out of tight spots his whole life, Joseph has finally found a family that’s willing to fight for him. Which is good, because teenage Joseph is already the father of a baby girl named Jupiter. And if he ever wants to see her again, he’s going to need all the love the Hurd family has to spare, and then some. But when it comes to babies, laws and red tape, sometimes love isn’t enough. Friends, this weeptastic tear jerker by award winning author Gary Schmidt nearly undid me with it’s spare prose, empathetic characters and heartbreaking plot. If you’re the type of reader who chooses books based on their ability to cause you to break down in sobs, then you’ll want to run, not walk and nab this wonderful weeper from your nearest library, bookstore or e-reader November 2015.

SPOILER ALERT: Before launching into this luscious sequel of epic proportions, please do yourself a BIG favor and read the utterly delicious first book in this planned four volume series. And if you’re already a fan of the fabulous paranormal Roaring Twenties tome, then by all means, READ ON! Picking up right where The Diviners left off, Evie is now enjoying superstardom as the “Sweetheart Seer” of WGI radio, streetwise Sam is working alongside steadfast Jericho and Evie’s Uncle Will at the Museum of the American Folklore, Superstition and the Occult, BFF entertainers Theta and Henry are playing the nights away at the Ziegfeld Follies and secret poet Memphis runs numbers during the day while working on love poetry for Theta after hours. Though they seem happy and busy on the surface, each continues to come to uncomfortable terms with the hidden abilities they have discovered within themselves. While exercising his dream walking talent to try and connect with his lost love Louis, Henry runs into Ling Chan, a Chinese/Irish teen who uses dreams to confer with the dead. Together they discover a seductive netherworld where a vengeful ghost is tapping into the dreams of innocent New Yorkers, causing them to fall into a deadly sleep from which they never wake. The ghost’s presence is tied to an old, bricked over subway station that was recently excavated. Once her bones are stirred, the veiled woman covered in blood and her army of soul sucking phosphorescent zombies haunt the train tunnels and only Ling and Henry have the clues to solve the mystery of her death and lay her spirit to rest. Meanwhile, on the romantic front, Sam and Evie embark on a news worthy romance that may or may not be the real deal, Theta and Memphis encounter the difficulties of interracial dating in the era of KKK parades and the Eugenics movement, while Jericho struggles with who to give his heart to PERIOD. As the story climbs inexorably to a tension-filled conclusion, the rag tag band of friends begin to realize that a greater evil than the previous Pentacle Killer and present Hungry Ghost is afoot and that they will need to reveal their clandestine supernatural skills to each other if they ever hope to win against it.

SO. MUCH. HERE. TO. LOVE, so I will spare you too many gushy particulars and just say that as a librarian I was delighted that Ling did research on the abandoned subway station at the Seward Park library with the help of fictional librarian Mrs. Belpre, and as a New Yorker I appreciated what seemed like a heartbreaking reference to 9/11 when the 1920’s train entrances were papered with handmade signs of people who have gone missing since the subway ghost started haunting. Finally, I laughed aloud with nerdy glee when the historically real Carl Jung made an appearance to talk dreams with Evie and Theta. Author Libba Bray’s ability to infuse a paranormal thriller with such nuanced and layered themes of bias, identity, and culture and how they are all integrated messily into the fabric of our collected American history is completely amazeballs. This rich, detail-packed second book does not disappoint with its deepening of the characters and relationships we came to know and love from the first book, and tantalizing hints of the horror to come, including additional references to the mysterious Project Buffalo and the enigmatic crow-coated man in the stovepipe hat. While it was definitely worth the wait, it’s going to be hard drumming our nail bitten fingers as we anxiously anticipate the next chapters in the newly formed Diviner crew’s supernatural adventures. Coming to a library, bookstore, e-reader or pillow near you August 25 2015.

Matt hasn’t been doing so well since his mom passed away from cancer. Once a stellar home chef, now he can barely look at his mom’s recipe book. Instead he orders take-out, worries that his dad is drinking too much, and listens to Tupac’s “Dear Mama” over and over. When Matt is gently encouraged by his neighbor and local funeral director Mr. Ray to take a job at the funeral home assisting with services, he is shocked to realize that instead of “reliving my mom’s funeral everyday,” the job is actually helping him heal. “I liked watching other people deal with the loss of someone, not because I enjoyed seeing them in pain, but because, somehow it made me feel better knowing that my pain isn’t just mine. That my life isn’t the only one that missing something it will never have back.” It’s at a funeral that Matt meets Love Brown, a girl who has lost everything but still manages to see the sun behind the rain. A girl who truly understands how he feels. And that’s when the Boy in the Black Suit learns to stop grieving and start living (and Loving:) again. This heartfelt story of devotion and mourning by the author of When I Was the Greatest will feel comfortingly familiar to anyone who’s ever fallen in love or lost a beloved someone. (And honestly, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep the Kleenex handy.)

Employing a similar technique in nonfiction that Nick Hornby used in fiction, motivational speaker and Paralympic skier Josh Sunquist goes back to question the girls of his youth to discover why no one ever wanted to be his girlfriend. The results are both painfully true and truly funny. When it came to dating, Josh already had a few strikes against him. First of all, he was homeschooled in a strict Christian family that didn’t allow him to even consider dating girls until he was sixteen. Secondly, his mother was a proud thrift store shopper, so Josh only rarely scored some cool threads to impress girls with. And finally, after a horrific bout with childhood cancer, Josh’s left leg had to be amputated, leaving him feeling understandably hesitant when it came to talking to the opposite sex. He also set some pretty tough rules for himself after the amputation: “1. Never be a burden. 2. Never be different.” So under most circumstances, Josh was so busy trying to blend in that he had a hard time standing out. After documenting his failure to establish romantic relationships at the middle school, high school and college level, Josh finally realizes that his problem wasn’t with all the girls who turned him down, it was with the guy in the mirror who, despite all the obstacles he’d overcome, just didn’t believe in himself. And then, Ashley came along…This breezy, humorous memoir reads like a what NOT to do manual on dating. After finishing, readers will learn that honesty is often the best policy, Miss America is probably just as insecure about her body as you are and Close Fast Dancing is actually a thing. Want to read a sample before committing? Click here.

Jude and Noah are fraternal twins, and so close that they can practically read each other’s minds. Both are artists (Noah draws, Jude sews and sculpts) and in his mind, Noah knows exactly what their joined spirit looks like: “Jude and me have one soul between us that we have to share: a tree with its leaves on fire.” They know each other’s thoughts, they keep each other safe. “We were keeping each other company when we didn’t have any eyes or hands. Before our soul even got delivered.” They even facetiously divide up the world between them, trading sun, flowers and trees back and forth for favors like they are the only two people on the planet. And then the unthinkable happens. Their beautiful, kind mother, a friend and mentor to both, dies in a car accident. And just like that, according to Jude, “our twin-telepathy is long gone. When Mom died, he hung up on me. And now, because of everything that’s happened, we avoid each other–worse, repel each other.” Now gentle, oddball Noah has become shiny, brittle and popular while bright and sunny Jude has become gray and withdrawn. Then Jude finds an artist mentor with a mysterious connection to her family that just might allow her to finally truly grieve her mother’s death and find her way back to her brother.

Oh, friends, this book! This book! I’ll Give You the Sun is the most delicious, word-juicy tome I have ever read. I underlined so many gorgeous sentences and passages that the pages of my copy are practically phosphorescent with highlighter. You’ll want to squeeze it like an orange in order to get every golden effervescent drop into your brain. The paragraphs sing with marvelous descriptions of the joy of making art and the disappointment of missed connections. Jandy Nelson hasn’t just given lucky readers the sun, but an ENTIRE UNIVERSE in 300+ pages. Read it, weep, and then read it again. A simply spectacular book that you absolutely must not miss for all the sun, stars, oceans and trees in the world!

When Deshi Li’s irresponsible older brother Wei is killed in a tragic accident, his parents charge Deshi with finding him a corpse bride, a dead female body to accompany him into the afterlife. Stricken with grief and guilt, Deshi complies, hiring a black market body dealer named Song to help him secure a girl who’s not too long gone in her grave. But when the two men are startled at the graveyard and become separated, Deshi runs into Lily, a rural girl desperate to escape an arranged marriage who’s looking for a free ride to Beijing. The two team up on the road, and Deshi finds his thoughts going to dark places. Should he just murder Lily and take her body home to his parents? But how can he, when each day he delays killing her in sleep he falls deeper in love with her? Meanwhile, Lily’s father and crooked Song are hot on their trail, each hoping to exact their own special brand of revenge. This beautifully illustrated modern fable of love and death hooked me from the very first sentence with an original plot grown from the rich soil of Chinese folklore. Author illustrator Danica Novgorodoff (Refresh, Refresh) tells Deshi and Lily’s story through sparkling, darkly humorous dialogue and lavish watercolor panels that take your breath away with each turn of the page. You’ll want to hightail it to a library or bookstore near you ASAP in order to experience this fantastic journey for yourself.

After Hank’s mother is attacked at gunpoint by a bank robber in 1940’s California, she becomes obsessed with one thing, and one thing only—that nineteen year old Hank become a superhero just like the Anchor of Justice who rescued her. Except Hank had been looking forward to taking over his father’s small Chinatown grocery store and living “a happy life, a fortunate life, filled with friends and Mahjong and maybe even a little whiskey.” But Hank’s bossy mother won’t relent, making him a green superhero suit, dubbing him The Golden Man of Bravery and setting him up with kung fu lessons with Uncle Wun Too. Soon Hank is getting into the swing of things, especially after his combat training starts to kick in. But when Mock Beak, the king of organized crime in Chinatown, threatens his father and Hank tries to intervene, the results are disastrous. Maybe he’s not cut out to be a superhero after all. It’s only after he’s visited by the kind and ancient spirit of Turtle that Hank discovers his true calling as Green Turtle, a Chinese superhero impervious to bullets and ready to take on the entire organized crime empire known as The Tong of Sticks. He just didn’t count on falling for his archenemy’s beautiful daughter… I absolutely adored this funny, big-hearted GN that melds fact, fiction and folklore into a delectable Turtle soup! The Shadow Hero is an inspired origin story based on the actual Green Turtle from the 1940’s who failed to take off because supposedly publishers at that time didn’t think that “a Chinese superhero would sell,” and wouldn’t let his creator Chu Hing give him Asian features. Click here to listen to author Gene Luen Yang explain the fascinating backstory behind Green Turtle and The Shadow Hero. Coming to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you July 2014.

High school freshman Travis Ray Coates is dying from incurable cancer when doctors tell his family there’s one last chance for survival—as long as Travis doesn’t mind having his neck separated from his torso. It seems there’s a new cryogenic technology that will allow Travis’s head to be detached and frozen until doctors can find him a donor body to link it to. There’s only one little glitch—the technology isn’t quite there yet. So Travis goes to sleep before the operation to remove his noggin, not knowing when or even if he will ever wake up. When he does comes to, five years have passed and he has a new body that is in way better shape than his old one. Being alive is obviously better than being dead, but Travis quickly discovers that starting life over is much more complicated than he ever imagined. First of all, he is still technically sixteen and has to finish high school while everyone else he knows has moved on to work or college. Next, his girlfriend and love of his life Cate Conroy now has a fiancée. A fiancée! And if all that wasn’t enough, there’s also the little matter of skinny jeans.

“’These are pretty tight,’ I said, walking out to model a pair of jeans for my mom.
‘It’s the style.’
‘I don’t understand. I can hardly move…are these girl jeans?’
‘No, Travis. I told you. It’s what everyone wears now. Boys and girls.’”

Suddenly, being back isn’t all that great. “I thought if I woke up at all, it would be in a hundred years to a brand-new world full of new people. But instead there I was stuck in this mutated version of my old life where everyone had grown-up just enough to forget about me…I came back from the dead for this? Joke’s on me.” This fresh, funny novel about losing your life in order to find your place is hands down the most original story I’ve read in ages. Travis’ voice is sweet and folky, full of a bewilderment that anyone who’s ever found themselves in a fish-out-of-water situation can relate to. I was an unabashed fan of Corey Whaley’s debut novel, and I’m happy to say that his sophomore effort more than meets my sky-high expectations. There’s something just a little bit genius about using a decapitated head as a symbol for teenage identity formation, and I urge you to sample the genius for yourselves. Heads will roll in a library, bookstore or e-reader near you April 2014.