City Book Review

Emilie and the Hollow World

Release Date: 4/2/2013

By Martha Wells
Strange Chemistry, $9.99, 320 pages

Emilie has run away from her over-bearing uncle to help her cousin in the city, but when her plans to sneak away on the ship Meribel go wrong, she cuts her losses and stows away on the ship Sovereign. Soveriegn is going to the middle of the Earth, to rescue a wizard who had made the journey before the Sovereign but was trapped there. Emilie makes friends with the crew, and learns the story behind the expedition; the lost wizard is the father of one of the passengers. When the Sovereign also becomes trapped in the Hollow World, Emilie …

Beholding Bee

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Release Date: 2/12/2013

By Kimberly Newton Fusco
Knopf Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 336 pages

When you have a birthmark on your face that goes from your eyebrow to your chin, and you run a hot dog stand at a carnival, you find ways of hiding it from everyone who you don’t trust most dearly. But when you are doing all that hiding, it is hard not to hide your real self too. Bee lives in a carnival with Pauline, her caretaker, but when Pauline is taken away, Bee decides to find a home of her own, taking with her her dog Peabody and a …

The Silver Door (Golden Door)

Posted in Kids' Book Review, Young Adult by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 4/1/2013

By Emily Rodda
Scholastic, $16.99, 288 pages

Rye and his friend Sonia saved Rye’s brother Dirk in The Golden Door. Now, the trio must journey through the silver Door to find Sholto, Rye’s other brother. The silver Door hides a melancholy wasteland of indestructible snails, giant bird monsters, and the Lord of Shadows, a purely evil personage. Rye has a bag of nine magic powers to aid him in his quests: a crystal that glows and lets Rye see through solid objects, a horsehair ring for speed, a hood for invisibility, a serpent scale for swimming superhumanly. But what of the other four …

The Berenstein Bears Go Green

Posted in Children's, Kids' Book Review by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 2/26/2013

By Jan Berenstein, Mike Berenstein

HarperFestival, $3.99, 24 pages

The bears in Bear County decide to go fishing in Grandpa Bear’s boat. As they are enjoying their picnic lunch, they start to smell something yucky. They discover that the smell is the oil leaking into the water from a barrel at the dump. So they go to a meeting to complain to the major, but another bear stands up first to tell him about the oil that is leaking. The major asks all of the bears to help clean up the dump. The bears all work together to clean up the trash. …

When We Wake

Posted in Kids' Book Review, Tweens by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 3/5/2013

By Karen Healey
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 304 pages

Imagine if you woke up to a stranger attempting to convince you that you had been shot and that you are now living the first day of your second lifetime, a century later. When We Wake by Karen Healey, is the story of a teenage girl, Tegan Oglietti, living in Australia, in the year two thousand twenty seven. At a protest for a better environment, Tegan becomes the accidental victim of a shooting. Having previously signed a contract to donate her dead body to science, Tegan finds herself in a …

Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch

Posted in Children's, Kids' Book Review by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 2/26/2013

By James Dean
HarperCollins Children’s, $16.99, 32 pages

Pete is a cat. He is hungry. Pete makes a sandwich, but it is too small. So Pete adds an apple to the sandwich. It is still too small. So he adds crackers, but it’s still too small. He is really hungry so he adds cheese, pickles, an egg, hot dogs and a can of beans. Then he adds three scoops of ice cream. The sandwich gets too big for Pete to eat by himself. Pete invites all his friends over and they eat the whole sandwich. Pete’s friends thank him for sharing. Pete …

Odette’s Secrets

Posted in Kids' Book Review, Tweens by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 2/26/2013

By Maryann Macdonald
Bloomsbury USA Children’s, $16.99, 240 pages

Odette lives in Paris with her parents, until one day her father is called away to fight in World War II. Her mother, who works for the Resistance, sends Odette off to the country, where she will be safe. Odette learns to be Christian, and acts as the other girls in town do. She slowly forgets her father but misses her mother. One day her mother takes her to live as a peasant in the country until they can return to Paris.

“‘Why do people hate Jews?’ I ask her.

‘Some people in France today …

Where Do You Look?

Posted in Children's, Kids' Book Review by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 2/12/2013

By Marthe Jocelyn, Nell Jocelyn
Tundra Books, $15.95, 32 pages

This book asks you where you look for things. It asks about words that can have two or three different meanings. The questions are about a cap, a button, a tongue, glasses, a match, a wave, a trunk, a letter, and a story. Each question tells you different places to look for that object.

“Where do you look for a wave? At the train station? Or at the beach?”

I like that this book had all the different meanings of each word because it makes you think about which meaning of the word it …

Screech Owls: Face-Off at the Alamo

Posted in Kids' Book Review, Tweens by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 2/12/2013

By Roy MacGregor
Tundra Books, $8.95, 176 pages

Face-Off at the Alamo has a really can’t-put-down feeling because of the problem and the great description of hockey. It shows deep feelings in all of the characters, not just Travis, the main character. The author vividly describes the setting and is great at putting images in my head with his descriptions.

It is also meaningful and teaches lessons like even in the silliest people there is a hard-working and determined player and person. Speaking of that, this book and the others alternate greatly between people doing sports and people going through their normal life. Mystery …

Screech Owls: Mystery at Lake Placid

Posted in Kids' Book Review, Tweens by editor - May 20, 2013

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Release Date: 2/12/2013

By Roy MacGregor
Tundra Books, $8.95, 272 pages

Mystery at Lake Placid switches between hockey and the normal, everyday life. The plot can easily happen to anyone and switches with the hockey feeling. This book is a great example of describing regular events so well that they become interesting. I think that this book also teaches great lessons, like bad deeds usually result in humiliation.

I love mystery books and this one has suspense and other traits that make it a really hard to put down book. I know that an author is amazingly talented if he can write such ordinary masterpieces as …