Memories, conflicts, problems – walking away lets him avoid the pain, but sometimes easier isn’t better.
Three years since Dad jumped off the bridge, leaving behind Will and Mom and his Bowie t-shirts, but not his famed cornbread recipe.
Three years of walking to school, dollar store job, then home – past the butterfly-watching little boy, homeless Superman, dog-of-insanity forever chained.
Can 100-cent gifts help them, give best friend Playa strength to stand up in court, reveal the cornbread secret to Will?
His LA neighborhood grows larger, sharper as the Black teen walks and walks and walks his memories out and wonders about the future.
One hundred chapters of 100 words (like the blessings store Dad loved) move the story along as Will walks and thinks and weaves David Bowie lyrics into everyday life – in paperback May 2019.
Very fine audiobooks, and FREE each week! Summer starts today, with friends in very big situations.
So pleased that AudiobookSYNC is once again offering us a pair of free audiobooks to download each Thursday-Wednesday week from now through 1 August 2019, and the variety is simply stunning.
I’ll highlight the new titles each Thursday, so you can just hit the link, enter your name and email address, then download either or both professionally produced audiobooks to enjoy for as long as you keep the file on your device.
Jazz punctuates Walt and Noah’s junior year as the best friends decide to make a difference, take chances on relationships, and look toward their futures with intention. Read by the author, this book highlights what divides us and what can bring us back together.
A fake kidnapping, the “victim’s” cellphone suddenly in a hungry street kid’s hands, when another on-the-run teen tries to steal it. Somehow, fidgety Blink and drug-gang escapee Caution decide to turn this into successful blackmail, neither suspecting that the other will stay true to their doomed, crazy plan.
Clever foster kid, small-time con artist & hacker, ideal CIA recruit!
The early-training scheme that landed a Black teen from Atlanta in a small Ukrainian town trying to stop a ruthless arms dealer didn’t go well.
So here he is at a new school with a new identity and new friends…but not the only one who isn’t operating under their true name or allegiance!
How do you know who to trust? **kmm
Book info: Prettyboy Must Die / Kimberly Reid. Tor Teen, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Now undercover at a prestigious Colorado boarding school, Jake is haunted by his first failure as a CIA operative when a candid photo of the 16 year old African American goes viral and the bad guys arrive, more than ready to kill!
Former foster kid Jake has a new identity as Pete for his senior year at Carlisle (double-crossed Ukrainian arms dealers are more than mean), keeping tabs on the kids of diplomats, high-ranking military, and super-scientists – plus his housemate Bunk who lived underground with his dad till last year.
No coincidence that armed hostiles invade Carlisle the morning after that photo hits social media or that the Ukranian hacker has attacked super-secret projects near Denver or that Jake is the only one who can save his classmates and national security!
Someone inside the school let the hostiles in – why?
Mysterious packages arrived recently – for which international student?
The bad guys say that “Prettyboy must die” but Jake is determined to keep everyone at Carlisle alive!
They’ve endured a year without Jim, their graduation without his snarky brilliance, their pre-college summer without the play he was writing, a season and another without their spark, without Beatrice’s boyfriend.
Her friends keep calling, but Beatrice stays in her parents’ Rhode Island house, until the anniversary of Jim’s death finally pulls her to the seaside mansion where they spent so many weekends with their friends away from the private school where he was found dead.
When a stranger at the door tells the group that time has stuck in a loop for them until they agree on a difficult, terrifying, terrible choice, Beatrice knows they must go back to the scene of Jim’s death and puzzle out how (and why) he really died.
Not a mere nightmare they can wake up from – if they don’t make a unanimous decision, they’ll all be trapped in the Neverworld Wake forever!
A psychological thriller and YA debut by the author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
What mystery would invisible-you go back to solve?
**kmm
Book info: Neverworld Wake / Marisha Pessl. Delacorte Press, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Before The Odyssey was the war against Troy, and the gods have chosen sides!
As with his adaptation of The Odyssey, Hinds quotes the important speeches that drive the story forward and transmutes the voluminous descriptive text into his illustrations.
Keeping track of so many names and affiliations in the classic Greek tale is so much easier with Hinds’ distinct armor and headgear, color-coding, and layouts.
The ugly business of war in colorful garb…
Who was right in the Trojan War? **kmm
Book info: The Iliad: A Graphic Novel Adaptation / Gareth Hinds. Candlewick Press, 2019. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Evacuation means leaving the place. Mandatory means that it must be done. She knows this, he doesn’t even care.
After the accident, her sister’s rehab was long and arduous, her dad abandoned them, and Sophie concentrated on helping mom with their stables and preparing to become a veterinarian.
Then Finn walked back into her life like he’d never stood her up at the dance, like he didn’t remember how close they had been before, like he hadn’t disappeared without a trace, without even a phone call…
And now the hurricane grows more powerful than predicted as the teens are stuck on the barrier island, trying to stay alive!
Go back to coastal North Carolina with the author of The Thing With Feathers, which I recommended here.
Checked your emergency preparedness skills and supplies lately? **kmm
Book info: Meet the Sky / McCall Hoyle. Blink YA, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: As a ferocious hurricane approaches North Carolina, Sophie is stranded on her Outer Banks island with Finn, guaranteed to break her heart again, if they survive the storm.
Did Mom and Mere and the horses get to the mainland safely?
What brought Finn back to the island?
Surfing during a hurricane evacuation is just like class clown Finn, delaying their journey through the increasing wind to safety.
Too close to the shore, Sophie and Finn fight through lancing rain and wind-borne debris to find shelter. Too late?
But that’s when teens who are Changers wake up to their fourth transformation into a completely new identity – gender, race, sexuality, talents, every physical characteristic is likely to be different from who they appeared to be as a junior or sophomore or freshman.
And before graduation, they must decide which of those four Versions to keep for the rest of their lives!
This is a bang-up ending to the series and could be read solo, but do yourself a favor and go through the whole journey with this Changer teen’s personas of Drew (book 1 recommended here), Oryon (book 2 review), and Kim (book 3 notes) first!
How much can you change yourself to become more yourself? **kmm
Book info: Changers: Book Four – Forever / T Cooper & Allison Glock-Cooper. Black Sheep/ Akashic Books, 2018. [T Cooper site] [Allison site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Junior year at Kim’s Tennessee high school brought new friendships and old conflicts renewed. One more identity to experience as a senior – and it’s the person seen in earlier visions as cause of a tragic death!
Being transformed on the first day of school each year into another body is wild. Keeping the same inner identity without giving that away is really hard. Maintaining the secrecy of the world’s Changers when attacked by Abiders is near-impossible!
Four Versions, four options – which choice will be their one body forever?
Preceded by Changers Book One: Drew, Book Two: Oryon, and Book Three: Kim.
Safe from crime and anger, Far above the plagued world… Protected or controlled?
The Intercept records all their emotions and keeps them in check, allowing the luckiest humans to live peacefully in the tight quarters of New Earth, away from the ravaged world below.
When Violet meets Danny, whose late brother invented the Intercept, she begins to wonder if her emotions should belong to her instead and why Danny keeps returning to Old Earth’s dangers.
How much of your freedom would you sacrifice for safety? **kmm
Book info: The Dark Intercept (Dark Intercept, book 1) / Julia Keller. Tor Teen, hardcover 2017, paperback 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: As the all-encompassing Intercept collects every emotion from each human, sixteen-year-old Violet uncovers a rebellion on New Earth and must decide which side is telling the truth about its powers.
Violet’s father founded New Earth a generation ago, ensuring that the best and brightest escaped there from the disease and destruction on Old Earth.
Now the Intercept can monitor everyone on both Earths, crime is down everywhere, yet policeman Danny (brother of the Intercept inventor) insists on returning often to patrol Old Earth – is he looking for something?
As cameras monitor the safety of people on missions down to Old Earth, Violet sees the dire poverty there – why does New Earth only allow a few immigrations up every year?
Rumors swirl about a way to bypass the Intercept, to keep thoughts and emotions out of the New Earth government computers – what are the Rebels of Light planning?
Violet and Danny find themselves together more and more, but what the Intercept can record, the Intercept can repeat…
A house full of children, being second or twelfth wife… not her dream, not her future!
Gentry’s mother is Father’s second wife, her love of music blooming in her children – an unhealthy practice from the outside say the other wives who also sniff that food is wasted on her sister Amy because the Prophet will never allow a disabled person to be a wife.
If Gentry could only play the violin instead of worrying about outsiders attacking the polygamist compound or becoming a wife as a young teen or hearing the Prophet calling out punishments…
When do you say that your elders don’t know what’s best? **kmm
Book info: The Prophet Calls / Melanie Sumrow. Yellow Jacket/ Bonnier Publishing USA, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Playing the violin is Gentry’s dream, not becoming a wife and mother, but how far will the young teen go to make music in defiance of their polygamist cult’s Prophet?
Bad luck for Gentry that her 13th birthday comes just as the Prophet declares in a phone call from prison that no women may leave the Watchful compound, days before she and Tanner are due to play at the folk music festival in Santa Fe!
Father’s other wives have long said that her Mother’s love for music is too worldly, but surely Gentry’s talent is a blessing…
Can Tanner find a way for them to perform at the festival?
Can Gentry stay clear of the Prophet’s eldest nephew and his grabby hands?
Can she keep little Amy safe from those who can’t see past her disabilities?
Every call from the Prophet brings new fears and restrictions as he decides what is taught at their school, which devout men get to marry more wives, and who is banished to the outside where crazy people think men walked on the moon.
Gator-skin boots with silver tips, brain full of remedy recipes, heart full of worries…
Evangeline has to be braver than ever when the otherworldly forces affecting their client in the too-busy city send Gran to the hospital, leaving the haunt-huntress-in-training to complete their mission – with the help of Julian, who will have to push past his self-imposed limits to save his mother.
Johnny revenants from Civil War battlefields and bayou banshees are easy to banish compared to the evil preparing to pounce on the Crescent City!
Is there a power within you that you’re just waiting to manifest? **kmm
Book info: Evangeline of the Bayou / Jan Eldredge; illustrations by Joseph Kuefler. Balzer + Bray (Harper Collins), 2018. [author site] [artist site] [publisher site] Review copy won in contest; cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: In the city on a mission with her haunt huntress grandmother, twelve year old Evangeline longs for their bayou cabin and hopes that her own abilities stabilize before the supernatural menace stalking New Orleans gains full power!
With Daddy working offshore and Mama dead before Evangeline could know her, it’s up to Gran to teach her every skill needed to be a haunt huntress who expels shadow crouchers and dixie demons from the parish.
In their big city house (on a corner – unlucky) Mrs. Midsomer’s sickness worsens at night, Mr. Midsomer is so upset that he’s leaving Mardi Gras float details to others in his Krewe, and their adopted son Julian rigidly adheres to rules of his own making.
All symptoms point to the bite of a rougarou, perhaps from the same powerful werewolf clan that attacked Gran years ago, and the moon will be full very soon!
That black grim follows them to the city – whose death is it foretelling?
Her thirteenth birthday is nearing – where is Evangeline’s familiar?
Evangeline and Julian must track down the alpha rougarou before it’s too late for Julian’s mother and all of New Orleans!
