Tag Archive | abandonment

U= upperworld’s secrets in Freefall, by Joshua David Bellin (book review)

Apr24

book cover of Freefall by Joshua David Bellin, published by Simon Schuster | recommended on BooksYALove.comPreparing to flee dying Earth,
only the wealthy 1% may go,
but lowerworld 99% has other ideas!

This dystopian novel begins with privileged Cam’s stealthy views of Lowerworld economic protests (he must find that golden-eyed girl!) leading up to the corporation-run Upperworld’s elite space migration program launch (slated only for the wealthiest, naturally).

Sofie’s eloquence convinces Cam to help her make the case for allowing some Lowerworld people to go on the Otherworld colonization ships.

But the thousand-year space journey ends elsewhere than mission designers planned! Sabotage?

Can there truly be One World on the new less-hospitable planet when money and propaganda had divided Earth into Two?

And what’s attacking them?
**kmm

Book info: Freefall / Joshua David Bellin. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2017. [author site] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

O = Outside In with self-taught sculptor, hidden treasures, by Jennifer Bradbury (book review)

Apr17

book cover of Outside In, by Jennifer Bradbury, published by Atheneum BFYR | recommended on BooksYALove.comSecret sculpture garden
filled with Ramayana stories,
art threatened by destruction!

Ram lives by his wits and quick feet, as many orphans do in cities and towns of India.

Discovering an immense garden of sculptures hidden in the forest leads him to work and food and thrilling tales from the Ramayana.

But will his repeated journeys into another sector of the city lead the authorities to this art paradise on ‘unused land’?

This fictionalized account of the amazing Rock Garden created from cast-off materials by self-taught artist Nek Chand over 20 years was inspired by the author’s time in Chandigarh, India.

What’s your favorite “people’s art” installation?
**kmm

Book info: Outside In / Jennifer Bradbury. Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Atheneum BFYR, 2017. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

N is Name of the Blade calling Mio to danger & love, by Zoe Marriott (book review)

Apr16

US book cover of Name of the Blade, by Zoe Marriott, published by Candlewick Press | recommended on BooksYALove.comGrandfather said she would become guardian of this katana at age 16, as Yamatos have done for over 500 years.

Surely it’s okay if Mio takes the ancient sword from its hiding place a little early, while Mom and Dad are away…

Monsters and gods, worlds of humans and spirits, from Japan to London to the depths of despair to first love – the katana connects them all to Mio as she struggles to master herself and the legendary blade’s powers.

Glide into Mio’s no longer boring life by reading the first chapter here free (courtesy of the publisher). Yes, all 3 books of the trilogy are available in the US!

Family secrets – what to share?
**kmm

Book info: Name of the Blade (Name of the Blade trilogy, book 1) / Zoe Marriott. Candlewick Press, 2014. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

L = The Leaving Season and love and loss, after graduation, by Cat Jordan (book review)

Apr13

book cover of The Leaving Season by Cat Jordan, published by Harper Teen | recommended on BooksYALove.comSo many leave for college at this time,
but leaving for another country?
What if something goes wrong?

When Middie’s perfect (really, he is the best ever!) boyfriend is kidnapped while on a humanitarian gap year project abroad, she is utterly devastated – and only Nate’s best friend understands how she feels.

If only she and Lee had anything in common besides Nate – or do they?

Read the first chapter here for free, courtesy of the publisher, to meet Middie and Nate as he leaves for Honduras and she tries to start navigating her life without him by her side daily.

How do you cope with folks leaving?
**kmm

Book info: The Leaving Season / Cat Jordan. Harper Teen, 2016. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

I = Girl In Between feeling invisible, by Sarah Carroll (book review)

Apr10
UK book cover of The Girl In Between, by Sarah Carroll, published by Simon Schuster UK | recommended on BooksYALove.com
UK cover
US book cover of Girl In Between by Sarah Carroll, published by Kathy Dawson Books PRH | recommended on BooksYALove.com
US cover

No one must know that she and Ma are living in the old Mill building. It’s a sort of like a home.

No one can see her or the Authorities will get her, Ma says, but the girl wishes she could play with someone or go to school.

When the Developers arrive with their plans to tear down the Mill,
when she hears strange noises in the upper floors,
when Caretaker is the only one who hears her talk – what then?

Visit your local library or favorite independent bookstore for this 2017 debut release.

Another cover comparison – do you prefer the representational US cover or the more abstract UK one?

**kmm

Book info: The Girl In Between / Sarah Carroll. Kathy Dawson Books (PRH), 2017. [a bit about the author here]  [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

G is Gorilla Dawn on dangerous days, by Gill Lewis (book review)

Apr7

US book cover of Gorilla Dawn by Gill Lewis, published by Atheneum BFYR | recommended on BooksYALove.comWe depend on our smartphones
which depend on tantalum found in coltan
whose mining destroys families – human and gorilla!

Why does corporate greed incite kidnapping and environmental catastrophe in the Congo and elsewhere?

How can we individuals make it stop, save children like Imara and Bobo from being kidnapped and enslaved to mine coltan, protect habitat for gorillas?

This middle-grade novel reminds us how interconnected we are and how our unthinking consumer choices can drastically affect others.

When is a smartphone a dumb choice?
**kmm

Book info: Gorilla Dawn / Gill Lewis; illustrated by Susan Meyer. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2017 hardcover, May 2018 paperback. [author site] [publisher site] [author video] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

E is the END with Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza, by Shaun David Hutchinson (book review)

Apr5

book cover of Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson, published by Simon Pulse | recommended on BooksYALove.comHer virgin birth – science proves true.
Toys speaking messages from Beyond – also true.
People snatched by a sky-portal when she heals others – ditto.

Elena didn’t ask for healing powers, or for a drunken stepfather, or for inanimate objects to channel divine instructions to her since childhood.

But in author Hutchinson’s odd Florida (setting of his At the Edge of the Universe , my pick here) strange things happen regularly.

What is stealing away people? Why? Where do they go?

Maybe it’s a better place than Elena’s high school and now-constant demands that she heal people.

Fiction or science fiction? (or fantasy?)
**kmm

Book info: The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza / Shaun David Hutchinson. Simon Pulse, 2018. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

C is for Confessions of a High School Disaster, by Emma Chastain (book review)

Apr3

cover of Confessions of a High School Disaster by Emma Chastain, published by Simon Pulse | recommended on BooksYALove.comStarting high school = anxiety.
Mom moving to Mexico to write = bearable, for 4 months.
Never been kissed = terrible, unfair!

Chloe is journaling her freshman year – auditioning for the musical (brave!), ups and downs with her best friend (as always), the weirdness of parties without a boyfriend (typical).

Mom said she should write down all these memories, but really!

Maybe it’s C for crisis mode, as Chloe tries to navigate high school – heartbreaking and humorous.

What high school memory would you keep (or erase)?
**kmm

Book info: Confessions of a High School Disaster: Chloe Snow’s Diary / Emma Chastain. Simon Pulse, 2017. [author Facebook]  [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Potato crop dies, HUNGER remains… by Donna Jo Napoli (book review)

Mar20

book cover of Hunger by Donna Jo Napoli, published by Simon Schuster BFYR | recommended on BooksYALove.comLife-sustaining potatoes collapse into slime,
and all over Ireland, the common people face starvation,
each village praying that it is spared, but no…

A tiny organism swept through the main food crop of Ireland in the mid-1800s, leading to a million deaths by starvation and two million people emigrating from their beloved green isle.

Lorraine doesn’t want to leave, won’t let her family starve, risks everything to make that true.

Look for this February 2018 release with Napoli’s other novels of Ireland’s past (like Hush, an Irish princess tale I recommended here) at your local library or independent bookstore.

To save your family, how far would you go?
**kmm

Book info: Hunger: A Tale of Courage / Donna Jo Napoli. Paula Wiseman/Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018. [author site]  [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: Lorraine fights to keep her family from starving, as the potato blight hits their Irish village in 1846, but the 12 year old can only do so much alone.

Not fair that Da’s grain crop must be sold to pay land-rent to the English.
Nor that not a single hare or bird may be trapped by them on the landlord’s vast property.
Nor that so many children and parents and grandparents are dying because the potato plants cannot produce food.

Scavenging for wild plants that might strengthen her weakening little brother, Lorraine encounters the rich English landlord’s daughter presiding over a doll picnic with more food than the village has seen in months!

Would the girl share with Lorraine… or even speak to her?
When will the potatoes grow healthy again…ever?
How many more families will bury their dead and leave for the city… or even America?

Lorraine’s resourcefulness is her family’s best chance of surviving the Famine which decimated Ireland in the 1840s – may it be enough!

She can step into The Painting? by Charis Cotter (book review)

Feb27

book cover of The Painting by Charis Cotter, published by Tundra Books | recommended on BooksYALove.comThat painting is so real,
she can smell the salt air
and step into its lighthouse?!?

The girl who calls her sister, the girl’s mother who cannot see Annie… or can she?

This lighthouse on a rocky Newfoundland cliff may hold more than a lonely girl and her worries – but how can Annie of today also be back in the past?

You can listen to the author read the opening of this spooky tale at her website here.

Would you believe a specter who shared secrets with you?
**kmm

Book info: The Painting / Charis Cotter. Tundra Books, 2017.  [author site]  [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: When Annie suddenly can step into a painting after her mother’s car wreck, the girl in its lighthouse calls her ‘sister’ and insists that their artist mother must never show those paintings with hidden meanings.

Two sisters, separated by death. Claire knows it was her fault.
One lighthouse, one artist, one almost-ghost. Annie isn’t sure why Maisie can almost see her.

Why did Annie’s own mother say she’d never, ever return to Newfoundland?
What if she never comes out of the coma?
Who is Claire of the lighthouse?

Storms battering the Newfoundland coast, cold wind blowing through Claire’s lonely life, Toronto hospital room lights that never sleep – perhaps artistic Annie has fallen down the rabbit hole from the girls’ beloved Alice in Wonderland. A two-voices tale of now and then, connections that blink and fade like the lighthouse’s rotating beam, warning of dangerous currents and cliffs.