(c) Dover Publications
In case you missed my Tweet a while back, here’s the link to my interview on Beth Fehlbaum’s blog as part of her Saturday Shout-Out series.
Thanks, Beth, for letting me share more about why I do what I do on BooksYALove!
**kmm
An unlicensed magic-wielder on the loose,
A future mother-in-law trying to stop her son’s wedding,
The threat of war with France always looming…
Surely the teeniest bit of magic from Kat would make things better, right?
Of course not! And with her big brother finally deciding to watch over her, the youngest Stephenson sister can hardly practice her magic – if the Guardians will ever schedule her test, that is.
Do read chapter one of Stolen Magic here (no major spoilers), and be sure to grab Kat, Incorrigible (book 1) and Renegade Magic (book 2) before you dive into finale of this early 19th century mystery-magic-political intrigue-adventure series!
If you had a bit of magic, what would you do?
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Book info: Stolen Magic (The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, book 3) / Stephanie Burgis. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Kat senses magic following as her family travels to Angeline’s long-delayed wedding, but soon discovers that England itself is in peril unless can stop the rogue magic-wielder!
At least she’ll get to see older sister Elissa again at the wedding, Kat sighs, as the borrowed coach bumps over country roads toward the Carlyle estate. Their brother Charles and Stepmama have kept Kat from practicing her magic, even as her initiation into the Order of the Guardians approaches.
Being a witch or a magic-wielder is frowned upon by Regency society, and Stepmama so longs to be accepted by those of ‘good breeding’ like Lady Fotherington. During introductions, the beautiful Marquise who knew Kat’s late mother has such an interesting reaction – were she and Lady Fotherington previously acquainted?
Even with the mansion filled by both families and many guests, Kat senses the rogue magic nearby, but can’t run off exploring while Lady Fotherington is watching her, trying to find some reason to disqualify her from the Order. Hoping to stop the wedding plans for good, Mrs. Carlyle has invited Frederick’s lovely childhood sweetheart to stay, and Angeline fears her beauty will steal her fiance’s heart.
Will there be a wedding for Angeline at last?
Can Kat find the rogue magic-wielder before it’s too late?
Is her initiation into the Order ever going to happen?
Secret passageways, caverns in the cliffs overlooking the sea, magic attacks by the rogue, and a threat on Kat’s life!
This final volume of The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson wraps up the mysterious magic of an alternate Great Britain during its Regency years as shared in Kat, Incorrigible (book 1) and Renegade Magic (book 2). (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Searching for some light-hearted summer reading at your local library or independent bookstore?
Take along this BooksYALove list of favorite funny books, and cool off with a good laugh! Click any title to see my full recommendation of the book. Review copies and cover images courtesy of their respective publishers.
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Classic baseball comedy routine teammates are just wild in Who’s On First? by Abbott & Costello.
Pantalones, TX: Don’t Chicken Out! – can Chico Bustamante stay ahead of the chicken-shack-driving sheriff and conquer the giant bucking chicken?
Enjoy Hakata Soy’s first middle school term in space as he enrolls in Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity – time for dinosaur riding lessons and fireball tournaments!
Then return to Astronaut Academy: Re-Entry for another semester of fireball tournaments and missing extra hearts – and mystery to solve.
More Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy) as he teams up with John Green (the artist one) to create TeenBoat! Imagine “the angst of being a teen, the thrill of being a boat!” – yes, it’s that funny.
When music-loving aliens realize they’re violating Earth copyright laws and have run up a bill bigger than the universe, things get a bit out of hand in Year Zero.
An orbiting maternity home for unwed mothers is attacked by aliens (really cute aliens!) and things aboard the Mothership get all kinds of crazy.
Set Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest in a modern shopping mall during a blizzard, add some memorable characters and a robbery, and you have a most Tempestuous and wacky tale.
Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to create a new candy for the world’s sweetest contest? But The Candymakers must solve a mystery before everything goes sour.
As a teen spy goes undercover in a ritzy private school to keep the organization’s cover from being blown, she doesn’t anticipate love among the complications in Also Known As.
Yes, you can enter the lottery at 16 in Great Britain, but Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery is more of a how-not-to than a financial guide!
Being able to hear cats talk seems like such a boring talent until Nat uses it to capture a kidnapper and snag a movie part after all in Cat Girl’s Day Off.
Time to download this week’s free audiobooks from SYNC!
Hurry to download this pair of books about British orphans in very odd situations by Wednesday July 17. Then you’ll have free use of them as long as you keep them on your computer or electronic device
The Peculiar
By Stefan Bachmann
Read by Peter Altschuler
Published by HarperAudio
Oliver Twist
By Charles Dickens
Read by Simon Vance
Published by Tantor Media
What can lift these unfortunate children from the life in the slums? Listen to find out!
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A dog, beaten and ignored.
A girl, risking and reckless.
A boy who must step out of his safe-place to save them…
I lived in Newfoundland in early grade school (on a now-closed Air Force base), so I have a strong mental picture of the isolated small coastal town that Roxy longs to escape, where Nix’s solitary ways are known to everyone, where a story can never be untold.
Request this novel-in-verse from your local library or independent bookstore; they might have to order it (Pajama Press is a small Canadian firm, not one of the “Big 5”), but it’s so worth waiting for!
Have you ever felt like the only person who could fix a situation?
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Book info: Nix Minus One / Jill MacLean. Pajama Press, 2013. [author site] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My book talk: Nix helps hide Roxy’s wild nightlife from their parents, like he wants to help the mistreated dog he meets, but the consequences may be too much for the quiet teen to handle.
Now that cod fishing is done for good, coastal Newfoundland towns are shrinking fast, but there are still enough bullies at the regional high school to taunt Nix about his weight and red hair. All the ninth grader wants to do is be left alone to play video games and work in Dad’s furniture workshop, pretending that beautiful Loren will pay attention to him some day.
Just by chance, he sees a beaten and half-starved dog at a neighbor’s house and wishes yet again that Mom would have let them have one instead of worrying about clean floors. Maybe the old grump will let Nix walk the dog, just to get her out of that poop-strewn yard full of junk.
Big sister Roxy decides to party with a senior and expects Nix to cover for her when she misses curfew. Their conservative parents warily respect his smooth manners and rich family, but have no idea that he’s the area go-to-guy for drugs. Everyone at school knows Bryan will dump her after a few weeks… everyone but Roxy.
Nix finally coaxes the dog into walking up into the hills with him, occasionally meeting classmate Blue when she’s birdwatching, both laughing about how they’ll never be popular at school with these hobbies.
And then that rainy night, when Roxy doesn’t come home, when silence becomes the fourth person at their dinner table…
Why couldn’t Nix keep his sister safe?
Why can’t he get Twig away from the master who mistreats her?
Why can’t he make Mom and Dad happy?
This powerful novel-in-verse echoes with the rhythms of family life, school tensions, unexpressed dreams and desires, and a long-hidden story that suddenly re-orients everything that Nix ever knew. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
So, hopefully you’ve been downloading the free SYNC audiobook pair each week when I remind you. But are you secretly thinking, “audiobooks aren’t really reading”?
Nay, my friends! Research has shown that ‘reading with your ears’ actively engages your brain in much the same way that reading text does. And of course, we all know that some of us are visual learners and others are auditory learners.
Over on The BookRiot blog, Rachel recently debunked “‘Listening to Books is Cheating’ and 7 More Myths About Audiobooks” so what are you waiting for? You only have until Wednesday to download either or both audiobooks, then you can listen as long as you keep them on your electronic device.
Ready, set, read — with your ears!
Carter Finally Gets It
By Brent Crawford
Read by Nick Podehl
Published by Brilliance Audio
She Stoops to Conquer
By Oliver Goldsmith
Read by Rosalind Ayres, Adam Godley, Julian Holloway, James Marsters, Christopher Neame, Paula Jane Newman, Ian Ogilvy, Moira Quirk, Darren Richardson, Joanne Whalley, Matthew Wolf
Published by L.A. Theatre Works
Two different comedies, two different settings, just too funny!
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This week’s free audiobooks from SYNC are deadly delights, as we hear tales of a grave-robber and a mad scientist…
Remember that although each download is only available from Thursday through Wednesday, you have free use of the audiobooks for as long as you keep them on your computer or electronic device
We have several more weeks of full-length audiobooks to look forward to this summer. Have you bookmarked the SYNC site yet? http://www.audiobooksync.com/
Rotters
By Daniel Kraus
Read by Kirby Heyborne
Published by Listening Library
Frankenstein
By Mary Shelley
Read by Jim Weiss
Published by Listening Library
Do you dare listen to these creepy tales before bedtime?
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Cancer?
Stuck in a pediatric ward?
What 13-year-old wants any of that?
When her friends don’t make the trip into London to visit her in the hospital, when the first clumps of her hair start falling out during chemo, only Jackson’s brilliant smile can start to cheer up Megan.
Grab some tissues when you get this memorable book from your local library or independent bookstore for the happy-sad story.
Is our time together here on Earth ever really long enough?
**kmm
Book info: Anthem for Jackson Dawes / Celia Grant. Bloomsbury Books for Children, 2013. [author site] [publisher site]
My book talk: Stuck in the children’s ward of a London hospital, teens Megan and Jackson battle cancer, boredom, and their unknown futures as they forge a friendship that could be more.
Megan knew these horrible headaches weren’t normal for 13-year-olds, but she’d never have dreamed that a cancerous brain tumor was causing them. Her doctors are quick to order chemo, quick to hustle her into the first available hospital spot, not so quick to realize that being in a noisy ward with little kids isn’t very healing for teenagers… thank goodness she’ll be there a few weeks, then home for a while before the next round. And her friends will come in from the suburbs to visit her, right?
The brightest spot in the whole whirlwind of noise, nausea and IVs is Jackson, another teen like her, stuck in the kiddie ward as he fights off a rare cancer with more and more experimental treatments. But Jackson isn’t like anyone else. Tall, thin, blackest skin, brightest smile, he roams the hospital at all hours, especially where he shouldn’t be going. When Meg is at her lowest, he’ll tell her stories in his late Jamaican grandfather’s accent, sing the songs the two Jacksons shared, for music is his greatest passion.
When she’s home between treatments, Megan is so tired from the chemo that she can’t even go back to school half-days – and forget about playing soccer on the school team as she used to do. Her friends come over, but no one knows what to talk about – cancer will do that, Jackson says. If only Dad wasn’t working so far away, if Granddad could travel to the hospital to cheer everyone up…
Every time Jackson or Megan goes home from the hospital, they miss one another terribly and worry that they won’t be in for treatment at the same time next round. As Megan’s tumor shrinks and her surgery approaches, the pair escapes the ward nightly to wander through the hospital… in search of what?
How many of the kids in their ward will beat their cancer?
Why can’t Megan’s friends understand that it’s still her under the wig?
Are their days and nights in hospital all the time that Megan and Jackson will ever have together?
Full of heart and feeling, but never sentimental, Anthem for Jackson Dawes pays tribute to all the youngsters who fight full-force against cancer, their caregivers and parents, and their schoolmates and siblings who watch bewildered from the sidelines. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
It’s time for my weekly reminder about this week’s free audiobooks from SYNC so you can read with your ears!
You only have until Wednesday June 26 to download this pair of complete audiobooks. However, you have free use of them as long as you keep them on your computer or electronic device
And in case you’re worried that listening to audiobooks isn’t considered “real reading,” check out this recent Forbes article on the question. (sorry for the “Forbes quote” screen you must click through to get to the article)
Once
By Morris Gleitzman
Read by the author
Published by Bolinda Audio
Letter From Birmingham Jail
By Martin Luther King Jr.
Read by Dion Graham
Published by ChristianAudio
What do you think of this audiobook pairing – a Jewish boy escaping across Nazi-occupied Poland and Dr. King’s famous letter about injustice ?
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Colors so strong that they’re living entities,
Skies so gray that they smother all cheerfulness,
One white piece of paper forges a forbidden link between worlds.
Elliot’s family and neighbors try to raise crops in a land where summer could arrive four times in a month or never all year. Madeleine’s latest attempt to run away from her wealthy parents somehow dragged her mother along, too. Communication between their two worlds is treason in the Kingdom of Cello, unknown by Madeleine’s world… and suddenly happens.
I wish that the US cover (at top right) were more like the original Australian cover (below right) which better reflects the colors and whimsicality of the story (yes, Madeleine wears bright colors to counteract the gray Cambridge weather, but that’s not the real essence of color in the story).
Grab this one today at your local library or independent bookstore to slide through that narrow gap between the Kingdom of Cello and The World – and prepare to be entranced.
Would you dare to communicate with someone if it were forbidden, illegal, necessary for your mental health?
**kmm
Book info: A Corner of White (The Colors of Madeleine, book 1) / Jaclyn Moriarty. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2013. [author site] [publisher site] [author interview video]
My book talk: Separated by a spectral barrier for their own good, The World and the Kingdom of Cello haven’t communicated in 300 years. Yet through a small crevice, a boy and a girl send letters back and forth, perhaps changing both for the better, perhaps setting dire danger into motion.
Elliot is ready out again to search for his father who was kidnapped a year ago by the rogue Purple that killed his uncle, while his neighbors anxiously await the Selectors who might choose their town for the Princess Sisters’ tour of the Kingdom. His pal Cody makes all the unrepairable machines from Dad’s shop into a sculpture in the schoolyard, and one day Elliot notices a small note stuck in it, a note that’s not from anyone in Bonfire…
As Mum answers every quiz show question wrong, Madeleine wonders yet again how they came to be here – an attic apartment in a university town, eating baked beans again – when just months ago they were jetsetting around the world with her financier father, platinum credit cards at the ready.
Thank goodness for Jack and Belle and for their home-schooling arrangement, so none of them have to deal with the bullies and drama of high school. Jack’s uncle makes their minds stretch with his assignment to ‘become’ the Cambridge historical figure selected from the hat – that’s Isaac Newton for Mad, Charles Babbage for Belle, Lord Byron for Jack.
As Madeleine muses on Newton and Cambridge, she passes an out-of-service parking meter with a note stuck in it “Help! I’m being held against my will!” and decides to answer it, little imagining that it’s a message from a world that’s been sealed off from ours for over three centuries.
The correspondence between Elliot and Madeleine is interesting, as he knows about The World from history class and she thinks he’s a just local who’s trying a huge hoax. Trying to explain the color attacks and momentary seasons of Cello doesn’t convince her of the Kingdom’s reality, but something finally does.
Why is it so dangerous to have an opening between Cello and The World?
Will the Princess Sisters visit Bonfire once the Butterfly Child arrives?
Would Jack and Belle ever believe Madeleine about Cello?
Escapes and worries, attacks and misunderstandings – so much begins when that corner of white paper crosses the gap from the Kingdom of Cello to Cambridge, England. First in a series that mixes teen concerns with philosophical science, family drama with political intrigue, and what-is-not-now with what-might-someday-be. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.