Tag Archive | brothers

Y = Time loop? Time warp? SEE YOU YESTERDAY, by Rachel Lynn Solomon (YA book review) #A2Z

Apr29
book cover of See You Yesterday, by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Just great – her high school nemesis is her new college roommate, and a guy in Physics volunteers her to answer a basic question that she doesn’t know.

Investigative reporting that turned Barrett’s whole high school against her isn’t good enough for the campus newspaper – full stop on her career plans.

Don’t even ask why she’s tagged in every photo of a frat house fire… worst Wednesday ever!

The next morning she wakes up to… Lucie moving in again? The first day of Physics and rude Asian guy and humiliating interview again? What is going on?!?

Somehow, she and Miles (the Japanese guy) are both stuck in a time loop – and he’s been repeating this same day for two months!

As they try over and over again to escape this not-great day, the teens discover commonalities (their Jewish heritage, wanting to tell stories that matter, love of classic movies) and differences (his parents are professors, her mom and soon-to-be stepmom run a stationery shop, she’s fat and he’s not).

Doing good deeds, skipping class, asking a retired professor about theoretical time travel – what’s going to break this cycle?

Or do they want to stay in this one September day forever, together?

Another love story set in Seattle by the author of Today Tonight Tomorrow (I recommended here) and We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This (see more here).

What day in your life would you want to experience on repeat?
**kmm

Book info: See You Yesterday / Rachel Lynn Solomon. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

X is for EXACTLY WHERE YOU NEED TO BE, a road trip to remember! by Amelia Diane Coombs (YA book review) #A2Z

Apr28
book cover of Exactly Where You Need to Be, by Amelia Diane Coombs. Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers | recommended on BooksYALove.com

A few weeks of summer left,
then her BFF leaves for college –
better make the most of it!

The only good thing about junior year was becoming friends with Kasey, who loves true crime as much as Florie does. But after too many anxiety attacks at school, Mom insisted on Florie homeschooling online.

So senior year is over – no prom, no ceremony, no amazing memories, just continuing work with an OCD counselor in their small town north of Seattle.

Kasey is heading to college in Portland soon, so it’ll be just Florie here “on a gap year” as her guidance counselor recommends – doing what? Sigh.

Spending a week together at the beach cottage with Kasey’s family is a highlight of the friends’ summer, but maybe it’s time for something new – a road trip!?

Their favorite true-crime podcasters are appearing live in San Francisco, and the teens have won VIP backstage passes to meet them!

Now all they have to do is find a way to get there during beach week – without Florie’s too-controlling Mom discovering their plans.

Hey, Sam… Kasey’s big brother is home from college and willing to drive them 800 miles to the show. But Kasey doesn’t know about Florie’s longtime crush on Sam and how Sam kissed her at the winter party, then never contacted her all spring…

Anti-anxiety medicine packed? Check.
Kasey & Florie’s Wild and Super-Cool BFF Road Trip Bucket List? Ready!
Many, many hours in the same car as Sam? Florie is not ready…

An epic, silly, very long road trip to see fascinating people that Florie and Kasey adore – what could be better? What could go wrong? Uh-oh…

By the author of Between You and Me and the Honeybees, recommended here.

When have you ventured to try something that others thought you couldn’t do?
**kmm

Book info: Exactly Where You Need to Be / Amelia Diane Coombs. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

O is for on campus, starting college at FIRST-YEAR ORIENTATION! edited by Eric Smith & Lauren Gibaldi (YA book review) @A2Z

Apr18
book cover of First-Year Orientation, edited by Eric Smith & Lauren Gibaldi. Published by Candlewick Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Move-in day,
time for goodbyes and hellos –
your new life after high school begins!

Welcome to Rolland College, home of the Owls! Many first-year students (we don’t say freshman anymore) come from other states or countries to this small New Jersey institution, which is a hometown fixture for a few.

This year’s entering class includes marching band buddies and theater stars (on stage and behind the scenes), a football player with brains and brawn, former child actors trying to escape rerun fame, youth with helicopter parents or a missing family member or a big secret…

Through these 16 short stories by YA authors and an actress, we meet students who are first in their family to attend college and those following relatives’ footsteps at Rolland, young people who want to reinvent themselves or finally get to show their true selves.

Get ready for dorm drama, an emotional support rabbit, a crack in the universe, and campus ghosts in these stories by Adi Alsaid * Anna Birch * Bryan Bliss * Gloria Chao * Jennifer Chen * Olivia A. Cole * Dana L. Davis * Kristina Forest * Lauren Gibaldi * Kathleen Glasgow * Sam Maggs * Farah Naz Rishi * Lance Rubin * Aminah Mae Safi * Eric Smith * Phil Stamper.

I love how main characters in one story appear in others as the first-years and returning students at this fictitious college rush to and from orientation, the student organizations fair, welcome parties, and the much-anticipated live concert… a kaleidoscope of encounters and emotions.

Just published this month in hardcover and paperback! From the editors of short story anthology Battle of the Bands, another look at a single day from multiple perspectives by several YA authors – recommended here.

What “how I got here” story do you tell on your first day in a new place?
**kmm

Book info: First-Year Orientation / edited by Eric Smith & Lauren Gibaldi. Candlewick Press, 2023. [Eric’s site] [Lauren’s site] [publisher site] Review copy via Edelweiss and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

N is for the dangerous NIGHT RIDE – can she stop it? by J. Anderson Coats (MG book review) #A2ZN

Apr17
book cover of Night Ride, by J. Anderson Coats. Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers | recommended on BooksYALove.com

For the chance to stay near her favorite of the King’s horses, Sonnia dares to become a stable hand at the racetrack.

Some coins will go to help her family on the poor side of town, some saved for her dream of buying Ricochet.

Another stable worker is a girl? Great! They’re actually junior jockeys in training? Wow! They get to exercise the messenger fleet horses by riding them through the woods and meadows every afternoon? Even better!

Her big brother’s teasing ways prepared her for working with boys, but not for their reckless night riding on the King’s fleet horses, with bets placed…

Sonnia’s first pay, reduced by room and board fees, is much less than she promised to her father, even keeping none back toward Ricochet – will he make her return home to the family pony ride business?

Ricochet is moved into the fleet stables and can now be ridden in the peril-filled Night Ride! Harm to a horse is punished severely by the King. Who at the racetrack can help her stop this before Ricochet is injured?

Will Sonnia’s love for Ricochet help keep all the fleet horses safe or will it hurt the young riders who care for them at the racetrack?

A girl and a horse and a chance to do what’s right…

By the author of R is for Rebel, recommended here, and The Wicked and the Just (more here).

When have you turned away from the crowd, for the right reasons?
**kmm

Book info: Night Ride / J. Anderson Coats. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2021 hardcover, 2022 paperback. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

L is LOVE RADIO: advice, music, more? by Ebony LaDelle (YA book review) @A2Z

Apr14
book cover of Love Radio, by Ebony LaDelle. Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Someday, he’ll be a hip-hop DJ and radio host.
Someday, she’ll be a noted writer on New York’s literary scene.
These days, maybe they can find time to find each other…

Sharing relationship advice on the radio is a highlight of Prince’s senior year, so very full of helping his mom who has multiple sclerosis and caring for his 6-year-old brother Mook.

Dani has an iron-clad plan for getting out of Detroit: be accepted to a great college in NYC, earn her Master of Fine Arts in writing, and become an author who changes the world.

As their paths cross for the first time since middle school, Prince thinks he might have a chance with his long-time crush, but Dani is intent on her exit plan. She does give him three dates to change her mind about starting a relationship – just three.

Sweet, thoughtful dates – interspersed with her flashbacks to an awful incident some months ago and his mom’s medical needs and…

Can you schedule falling in love?
When is a relationship past recovering?
What about a friend who lets you down one time too many?

Told in alternating chapters by the two teens, including transcripts of Prince’s radio shows and Dani’s unsent letters to noted Black women authors as she struggles with writer’s block on her all-important admissions essay.

What love song would you play to ease someone’s heartache?
**kmm

Book info: Love Radio / Ebony LaDelle. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022. [author site] [author video] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

K is Kyr battling in space for vengeance and SOME DESPERATE GLORY, by Emily Tesh (YA book review) #A2Z

Apr13
book cover of Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh. Published by Tordotcom | recommended on BooksYALove.com

“While we live, the enemy shall fear us.”

They’re the last true humans, hidden in a hollow asteroid, living on scant food, training for vengeance after Earth was obliterated by the alien Majo.

Genetically-enhanced Kyr expects the other teen girls to train for combat with her focused ferocity, so they’ll be placed on a battleship instead of being trapped in the nursery as breeding stock.

Only her brother Mags is a stronger warrior, yet he is sent on a suicide mission to a planet of Majo-cooperating humans, and the Commander assigns Kyr to her worst nightmare.

Desperate to save Mags and herself, Kyr enlists the help of his tech-savvy friend and crush Avi to escape their fates by using the recently-captured Majo ship and its alien pilot Yiso.

Away they flee, to the same planet that their big sister defected to, the planet that the supreme Majo leader will soon visit…coincidence?

The history relentlessly drilled into Kyr gets a reboot, a shadow engine of subreality makes their toughest training sims seem like babies’ play, and the young people have only a short time to help Yiso keep things from getting worse.

And then time twists… and twists…

Who’s the hero here?
How can anyone gay survive in a society where reproduction is paramount?
What other ways could Kyr’s life have turned out?

In the future, as now, different views of the same events bring conflict as well as opportunities for peace.

What “fact” of history learned in childhood have you unlearned?
**kmm

Book info: Some Desperate Glory / Emily Tesh. Tordotcom, 2023. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

H is Hayley & horror & HOW TO MAKE A MOVIE IN 12 DAYS, by Fiona Hardy (MG book review) #A2Z

Apr10
book cover of How to Make a Movie in 12 Days, by Fiona Hardy. Published by Kane Miller/EDC | recommended on BooksYALove.com

A movie script by Hayley and Grandma,
a new video camera,
three weeks of summer break –
it’s time to make this horror movie!

An evil rosebush that eats people and a clever woman who solves the mystery – as tribute to her recently deceased movie-loving grandmother, Hayley will now use her new video camera to make their planned horror movie, to show at Grandma’s memorial celebration in a few weeks.

Location, location – wow, that old house in their Australian town with the giant rosebush is perfect! And the nice old man there with the country accent is happy for the preteen crew to film there.

Henry has great ideas about the people-eating rosebush, Samson is brilliant with the boom microphone he borrowed (gulp…), and the shooting schedule has time built in for retakes and more retakes.

If Pilar won’t play Grandma’s role, can Hayley convince ultra-snobby classmate Rissa to do it?
When will her cello teacher Clay finish the soundtrack so she can edit it into the film?
The video camera SD card is where??

Fighting sabotage and the calendar, the film team works around problems (like her little sister and big brother) and finds alternate solutions as time speeds toward the evening when the film will be screened for Grandma’s friends and movie-fanatic family!

Check in again with these school buddies in the companion book, How to Make a Soundtrack in 12 Days here.

What’s the best group project you’ve ever done for fun?
**kmm

Book info: How to Make a Movie in 12 Days / Fiona Hardy. Kane Miller/EDC, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

F is Martha Freeman’s TRASHED! as a young detective aims to solve the perfect crime (MG book review) #A2Z

Apr7
book cover of Trashed! by Martha Freeman. Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Planning a mouse’s funeral,
a long-lost souvenir teacup reappearing,
his best friend’s mom going on a date – lots happening in 11-year-old Arthur’s life these days!

He and little sister Ramona (mouse owner) live with their parents above the Boulder thrift store founded by his grandparents, and that’s where the teacup showed up. Grandpa recognized his favorite rock band’s cartoon bear mascot on it right away – but who brought it into the store?

The mouse is back, as a ghost now called Watson – maybe here to be helpful?

Arthur hopes that Watson’s ghostly stealth and observational skills help solve the teacup mystery and why store-worker Randolph dislikes Officer Bernstein and where the confidential consignment items file went.

Did someone bring items for the store to sell that were actually stolen?!
How could the thief snatch so many things from people’s homes without anyone noticing?
Will Grandpa’s prejudice make him accuse the wrong person?

If Arthur can figure out why best friend Veda is mad at him, maybe she can help him and Watson solve “the perfect crime” in this entertaining mystery by the author of Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost (recommended here).

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever bought (or sold)?
**kmm

Book info: Trashed! / Martha Freeman. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2023. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Come along with SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE, words by R.E.M., illustrated by Paul Hoppe & Shinyeon Moon (Picturebook review)

Dec22
book cover of Shiny Happy People; song lyrics by R.E.M.; illustrations by Paul Hoppe with Shinyeon Moon. Published by LyricPop / Akashic Books | recommended on BooksYALove.com

A journey, a reunion!

At the train station crowded with animals, a young fox spots his rabbit friend:
“Meet me in the crowd, people, people. Throw your love around, love me, love me”

Biking back to Rabbit’s house, the pair are “Shiny happy people laughing” under blue skies until angry Dad Rabbit points at the “no foxes allowed” sign, and the illustrations grow red and chaotic, even as the lyrics call “Everyone around, love them, love them”…

Fox has brought a gift that Rabbit’s brother likes and the parents try to ignore: “Put it in your heart where tomorrow shines”

When Dad Rabbit yells at him for trying to please them, here come some carnivores to defend Fox – oh no!

But the youngsters take control of the conflict: “WHOA! HERE WE GO!” and calm down both groups.

The lyrics “Shiny happy people holding hands, shiny happy people laughing” repeat for several pages as the grownups begin enjoying their time together, following Fox and Rabbit’s lead.

This well-loved R.E.M. song (with its Tiananmen Square uprising connection) is elevated by the storyline of friendship, acceptance, and joy through illustrations by Paul Hoppe and Shinyeon Moon.

Sing along with this new addition to LyricPop’s story-song picture books, just published on 22 November 2022.

What song should LyricPop turn into a picture book next?
**kmm

Book info: Shiny Happy People / song lyrics by R.E.M.; illustrations by Paul Hoppe with Shinyeon Moon. LyricPop / Akashic Books, 2022. [lyrics info] [artist Paul] [artist Shinyeon] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Here? Now? THE SECRET BATTLE OF EVAN PAO starts at school! by Wendy Wan-Long Shang (MG book review)

Dec6
book cover of The Secret Battle of Evan Pao / Wendy Wan-Long Shang. Published by Scholastic Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com

Bad enough that they have to move across the country to get away from Dad’s financial scams, but in this little Virginia town stuck in its Civil War history, their Chinese family does stand out, even though their uncle has lived here a while.

Evan hopes that sixth grade will be okay, but the class bully lives across the street from their tiny rental house. Brady calls Covid-19 “the China virus” and asks if Evan will bring it to Battlefield Elementary School. Evan can sense that he really believes that – yikes!

Luckily, most kids in his class are nice, including Max who’s assigned as Evan’s buddy and explains Battlefield Day, Mrs. Norwood’s favorite activity, where everyone becomes a Civil War character in costume for an outside learning experience.

Each student in class brings in a family heirloom from the Civil War, except Evan, so Mrs. Norwood suggests that he choose a behind-the-scenes role, like scribe (boring). Evan’s sister says there were no Chinese in the American Civil War, but a little research shows that she’s wrong!

So while Brady can portray his noted sharpshooter ancestor, Evan can be a Chinese soldier in the Army of the Potomac – Mrs. Norwood’s final Battlefield Day before retiring should be quite memorable!

Other things in town are rumbling, like discussions on removing the Confederate soldier statue in front of the courthouse and the cute stray dog that Uncle and Evan find (maybe Mom will change her mind about ‘no dogs’!) and someone shooting at Evan’s house!

Evan tells most of the story, with chapters by his sister Celeste and friend Max, even Julia and Brady from his class providing additional viewpoints.

What’s something that’s “always been this way” about your town that you would change?
**kmm

Book info: The Secret Battle of Evan Pao / Wendy Wan-Long Shang. Scholastic Press, 2022. [author site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.