By Shannon Yarbrough on March 5, 2011
I took a chance on Cindy C. Bennett’s Geek Girl mostly for two reasons. It didn’t have any vampires. And it seemed like a book that teaches acceptance among teen peers, and I think that’s an important subject these days after all of the school bullying we’ve seen in the headlines. Our narrator is Jen Jones, a seventeen year old “goth” girl who is a foster child living with the Clarks.
Posted in Shannon Yarbrough, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged cindy c. bennett, geek girl, good teen book, good teen lit, outcast teen book, teen lit |
By Shannon Yarbrough on December 1, 2010
When Lee, a Vietnamese sixth grade student, falls in the cafeteria and drops his lunch, a beautiful green-eyed girl named Autumn helps him up when everyone else is laughing. Neither know that they will eventually change each others’ lives forever. Lee is a geek, a smart skinny boy who gets bullied a lot by a meat head named Jay.
Posted in Shannon Yarbrough, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged forever and a day, high school, high school relationships, teen bullying, teen cancer, teen dating, teen death, teen friendship, teen love, teen racism, teen sports, tommy tran |
By LK Gardner-Griffie on September 23, 2010
I happened to run across this book last year at the Orange County Kids Book Festival. As a girl, I loved ghost stories, and the premise for the book intrigued me, and I knew I had to give it a read.
Posted in Horror/Supernatural, LK Gardner-Griffie, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged book review, ghost girls, ghost story, juvenile fiction, Karen Chilton, LK Gardner-Griffie, The Haunting on Devil's Den Road |
By Shannon Yarbrough on January 1, 2010
I was given the privilege of reading LK Gardner-Griffie’s new book, Nowhere Feels Like Home, while it was still in its infant stages before publication. I was first introduced to LK’s writing when reading her first book, Misfit McCabe, the first in a series of three books following the teenage days of Katie McCabe. Katie becomes displaced from her routine after her father gets sick and passes away and she has to go live with Uncle Charley and her cousins. The book came to a climax when Katie was kidnapped by her school bully, Harvey Denton Jr., and left in the hills all alone. After almost drowning, then getting bit by a rattlesnake and breaking an ankle, Katie finally made it home alive.
Posted in Shannon Yarbrough, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged LK Gardner-Griffie, misfit mccabe, nowhere feels like home |
By LK Gardner-Griffie on December 13, 2009
Jack Regan captured me from the get go with his young adult fantasy T’Aragam, which is aimed at the tween age group (9-13).
Posted in Action/Adventure, Humor, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Jack W. Regan, Max Ransome Chronicles, T'Aragam, tween, young adult |
By Shannon Yarbrough on December 1, 2009
I have to admit I was immediately and personally drawn to JR Thompson’s book because it is about children in the foster care system. I’m actually starting classes in January to become a licensed adoptive parent. The first nine weeks of classes are devoted to fostering. There are passages from JR’s book that read like they were straight from the number of forms and documents I’ve already had to read over and sign, from rules against “corporal punishment” to helping the children with their “Life Books.”
Posted in Shannon Yarbrough, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged foster care, foster care fiction, foster family, foster teen, fostering, jr thompson, revenge fires back |
By Dan Marvin on November 26, 2009
I dare you not to like Stubbs and Bernadette by Levi Montgomery. Double dog dare you! This book made me late for work on more than once, its that hard to put down. There is something so compelling and sweet about the way that Montgomery describes Bernadette, you just want to shield her from the world. Bernadette in this case is Bernadette Elsbeth McIntyre and the name is bigger than the girl that wears it. She is described as a waif, an elf, a sixteen-year-old in a twelve-year-old’s body and you’ll be able to immediately picture her. There was always someone in everyone’s High School that resembles her. She is the artsy girl, the one that doesn’t dress just right, the one that never quite fit in.
Posted in Dan Marvin, Mainstream/Nostalgia, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged coming-of-age, CreateSpace, Fiction, impulse control, levi montgomery, literary fiction, love story, Stubbs and Bernadette, teenagers, young adult |
By Shannon Yarbrough on November 13, 2009
Congratulations to fellow reviewer LK Gardner-Griffie on an interview posted today over at Carol’s Prints. The blog features an Interview with Characters post and today LK sat down with Katie McCabe, the tom girl whose at the center of LK’s Misfit McCabe series.
Posted in Announcements, Shannon Yarbrough, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged LK Gardner-Griffie, misfit mccabe |
By LK Gardner-Griffie on October 1, 2009
As I Rode with Cullen Baker opens, we are met with a scene evocative of Gone with the Wind with Tara burning in the background. Set in the South in the midst of the civil war, fifteen year old Jessica Linville watched while the Federal cavalry burned her house to the ground.
Posted in Action/Adventure, Historical, LK Gardner-Griffie, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged adventure, civil war, coming-of-age, Cullen Baker, Fiction, Historical, historical fiction, LK Gardner-Griffie, novel, outlaw, RLB Hartmann, romance, tale, texas |
By LK Gardner-Griffie on August 31, 2009
Have you ever been in a situation in which you have been uncomfortable? Where you don’t know what to say? Or, when faced with a new task tend to panic? If you understand any of those feelings, think how Leah Nells feels, because every minute of every day is a struggle for her to get through.
Posted in LK Gardner-Griffie, Young Adult/Juvenile | Tagged Fiction, high school, introversion, J. M. Reep, Leah, LK Gardner-Griffie, novel, Shyness, teens, YA, young adult |
