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Monthly Archives: May 2016

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaria

26 Thursday May 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Young Adult

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death, teen readers, unusual fiction

love letters

Dellaria tells the story of Laurel’s journey from the death of her sister and the breakup of her family to emotional healing in a most unusual way.  Laurel writes letters to famous dead people in her journal. This began as an English class writing assignment.  The point was to have the students write to a famous dead person about what effect their lives had had on them.  Laurel begins writing but never turns in the assignment.  She, instead, begins to write more and more letters to her “pen pals.”  She feels she cannot share the letters even though not doing so affects her grade in the class.

The people to whom she writes are very diverse: Kurt Cobain, Amelia Earhart, Jim Morrison, and John Keats.  Each of these people had died a very tragic death or had suffered from some tragic events in their lives.  Laurel’s letters to the dead gradually reveals to the reader what really happened the night her sister died.

This is a fantastic story told in a most unusual manner. I think teen readers will enjoy it, and I know they will learn more about the people to whom Laurel writes.  I recommend this for libraries that service middle school to high school readers.

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Marked by Laura Williams McCaffery

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Political fiction, Young Adult

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dystopian societies, Fiction, graphic novel, Laura Williams McCaffery, political fiction, unusual fiction

marked

This book is not at all what I expected when I picked it up. I had thought that it might be about tattoos and people’s reactions to them. While it IS about tattoos, it is more about a dystopian society that touts education as a way to move up in society while, at the same time, making it nearly impossible for that to happen.

In this society, if a person is caught in a misdemeanor crime such as buying food or medicine in a “shadow market” – an unsanctioned market where items are available that are not normally available in the regular stores, they immediately receive a tattoo around their wrist. Three tattoos, and they go to prison. Tattoos are given immediately without any sort of trial – only that the police had caught them doing something “illegal.”

Lyla Northstrom is one such girl who has received a mark when she went to a shadow market to buy medicine for her ailing mother because her mother is not able to get medical care from any acceptable medical facility.  A police officer, who she has known since a child, offers her a way to redeem herself and to get her mark removed.  He wants her to spy on one of her best friends who has also been marked for participating in underground activity. She must decide if her freedom from condemnation and a chance to get an education is worth betraying her friend. As she gets further into the underworld and into the world of the government that is controlling her world, she learns that many things are not as they seem.

This book is also a sort of commentary on the control that government can get over people’s lives and the results of that control. I watched a documentary on freedom just yesterday, and I was hit with the comment that one can either have economic freedom OR government regulations – not both.  This books is a good example of what MIGHT happen if the government reigns supreme in all aspects of one’s life.  It is too frighteningly possible for such a society too exist is freedoms are eroded one by one.

This story is told as a combination standard novel and graphic novel, an unusual approach but may help get the graphic novel people reading something a little more challenging.  I could not list it as a graphic novel, but it does have elements of that genre in it.  And, one of the characters does write a type of graphic novels.

 

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Welcome to New Zealand: a Nature Journal by Sandra Morris

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Non-Fiction, science

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Children's books, Science, watercolors, writing

welcome to new zealand

When I found this book available for review, I hoped that this might be a book about the flora and fauna of New Zealand, a place that has long fascinated me.  I was mistaken.  It is about how to make a journal of one’s own environment.  The author informs the reader what to look for in his/her own neighborhood, and gives examples of the materials needed.  She also give suggestions of how to enter the findings into a nature journal.

The artwork is done by the writer.  It is mostly watercolor and pen and ink drawings.  It is very pretty and welcomes the eye to explore the pages, even as it encourages the reader to explore the out-of-doors.  It does have a glossary and an index to aid in research.  I recommend this book for the elementary reader, ages nine through twelve.

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Sandrider by Angie Sage

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Fantasy, Young Adult

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Angie Sage, Fantasy, Fiction, teen readers

sandrider

This second book in the Todhunter Moon series is well-written and is a pleasure to read.  Alice Todhunter Moon is a novice magician in the Castle when a young girl accidentally enters the lives of the people in the Castle through the Ancient Ways. The inhabitants of the Castle already know about the Egg of Orm which had been stolen by an evil sorcerer named Oraton-Maar. But, they have no idea where he is keeping it until it hatches.  Of course, the girl can help them, but she doesn’t trust them, and they soon learn they can’t trust her either.

How Alice and her friends manage to get to the egg before the baby Orm hatches and whom the Orm will imprint on when it does hatch makes this a very fast-moving tale that will appeal to the middle-school reader.

Reader of the Septimus Heap series will enjoy this new series.  It continues with Septimus Heap now being in charge of the Castle.  This book may stand alone, but the reader will want to go back and read the first book if she begins with this one.

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