Pay attention closely, because I am going to tell you the only thing that you need to know to make this book walk out of your store by the pile (or create a huge waiting list for it in your library):
It is about kids who figure out how to download superpowers on the internet.
That’s [...]

::tap, tap:: is this thing on?
I’m back from “vacation”; let’s see if we can get this going again.
(I read this in galley, but it came out at the end of May.)
Every once in awhile a book comes along that makes me realize that to enjoy some things, you really have to be 12 years old. [...]

I was vaguely aware of The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt for a while. As in, I’d heard of it and seen its cover in stores and knew it was a 2008 Newbery Honor Book and was always mildly curious about it, but not curious enough to ever pick it up until recently, when I [...]

When I picked up this book at the BEA, Melissa pounced on it and said, “You got the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid!” “I did?” “There are two other books…” “There are?” “And they’re great!” “Well, that’s good!”
As you might be able to tell, I have spent the last several decades rereading Betsy-Tacy, Anne [...]

The Amaranth Enchantment is a terrific reworking of the Cinderella fairy story, which is not something that they try to hide in any way; the heroine’s name is Lucinda, for heaven’s sake.  Author Julie Berry is not married to the source work, but uses it as a base to start from, shooting the story out [...]

When I picked up this galley, I wasn’t aware that it was a sequel. Somehow we missed the first one at my former job, and I do mean missed: I think we would have sold THE PUZZLING WORLD OF WINSTON BREEN quite well in hardcover. Well, now they’ll sell it quite well in paperback, and [...]

What I did not know until I just went looking for her website is that Rebecca Stead is also the author of FIRST LIGHT, a 2007 book that I loved. (I don’t know why I didn’t know this; it’s right on the first page of the galley.) I handsold it basically as “a City of [...]

Readers of Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, the Eisner Award-nominated first installment in Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin series, should definitely not skip the bitingly witty and insightful introduction penned by Kelly Crumrin (Naifeh’s real-life girlfriend). It speaks of childhood fears and the outgrowing thereof and sets the stage for the book’s dark and sardonic tone. 
This graphic [...]

If I could write song lyrics or poetry, I would probably put a little ditty here about what a great time this is right now for tween books, and how it seems like publishers finally heard my silent prayer (or out loud complaining to sales reps) and started publishing great tween-y books, but since I [...]

I am not a big fan of the creepy, so this one sat on my pile for about a month before I finally picked it up. I can’t say I’m entirely glad I did, because I was absolutely right about it being extremely creepy, but I am glad to come here and tell you that [...]