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 [...]

Can we talk about the cover first? Briefly? Because I hate it. My galley has the same cover, essentially, but with the colors inverted, and the title under the tree and Brashares’ name over it rather than the other way around, but whichever they ended up with it’s essentially the same. And it’s boring. It [...]

You may remember that I love horse books, and the fact that I love age-appropriate books for tweens is practically the hallmark of this website. So I picked this up with a good feeling, despite being a little wary about the main character attending an elite boarding school. I was a little afraid that this [...]

When I got this ARC I figured from the cover that it was middle-grade. Nope, teen, according to the age range listed on the cover. When I finished the book, I REALLY wished it was middle-grade (no adult content and the cover really doesn’t have teen appeal). I expressed this wish to the author, who [...]

(no cover art yet)
Jessica Day George’s website says that the upcoming DRAGON SPEAR is the last of the books she will write about Creel and her dragon friends, and now I am VERY VERY MAD at Jessica Day George. Stop writing if the books seem in danger of starting to suck, yes, but THAT IS [...]

It’s a good time, book-wise, to be a tween.
I read the galley of THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB within the first few days after it arrived in our shop. I remember that the Simon galleys arrived late that season and we had less than a week to evaluate them for initial purchase.
As soon as I started [...]

Oh, aimed-at-tweens books featuring tween characters doing tweeny-age-appropriate things, how I do love you.
Sixth-grader Molly is really not happy about things. Her dad is going to get married again (her mother passed away years ago) to a woman Molly and her best friend Tanna call The Claw. The Claw has changed her basketball-loving, Chinese food-ordering, [...]

If I were handselling this I would say it was a cross between Avi’s Crispin series and The Ranger’s Apprentice series, which would probably have boys taking it from me without question. This would also appeal to girls who like historical fiction/fantasy type crossovers, of course.
It’s leveled for teens but I’m not entirely sure why [...]

(This post is from Eliza. The posts are all tagged at the bottom with the author, but because I made this theme on the Wordpress Theme Generator, I have no idea how to make them always show easily the author besides adding a tag. Man, that was a bad sentence. In any event, if you’re [...]