Sixteen strangers move into a brand-new apartment building next door to the estate of missing, eccentric millionaire, Sam Westing. When Westing turns up dead, the sixteen people are given clues and charged with finding out who killed him. I swear I read this when I was in fifth grade, but I didn’t remember a thing […]
Kathleen and Joyce are both living on Cape Ann. When they meet, they’re both a little lonely and going through some tough times in their lives. Kathleen is facing a breast cancer diagnosis and Joyce has a terrible teenager at home and a mostly-absent husband. They immediately click and become confidantes. I think it says […]
Will Robie is a sanctioned assassin for the US government. Needless to say, if he screws up he’s officially on his own. He gets an odd assignment amidst the cartel bosses and terrorists that are his usual hits. He’s assigned to take out a woman who works for the Department of Defense. The official story […]
In this graphic novel memoir, Alison Bechdel explores her relationship with her father, who later admitted to being homosexual; his suicide; her childhood; and her early years after coming out as a lesbian. I really kind of hate reviewing these kinds of books. They’re so intensely personal. Who am I to judge the work of […]
Linda, an overweight girl in fifth grade, gives a report about whales one day. Someone passes around a note that “Blubber is a good name for her” and Linda has a new nickname. The other kids start to tease and harass her and just generally make her life miserable. Our narrator, Jill, watches all this […]
Anytime kids gather together in the dark, scary stories are inevitably told. Alvin Schwartz gathered a good selection of the most popular and published them in this anthology. I kind of think this scared me when I was little but I don’t actually remember ever checking it out from the library. My theory is that […]
Our young British protagonist and his Norwegian grandmother know something that we don’t: Witches are real and they live among us. They look like sweet neighbor ladies but they’re keeping a lot of secrets. Chief among them? They want to wipe out the children of the world. When Grandmamma and Grandson (do we ever learn […]
Young Mickey hears a noise deep in the night and finds himself falling into the Night Kitchen, where he has to help the cooks get the milk into the batter. What a fun little book! I never read much Sendak when I was little for some reason, so this was completely new to me. The […]
Captain Will Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire–or is it the other way around?–are in something of a bind. Temeraire was meant to be a gift from the Chinese emperor to Emperor Napoleon. The Chinese people are not happy when they find out that Temeraire is a mere captain’s pet and he’s being used to wage […]
Now that the immediate danger to Camp Jupiter has been averted, Percy, Jason, and friends must set out to fulfill the Prophecy of Seven. Unfortunately, there was a…misunderstanding… in the camp and the friends must also dodge the Roman soldiers who are hunting for them. Gaea is coming more fully awake and her sons are […]
Chronicling the lives of Japanese brides coming to America, Buddha in the Attic is deceptively slim. Almost every sentence begins a new story that is only hinted at, yet I saw at least the broad strokes of an entire life in just those few words. There is no main character and the book is told […]