★ For the Win

With his new YA novel, Cory Doctorow doesn’t press against the limits of the imagination so much as the limits of the genre. While For the Win is presented as fiction for younger readers, it’s ... Read More »

November 17, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

★ Plain Kate

By Erin Bow

Katerina Svetlana, the daughter of a woodcarver, has a rare gift: she can whittle wood with such perfection that her creations often reveal uncomfortable secrets about people, causing them to fear her. First-time YA author ... Read More »

November 17, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction

The Shards of Excalibur: Song of the Sword

By Edward Willett

Authors who incorporate, interpret, or subvert Arthurian legends in works of contemporary fantasy take a huge risk: the failure rate of such books is staggeringly high. Every so often, though, a writer is skilled enough ... Read More »

November 17, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

★ No Safe Place

By Deborah Ellis

In her fiction and non-fiction, Deborah Ellis has relentlessly brought to light the ways in which war and social injustice affect young people around the world. She continues to do so in her powerful new ... Read More »

November 17, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom

By Susin Nielsen

Most readers want fiction that is populated by likeable characters, but in the right hands, an unlikable character can add a bracing note of dissonance to a story. Sarah N. Harvey’s Death Benefits features Arthur ... Read More »

November 17, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Little Blue Doggy

By Lionel Daunais; Marie Lafrance, illus.

This stuffed little doggy has a very hard time of it. He is a “loosely-knit” dog with a red rag tail, and when his unsympathetic parents go on an afternoon’s outing, they leave him locked ... Read More »