The Dot

Vashti is convinced that she cannot draw. Her art teacher believes differently. She tells Vashti to "make her mark", and when Vashti hands her a piece of paper with a dot in the middle, the teacher tells her to sign it. The next morning Vashti comes in to find her dot hanging above the teacher's desk in a frame. "I can do better than that," she thinks. And she does. Soon she's known all over for her beautiful, creative dot artwork. When a little boy approaches her at an art show and claims that he can't draw, Vashti tells him to make his mark. He draws her a little line and she insists that he sign it.

Peter H. Reynolds is one of my favorite illustrators. I love his artwork, and this particular story of his is just darling. I believe strongly in the impact that a teacher's actions and words can have on his or her students, and this book illustrates it perfectly. This is a great gift for any teacher or parent, and a beautiful story of self confidence and trying new things for kids.

Author: Peter H. Reynolds

Illustrator: Peter H. Reynolds

Recommended for: All ages

Cautions: None

Sequels: None, but Ish is another book by the same author with a similar story/theme
32 Pages

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

Winner of the 2011 Caldecott Award, A Sick Day for Amos McGee is the darling story of a zookeeper and his animals. Amos  McGee takes care of his animal friends, playing chess with the elephant and letting the tortoise win all their races. When Amos doesn't show up for work one day, his sweet little friends hop a city bus to his house to check on him, and then take care of him while he recuperates from his cold.

The illustrations are darling, with very muted colors that are used sparingly. This book was such a sweet story of friendship and selflessness that everyone should have. It's the first book that the married couple Philip and Erin Stead created together, and it won the Caldecott. Tehehe. Now that's love for you.

Author: Philip C. Stead

Illustrator: Erin E. Stead

Recommended for: All ages
Cautions: None

Available in: Hardcover

Sequels: None

32 Pages

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Whoo! My first non-children's book review! And the honor, I'm happy to say, goes to Anne Fadiman.

(I feel that I must point out that most of these reviews are children's books because that's a) what I am most interested in and b) what I work with on a daily basis at the store. So please forgive the excessive children's book bliss.)

I adore this collection of essays. Fadiman's wit combines with her deeply rooted love of literature to create a world of words that you won't be able to help but read over and over again. Two of my favorite essays are "Marrying Libraries", in which she discusses the giant leap of faith she and her husband took in finally combining their book collections, and Never Do That To A Book, in which she discusses the different book-lover personalities. She was hysterical, and made me evaluate myself as a reader, literature lover, and book collector.

Author: Anne Fadiman
Recommended for: Adults will enjoy this, but I believe that many teenagers will, too, so I'll say 16+
Cautions: None
Available in: Paperback
Sequels: None
162 Pages

Artemis Fowl

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. When I picked it up as a kid, I didn't get into it. Who knows why—maybe I was having a bad week—but I didn't. I realize now what I was missing out on. Let me start by saying that this does not mean your kid won't like this book. My nephews ranging in age from 9-13 LOVE this series. As, now, do I. 

Artemis Fowl is a twelve-year-old genius, the youngest Fowl boy in a long line of Irish criminal masterminds. His father has gone missing and is presumed dead after a dastardly plot goes terribly wrong. After his disappearance, Artemis’s mother suffered an emotional breakdown, leaving Artemis in charge of the manor and the family business. Determined to get his family’s dwindling fortune back and to help his poor mother, Artemis learns about the secret world of the fantastic, mainly fairies and LEP-Recon (who are actually super soldiers, not little green men, thank you very much). Although his plan is reprehensible and his motives are abominable, Artemis is really just a sweet kid with a good heart (but don’t tell him I said so). The book is a quick, fun read that will change every preconception you ever had about the magical world.

Author: Eoin Colfer
Recommended for: 9+
Cautions: None
Available in: Hardcover, Paperback, Audio
Sequels: Artemis Fowl and the: Arctic Incident, Eternity Code, Opal Desception, Lost Colony, Time Paradox, Atlantis Complex, Last Guardian
277 Pages

Partials

Partials was fantastic. Excellently written, with a unique twist on an old, post-apocalyptic tale. America, in an effort to make world domination easy, has built a species of half-human, half-machine soldiers called the Partials. Of course, the Partials are physically superior to mankind in every way, so the plan backfires when the Partials betray humanity and start slaughtering everyone in an attempt to take over the world themselves. They have unleashed an incurable virus called RM on the population of humans, and those who survived are immune, but they cannot reproduce. Partials: 1, Humans: 0.

Which brings us to where the book begins. Enter Kira Walker, 16-year-old medical intern, who is hell bent on curing the virus and saving her species. Kira can’t stand seeing all of the newborns in her maternity ward dying any longer, and hatches a plan to cure RM that nobody has ever considered before: kidnap a Partial and study it. The only problem, of course, is that the government won’t let her, so in order to follow through on her plan, Kira has to commit treason and bring down everyone helping her in the process.

The book was, as I said, incredibly well written. This is Dan Wells’ first YA novel, and it is, to put it plainly, a great success. My only problem with the book was a personal issue, because the whole “end-of-the-world-and-humanity-as-we-know-it, fate in the hands of a 16-year-old” plot makes me anxious. It’s just not a plot line I tend to read often.

Personal plot preference aside, however, it was fantastic. The book ends on a cliffhanger, as most do, but it wasn’t so bad that you’d have to wait for the series to be complete before delving in. I really enjoyed the book, and I look forward to the sequel(s?).

Author: Dan Wells

Recommended for: 15+

Cautions: Minor language, frequent references to reproduction but nothing necessarily inappropriate

Available in: Hardcover

Sequels: Fragments, to be released 2/2013, potentially more?

480 Pages

Unraveling

I feel bad writing this review because it's the first negative review I've posted. I must admit...I was very unimpressed with this book. I have never read a young adult book with so many swear words, and I don't think I've seen the F bomb dropped in a book that frequently ever. The story line was original, unless you've ever seen Veronica Mars, in which case, it wasn't. One of the reviews on the book says that it's something like Veronica Mars mixed with The X-Files. That's exactly what it is, really.

Janelle is a junior in high school whose mother is bi-polar and her FBI agent father is rarely around, so she gets to play mom to her younger brother, Jared. When she's hit by a car and killed instantly, she's brought back to life by Ben Michaels, a boy who Janelle has known from a distance for several years at school, but who has never even spoken to. After her return to the realm of the living, Janelle gets sucked into one of her dad's cases, in which people are dying by radiation poison at random. She has to figure it out before the end of the world.

The love story was sweet on his end and not believable for me on hers. I felt like I turned the page and she was suddenly declaring her undying love, when there had been no indication of it before that moment. The description of their physical attraction to each other also gets a bit steamy at one point.

Maybe it's because I really was just too turned off by all the foul words dotting the pages, but I really didn't enjoy this book very much. I was anxious to get it over with so I could move on to something else, and I closed it with great dissatisfaction.

Author: Elizabeth Norris
Recommended for: Is anyone ever old enough for a casual F-word smattering? Other than that, 16+
Cautions: Strong language (as I said), intense "love" scene, some very detailed descriptions of burned bodies.
Available in: Hardcover
Sequels: There will definitely be some. She left a big cliffhanger.
464 Pages

Shark vs. Train

THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER.

Who would win if a shark and a train got into a fight? Well, it would depend, of course, on circumstances. Are they underwater? At the circus? Trick-or-Treating? The story is darling, and the pictures are outstanding (I love Tom Lichtenheld. Love him).

This book is especially great for little boys who love destruction and little boy things like trains and sharks.

Author: Chris Barton and Tom Lichtenheld

Recommended for: Anyone and everyone

Cautions: ....

Available in: Hardcover

Sequels: NA

40 Pages