Graphic Novel Pick: Nat Enough

Nat Enough
By Maria Scrivan
Illustrated by the author
Graphix
Scholastic
2020
240 pages
ISBN: 9781338538212

Available April 7, 2020

Charming illustrations by the author and believable middle school drama and angst will delight graphic novel readers. Natalie (Nat) has never believed she is enough: not smart enough, not pretty enough, not talented enough. This theme will resonate with every middle school reader! Even though she's nervous about going to a new school, Nat has high hopes since she'll be joining her BFF Lily, and they can face middle school obstacles together.

The first day and days following don't go as planned. Suddenly, Nat is not cool enough to be Lily's BFF. In fact, Lily is downright mean to Natalie. First by ignoring her, and then by leaving Nat toxic and hurtful notes. Worse yet, Lily is hanging with cool girl Alex who is good at everything she does.

Nat is going to have to "find" her voice and be who she is, not who Lily wants her to be. She takes a chance and enters a book contest, winning first prize and a trip to the state capitol! Even cute boy Derek takes notice. Through her art, Natalie finds her voice and wins the praise of her peers.

Recommended for graphic fans and anyone else in middle school! Grade 5 and up. This title will be on Scholastic Book Fairs next year.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Middle Grades Pick: The Skeleton Tree

Review by Guest Reviewer Lisa Lopez, Library Media Specialist, Lujan-Chavez Elementary in El Paso, Texas. Follow Lisa on Twitter @ LLopez_LCES

The Skeleton Tree
by Kim Ventrella
Scholastic Press
2017
240 pages
ISBN: 9781338042702

 Lisa Lopez reviewing:

The Skeleton Tree is a middle grades book perfect for reluctant readers by debut author Kim Ventrella. Chapters are short making it an excellent choice for reading clubs and classroom reads.

Stanly is dealing with a ton of problems: his parents are recently divorced, his mother works too much,  and his younger sister has a terminal illness. There is comic relief in interactions with their caregiver who is from Kyrgyzstan.

At one of his sister's many doctor appointments, Stanly reads about The Young Discoverer's Prize. He is excited because he thinks he can win with a photo of a weird growth on the tree in his back yard. It appears that the tree is growing bones! Stanly can save his whole family. With the prize money in hand, his archeologist dad will come back home and Mom won't have to work too many jobs. His sister will get more attention and the caregiver from Kyrgyzstan won't have to visit again.

When Stanly's best friend Jaxon takes of photo of the tree, the kids can't believe the bone aren't visible. No one can see the skeleton but kids, and they can't see it in photos. Just what is happening to the tree and why?

Ventrella mixes pre-teen angst, real-life drama, mystery and the supernatural in The Skeleton Tree. This is an angel-of death spin done well for middle grades.

Recommended grades 3-7.This book is available on Scholastic Book Fairs.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review nor did guest reviewer Lisa Lopez.

YA Pick: Eden Summer (Guest Review Sandy Brandon)

Eden Summer
by Liz Flanagan
David Fickling Books
2017
288 pages
ISBN: 9781338121209

Guest Review by Sandy Brandon, Library Media Specialist, Montwood Middle School in El Paso, Texas. Follow Sandy on Twitter @SBrandon_MMS

Eden Holby seems to have it all. She's beautiful, popular and fun. She has a dedicated group of friends, a boyfriend who adores her and a family who loves her. Or so it seems. Then personal tragedy hits and Eden disappears. Jess, Eden's best friend, is an expert on all things Eden and she makes it her mission to find her. Unfortunately, Jess doesn't know why Eden went missing or where she might be. Will she find her alive or is it already too late?

Eden Summer is intense from the beginning and builds throughout the novel. Eden and Jess are believable high school girls facing typical his school drama and harsh realities of real life. Though Eden is missing from the start of the story, she is a very real presence in this novel. Friendships are tested and secrets are revealed. It is a fast-paced read and excitement builds. Mystery readers will enjoy this high school detective drama. This is a real page-turner and most readers will likely read it in one sitting.

Recommended grade 9 and up due to social issues  and suicide.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review nor did the guest reviewer.

Dorky Pick: Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Perfect Pet Sitter

Dorky Pick: Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Perfect Pet Sitter
by Rachel Renee Russell
Illustrations by Erin Russell
Aladdin
2015
291 pages
ISBN: 9781481457040

Bubblegum pink with puppy paw prints, the cover art invites girls (and boys) of all ages to sneak a peek! Nikki is surrounded by cute puppies in the yellow square on the front cover. The back cover hints of espionage. Operation Paws is Nikki's mission to hide seven dogs (6 puppies) from everyone, including her worst nightmare: MacKenzie!

Nikki's life is perfect, it seems. Her worst nightmare and constant enemy MacKenzie Hollister has transferred to an even posher private school. Squeeeee, Nikki is so happy! She's got two BFFs and a handsome boyfriend named Brandon. They almost share a second kiss and Nikki says, "It made me feel very giggly and a little queasy. Like I wanted to...vomit...rainbow-colored...cupcake sprinkles!" Brandon and Nikki discover a mother dog and her six puppies on the steps of the Fuzzy Friends, the animal shelter where they volunteer. Brandon's worried because the shelter is already at capacity. They've got to find a place for the dogs. Nikki volunteers to take the dogs for one night (before asking permission from her parents), Brandon agrees to a night, and the kids think they've found a short term answer.

Younger sister Brianna loves the dogs and promises to keep the pooches secret. Brianna seems to be keeping her word. Nikki's parents don't find the dogs. The next day, with her mother taking the day off, Nikki has to come up with a clever plan to smuggle the dogs out of the house. She gets them past both of parents and into her  school. Chloe and Zoey help Nikki place the dogs in the janitor's closet.  A series of mishaps have the girls scrambling. New student (and new main character of Russell's next series) Max Crumbly saves the day.

 All is well in the end (as it always is in DD); Nikki and Brianna get a surprise gift from their parents. The dogs all find good homes. Nikki gets a surprise letter from her principal with some jarring news.

A short section of Tips on How to Dork Your Diary is included. The Misadventures of Max Crumbly begins next spring.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

 

Tales From a Not-So-Glam TV Star (Dork Diaries, 7)

Tales From a Not-So-Glam TV Star
by Rachel Renee Russell
with Nikki Russell and Erin Russell
Aladdin
2014
320 pages
ISBN: 9781442487673


Rachel Renee Russell just keeps getting it right; this time, with the help of her two young daughters. They each co-wrote the book with their mother and their voice shines through and captivates. This Dork Diaries delivers!

Nikki Maxwell is back and she's true to her loveable dorky self. When she gets a phone call from famous  television producer Trevor Chase to meet him at the local Bad Boyz concert to discuss recording her band's song, Nikki accepts back stage passes for herself and her BFFs Zoey and Chloe. The girls are told to pick up their passes at the box office. There's only one problem: MacKenzie! Mean girl MacKenzie just happens to be at the box office when they show up and she swipes their passes and masquerades with her friends as Nikki's entourage. A cranky security guard denies Nikki and her BFFs access into the concert, even though they tell him their passes are either stolen or missing. The girls sneak in and are mistaken as backup dancers and glammed up by the make up and hair team. An outrageous run in with all parties  backstage turns into a true melee until Trevor Chase shows up and sorts everything out.

He offers Nikki a reality tv show, much to MacKenzie's seething chagrin! Everywhere Nikki goes with cameras following her, MacKenzie is sure to show up and try to steal Nikki's thunder. Lucky for Nikki, each time she ends up  on top with more and more fans.

Even though being a pop princess and a reality show star sounds glamorous, Nikki can't find time for Brandon without cameras following her. As she becomes more famous, she is pushed away from Brandon and she worries about it.

Girls will cheer on Nikki! It's nice to see the underdog achieve success and trump the beautiful and evil girl. Nikki is charming, adorable, and dorky. She will encourage all of us to embrace our inner dork. The Dork Diaries series picks up speed with each book, gaining more and more of a worldwide following. It has everything a young reader could ask for: a perky, funny, captivating protagonist, an evil, manipulative villain--MacKenzie, two sidekicks who truly have Nikki's back, a cute and sweet love interest--Brandon, quirky parents--Nikki's father owns an extermination service and drives around in a van with a giant cockroach on top, and a cast of minor characters--each enriching the story and Nikki's character.

This is a winning book that is sure to please.

Highly, highly recommended grade 5-up.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

YA Pick: #16thingsIthoughtweretrue

#16thingsithoughtweretrue
by Janet Gurtler
Sourcebooks Fire
2014
304 pages
ISSBN: 9781402277979

Sensitive and engrossing, #16thingsithoughtweretrue portrays a girl caught up in the Twitterverse  who chooses to have online friends and live life with her Internet buddies. When co-workers and soon to be friends Adam and Amy point out that they are real and present and the people online are not present and do not "know" Morgan, she disagrees. She would rather bask in the glory of 5,000 followers than work at a relationship with real people.

When her mom drops a family secret bombshell at the hospital, Morgan realizes that she has a chance to meet the father she never knew. She gets his address in Canada and plans to travel to his house and confront him. Amy offers to drive and Adam offers to come along for the road trip. The three set off on a road trip where they find out that they share some wishes and dreams.

Morgan meets her father who is dumbstruck that he ever had a daughter; he didn't even know she existed as Morgan's mom never told him that she was pregnant eighteen years ago. She never wrote him or called him to tell him that he had a daughter. Now Morgan directs her anger back to her mother. All these years, she thought her dad had abandoned her, but now she finds out, he never knew about her.

Amy shares a troubling secret and Adam and Morgan get closer. Be ready for a tear-jerker ending. Have your box of tissues ready.

Recommended grade 9-up. Mature subject matter.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Spy Pick: Two Lies and a Spy

Two Lies and a Spy
by Kat Carlton
Simon & Schuster BFYR
2013
245 pages

Exciting and rocket paced,  packed with explosive action, rife with romance, and simmering with spy double and triple crosses, Two Lies and a Spy is the real deal!

It started with a text: "Can u pick up milk on ur way home?" and that's all it takes for sixteen year old Kari Andrews to slip into stealth mode. It's the Code Black emergency message her parents set in place years ago to protect their family. When Kari sees it, she knows to "bug out." She races to pick up younger brother Charlie  and immediately  has to go into martial arts ninja girl warrior  mode and fight off Mitch, a guy who works with her parents. Why is Mitch trying to capture them, and where are her parents?

Kari stops by Union Station to retrieve their stashed emergency backpacks complete with fake passports and cash. She takes a round about cab ride, hoping to ditch anyone following them and checks them in at a Comfort Inn--the agreed upon meet up place for Kari and her parents.  It's time to hide out and wait for contact with her parents.

After several days, Kari decides she's going to need help on this caper, so she enlists BFF Rita, a wannabe spy and hot guys Luke and Evan for back up. Kari knows her parents are being held as spies by the Agency--a spy organization where they have worked as U.S. spies for years. The kids decide to enter posing as a school tour; Rita stays behind hacking into the security system to protect them.

The answers Kari finds at the Agency are not the ones she went looking for. And "friends" soon become suspect. What's a girl  spy to do? When friends are suddenly enemies and enemies are allies, what can she do?

Two Lies and a Spy is a rollicking good time, and I was sad when I turned the last page--it is that good.

Highly, highly recommended grade 7 up. Mild profanity (which is used on television). No questionable content.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Girl Pick: Sleuth or Dare: Partners in Crime

Sleuth or Dare: Partners in Crime
by Kim Harrington
Scholastic Press
Available May 2012 (date from inside arc)
192 pages

Cute and quirky, smart and appealing, fun and entertaining, Kim Harrington appears to have cornered the market on the mystery/sleuth novel for tweens.

Best friends Darcy and Norah--who couldn't be more NOT alike--have to stick together for a school assignment. They are to create a school project of a "fake" business. The BFFs decide on a "fake" detective agency that they christen "Partners in Crime." Darcy, resident computer nerd, will design the website and help with the technology end of the presentation; Norah will give the presentation to the class.

Imagine the girls' surprise when all their classmates hang on their every word and applaud their idea! The girls are even more flabbergasted when someone emails them with a "real" case for their agency. Darcy and Norah must track down who wrote them an email pleading with them to help find her missing sister.

Darcy uses her computer geek skills and Norah uses her sleuthing skills to figure out that cute and popular cheerleader Fiona is probably their client. They confront her quietly and she caves. She has found two birth certificates and two pictures of babies. She knows she must have been a twin and begs the "detectives" to find out what happened to her missing twin.

The girls have to tippy-toe around because Fiona warns that her parents are super-overprotective and almost creepily stealthy when talking to "strangers." When someone emails the girls to back off the Fiona case, it makes them mad and instead of scaring them, it puts them into high gear to find the missing twin before it's too late! Darcy backtracks the email and uses super-techy stuff to find who emailed them--but the IP address if encrypted! This tells the girls that they are dealing with someone who has super-secret access and technology--someone who is probably inside the government.

Goth girl, computer geek Darcy dresses only in black and purple and her parents encourage her wired behavior. She not only has a computer in her room, but a cell phone and all kinds of "spy" ware and toys to help the budding wannabe detective. Norah, on the other hand, is an astronomy nerd who finds comfort in star-gazing. Her parents are strict and don't permit cell phones and have the computer located in the den where they can monitor its usage. Readers will love both characters and likely find a friendship with each of them.

Spot-on dialog and geeky girl detective behavior will have readers clamoring for more, more, more! The return of the girl detective is here and now.

Highly, highly recommended grades 4-up.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Chick Pick: Love? Maybe.

Love? Maybe.
by Heather Hepler
Dial
2012
272 pages

Available January 5, 2012

Highly entertaining, well-written, and enjoyable, Love? Maybe. is Heather Hepler's latest young adult novel. Like The Cupcake Queen (her last novel) Love? Maybe. is set in a backdrop of a foodie paradise--a sweet shop owned by Jan, an evil genius chocolatier with an eye for beauty and a gourmand's palate for the gastronomically strange--take Kalamata Caramels, for example, olives and caramel--yet it works and customers eat them up! (pun, intended) Jan is a genius in baking sweet concoctions but not a tough businessman or an organized bookkeeper. For that, he employs Piper Paisley, a teen girl who is an organizing queen who just happens to come up with major fantastic sweet ideas for his shop. Piper is all business but disillusioned about male/female relationships.

Piper's birthday is Valentine's Day--which she dreads every year. Because of her mother's failed marriage and last relationship, Piper is jaded when it comes to romance and love. She knows there is no knight in shining armor, no hearts and flowers, no I Love You, and no happily ever after. She's seen it first-hand, after all. Piper is cynical and downright curmudgeonly when it comes to love. While her friends--spunky, amusing Jillian and heart-broken Claire look forward to Valentine's Day--Piper dreads it. Her mother owns a busy flower shop and Valentine's week is her busiest time of year, so she counts on Piper to help with younger siblings Dom and Lucy. Piper spends her time at school, at the sweet shop, picking up her siblings, doing homework, doing mother duties until bedtime, and falling into a stupor of slumber.

Jan fears that Piper is losing her youth and her appreciation of things to come. He has a fatherly, Star Wars Yoda-like talk with her and tells her that, "hearts are delicate things" but that love is worthwhile. He makes her swear to open her heart to possibility.

Jillian and Claire rope Piper into their Valentine's Day plan--they must have a boyfriend by Valentine's Day! Their plan includes makeovers and magic. Jillian finds a magic book with a love potion and the girls make love potion truffles for the sweet shop. Jan uses Piper's idea of candy hearts she calls Consternation Hearts. Instead of sayings like "Be Mine" and "UR Cute" they say "Ewww" and "Um...No" Jan adds hearts that say "Hope" because he can't stand the idea of teen cynicism.

Piper has her heart set on Ben Donovan and doesn't even realize her best friend Charlie from next door is truly the boy for her. As Valentine's Day draws closer, Piper finds gifts in her locker from a secret admirer. Jillian falls for Jeremy, a nerdy guy who has always been around and she finally realizes she likes nerds.

Relationships work out for all the characters and teen readers will love the heart-warming ending. Just in time for Valentine's Day, this novel is a gem worth relishing!

I loved Piper's name: Piper Paisley. It shows that her mom still has a creative and fun side. It's a fun name. Girls will love Jillian and want her for a BFF. The teen dialog is spot-on and delightful. Readers will love Jan, the thoughtful and big-hearted sweet shop owner who still finds beauty and romance in the world.

Highly, highly recommmeded grades 7-up. This is a "sweet" treat for girls! Girls who loved Hepler's The Cupcake Queen and Mandelski's The Sweetest Thing will be sure to love this new novel.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Chick Pick: Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Talented Pop Star

Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Talented Pop Star
by Rachel Renee Russell
Aladdin
2011
311 pages with illustrations

Witty, charming, and fun, the third installment of Dork Diaries will have tween girls clamoring for the book. Nikki J. Maxwell is still the likable girl next door: a little dorky, a little plain, a little untalented but what she lacks in talent she makes up in heart and she is blessed with two great BFFs in Chloe and Zoey. Nikki still crushes on Brandon, and still abhors Mackenzie Hollister, evil fashionista and mean girl, and still cringes whenever she thinks any of her classmates will find out that her father is an exterminator who drives around in an stinky old van with a giant cockroach on top of it!

Nikki is being coerced into performing in the school talent show as part of MacKenzie's act, but she has already promised her BFFs to be in their act. Should she let down her friends or should she spurn Mackenzie and await her wicked wrath?

Nikki steps up her plans when her scholarship is revoked and she has to raise money to stay in her costly private school. Hoping to win the talent show, she enters with a couple of fellow wall flowers and is later joined by Chloe, Zoey and Brandon! Mackenzie does her evil best to have the band disqualified but good always wins over evil.

Girls will love Nikki and her BFFs and crush over handsome yet shy Brandon. Clever cover, cute illustrations, and teen characters are spot-on! Funny asides and quirky writing. Laugh out loud antics like, "Girl Puh-leeeze...I said, doing one of those Tyra Banks neck roll thingies that I'd practiced in the mirror for hours!"

FTC Required Disclaimer: I purchased this book for my library. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review.