Review by Logaine Navascués
When Maya decides to direct a play, all of her friends in the Mile End neighbourhood join in. But as soon as she starts bossing them around, some actors try to find a way out, revealing how easily a driven leader can become a dominant ruler, in spite of having good intentions. … More Maya’s Big Scene by Isabelle Arsenault
Review by Logaine Navascués
Sometimes a picture book comes along that reframes the possibilities of the form itself. Jon Klassen has already demonstrated his ability to play with readers’ expectations with wit and irony in his iconic hat trilogy. In The Rock from the Sky, Klassen again challenges the inseparable nature of word and image intrinsic to the picture book, while also defying conventions of the format with its 96 pages and multi-chapter structure—five consecutive short stories in one volume!— proposing a reading that is both blunt yet mysterious, simple yet multilayered. … More The Rock from the Sky by Jon Klassen
Review by Hira Peracha
When Lucy Crisp, who is halfway through her second gap year between high school and university, receives an acceptance letter to the floral artistry program at Ladywyck Lodge, the last thing she expected to come across was a town of witches and fairies.
… More Lucy Crisp and the Vanishing House by Janet Hill
Review by Rachel Jung
Imagine a small, fragile bead the size of your fist that contains your entire life energy (gi). Now, imagine that one day, its existence only becomes known to you after a messy interaction with a monster ejects it from your body and into the hands of a stranger. … More Wicked Fox by Kat Cho
Review by Logaine Navascués
Max doesn’t feel like a regular 11-year-old boy in his hometown of Santa María. His dad won’t let him join the other kids for fútbol practice in a nearby town—even though making it to the local team is Max’s greatest dream—because he’s worried something might happen to him. That he will also disappear, just as his Mother did when he was still a baby. … More Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Review by Claudine Yip
Last time, she saved the city. Next up: the universe? Or worse: college applications?
… More The Iron Will of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee
Review by Logaine Navascués
Runa is an apprentice runecaster, but she wishes she were somebody else. Someone who’s not short, skinny and pale, with wild, wiry, white hair and strange eyes. … More The Stone of Sorrow by Brooke Carter
Review by Louise Brecht
As overcome by sorrow as Saskia is in the opening pages of The Bone Thief, she is fiercely determined to avenge the loss of her loved ones and to stop the man responsible for their disappearance dead in his tracks…if she can find him. … More The Bone Thief by Breeana Shields
Review by Ciara Javier
After losing his best friend Eddie in an accident, Tristan Strong is sent to his grandparents’ home in Alabama to heal from the loss. But on his first night there, Tristan encounters a sticky doll who attempts to steal Eddie’s journal, which contains folklores from both their grandmothers, and is Tristan’s last remaining connection to Eddie. … More Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Review by Hira Peracha
Don’t Call the Wolf by Aleksandra Ross, told in two separate third-person narratives, introduces Polish lore to the teen reader in an easy and accessible way. … More Don’t Call the Wolf by Aleksandra Ross
