Review by Jane Diokpo
Catherine’s War, a graphic novel by French novelist Julia Billet, is based on the author’s mother’s true story. Set in France during World War II, it follows Rachel Cohen, a young Jewish teenager who starts off living at Sèvres Children’s Home in Paris. … More Catherine’s War by Julia Billet, illus. by Claire Fauvel
Review by Louise Brecht
Louisa Adair didn’t know what Sergeant Lind was talking about. None of them did, not really. They’d only wanted to save lives, not hoard the machine that is the key target of a massive British Intelligence operative.
… More The Enigma Game by Elizabeth Wein
Review by Lisa Matthewson
Did you think having to practice the piano was bad? Twelve-year-old Sora has to practice hiding her father in a hole in the ground. If she makes a mistake, he will be captured by the North Korean military. … More Brother’s Keeper by Julie Lee
Review by Micah Killjoy
Oh, to be a thirteen-year-old saving my brother from child traffickers on a foggy San Francisco day in 1849. Thanks to the novel Gold Rush Girl, I got to imagine living just such a life. … More Gold Rush Girl by Avi
Review by Jennifer Irvine
It’s Brooklyn in the late nineties, when rap music can be heard reverberating out of ghetto blasters everywhere. Singer Lauryn Hill reigns supreme, and Jay-Z and Mariah Carey are just getting started on their monster careers. … More Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson
Review by Louise Brecht
Seconds after this excerpt, Mutti is shot for the slip of her daughter’s tongue and Katja’s dress is splattered with her mother’s blood. The Soviet army that surges into Germany in the dying months of World War II displays little regard for its enemy’s people. … More My Long List of Impossible Things by Michelle Barker
Review by Verena Rodriguez
Encounter reimagines the first meeting between an Indigenous Stadaconan fisher and a French sailor in 1534. Inspired by Jacques Cartier’s notes on his first expedition to what is now Gaspé Bay, Quebec, the story begins when Fisher and Sailor set out in their boats, welcoming a new day. … More Encounter by Brittany Luby, Illus. by Michaela Goade
Review by Kelsey Elizabeth Moorhouse
Ask seventeen-year-old Violet Sterling what she plans to be when she grows up, and she’ll give you an answer rehearsed from birth: she will be the Caretaker of her Great House, Burleigh, like her father was before her—until he died on the job, that is. … More A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth
Review by Jennifer Irvine
Murder, kidnappings, mischief, and a large dollop of teenage angst overflow from The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious), the second book in the Truly Devious series. … More The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson
