We’ve added three new book reviewers for the summer — Nick (10th grade), Graham (7th), and Breece (4th), are sharing their summer reading choices each week and telling us exactly what they think.
When Lady Saren refuses to marry a man she doesn’t love, she and her maid are sentenced to seven years in a tower prison. Just when things are getting really bad, two potential love interests arrive.
Dimple is an Indian-American girl trying desperately to assimilate in her New Jersey neighborhood, until she meets an attractive Indian guy who shows her the charms of her own heritage.
Conservative, slightly uptight Leo finally finds out who his biological father is — his name is Maggot and he’s the lead singer of an old punk band that’s headed back on the road. Leo joins them to earn money and get to know how on earth this man could be his father.
In a memoir full of humor and candor, Martin shares his personal itinerary as he negotiates the maze of honing his profession and the pitfalls he avoided.
Writer, storyteller and musician Joseph Bruchac grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state. He recalls his childhood, life with his grandparents, and the way his Abenaki background came to be known. His sometimes painful memoir is sprinkled with photographs and contextualizes this time in history.
In two volumes, Boxers & Saints tells two parallel stories. The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao, inspired by visions of the Chinese gods, joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. Against all odds, their grass-roots rebellion is successful. But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity.
The statistics are consistent: Young male readers lag behind their female counterparts in literacy skills. This article looks at the social, psychological, and developmental reasons why, and suggests solutions — including the need for more men to become role models for reading.
