Jennifer Fosberry and Mike Litwin, who brought us My Name Is Not Isabella, have added a new adventure for spunky, purple-haired Isabella. In Isabella: Girl on the Go, she is an explorer discovering some of the great places of the world as she works with her dad in her own backyard.

The day starts with Isabella playing in a sandbox and her dad asking his “favorite little girl” for help. “I am not a little girl,” she replies.  “Then who is going to help me today?” asked the father. Isabella replies, “I am an archeologist, searching the hottest, driest desert for the tomb of a king.”

As the day goes on, Isabella becomes an artist in Paris, a Chinese warrior building the Great Wall, an astronomer at a Mayan temple and more. When the day comes to an end her father takes her hand and asks, “Where are we headed now?” By this time Isabella has explored the world and discovered that the most wonderful place is home.

The back of the book features information on all the places Isabella imagines she travels to, perfect for extending the learning when you read this book to your child. The illustrations and the story will have you coming back to read this over and over again. I highly recommend it.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

As Chopsticks opens, Glory Fleming, child prodigy that critics hailed as “the Brecht of the Piano,” has gone missing from the rest home where she was staying and being treated for exhaustion. Only 17 at the time, Glory has already played at top venues in the U.S. and Europe, and she is renowned for her modern innovations on classical pieces.

From this beginning, the story of what happened to Glory is slowly revealed through scrapbook cuttings, photos, drawings and more. We see photos of her parents’ marriage, her pregnant mother, and notices of her mother’s death when Glory was only 8. As she grows, her progress is send through recital programs from Carnegie Hall, articles in “The New Yorker,” and photos of Glory with her piano-teacher dad.

In high school a boy from Argentina move next door, and Glory’s life expands a bit. They start to spend time together, sharing playlists, texting each other, and hanging out. But when Glory is scheduled on a European tour and Frank’s grades spiral down, both begin to spin out of control.

Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral use innovative storytelling techniques to keep you turning pages looking for clues to what happens to Glory and Frank. Readers can check out links to YouTube videos that highlight performances from the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks, Hoagy Carmichael playing the Chopsticks waltz and more. The combination of words, images and video create a compelling story through to the end.

I recommend Chopsticks for readers aged 14 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

I’m excited to be participating in the blog tour for the new young adult collection of short stories, Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides To Every Story. I have one copy of this book to give away to someone who comments by midnight (PST) on Tuesday, February 14. Addresses in the U.S. and Canada only please. Read on for my review, then check out the Girl Meets Boy Book Trailer.

In Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story, twelve young adult writers team up to six stories from two different points of view: his and hers. This collection, edited by Kelly Milner Halls, is funny and smart and raw in the way it looks at teens in love.

Joseph Bruchac writes of a Native American boy who is short for his age and learning martial arts to defend himself against the bigger guys at school. He would like to get together with the tall star of the girls basketball team, but he’s sure she would never go for him. Cynthia Leitich Smith writes the other side of the story, of a girl who’s not very girly and who intimidates the boys around her. In this story, as in all the other, the boys and girls face their insecurities, their fears, and sometimes even defy the wishes of their parents in the pursuit of love.

Other writers in the collection include Chris Crutcher and Kelly Milner Halls, James Howe and Ellen Wittlinger, Terry Davis and Rebecca Fjelland Davis, Terry Trueman and Rita Williams-Garcia, and Randy Powel and Sara Ryan

Issues that these teens deal with include being attracted to someone of a different race, someone of the same sex, and someone of a different religion. Their moral backgrounds don’t always match. But they all share one thing in common: they are taking a chance on someone in the hopes of finding love. The writing is fresh and thoughtful and provocative. Girl Meets Boy is fun to read. It’s also interesting to see what each author has to say about the inspiration for his or her character. I recommend it for ages 15 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Kim Culbertson has a way of capturing the conflicted emotions teens experience as they go through high school, begin and end relationships, and get ready for life away from their parents. In Songs for a Teenage Nomad, Callie kept a song journal to help her cope with the loneliness that came from constantly moving with her mother. Instructions for a Broken Heart found Jessa breaking out of her normal patterns to help get over a cheating boyfriend.

Now, in The Liberation of Max McTrue, Culbertson brings to life a character who has always done just enough to get by. He lets his girlfriend and his parents make the big decisions in his life, but on the verge of turning in his college applications, he questions the path laid out for him. A girl who seems to appear from nowhere, on a quest to find her dog, intrigues him. As he helps Clara Jane follow a set of clues set up by her dad as part of a homeschooling assignment, he begins to question everything he assumes to be inevitable about his future.

Taking place over the course of one school day and into the evening, Max McTrue takes a look at the pressure teens can feel to know what they want to do when they leave high school. Max feels like everyone except him has a “thing” they are passionate about. Secretly, he does too, but it’s something he knows his parents wouldn’t approve of. And up until now, it’s been easier for him to go along than to rebel.

I thought about Max long after I had read the last word of Culbertson’s novella. Part of that may be because my own daughter is applying for colleges this year, but also because Max’s struggle applies to more than just young adults on the verge of leaving home. In some ways, the issues he grapples with are relevant to adults too, who may be going through a career or life change. Max is standing on the brink of a something big and he has to make a decision which way to go. He can either let others make that decision for him, or he can make it himself. I recommend Max McTrue for ages 14 and up. It’s available as an eBook for Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Here’s a guest book review from author Christina Hamlett. Visit her website for more information about her work, www.authorhamlett.com.

Title: Mistress Masham’s Repose
Author: T.H. White
Publisher: New York Review Children’s Collection (2004)
Reviewer: Christina Hamlett

What a wonderful trek down memory lane! I owned a copy of this book when I was 10 and remember being so riveted by it that when it was time to go to bed I took the book under the covers with me and finished reading it by the light of my Girl Scout flashlight. (Which no doubt accounts for why I have such bad eyesight as an adult!) Since my own copy had been long gone, I was delighted to discover I could buy a replacement on Amazon. Instead of preceding this one with a cup of hot chocolate and finishing the last chapters by flashlight, however, I had a martini and happily stayed up until midnight. Time has not diminished in any way the satisfaction of a tale well told.

The story speaks to timeless themes about the powerlessness of children in the dreary world of rules imposed by adults. Is it any wonder, then, that the spunky heroine, Maria, delights in the colony of Lilliputians she discovers on the grounds of Malplaquet and sees a ready kinship with their dreams, fears and sense of righteous rebellion. Although she is not a perfect child, Maria is possessed of a kind heart that infuses her with bold – and sometimes comedic – determination to save her diminutive friends from harm. T.H. White seamlessly intercuts between the two worlds that Maria inhabits. It wasn’t until many years after I first read this book that I recognized striking parallels to the novel for which White is most famous – The Once and Future King. Maria shares much in common with the bewildered young King Arthur, including the “Merlin” mentorship of a bookish professor and a quest to keep an enchanted and special version of backyard Camelot from being absorbed by external vice and unabashed greed.

Although the book is targeted to lower grades, one would never know it from White’s style and engaging use of language. He would be the type, I think, who could hold lengthy discourses about the state of the world with a rapt gaggle of 10 year olds and they would never once think that he was talking down to them nor trying to impress them with philosophies beyond their vocabularies or frame of reference. Whether you’re discovering this literary treasure for the very first time or revisiting it after a long absence, it doesn’t fail to entertain or inspire.

On her 50^th birthday Pesi Dinnerstein recognized the need to address the mountain of clutter that had built up in her life. It overflowed at her home and at her office, and she wasn’t sure where to start getting rid of it, or even if she could. She turned to a group of women friends for support and advise, and thus began the journey she tells in her memoir, A Cluttered Life: My Search for God, Serenity and My Missing Keys.

While many of us likely have too much stuff in our lives, Dinnerstein found that hers was weighing her down in more ways that one. Yet as she started to deal with the piles, she also came to realize something important about herself: being surrounded with things that reminded her of past events brought her comfort. Her decisions about what to get rid of therefore, had to honor her need for attachments, while helping her let go of things that didn’t matter. Often, that meant paper clutter.

In her quest to find a way to keep what was important to her and get rid of the rest, Dinnerstein eventually found help not only in the support of her friends, but also with backing from others in Clutterers Anonymous. Her honesty about her struggles and the story she tells of her efforts to be closer to God and live more spiritually aware, is sure to strike a chord with many, even if they don’t face similar issues.

In her introduction Dinnerstein says her book is about her relationship with clutter—not an instruction manual on how to get rid of it or a guide explaining how to organize it. What it is, is an honest story that will may inspired you to ponder some of your own issues that may keep you from achieving what you long for in life.

Start your own journey by leaving a comment here before midnight (PST), Monday, February 13 for a chance to win a copy of A Cluttered Life. U.S. and Canadian addresses only please.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Hadley dreads the trip she is making to London to be in her father’s wedding. But when she misses her flight there by four minutes, she’s rebooked on the next flight, where she meets Oliver. As they talk over the Atlantic Ocean, Hadley feels a connection to him that is stronger than to anyone she has felt before. Could her four-minute mistake turn into the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time?

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith looks at what it means to be in, and out, of love from several different points of view. Hadley’s parents are divorced, and her mom and dad have both found someone else who makes them happy. Hadley loves her dad, but she has a hard time forgiving him for leaving in the first place. She feels he has left his old life behind, including her, and is moving on to something new.

Oliver had a difficult relationship with his own father, but he’s able to help Hadley see hers in a new light. As the two of them find and lose each other several times in a 24-hour period, they learn more about what they truly want for themselves and their families.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Andi’s life fell apart after her younger brother died. Her parents divorced, her mother paints canvases with her brother’s face on them all day, and Andi feels Truman’s death was all her fault. The crushing weight of her depression has her feeling hopeless and contemplating suicide.

Her dad, a world famous geneticist, tries to save her by taking her from her home in Brooklyn with him on an assignment in Paris. Tasked with matching the DNA from a long-preserved heart to Marie Antoinette and her son, he is too occupied with his own project to truly be of much help.

Andi sees no way to shake her hopelessness, until she meets a taxi driver who shares her love of music and finds the diary of a girl assigned to care for the young prince during the French Revolution. As Alexandrine’s story unfolds, Andi finds herself entwined in a mystery that spans several centuries and threatens to send her spiraling even further down than before.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly moves deftly between the modern world and the chaos that existed in the late 1700s revolutionary France. In Paris, Andi explores the life of a well-known composer who lived during the time of the revolution. She also explores the dark world of the catacombs that lie beneath the city and scratches at the current of racism against northern Africans that France struggles with today. She sees parallels between the current situation and the revolution. Ultimately, if Andi is to survive she has to find a way to hope for the future once more.

Revolution will satisfy readers who love historical fiction as well as those who like to read about teens in today’s world solving problems. Andi as a heroine is difficult to like, as she is prickly and dark and lashing out at those around her. Yet her raw emotions and search for hope in the midst of despair will have you pulling for her to make peace with herself. I recommend this book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 16 and up.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.

Thirteen-year-old Zardi is the daughter of the Sultan’s closest adviser. She lives with her family and Rhidan, a ward of the state since he was found on their shores as a babe years ago. Rhidan doesn’t look like anyone else in their country, and he knows nothing about where he is from.

When the cruel Sultan imprisons Zardi’s sister and father she is desperate to find a way to free them and end the Sultan’s iron-fisted rule over her country. If she and Rhidan can find a sailor named Sinbad, who seems to know something about Rhidan’s origin and tells tales of fighting magical creatures, they just may be able to solve Rhidan’s mystery and get rid of the Sultan once and for all.

The Book of Wonders is the first in a new trilogy for young readers by Jasmine Richards. Drawing on Arabian legends of djinnis, Sinbad, Sheherazade, a Cyclops and other magical creatures, Richards weaves a tale of adventure that doesn’t stop from beginning to end.

Zardi is a strong character who refuses to accept the way things are and the strictures for how girls are supposed to act in her time. Together, she and Rhidan encounter one adventure after another as they race to save her family and find out where he comes from. Along the way they have to ponder big issues about deciding who to trust, making amends for wrongdoing, and finding out what it means to be a friend.

While the ending sets up the next adventure the two will tackle, it also is a satisfying conclusion to this story. I recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 8 to 12.

The author provided me with a copy of this book to review.

I am happy to be part of author Michaela MacColl’s blog tour for her new historical fiction novel, Promise the Night. Read on for my review of this exciting story about the early life of Beryl Markham, the first pilot to fly solo from England to North America. Then don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy for yourself. Just comment before midnight (PST), February 1 and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Promise the Night as well as MacColl’s previous book, Prisoners in the Palace. U.S. and Canadian addresses only please. Here’s my review:

Promise the Night

In the early 1900s a girl named Beryl Clutterbuck was growing up on a ranch in what was then British East Africa. With a mother who had returned to England when she was a baby and a father who had little time to spend on raising her, Beryl grew up wild and as resistant to taming as the land around her. Her best friend was a native boy, Kibii, and she wanted to train to be a Nandi warrior.

Beryl’s fierce sense of daring and adventure never left her, and she later went on to be Beryl Markham, the first pilot to fly solo from England to North America. Promise the Night is a new work of historical fiction by Michaela MacColl that weaves real life incidents from Beryl’s pre-teen years with rich details of African life. The result is a fascinating portrait of a girl who is courageous, independent, unconventional, and not always likeable.

Promise the Night also paints a vivid picture of Africa during those times. White settlers came for the vast tracts of land they could buy for farming, ranching and other pursuits. Inevitably, there were conflicts with black natives who were looked down on for what were considered primitive ways.

Tales of lion hunts, leopard attacks, encounters with baboons and horse races are thrilling to read about, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself alternately cheering for Beryl and appalled by her sometimes bristly nature. Promise the Night brings a part of her childhood to life while also interspersing notes from her solo trip across the Atlantic.

I first learned about Beryl Markham when I read her memoir, West With the Night. While I really like that book a lot, it’s not accessible for younger readers. Promise the Night fills in that gap and introduces younger readers to this remarkable woman. I highly recommend it for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 13. I also believe boys will like this book equally as well as girls.

P.S. You may also want to check out the discussion guide for this book at MacColl’s website. AYou may also want to read the first chapter of Promise the Night.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.