Review: Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee

geminiGemini
Sonya Mukherjee
Simon & Schuster
Available July 26, 2016

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A small town home fits just right for Clara, who longs to study the night sky and live in the familiar community where everyone knows her and her sister Hailey. But Hailey wants more. She learns of an art program in San Francisco, and soon it’s all she can think about. Problem is, where Hailey goes, Clara must go, as the two are conjoined twins. While Clara and Hailey can’t imagine life any other way, they each long for things that seem impossible. A boyfriend. World travel. A trip to the stars.

Last year I read One by Sarah Crossan, and I … Continue reading

Review: Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet by Charlie N. Holmberg

magic-bitterMagic Bitter, Magic Sweet
Charlie N. Holmberg
47 North

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Maire arrives in Carmine without any memory of how she got there. A kind couple take her in and she spends her days baking sweets infused with love, hope, or strength. That is Maire’s gift: she can impart these things through her cakes. She has a good life, one which she may yet share with Cleric Tuck. But before she can find out what an ordinary life in Carmine might hold for her, she meets a ghostly form from her past, a winged man named Fyel, who desperately wants her to remember who she is.

Before she can pursue her lost memories, marauders tear through … Continue reading

Review: Machinations by Hayley Stone

machinationsMachinations
Hayley Stone
Hydra/Random House

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Rhona remembers dying on the battlefield as Camus held her. When she wakes in a chamber, far from the battlefield, she learns a startling truth: she’s not the original Rhona. She’s a clone.

She races home to a hidden military base where her team of resistance fighters waits for her to lead them against the Machines who’ve chosen to end humanity as a logical solution to establishing world peace. There, she must convince her former allies and the man who first loved Rhona that she’s capable of leading them in a war for humanity’s survival.

I liked that this book paired the elements of a robot/artificial intelligence uprising and … Continue reading

Review: I Wish My Teacher Knew by Kyle Schwartz

I Wish My Teacher Knew by Kyle SchwartzI Wish My Teacher Knew
Kyle Schwartz
De Capo Lifelong Books
Available July 12, 2016

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When her Twitter post became a social media sensation, Kyle Schwartz realized that her classroom exercise asking students what they wished she, their teacher, knew about them was something other teachers and students needed in their classrooms. In her book, Schwartz explores what led her to performing the exercise with her class. She explains how it has changed her experience as a teacher. She breaks down her approach to building a community within her classroom and how important that is to supporting a successful learning environment.

The chapters also connect current … Continue reading

Review: Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond

Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda BondGirl in the Shadows
Gwenda Bond
Skyscape / Amazon

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Moira longs to prove to her father, a famous magician, that she has what it takes to carry on in the family tradition. The real problem? Moira’s dad doesn’t want her anywhere near magic. An invitation to audition for the Cirque American falls into Moira’s hands, and she leaps at the chance to make her own destiny. During her audition, Moira’s routine goes awry when she accidentally performs real magic. Suddenly Moira finds herself surrounded with questions about her impossible abilities and a secret society of similarly the similarly talented. Her absent mother seems to be the only one … Continue reading

Review: Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes

towersfallingTowers Falling
Jewell Parker Rhodes
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Available July 12, 2016

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When Deja’s family loses their home and are forced to move to a shelter, she starts fifth grade at a new school. She’s embarrassed by her family’s situation and braced for judgment from the other kids. Instead, Ben, also a new kid, and Sabeen, a sweet girl who covers her hair with a scarf, become Deja’s new friends. As their teacher, Miss Garcia, begins a unit about history connecting to the present, the class learns about the World Trade Center towers falling on September 11, 2001. The material covered in the classroom is gentle and oblique, but Deja … Continue reading