FINISHED: 
Kinney, Jeff. (2018). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown. New York: Amulet/Abrams.

[.]

STARTED:
Tagame, Gengoroh. (2018). My Brother's Husband: Volume 2. New York: Pantheon/Penguin Random House.

[.]

*

STARTED & FINISHED: 
Krosoczka, Jarrett J. (2018). Hey, Kiddo. New York: Graphix/Scholastic.

[.]

 *

FINISHED:
Ukazu, Ngozi. (2018). Check Please! Book 1: Hockey. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

STARTED:
?????

[.]

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FINISHED: 
Kelly, Erin Entrada. (2018). You Go First. New York: Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Yang, Kelly. (2018). Front Desk. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Springstubb, Tricia. (2018). Cody and the Heart of a Champion. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]














STARTED & FINISHED:
Avi. (2018). The Button War. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]











STARTED & FINISHED:
Sell, Chad. (2018). The Cardboard Kingdom. New York: Knopf/Penguin Random House. 

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Rhodes, Jewel Parker. (2018). Ghost Boys. New York: Little, Brown/Hachette.

[.]

STARTED:
Hanlon, Abby. (2018). Dory Fantasmagory: Head in the Clouds. New York: Dial/Penguin Random House.

[LOVE THIS SERIES.]

*

FINISHED:
Connor, Leslie. (2018). The Truth As Told by Mason Buttle. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Harris, Chris. (2017). I'm Just No Good at Rhyming and Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups. New York: Little, Brown/Hachette.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Moore, David Barclay. (2017). The Stars Beneath Our Feet. New York: Knopf.

[.]

STARTED:
Burkey, Mary. (2013). Audiobooks for Youth: a Practical Guide to Sound Literature. Chicago: ALA Editions.

[Gearing up for the ALSC Notable Children's Recordings committee.]

*

FINISHED:
Gemeinhart, Dan. (2018). Good Dog. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Cuevas, Michelle. (2017). The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole. New York: Dial/Penguin Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Reynolds, Jason. (2017). Long Way Down. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[.]

STARTED:
Snyder, Laurel. (2017). Orphan Island. New York: Walden Pond/HarperCollins.

[Newbery buzz.]

*

FINISHED:
Williams-Garcia, Rita. (2017). Clayton Byrd Goes Underground. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Reynolds, Jason. (2017). Long Way Down. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Ness, Patrick. (2017). Release. New York: HarperCollins.

[.] 

STARTED:
Williams-Garcia, Rita. (2017). Clayton Byrd Goes Underground. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins.

[Getting some Newbery buzz...]

*

FINISHED:
Meloy, Colin. (2017). The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[In Marseille, France, 1961, Charlie Fisher, the neglected twelve year old son of an American Consul General, falls in with a Lebanese boy named Amir and a crew of other young, multicultural pickpockets.  Looking to forge a life of his own, as well as find some friends, Charlie is brought into the fold first by running center field (watching and learning) and then as a duke man (the one that all of the other pickpockets bring their spoils to), all while trying to keep the two diametrically opposed sides of his life from colliding.  Meticulously crafted and thoroughly researched, vivid descriptions rife with specific detail bring the streets of the French city to life, and an occasional authorial direct address adds further humor to an already amusing tale.  Just when you begin to wonder where it’s all going, a doozy of a bombshell is dropped two thirds of the way through which excitingly lays the groundwork for the final path ahead, while Carson Ellis’s occasional full page illustrations feel period to the ‘60s, often recalling the rounded figures of Peter Max and Daniel Pinkwater.  Meloy continually brings up socio-economics as the ragtag band of misfits see themselves as Robin Hoods to a certain degree, with Amir saying, “Way I see it, we’re evening the score a bit, yeah?... To take the rich folks down a peg”, and the Code of the Whiz Mob being that “no one facing financial hardship, marginalization, or oppression of any sort should be targeted.”  When Charlie’s hard-honed skills are put to a final test near the end, we get a true, step by step insight into the art of the steal, and luckily, included at the end is an extensive (and quite necessary!) glossary of whiz lingo.]

STARTED:
Ness, Patrick. (2017). Release. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Pullman, Philip. (2017). The Book of Dust: Volume One: La Belle Sauvage. New York: Knopf.

[.]

STARTED:
Meloy, Colin. (2017). The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:

Bell, Eric. (2017). Alan Cole is Not a Coward. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Bartók, Mira. (2017). The Wonderling. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Lee, Mackenzi. (2017). The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Applegate, Katherine. (2017). Wishtree. New York: Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
O'Reilly, Jane. (2017). The Notations of Cooper Cameron. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda/Lerner.

[Cooper Cameron (no indication of race is conveyed) just finished 5^th grade, and is spending the summer with his mother and older sister at a house on the lake where his grandfather died 2 years earlier – an incident for which Cooper feels responsible, and which seems to have triggered in him some obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) ticks.  With a verbally abusive father out of the way for most of the summer, Cooper, who frequently jots down life lessons in a notebook, learns how to make ice cream for an elderly neighbor and is hired by a nice kid in town to tie fishing lures, which help to keep “That Boy” – his name for the OCD side of himself who causes him to do things in groups of three – at bay.  The awful behavior of his father and the things that he says about Cooper are palpably biting, and there’s a poignancy to Cooper’s continually trying to ward off “That Boy” when he begins to feel his OCD being triggered by a stressful situation.  Though a subplot involving a series of thefts in town feels hyped and then unsatisfyingly resolved, and there seem to be lapses in time throughout the novel, Cooper’s realization that not everything is his fault and sometimes there is nothing he can do to help is a powerfully learned message.]

STARTED:
Lee, Mackenzi. (2017). The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Alexander, Kwame. (2017). Solo. New York: Blink/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
van Gulden, Holly, and Bartles-Rabb, Lisa M. (1993). Real Parents, Real Children: Parenting the Adopted Child. New York: Crossroad.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Haydu, Corey Ann. (2017). The Someday Suitcase. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[Floridian fifth graders Clover and Danny are completely in tune, super-best friends, so when Danny becomes mysteriously ill, causing him to be unable to hang out and to miss a bunch of school, Clover starts to question who she is without her symbiotic other.  For her school science fair Clover decides that her project will be on Danny and an attempt to figure out what is ailing him, and then hatches a plan to get Danny to a new-agey clinic in Vermont that treated a classmate’s mother.  Haydu’s follow up to the exceptional Rules for Stealing Stars (HarperCollins, 2015) similarly doesn’t pull punches when it comes to heavy emotional situations but, rather, fully embraces them with a visceral, kick-in-the-gut reality, and her continual integration of science into the narrative – what it is, and what it means to be a scientist – keeps the reader questioning what they know.  Could Clover’s presence alone be helping Danny to feel better?  Clover’s never-waning devotion to her best friend is fully explored, with Clover even beginning to feel guilty for making a couple of new friends, and a depiction of a home life where she has to deal with a little brother who is on the autism spectrum and a truck driving father whom is frequently away add further character depth.  With a hint of magical realism, this is an examination of the line between where science ends and magic begins, positing that magic may just be science that we don’t yet understand.]

STARTED:
Cole, Henry. (2017). Bayberry Island [Brambleheart #2]. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[Liked the first one, thought that I'd review the second...]

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