FINISHED: 
Balliett, Blue. (2018). Out of the Wild Night: A Ghost Story. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

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

[.]

*

STARTED & FINISHED: 
Chanani, Nidhi. (2017). Pashmina. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Crowder, Melanie. (2017). Three Pennies. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

["It matters not how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop." (p. 148).]

STARTED:
Wenxuan, Cao. (2017). Bronze and Sunflower. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Gidwitz, Adam. (2016). The Inquisitor's Tale. New York: Dutton/Penguin/Random House.

[.]

STARTED:  
Phelan, Matt. (2016).  Snow White.  Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Telgemeier, Raina. (2016). Ghosts. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Cole, Henry. (2016). The Somewhat True Adventures of Sammy Shine. Atlanta: Peachtree.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Appelt, Kathi, and Alison McGhee. (2016). Maybe a Fox. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[Pretty moving, with a solid mood.  Vaguely reminiscent of one of my personal favorites from last year, MOONPENNY ISLAND.  Imagine that this year's Newbery committee will be talking about this one...]

STARTED:
Hardinge, Frances. (2016). The Lie Tree. New York: Amulet/Abrams.

[Starred Reviews from pretty much EVERYBODY.]

*

FINISHED:
Martel, Yann. (2016). The High Mountains of Portugal. New York: Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Eagar, Lindsay. (2016). Hour of the Bees. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Martel, Yann. (2001). Life of Pi. New York: Harcourt.

[.]


STARTED:
Fairlie, Emily. (2012).  The lost treasure of Tuckernuck.  New York: Katherine Tegan/HarperCollins.

[Reviewing for ACL...]

*

FINISHED:
Bruchac, Joseph. (2011). Wolf mark. New York: Tu/Lee & Low.

[Luke is a seventeen year-old living in a trailer with his father, a former Special-ops agent who has turned to alcohol and pot for comfort after the death of Luke’s mother, who does well in school, has a crush on his best female friend, rides a motorcycle, and just so happens to be a shapeshifter. When his father goes missing and he’s led to an old house by a note his father left behind, Luke finally comes to fully embrace his “skinwalker” ancestry by putting on a wolf skin he finds in an old chest which transforms him into a human/wolf hybrid. Luke’s search for his father ultimately ends (with the help of some Russian students at school who seem to be a vampire mafia) at Maxico, a mysterious “cutting edge” research facility in town which, it turns out, needs shapshifters in order to do tests on cellular self-regeneration, with the goal of hoping to stop the aging process. Despite a few encyclopedic asides that assume ignorance of the reader and come across as didactic, and some cultural references that Luke makes which seem unlikely for a teenager of today (“Make it so!” from Star Trek: Next Generation, David Byrne, E.T.), Luke’s personal journey is thorough and thoughtfully realized with a lot of attention paid to Luke coming to understand who he is and what that means (“That, my father’s brief instructions told me, has long been the way of our people. You must learn to be human first before you can accept the power and not be lost in it. Otherwise, you become a creature out of nightmares with no compassion for any being, no urge other than to hunt and kill.”). The novel’s size (almost 400 pages) and lack of much dialogue may be intimidating, but short, digestible chapters and a story which brings in elements of science fiction, thrillers, horror, spiritual lore, and even teen romance help to keep up a steady pace that moves the action along. An Author’s Note speaks to Bruchac’s own heritage, research on werewolf lore, knowledge of martial arts, and wanting to justly depict Russian characters.]

STARTED:
Jones, Allan, and Chalk, Gary. (2010). The Six Crowns: Trundle's quest. New York: Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Hunter, Erin. (2011). Spirits in the stars [Seekers #6]. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Birdsall, Jeanne. (2011). The Penderwicks at Point Mouette. New York: Random House.

[Yippeee!]

*

FINISHED:
Kopp, Sheldon B. (1972). If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! Ben Lomond, CA: Science and Behavior Books.

[.]

STARTED:
Beaudoin, Sean. (2011). You killed Wesley Payne. New York: Little, Brown & Company.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

*

FINISHED:
Hunter, Erin. (2010). Seekers: Fire in the sky. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
de Fombelle, Timothee. (2006/8). Toby alone. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

[Am reviewing the sequel for ACL so I thought I'd get up to speed.]

*

FINISHED:
Hunter, Erin. (2010). Seekers: The last wilderness. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Clements, Andrew. (2010). Benjamin Pratt & the Keepers of the School: We the children. New York: Atheneum.

[I like my Clements...]

*

FINISHED:

Lethem, Jonathan. (2009). Chronic city. New York: Doubleday.

[.]

STARTED:
Look, Lenore. (2009). Alvin Ho: allergic to camping, hiking, and other natural disasters. New York: Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED:

Hunter, Erin. (2009). Seekers #3: Smoke Mountain. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Collins, Suzanne. (2009). Catching fire. New York: Scholastic.

[Got a hold of an ADVANCED READER'S COPY! It's good to be colleagues with veterans in the field...]

*

FINISHED:

Hunter, Erin. (2009). Seekers: Great Bear Lake. New York: HarperCollins.

[The three bears from the first book are back, with the addition of a new one: Ujurak, the shape shifter introduced at the end of book one - who, I mentioned in my review of that title, kind of took me out of the story. It's one thing to have bears that can talk to each other, but it's another thing entirely to have an animal that can morph into any animal it chooses. At any rate, this installment felt a bit forced to me - it's as if Hunter is stalling and dragging things out just to have material for more books. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this one, just not as much as the first. In the end, thankfully, all three bears - Toklo the brown bear, Kallik the polar bear, and Lusa the black bear - meet each other and subsequent installments, I suppose, will have them traveling together in search of a place up north in which bears can live where there is still ice, food to eat, and that is far away from "flat-faces." A number of the events in the story seem like they will lead to something bigger that will have lasting impact on the characters, but which actually get wrapped up within a few paragraphs and then are forgotten. In one well-fleshed out storyline, Kallik finds her brother Taqqiq at a mass gathering of bears, but her brother has turned into a selfish creep that steals food from other bears and helps to kidnap a cub in an effort to infiltrate a bear colony and steal their food. For awhile it seems like he's going to remain a jerk, but then comes to trust family over friends. There is plenty to respect here: clearly, Hunter is a spiritual woman - the names of the characters seem to be Inuit and/or Native American influenced, and there is much talk among the bears of "guiding" spirits and the spirits of fallen bears becoming part of the trees or the water - and also much focus on the environment - with discussions of "firebeasts" belching smoke, "flat-face" constructions that are becoming an imposition on bear territory, and a great deal of worry over the disappearing ice and food supply. Though feeling somewhat like a filler installment, she's still got me hooked and I'll be looking forward to Book Three.]

STARTED:
Arnosky, Jim. (2009). The pirates of Crocodile Swamp. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin.

[Reading to review for ACL.]

*

FINISHED:

Hunter, Erin. (2008). Seekers: The quest begins. New York: Working Partners/HarperCollins.

[I gotta say, I really kinda liked this one. Indeed, I was compelled enough to keep reading and find out what happened to the 3 bears whose stories are told here. Actually, there are 3 stories told at the same time, with every 3rd chapter continuing the one bear's story. Kallik is a polar bear who, with her brother, is being led by their mother across the ice to land, as the warm months are approaching. Along the way, while swimming from ice sheet to ice sheet, Kallik's mother is attacked and murdered by killer whales, and Kallik is separated from her brother, thus leaving her to find her way to safety on her own. In the second story, Lusa is a black bear living in zoo who wonders what lies in the wilderness beyond the zoo fence. One day, a female grizzly is brought into the bear enclosure next to the one for the black bears, and she goes on about how she has lost her cubs and feels horribly about it. After attacking a zoo keeper, the female grizzly is taken away, and Lusa stops eating so that she'll be taken out of the bear enclosure and eventually finds her way out of the zoo. Lusa then skulks around the suburbs where she must forage in trash cans for food, beginning a journey to find the grizzly female's cub. Which, leads to the 3rd story: Toklo is a young grizzly bear tired of his brother being coddled by their mother. After the brother dies, Toklo's mother, so filled with grief, tells Toklo he must go off on his own and fend for himself. It is Toklo's mother who is then taken to the zoo, thus inspiring Lusa to break out in the hopes of finding Toklo so that she may tell him that his mother was sorry. It seems like all of the stories will converge in subsequent books (Lusa and Toklo do meet at the end of this one), and I will definitely keep reading to see what happens to these guys. My one major complaint - at least, it is the one thing that took me out of the story - is that there is a character whom Toklo meets who can change shape at will - from a human, to a bear, to a hawk, etc. There's a lot of "earth spirituality" in the book, which I'm fine with, but this character just took it too far...]

STARTED:
Augarde, Steve. (2006). Celandine. New York: David Fickling/Random House.

[Couldn't wait any longer to read this one. LOVED The Various and am really looking forward to finding out about Celandine in this prequel. Augarde has a way with words and his stories feel like classics of children's literature.]

*

FINISHED:

Iserles, Inbali. (2008). The Tygrine cat. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

[Reviewing for ACL - will post review here when finished with it.

Here it is:

Mati, a young cat set adrift on a ship by his mother, Queen of the Abyssinia Tygrine, finds himself much later in a marketplace of an unfamiliar town. Here, he comes across the Cressida Cats, a clan of feral felines who live amongst humans in the labyrinth of tunnels below the market. Mati, after being banished from the clan for a crime that he didn’t commit, comes to understand that he is being pursued by the evil cat who murdered his mother, but may be able to fight back using the words and advice from feline spirits with ties to Ancient Egypt who live in the Fianey, the space between waking life and sleep. From the cover alone, comparisons will undoubtedly be drawn to Erin Hunter’s Warriors series (HarperTrophy, 2001-), and those assumptions are not unfounded – this is a story about warring bands of cats which even comes with a map of the territory where the action takes place, a la the aforementioned books by Hunter. The descriptions are often quite detailed and the action is brisk, but some of the details surrounding the ancestry of the cats and their connection to the spirit world are a bit murky. While a few of the historical details about the cats are factual, most appear to be fictitious and, thus, a librarian should encourage readers to do research of their own if interested in cats and their connection to Ancient Egypt. While not groundbreaking, this is a book that has a sweet subplot which lightly explores the relationships between cats and humans and is perfect for fans of fantasy tales where animals are the main protagonists.]


STARTED:
Lerangis, Peter. (2005). Smiler's bones. New York: Scholastic.

[One of those ones that I grabbed while shelving books at work. Just sounds like an incredibly intriguing premise: Eskimos at the turn of the century (1897) who are taken to New York to be "living, breathing museum exhibits".]

*