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MADreads for Teens

Book reviews for teens by library staff and guest contributors

Finding their roots

Cover of Running Away to Home: Our
A review of Running Away to Home: Our Familiy's Journey to Croatia in Search of Who We Are, Where We Came From and What Really Matters by Jennifer Wilson

It’s a fantasy for a lot of people; rent out the house, pay off some bills and give it all up for an adventure. For the Wilson family from Des Moines, Iowa this fantasy became a reality when they reorganized their life for a sabbatical in another country, Croatia. Jennifer Wilson had been traveling her whole life and as an accomplished writer the sabbatical seemed like a great idea for her to explore her immigrant roots. Her architect husband Jim’s role on the trip was to make sure their two young children had some sort of schooling during their unstructured months in a foreign country.

Jun 3, 2021

All is fair in love and food wars

Cover of A Phở Love Story
A review of A Phở Love Story by Loan Le

Bảo Nguyen and Linh Mai work across the street from each other at their parents' competing Vietnamese restaurants. Like Romeo and Juliet, Bảo and Linh are forbidden from talking to each other because their families are at war. War means gossip and rumors, sometimes harmless, sometimes not, and avoidance at all costs. The "phở* wars" and "bánh xèo** battles" between the two restaurants are delicious and painful to witness. Each new special or menu item takes the competition to another level.

Jun 2, 2021

Aspiring chefs take note

Cover of Kid in the Kitchen: 100 Re
A review of Kid in the Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Tips for Young Home Cooks by Melissa Clark

Food columnist, chef and home cooking authority, Clark shares 100 recipes and tips for young foodies who are hoping to grow their culinary skills. In this day of high-tech recipe searching, I don’t find myself looking at cookbooks much. So when I opened this one I was really excited about the content, the quality of instructions, and the conversational tone of the text. It also helped that the photographs of completed recipes, and recipes in process were so alluring.

May 28, 2021

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Cover of Just Last Night
A review of Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane

Mhaire McFalrane's has now become an auto-read author for me - and I can tell you that in recent years my list of such authors has become shorter and shorter. What McFarlane does so well in each of her women's fiction/chick lit/romance/fiction novels is to dive into the depths of the emotionally fraught relationships we have with one another and how complicated love (whether it's for family, friends or a significant other) can be.

May 26, 2021

Scribes and witches unite

Cover of In the Presence of Evil
A review of In the Presence of Evil by Tania Bayard

Single motherhood with the responsibilities of earning enough to support several generations—it’s a situation not unfamiliar to many modern women. It’s the situation Christine de Pizan lives in, but her world—1393 Paris—is far from modern in Tania Bayard’s debut In the Presence of Evil. As an educated woman, Christine is already something of an oddity, but growing up as both beloved daughter and widow of scholars employed in the French court has given her a chance to earn her living as a scribe and support her children and mother.

May 25, 2021

To infinity and beyond?

Cover of Project Hail Mary
A review of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

After his caper novel on the moon, Weir is revisiting the idea of a lone human in space. Here the human is Ryland Grace who wakes up on a ship in space and has no memories of how or why he is there. Bit by bit (very small bits at first) he begins to put the pieces together and as he does so the reader is taken back into his recent past to see what brought him here; alone on a space ship, far from earth, with only a couple of dead crew mates as companions.

May 18, 2021

Camelot's descendants

Cover of Legendborn
A review of Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

After Bree's mother is killed in an accident, the sixteen-year-old escapes the grief engulfing her home life by joining a program for scholarly high schoolers at UNC - Chapel Hill. While there, she stumbles into a complex world of magic and Arthurian legend that quickly takes over her life. But this is no simple re-telling of King Arthur's round table -- this story goes to much deeper and more interesting places than you might expect.

May 12, 2021

Put your thinking cap on

Cover of Project Hail Mary
A review of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

When he wakes up at the beginning of the book the hero doesn't have a clue as to who he is or where he is. All he knows is that he's hooked up to a lot of tubes and a computer voice is asking him what 2 + 2 is. When he's finally able to answer that question, the computer allows him to progress in his recovery. As he gets stronger physically, he begins to have flashes of memories (including his name, Ryland Grace). Oh and he discovers there are two people long dead in the beds next to his and that he's in a ship in space. Ryland is all alone and millions of miles away from home.

Apr 22, 2021

The sixth and youngest and most dazzling poet

Cover of The Hill We Climb: An Inau
A review of The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country by Amanda Gorman

Just in time for National Poetry Month!  This is an exquisite special edition of National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman's presidential inauguration poem given on January 20, 2021 with a foreword by Oprah Winfrey. I've watched and listened to this spectacular young poet recite "The Hill We Climb" numerous times, now, and each time I'm left feeling hopeful for our country and a democratic society. This poem is honest and looking towards a brighter future.

Apr 7, 2021

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