MADreads Reviews

Purple and Black is brilliantly done - a gem of a book (if I may be so cliche). Tightly woven. Thought-provoking. And all of that in a slender 113 pages. This is a fantasy novel, but don't let that prevent you reading it. It's only a fantasy in that it has a made up country. Everything else about it reads like historical fiction.

This year's Newbery Medal went to Merci Suarez Changes Gears, a snappy and emotional novel about a middle school, family, and how little life changes add up fast. Sixth grade is not off to a great start for Merci-- things she's always loved to do are no long "cool", friendships seem to suddenly come with all these unwritten rules, and her beloved grandfather is acting more and more confused.

Sophie Blackall has won the Caldecott Medal for her incredible ode to lighthouses and the extraordinary lives of lighthouse keepers and their families. Blackall has illustrated such a broad range of books for children, including a board book featuring a GLBT family, the chapter book series, Ivy & Bean, and picture books about wild boars who go out to dinner, an only child who wishe

One of the awards announced Monday in Seattle is the William C Morris YA Debut Award. This is a lesser known award (compared to the big hitters like Newbery and Cadlecott), but it's the one I look most forward to. They release a list of finalists in December, so right there you have a handful of brand new YA authors you know you should keep an eye on. And the choices are always thoughtful, exciting, and fresh. 

I loved playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? a computer game created in 1985 by the American software company Broderbund. The game was originally classified as a "mystery exploration" series but became one of the first edutainment programs used in schools. I was introduced to the game as a 5.25-inch floppy disc for the Apple II. It was used in the computer lab when I was a student, to teach kids how to install computer programs and to build typing and mouse skills. I credit most of my knowledge of geography and capital cities of the world to this excellent game. 

This is one of those books that I'm going to proclaim as universally beneficial. I can't imagine a person living on planet Earth who wouldn't be able to take away something from this book, starting with the shocking reality of the title Born a Crime. Trevor Noah, comedian, actor, and Jon Stewart's successor as host of The Daily Show was born in 1984 in South Africa to a black mother and a white father. His parent's interracial relationship was illegal under apartheid law, so therefore his birth was a crime.

This is a collection of five elegant and horrifying graphic short stories that take place in or around the woods.

Here are five more noteworthy picture books as we get closer to the Caldecott Award announcement (Monday, Jan. 28th) which gives you time to check them out and see what your choice would be.

Ana asked her Abuela Lola (3 times!) for tickets to the amusement park for her birthday, but all she got was a chicken. Lucky for Ana… it isn’t any ordinary chicken. Her chicken isn’t interested in normal chicken things like laying eggs or pecking at chicken feed. Oh no! This chicken has PLANS. It has a list. It has blueprints. It has a bulldozer. This hysterical story told in simple sentences, brilliant illustrations, and funny little side notes “Sorry, no time for cake!” will keep you and your little one giggling over and over.

Every year the American Library Association’s Caldecott Committee chooses the "most distinguished American picture book for children" from the previous year. This year’s award-winning books will be announced on January, 28^th. 

Here are a few of the 2018 picture books that look promising

In the second of her new series set in 1920s New York former con artist Elizabeth Miles helps a friend whose husband has died (killed by a streetcar). As though grieving her suddenly dead husband weren't bad enough, Priscilla Knight learns after his death that all of her money is gone. She'd come into this second marriage a wealthy woman and somehow in less then a year her husband Endicott made all that money disappear. Now Priscilla isn't sure how she'll support herself and her two young daughters.

You know you're having a bad day when your suicide attempt is interrupted by a bank robbery. Just the kind of day Nate Overbay is having. He's on an 11th floor ledge - having crawled out of the window of his bank - very carefully choosing his landing spot in a dumpster (so he doesn't squash anyone) when he hears a gunshot and sees the blood splatter on the window next to him. When he realizes that a group of masked gunmen are robbing the bank, Nate is torn.

Everything You Need for a Treehouse (Chronicle Books, 2018) is for anyone who has ever dreamed of living in a treehouse (kid or adult, alike!) The lyrical text is a perfect match for the amazingly glorious illustrations of many different treehouses – from adventurous boat to glass castle. More poetic than practical – the story focuses on the importance of a big imagination, time, and space to explore (rather than the nuts and bolts of building & construction).  I bet you will start dreaming of your own amazing treehouse after reading this book!

2018 is done and all the "best of" lists (or most) for books published last year have been created and shared with the world. So what now? How will you know what to read next now that you've finished all of the best of 2018? Well the CrimeReads website can help you fill the void.

This fascinating social history tracks the institution, or what is now known as an "institution", of marriage through all its practical, political, religious, and romantic iterations and uses. There are surprising arrangements and partnerships between families, clans, or individual people at just about every point in history from pre-history to today. Like most social histories, a major takeaway that the "good old days" never existed, and that the soaring divorce rates are directly tied to the very new idea that marriage is based on romantic love, intimacy, and personal fulfillment.

Fans of Sally Thorne's debut novel, The Hating Game, have been RABIDLY waiting for her second book for what feels like decades, but was actually three years. Her hilarious, galloping writing never lets the reader rest a beat between moments of chemistry-- it has a wonderful dizzying effect. Almost everyone I know has read The Hating Game at my insistence, and many of them simply and reverently refer to it as The Book. 

If there is one thing the collective body of literature about frontier life has told us, it's that life on the prairie was rough stuff. In Caroline Starr Rose's riveting novel in verse, a lone little girl goes up against the Kansas grasslands, where being alone means being ALONE, and winter can come as early as it wants.

This fictionalized biography of Artemisia Gentileschi is as beautiful, powerful, and haunting as the paintings its subject produced. Gentileschi is best known as a celebrated Italian Baroque painter, and for insisting on trying her rapist in a court of law-- two things that were near unheard of for women of her time. 

MG Martin is a writer working for the comic book publishing company responsible for the comics that spurred the geekdom of her youth. Her dream job, or so you'd think. But things have stalled. She struggles to have her ideas heard in a building full of men and while she still wants to write the comics she loves, she's wondering if she should be pushing for more or even pursuing her love of costume design. Then into her lap falls a real-life mystery.